The Marketing 32 Show

What happens when a Vietnamese-American dentist, raised by immigrant parents with the stereotypical "become a doctor or engineer" expectation, follows a path laid out by others (not by choice but by cultural programming), builds a successful multi-dentist practice in McKinney, Texas over 12 years, achieves every goal society tells him to achieve—profitability, growth, expansion, multiple associate...

In this grounded, operator-first conversation, Dr. Agarwal reveals why most practices don't know their actual metrics (they guess), how tracking just two or three key metrics (hygiene pre-appointment rate, production vs. collection ratio, and marketing cost per booking) can forecast your entire practice's future and unlock strategic planning, why production numbers lie but collection numbers tell...

What happens when a software engineer who never planned to work in dentistry ends up as the CTO of a dental call center for seven years, learns the industry inside and out, takes a break to work with VC firms right when ChatGPT explodes onto the scene, helps companies understand this wild new AI technology amid the FOMO, starts building an AI CRM to pull insights from data, gets asked by dental co...

What happens when a girl falls into dentistry completely by accident starting in a dental lab (learning the prosthetic side and how quality impacts smiles), moves into dental offices, works in oral surgery, manages clinics serving developmentally disabled adults (learning the critical importance of trust and empathy), and finishes her clinical career working for a maxillofacial surgeon doing compl...

What happens when a dental hygienist working for an implantologist in Washington, DC gets asked to travel internationally teaching other dental teams how to support cutting-edge implant techniques, says yes, launches a 40-year speaking career while maintaining clinical work, moves to Singapore where she can’t practice dentistry, returns to the US and gets hired by Philips to be an educator deliver...

What happens when a health tech executive laid off abruptly from his job tries to do the right thing by getting dental coverage for his family through the insurance exchange, spends extra on premiums for what he thinks is robust coverage, shows up for his dental appointment with his wife and four kids only to discover that his insurance has a six-month waiting period that means all five family mem...

What happens when a college student working at Barnes & Noble for $7.95 an hour sees a newspaper ad for an orthodontic assistant position (no experience necessary) paying $10/hour, takes the job in Columbus, Ohio, quickly moves into clinical coordinating across four locations, gets the opportunity to open an orthodontic practice from scratch with an orthodontist (and learns everything about design...

What happens when a mechanical engineer spends 10 years in high tech, quits cold turkey in 2005 with no great plan, builds a small consulting firm with his grad school roommate, pivots to start a dental marketing agency in 2009, focuses exclusively on dentistry by 2011, works with a general dentist who built a traditional corporate DSO from 2005-2015, watches that doctor exit and get bombarded by...

What happens when you're born into dentistry (literally—dad's a dentist, mom's a hygienist), grow up stuffing envelopes and licking stamps, travel with your parents on humanitarian trips to serve orphans in Guadalajara, Mexico right after your first baby is born, and realize that patient experience and service is what lights you up? Rebecca Herring becomes a college professor of ballroom dance at...

What happens when a 1992 Alaska Airlines flight attendant moves from Seattle to Eastern Washington, decides she can't leave her kids for four days at a time, falls into dentistry through a friend of a friend, and spends the next 30+ years discovering that every dental practice has essentially the same challenges but solves them so differently that results vary wildly based on culture, engagement,...

What happens when a dentist who's been talking about becoming a dentist since he was eight years old (literally playing a dentist in a school play) builds a multi-practice portfolio, gets incredible vendor discounts due to economy of scale, then sells off practices one by one and watches those discounts dwindle—and realizes private practices are getting crushed while DSOs thrive on pricing advanta...

What happens when a treatment coordinator at a startup Denver periodontist practice spends a decade helping grow it from one doctor and three team members to five periodontists, 20+ team members, and multiple locations—then starts writing a blog about social media for dentistry that takes off and leads to speaking internationally about Facebook when it was brand new? Rita Zamora is a dental social...

What happens when a business degree graduate joins his father-in-law's dental practice expecting to learn entrepreneurship for a few years, hates it for the first four or five months, then discovers mentors who show him there's a better way to avoid burnout—and eventually doubles the practice to a million dollars by 2000 by focusing on communication skills instead of clinical expertise? Eric Vicke...

What happens when someone who didn't know what a prophy was—or even understand what a root canal really involved—answers phones at a dental practice, falls in love with the leadership piece, and eventually becomes director of operations for a growing group practice with a weekly executive cadence focused on celebrating failures? Denae Black has turned dentistry into her trade over 20 years, climbi...

What happens when a vet tech with a certification gets less PTO than their friend bagging groceries at Papa John's? Or when dental assistants realize they can make the same hourly rate clerking at a grocery store without spending money on a certificate or dealing with office drama? Kara Kelley, CEO of Clinical HR and nationally recognized HR strategist, has spent her career helping dental practice...

What happens when a brand-new dentist graduates in the middle of COVID, can't find an associateship because everything's closed, and decides to buy two practices within four months—then turns a million-dollar skeleton practice into a $5M operation after buying it for just $60K? Dr. Rehan Shahid calls himself "the business guy who just happens to be a dentist"—and in five short years since graduati...

What happens when a marketing major lands an externship at a dental practice, falls in love with operations more than marketing, and spends the next decade discovering that most practices are bleeding thousands in unscheduled treatment simply because they never follow up? Olivia Smith has worked with over 100 practices across the country—from the West Coast to Florida to New York—and she's witness...

What if the problem isn't that you need to achieve more—but that you're chasing achievement in the first place? Dr. Martin Mendelson, founder of Metamorphosis Coaching and former Spear Education resident faculty member, has worked with thousands of dental professionals who are working harder every year but not moving forward. In his groundbreaking book "One Move Makes All the Difference," he revea...

What happens when a secondary education teacher who "didn't do good science" accidentally gets recruited into dentistry and spends decades discovering that most practices are losing patients before they ever get scheduled? Debra Engelhardt-Nash has witnessed the damage firsthand: front desk staff creating so many "gates and barriers" that potential patients would need to "bring in a magic show and...

What happens when a sports publicist loses his job and accidentally stumbles into dental journalism—then spends 25 years becoming the industry's most vocal advocate for dental assistants? Kevin Henry's journey from covering small college athletes to editing Dental Economics and launching the Dental Assistant Nation podcast reveals a career built on championing the underdog. With more than a quarte...

What happens when a 20-year-old college student loses her banking internship to bankruptcy and ends up stringing wire through ceilings to install computers in dental offices? For Dayna Johnson, that unexpected detour in 1989 launched a 35-year journey that would revolutionize how dental practices use technology. From working with DOS-based software and paper charts to becoming a certified Dentrix...

What happens when a chemical engineer accidentally stumbles into dentistry, becomes a university professor for 18 years, then crashes and burns in private practice—only to rebuild and scale to eight clinics, 80 DSO locations, award-winning restaurants, and a hotel on the beach? Dr. Arun Garg has lived one of dentistry's most remarkable entrepreneurial journeys, going from earning $50,000 annually...

What if the difference between a patient saying "yes" to treatment and walking out the door came down to one simple question? After 30 years connecting with patients—from embarrassed adults with missing teeth to nervous kids dreading expanders—Dawn Scott has discovered that authentic human connection isn't just nice to have, it's the X-factor that makes patients choose your practice over the denti...

Did you know that 85% of dental practices get embezzled from? That's not a typo—it's a crisis. And the worst part? Most dentists have no idea it's happening until thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars have disappeared. In this eye-opening episode, Marissa Krugov and Chris Hammelev—co-founders of the Dental Practice Management Agency and known as "The Velvet Hammer and The Spicy One"—pull...

Are you avoiding those tough team conversations? You're not alone. Most dental leaders never learned how to navigate confrontation effectively—but what if you could transform conflict into clarity and build a team of superstars in the process? In this powerful episode, international speaker and leadership communication coach Katherine Eitel Belt shares her proven framework for having courageous co...