Byte Sized

Most dental practices think they have a technology adoption problem. What they actually have is a communication problem they've been calling something else. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT On this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler talks with Lisa Alvarado, founder of Empower Choice, about the human side of dental technology adoption. Lisa's position is simple: technology is only as effective as the...

Dentistry has never had better technology coming into it, and it has never been less able to put it to work. Dave Salciccioli of Relay explains why DSO technology implementation breaks down between the signed contract and real adoption. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT On this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler sits down with Dave Salciccioli, who leads Relay, a consulting firm working both sides of t...

Most dental technology doesn't fail because the product is bad. It fails because nobody planned how to deploy it, and that problem usually starts before the DSO ever signs the contract. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT On this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler sits down with Matt McGaw, founder of DSO Compass, an independent publication covering how dental service organizations select, evaluate, and...

Most DSOs think adopting AI in their marketing means buying better tools. The ones getting real results are rebuilding how the team works. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Marc Heffner spent nearly three decades in Fortune 500, healthcare, and dental marketing before running marketing for a 14-location DSO. He tells Adrian Lefler how he rebuilt patient acquisition from the phones up: a 24-person call ce...

One state dental board passed a rule that would have changed who gets to own dental equipment and hold office leases, and the DSO industry went to court to stop it. Andrew Smith, CEO of the ADSO, walks through what happened in Colorado and what it signals for the rest of the country. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Adrian Lefler sits down with Andrew Smith, CEO of the Association of Dental Support Orga...

Three years after ChatGPT launched, almost every dental vendor claims to be AI powered. Annie founder Conner Ludlow gives a straight answer on which part is hype and which part is already saving practices real hours. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Adrian Lefler opens this BYTE SIZED episode with something he keeps running into at shows like ADSO and Dykema. Nearly every company has slapped AI on the l...

Personal Branding for Dentists: The Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI Every dental practice can buy the same technology and publish the same polished content. Christene Marie explains why identity, not tooling, is what actually separates one practice from the next. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Adrian Lefler talks with Christene Marie, founder and CEO of The Knowing Agency, about why so many den...

Revenue is up 1.4 percent. Expenses are up 4.9 percent. Jordon Comstock breaks down why PPO heavy dental practices are running harder for less, and what actually fixes it. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Adrian Lefler sits down with Jordon Comstock, founder and CEO of BoomCloud, to unpack the ADA report on the fiscal squeeze hitting dental practices. Top line revenue grew about 1.4 percent while expens...

Dentists are paying every month for tools sold as AI, and some of those tools are not AI at all. Amber Day explains how to tell the difference before you sign anything. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Amber Day has worked every side of dental technology. She started as a dental hygienist, spent five to six years at Solutionreach running a territory, then her own sales team, and eventually key opinion l...

Every dental practice that bought AI to save time ended up doing more work faster. Allison Lacoursiere explains why that happens and what it actually costs. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Adrian Lefler sits down with executive coach Allison Lacoursiere, founder of Clear Coaching and Women In Digital Dentistry, to take apart the biggest promise in dental AI right now. Every vendor at every dental show...

Growing a dental organization is supposed to make it more profitable, but the last five years of DSO data suggest the opposite. Ken Kaufman, the CFO behind some of dentistry's biggest growth stories, explains why. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT Adrian Lefler sits down with Ken Kaufman, a 25-year dental finance veteran who helped scale Community Dental Partners to 75 locations and led finance at Nuvia...

Posting on social media used to be a nice extra for dental practices. Now it's a requirement for growth, and most practices are getting it wrong in ways that quietly cost them new patients. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT In this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler talks with Matt Hutchings, who has spent the last eight years at Productive Dentist Academy working across creative strategy, go to market...

Dental embezzlement is happening in practices right now, and most dentists will not see it coming. In this episode, Adrian Lefler sits down with David Harris, CEO of Prosperident and the leading expert on dental embezzlement investigation in North America, to break down exactly how theft happens inside dental practices, who does it, why they do it, and what you can do about it. EPISODE OVERVIEW Da...

Most dental practices don't fail at technology because they pick the wrong software. They fail because they never built the people systems to support it. In this episode, Adrian sits down with Carrie Webber, CEO of Jameson Management Group, to unpack why technology integration breaks down in dental practices and what the ones succeeding are doing differently. EPISODE OVERVIEW Carrie Webber has spe...

In this episode, Adrian Lefler sits down with Melissa Turner, co-founder of the National Mobile and Teledentistry Conference and the American Mobile and Teledentistry Alliance. Melissa brings 20 years of clinical experience, has worked in over 100 dental practices across the country, and has spent the last decade helping dental teams and practice owners close the gap between buying a tool and actu...

AI Can't Have the Idea: Why Human Creativity Still Runs the Room AI in dentistry is everywhere right now, but is it actually solving your marketing problem or just making it look like you have one? In this episode, Adrian Lefler sits down with Len Davis to draw the line most marketing gurus are afraid to draw. EPISODE OVERVIEW Every dental practice owner is being sold the idea that AI tools will t...

Researchers studying thousands of people found a counterintuitive truth: the people who go deepest with AI are the ones who stay most true to themselves. In this episode of the Bite Size Podcast, Helen Edwards, co-founder of the Artificiality Institute, shares research-backed insights that challenge Silicon Valley's loudest claims about artificial intelligence replacing human workers. This convers...

Most dentists focus on blog posts and ads to build authority online, but Google and AI systems increasingly decide who to recommend based on who other trusted sources vouch for. In this episode, digital PR expert Chris Panteli breaks down how dentists can earn media coverage in publications like Forbes, Healthline, and People Magazine, and why that matters more than ever in the age of AI search. E...

Most dental AI tools don't fail because of bad technology. They fail because of a people problem that no one in dental tech is talking about. Jennifer Derse is here to explain what is really going on and what dental leaders need to do differently. EPISODE OVERVIEW When a dental practice invests in AI or new technology and sees little to no return, the instinct is to blame the software. But Jennife...

Culture by Design: The Leadership Framework Behind High-Performing Dental Practices Most dentists blame their team when a new software rollout quietly dies. But after working with thousands of practices over 30 years, Stuart Anderson says the real problem almost always starts at the top. In this episode, we dig into what "culture by design" actually means, why dental practices struggle to adopt ne...

Most dental practices assume AI implementation failures come down to the software. They don't. The real obstacle is the team sitting in your operatory every day and the psychology driving their resistance. In this episode of the Byte-Sized Podcast, Adrian Lefler sits down with Julieanne O'Connor and Michael Keeter of Influential Dental to unpack why AI in dentistry keeps stalling out at the human...

Most dental practices assume a membership plan is the key to dropping insurance. But launching one without the right strategy can actually shrink your practice, hurt your valuation, and frustrate your team. EPISODE OVERVIEW In this episode, Adrian Lefler sits down with Paul Lowry of Dental Menu to unpack why most practices misfire when they drop insurance and add a membership program. Paul shares...

Fear, Friction, and the Fix: How to Actually Implement Technology in Your Practice Dental AI implementation is one of the most misunderstood challenges in modern practice growth. Buying the technology is the easy part. Getting your team to actually use it is where most dental practices quietly fail. EPISODE OVERVIEW Most dental practices have a closet, or a spare operatory, full of technology that...

AI in dentistry isn't coming. It's already here, and the doctors who aren't paying attention are already falling behind. In this episode, Dr. Val Torres delivers an unfiltered take on why AI fails in healthcare, what happens to the dentist who ignores it, and what's at stake for every patient sitting in a dental chair right now. EPISODE OVERVIEW Dr. Val Torres joins Adrian Lefler for a rapid-fire...

Dental case acceptance has always been about emotion, not logic, and now AI is giving dentists a visual tool to close that gap in under 30 seconds. In this episode, Dr. Simone Stori breaks down the psychology of why patients say no and how his AI smile simulation tool, Smile Up Studio, is helping practices accept more cases right from the operatory chair. EPISODE OVERVIEW Most dentists assume pati...