This Video Should Be Required Viewing for Business Owners
In a Nutshell
A dental practice scaled from $160K to $500K monthly revenue in 90 days by delegating non-critical visits from the owner-doctor to associates, shifting from per-visit to upfront payment collection, and raising implant prices 20% (from $28K to $44K average case value). Speed-to-lead improved dramatically by reducing booking delays from 15-30 days to 7 days, increasing show rates and close rates while reducing CAC. The foundational shift involved reframing the owner-doctor from sole practitioner to "architect/teacher" who trains associates, enabling the practice to triple capacity without new locations.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Alex is helping Hassi Nazir, CEO of Smile Match Dentistry, build a roadmap to scale from $2 million in annual revenue to $15 million over three years. Hassi joined the business one year ago when his father was the sole owner. Current profit margin is 47% with approximately $960,000 in profit. The business operates three locations but relies on one doctor, creating a critical bottleneck.
The business cannot scale because all high-ticket patients flow through Hassi's father. When the main doctor takes a break, business stops. A previous associate only worked 1-1.5 days per week with significantly lower show rates than the father. The father previously lacked support systems and was making ends meet while working constantly.
Hassi's father has given everything to the business, missing events like soccer games. Without solving the scaling issue, the business will eventually die when the father can no longer work.
Each implant treatment requires approximately five clinical visits. The father currently performs all five visits. The visits break down as:
- Visit 1: Pulling teeth (father must do this)
- Visit 2: Bone graft (father must do this)
- Visit 3: Checkup (can be done by associate)
- Visit 4: Implant placement (can potentially be done by associate)
- Visit 5: Final visit (can be done by associate)
The father currently handles 25-30 patients per month. By delegating three of the five visits to associates, capacity could double to 50 visits monthly, provided lead flow increases.
The father has been a solo practitioner for a long time and patients become connected to him personally. Hassi initially viewed the handoff as difficult. The solution involves positioning the father as the "architect" or "artist" who designs the procedure, while associates serve as the "hands" who execute it. The father films a one-time video introducing the associate, explaining that the associate specializes in subsequent visits and has been trained by the father.
The key message is: "Do you want to be right or do you want to be rich?" The father needs to be positioned as the conductor of the orchestra rather than the sole practitioner.
Hassi hired two associates who took over less complicated work from his father. This allowed more consults while fulfilling patient needs. The transition between doctors became easier by framing the father as the architect and the practice as a team of doctors. Patients responded positively to this positioning.
Current Google ad spend is $12,000 per month. The recommendation is to increase spend significantly, potentially to several hundred thousand dollars monthly before reaching market saturation in Orange County. Doubling ad spend alongside doubled capacity creates proportional revenue growth.
The practice shifted from pay-as-you-go per visit to requiring upfront payment. Two payment options are presented: credit card or financing, with both requiring payment to begin treatment. Previously, only 30-50% of patients over $15,000 chose financing. The new approach aims for 80-90% upfront payment.
The messaging frames payment as necessary to start the process and pre-order materials. This change dramatically improved cash conversion cycle and revenue growth.
Revenue increased from averaging $160,000 monthly to being on track to hit $500,000 monthly. The upfront payment requirement was described as the biggest unlock for growth.
The average three-year patient value was initially $14,000, with implant patients averaging $28,000. Prices were increased 15-20% initially, then the average implant case rose to $44,000 after a 20% increase. Close rates increased 3-4% rather than decreasing.
The father had not raised prices in 3-4 years. The price increase was positioned as right-sizing given money supply growth, not a true price hike. Higher prices attracted better customers who received more value and over-delivery.
Higher prices attract better customers who allow for greater over-delivery. Increased profits enable hiring better talent, which enables more over-delivery. This creates an upward spiral rather than competing on price. Premium cosmetic health services often see demand increase with price because customers pay to reduce risk.
Current process: Patients schedule appointments and receive reminders at 7 days, 3 days, 1 day, and day-of. Upon arrival, they are seated immediately, receive X-rays or CT scans, then move to a sales room for treatment presentation.
The recommendation is to collect patient ID and credit card upon arrival, framing it as completing patient profiles. This captures payment method before any sales discussion, reducing friction when payment is requested.
Patients wait 5-10 minutes in the sales room before meeting with Hassi and watch a VSSL (Video Sales Letter) on an iPad. The video contains:
- Promise of transformation
- Pain points being addressed
- Three to four different patient avatars as proof
- Four-step process explanation
- Old way versus new way comparison
- Common objections addressed with proof
- Before and after testimonials
The VSSL can include price ranges based on number of teeth. Combined with payment method on file, this reduces friction significantly.
Every patient receives a VSSL when booking and watches one while waiting for treatment plan presentation. The process became smoother with fewer questions and faster decisions. Patients understood expectations better and viewed treatment as the biggest health investment.
Sales processes have two levers: qualification (ensuring right people show up) and education (ensuring prospects are in the right mindset to purchase). When sales processes involve too many calls or take too long, more education is needed beforehand. In-person environments have no downside to additional education since prospects are already present.
Long-term, the recommendation is to take up one and two and give that to another doc as well so your dad can just focus on the diagnosis. If you just did that, that can get you to 12-ish million just from doing that one change.
You'll have to break your dad's beliefs around the fact that like what my father's a physician, so like a surgeon, and so I understand the archetype. There's a lot of romanticism around like I have a lot of repetitions on this and like no one will be able to teach me or no one's going to be as good as I am. I'm not saying your dad's like that but many surgeons are. And so there has to be a fundamental belief shift which is that like if you learned it so can someone else and then re-edifying him as like you need like for for this business to scale his identity needs to change from I'm the best dentist to I'm the best teacher. Like if he can make that change I think this thing can get really good. If he if he holds on to the chair, uh it'll be very difficult.
At what point do you think it would make sense to possibly buy new locations? We need to we need to fix all this stuff first. Correct. And right now, there's no point in adding another practice because you don't even know how to run a practice without your dad. Right. So, it's like that has to happen before any of these other conversations can really occur.
When it comes to scaling, I felt we would have to open three or four more offices to really hit five or 10 million to be honest. But with how we've been able to scale in the past 90 days, we might hit our goal without opening any new offices. I think like you said, my dad is a teacher, so we need to frame him as a teacher and actually teach. If we can teach our doctors to do better work at a higher level, I don't see it being a problem. And I think it'll unlock maybe 3x, possibly 3 to 4x.
And so this is the the quintessential nail it before you scale it. A lot of people think they need to scale to make more money, but usually you need to nail it to make more money and then you make so much money that you don't know what to do with the money and that is when you scale. And so I think it's one of the big, especially brick and mortar, the big misconceptions. They're not making as much as they want. They're like, I guess I should have more locations when almost always you should make the location that you have significantly better and more profitable. Like I cannot It's probably one of the number one mistakes that gets made in brick and mortar.
When you have, you know, in the business probably could, we can look at capacity for the office space, but like as long as demand genen is not a problem locally, which I doubt it is, um, he might be able to get that location to 10, maybe even 15. And then we look at, okay, maybe if we had three offices now, we can go to 45 million, which becomes much more interesting. um instead of having three offices to get to 10.
The speed to lead is especially with Are you doing PPC? Yeah. Yeah. Um it it is the most important platform for speed to lead. Yeah. like talking like 60 seconds because you have super high intent people but they're shopping. They're looking around and so it's most of the time I don't know the stat but it's very high. Um the first person who responds is the person who gets the customer.
This is killing you cuz a big part is like he's booked out 15 to 30 days in order for him to do these diagnoses, right? And you're losing money there. Okay. perfect world would be this like perfectly efficient world that I think will maintain sales uh percentages is that um they come in greeted whatever and then when they when they walk in to meet with you if possible if he says this is my guy he's the man he just transfers authority and says he's seen more these cases at anyone like he will definitely help you out I'll be with you as soon as we get into the dex needs to just edifies you and then you'll have the whole frame then he'll come in razledazzle and then you close. Cuz in that Cuz if he can just basically the only time how long is the X-ray diagnosis part? An hour 15 would be right. Yeah. That's terrible. And so that's why it's taking 15 to 30 days cuz like you have 70% sure rates you'll probably get closer to 85 or 90. Um if that's the case that would give you a a 20% lift in revenue, okay, and return on ad spend just from that one change because you'll just move you'll just pull it forward because then it's like great, we can get you in tomorrow because they're they're literally they have pain, right? Exactly. So it's like we they want to solve the pain. Um and if somebody else can see them tomorrow, they'll see them and not you. Especially for a customer that's not warm or referral. Right. So I see this as super material.
By hiring doctors and allowing them to take care of the easier, less complicated work. We've been able to have our new patients booked within 7 days. Our close rate has gone up because patients are seeing us sooner while they're still in pain. And our show up rate has made a big difference. It It's only about 10% higher, but 10% with the amount of patients we're seeing is a huge difference and a huge unlock. When a patient's really in pain, they're coming to see us and we're getting them in as soon as possible and we finally have the space to actually get them in.
Speed is almost always uh like if you add speed to any sales process, sales will almost always go up and profitability will almost always go up just period. If you have more availability where more people come in and you have almost similar cost basis, you will just drop incrementally more money to the bottom line just by doing things faster. So you have fewer competitors who compete for the same business. Uh people are willing to pay premiums for speed. Um they will show up more often, pay more, like every the CAC reduces. So as in your cost of getting customers goes down, close rates go up. like everything across the board is improved with speed. And so if you were somebody who's got a business that has customers that are coming at a delay or they have to book multiple weeks out, like you are significantly exposing yourself to competitors who are faster. And it it's better to put yourself your old business out of business and then have your new business than have let somebody else do it.
When I see prices went up, close rates went up, what that means is that especially in the market you're at, and for when I say market, I mean the geographic market, but also the avatar itself, the people who are walking in the door, they they are correlating price with risk and quality. And so they're like, I this is this is a complex procedure. I'm going to use my mouth the rest of my life. I want to make sure it's done right. And for that person an extra call it $100 a month is going to mean absolutely makes make no difference whatsoever. But them getting an inferior uh procedure is going to make a huge difference. You raised price and conversion went up. Yeah. So keep raising price.
At what point do we know that we should stop raising price? Well, when conversion times price goes down. Okay. Not when you sell less. Because sometimes you will sell less. If you have a 50% price raise and you sell 10% fewer, you should continue to keep that price, right? We're at a plus, right? Exactly. You're at a you're at a plus plus. You're closing more at a higher price. Yeah. There's going to be a point where you close the same at a higher price and that's still good. And there's a point where even after the curve, you close even at a higher price with even a little bit less and the math still makes sense, but it's just a pure math equation. I also understand the nature of high ticket sales like this, which is very difficult to get. You know, maybe he was having a bad day, whatever happens. Um, but I think you're very safe to continue to raise for a minute. This is just like probably the first of maybe another one after this.
And then the one thing I was going to start doing is just doing like organic content. No, it reminds me I was going to bring that up bring it up to you. So, what I want you to also do is re-engineer the process. I'm sure there's these reaction moments when they get to see their teeth and like they don't look bad, right? Yeah. Okay. So, we just want to have this big mirror in your hallway where you can have people kind of walk up blindfolded or like not see it or just you want to basically capture the reveal moment. And you probably already do capture the before moment, I'm guessing. A lot of the time we don't. Okay. Well, that needs to get integrated in the process, right? Yeah. Um, and so that becomes your posting. Okay. Like every single before and after that you have at your clinic should get posted, but you can have multiple versions of this. So, think about one is like the uh story version which is like um Angela showing her before and then showing her after and it's like yay. And then there's the uh carousel version which is like images that you might still put the story as the third third tile that you'd post. Um you can do a case study version of this which is like your dad or you reviewing the case. So this is Casey. She came in with an X, you know, XYZ micro underbite. I don't make it up. Right. Um, and so this was an interesting case for X, Y, and Z. And so, and then but it's but then you're immediately flipping it to like so if you're struggling with this, this, and this, and this, you don't have to struggle with that. Like these are super solvable problems. A lot of people just don't know it. That's why I'm making this content. And then with all of that stuff, you can just CTA to lead gen.
I didn't want to add a separate channel because like this is the you're already doing this. Let's just do more better on this. Um, but as you like basically, if you were to come back, I' like in a year, I would say like, okay, this is going to be our further expansion. And so what's difficult with small business is there's whenever you have a pipeline if you as long as you're not supply constraint which you are uh more marketing on a supply constraint does nothing. Yeah. It does not increase throughput. And so it's like we have to solve the spark constraint first and then the other other things down the pipeline can increase and then that increases throughput. But we have to solve that first and then this alone will match your throughput. So could we do it? Yeah. Is it the constraint? No. Will it take resources from you to think about? Yes. If you do all this stuff and you have bandwidth, sure. The reason I was at least thinking about it Yeah. was I'm never going to tell you to advertise less. Small business is like the more people know about your stuff, the more more money you make. Sure. Unless you have no way to actually capitalize on it. Yes.
Okay. How many employees you guys got? Nine, including me. Nine. All right. So where are we at on the scaling road map? So you were you're right at the kind of prioritize to productize stage. Notice what we were doing is prioritizing the things you need to do and trying to develop productization of the actual delivery. It's almost like these things make sense. Um and so um you do have a specialized product that's priced to serve a richer richer avatar. So you already have this which is why like from a business perspective you're probably closer to here from a marketing angle free more free better stuff. Um that's where this part that I was referencing would kind of come in and that will kind of graduate here. And so it's common for businesses to be split between multiple stages for different kind of functions. Yeah. From a sales perspective, I think you just started tracking these basic uh KPI. So like you have probably more along this productiz step. So spend more on niche down messaging and new offer. Fair enough. Right. Create sales aids and materials. Right. And the VSSL sales aids, right? build a proper CS playbook to onboard and train team to answer questions. So that is partially like how can we get the team to do some of these pieces and then obviously like over time they're going to be taking over more of the delivery. Understood. All right. Make sense that you're at this stage to graduate. Fair enough. Cool. Fair enough. And yeah, by the way, this is free. If you're a business owner and you're like, "What stage am I at? What should I do?" Download this. Each one of these comes with like a 90 plus minute video that breaks down in way more detail than I just did in 10 seconds um what to do at each stage. So, if you want that, you can go grab it. I'm sure the link somewhere.
Meeting Alice has been on my mind for a little while now. And I know with the amount of value he's provided to me inadvertently, not knowing me, just providing content to the masses, he has already changed my life without him knowing it. I've told myself going into this that no matter what he says, I know for a fact that I will come out on top because it's the insight I've been wanting for years and it's the insight I can only dream of. Well, sweet. So, you shifted, it sounded like you shifted more to more payment up front, raised the implant pricing, speed to lead is solid, you held off on scaling to the new location. Um, so all in all, what's what's revenue at now? Run rate. Run rate, we are right at 3.3, I believe. Oh, hell yeah. So, we're right at I believe it's 270,000 a month. When I saw you last, I think we're like at 2.8 run rate. Okay. 2.8. So, 2.8 to 3.3. So, what's that? So, that's a% lift. 10% lift or so. And from averaging 160, our best month before this was 290,000 and now we're about to hit 500,000. I never thought it'd be possible with the same team doing the same things we're currently doing. Honestly, Alex, thank you. Thank you so much. I I have a lot of gratitude for your team, for you, for what everyone has been doing. Just the advice you've been able to give when it comes to fixing limiting beliefs. I think that's been the biggest thing. Unlocking belief, conviction in myself, in my team, in my dad, in our doctors has been the biggest unlock of what's possible, why not? Why can't we is the question. How fast can we do it? We'll keep it going. Yeah. Nothing to add there. I mean, it was all him. And so, uh, you know, the kudos should go to him because a lot of people, you know, watch YouTube videos, they they, uh, read my books, but they don't do anything about it. And so, I guess one of one of the nice things about this competition is that um people have public stakes around around taking action. And um, I think someone else said this, they said, "I've never worked so hard in my life." And I find that really interesting cuz it's like this whole time you've been working for you, but only now you want to work harder. And I'm trying to think like how can I recreate that stimulus or that those conditions for entrepreneurs so that more people experience that. I mean in my weight loss business you know we started running these challenges and people lost more weight than they'd ever lost in their lives but it was because we had this external you know carrot that we would leave there which is that if they hit a certain goal they could get their money back as credit towards more service. And um it'd be be really interesting to figure out a way to do that again for entrepreneurs. But you can see what happens when you have the correct advice you ruthlessly executed. You get big results. All right. And so that was this episode of Scale or Fail. Stay tuned for the next one as they all compete for $100,000 in a year of working on scaling.
Keep Alex Hormozi in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
