Latest / My Dental Playbook / 042 From 20 to 200 New Patients: The Event that Helped Dr. Blake Grow

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042 From 20 to 200 New Patients: The Event that Helped Dr. Blake Grow · My Dental Playbook

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I had a moment where I was like, okay, I've got to get over that.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can't just let that continue to dominate me.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And marketing was a big part of that.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Being afraid I don't want to waste$5,000.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that seems like a lot.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then like when you're in the position where I'm at, spending what I'm spending on marketing, like$5,000 seems like a drop in the bucket, right?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I just had to get past the like, if this doesn't work, it's going to end our business and it's all gonna come crumbling down.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've learned is all of this is reversible.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another episode of My Dental Playbook.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your co-host, Gary Bird.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Along with my friend Dr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Blake Hamblin, we're gonna be diving deep into his office and how he's doubled his collections in just under 12 months.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're also gonna be talking about his journey to a$10 million practice and what he needs to do to get there.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see behind the curtain, and Dr.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Blake is amazing at sharing the hard details that you need to know so you can do the same too.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to grow, this is the show for you.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Stay tuned.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we are live for another episode.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your co-host, Gary Bird, along with my friend Dr.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Blake Hamblin.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: We are diving deep into his office to see how he has 10x' his new patients.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's a real thing.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: He went from 20 to 200 new patients.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about that.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And before we jump into today's topic, which is gonna be the dental success summit.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not going to that, you're missing out.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great event.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Dr.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Blake and I are gonna be at, and we're gonna be podcasting live there, which I'm super excited about.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: But before we get into that, make sure you check out our sponsor, Cherry.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: They are amazing.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: They do a great job of helping you just get way more treatment.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't seen all the trainings that Dr.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Blake's done on it, all the stuff that we've talked about online, go check them out.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: We get special pricing.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: The link's right down below.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: But let's jump into the dental success summit, DSS 2026.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be June 11th through the 13th.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the 13th annual, and we're gonna be podcasting there.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: How how has this event helped you in your growth journey, Dr.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Blake?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I would just say it's it's one of the best summits to go to just because the quality of speakers.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's not it's not a event that you're really trying to be sold anything, though there are a ton of vendors there.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I think Mark uh Costas has just done a great job of curating speakers that speak to uh real life challenges that you may face in dentistry, but also like last year Ryan Holiday was there.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like I love it.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was it was really cool to like um to learn about philosophy, and then of course Alistair is there as well, which if you've never heard Alistair speak, like it's a master class, and he can talk about the sky being blue, and you'll be drawn into the conversation.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I really just uh learned a lot from going, but also the quality of person that's there.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've made so many friendships with people that are just absolutely killing it in dentistry, uh, where they twist my kaleidoscope and I really learn how to do different things in dentistry that I never would have thought of on my own.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of the conversations that happen uh at night after the conference at dinner or uh in the breaks are are really, really beneficial.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you have a lot to do with these groups, they have masterminds, right?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys go to them and you talk to them.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that people changed your minds about some things, and that's how you've grown so much.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And now you're changing other people's minds.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's uh it's a lot of fun.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and what I've what I've learned is like the best leaders are just curious people, and that's how I approach uh coaching or mastermind that even we run is like asking a lot of questions, trying to figure out the why behind the question.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of times it'll it'll be like, hey, Dr.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hamlin, how did you how'd you grow up from 20 to 200?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, why do you want to know that?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like what what's your end goal, right?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that's what people did to me.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: They they really pulled out of me what I was really searching for.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we're we're really just uh all kind of chasing each other's goals, if that makes sense.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think uh if you can figure out a way to put a persona behind those goals, so uh for example, uh I look at you know Andrew Valo as somebody who has taught me a ton of a ton of uh valuable things in dentistry, but also like he's incredibly wise when it comes to how to scale and grow, especially with second gen offices.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I think of second gen, I think of Andrew Valo.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I think of uh how do I grow up practice by you know scaling an ultra hyper hyper uh hyper growth market, like I think of Colin Meyrick, you know, he's he's really scaled and growed grown his business in in the unique community that he's in.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so really putting a persona behind that has helped me.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't have been able to do that if I wasn't a part of groups like this that I can connect with dentists that aren't just showing up and want to pret the crown and go home.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: These people, they these people really want to learn and grow.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, everybody that I've met has always just been curious and they just want to know why you are doing that's always the first question they ask is why.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and I know they get that from Mark because Mark always does it like, why do you want that?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that's huge.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then also when I think about 10xing new patients, I think about you, Dr.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Blake.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now I think you're one of the guys that people think about.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: You went from, I think just under a year and a half, you went from literally 20 new patients.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this month, when we're recording this, you're gonna hit 200 new patients.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's insane.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's insane growth of one practice.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I actually posted about it online, and people are like, what?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you doing that to yourself?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's it's been a fun journey.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I've learned more over the past year and a half about my practice, myself, uh, how I can lead better, how I can be a better dentist, how I can get more efficient in exams, how I can treat patients uh more efficiently, um, and still still deliver a really good experience.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's been a blast.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're gonna keep going.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think at some point we'll have 300 new patients in that.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the beautiful thing is is like the why behind it for me, and we've talked about this a lot, is like it's is because we can, and I I feel like it's my duty to serve the most amount of people possible.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't say this arrogantly, but I I believe that I'm the that I'm the best dentist and we have the best dentist in Houston, Texas.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if I truly believe that sincerely, then it's my job to figure out how we can see the most patients.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's not anything other than that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just want to be able to serve and create a really awesome business that at some point maybe doesn't revolve around me and allows me to coach and teach and mentor other doctors when they run into issues and problems in the clinic that I can help them get out of those problems, but then also teach them in the future of how they can avoid them.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's really like I think back to the conversation we had with Jason Tenori, and he was like, that that's what gets him out of bed.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And man, I resonated so much with that.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, man, that's that's exactly what I want.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so cool how his journey and my journey are starting to like kind of look similarly, right?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so yeah.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's really fun.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and totally different markets too.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's in a small market.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he has to deal with a lot of like Medicaid patients in those areas.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's up upstate New York.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're in a city complex, totally different ball game, but yes, the two similar visions and two things that you know you guys are motivated by the same thing.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: What what is and I we're gonna podcast at this event.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: So these are the kind of things we're gonna be talking about is like 10xing your new patients and what that looked like.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: But what what's something inside of you that had to change to become the dentist that could 10x their new patients?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think fear of failure, and that that's been my my crux all along.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even growing up in sports, the reason I was decent at sports was because I was just so scared that I was gonna strike out three times.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think like learning how to harness that and use it to um give me energy and give me a purpose was good.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think that a lot of times it it left um it left a hole in me that didn't allow me to really reach my full potential.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, like in dentistry, I I had a moment where I was like, okay, I've got to get over that hump.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can't just let that continue to dominate me.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And marketing was a big part of that.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, being afraid of like, oh my gosh, I don't want to waste$5,000.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that seems like a lot.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then like when you're in the position where I'm at, spending what I'm spending on marketing, like$5,000 seems like a drop in the bucket, right?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I just had to get past the like, oh my gosh, if this doesn't work, it's gonna end our business and it's all gonna come crumbling down.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've learned is like all of this is reversible, like all of this can be undone.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we can go up and we can go down and we can, it's literally a water hose, and we can turn it on, or we can turn it off, or we can just slow it down a little bit.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to get out of that mindset of like I'm gonna destroy what I've built because it felt so comfortable.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think on the last podcast I shared, like the most comfortable I ever felt was when we were at about two million dollars and I was spending the most time at home.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in this season of my life, like I love being at home with my family, but I also love growing the business, right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that there's gonna be a season.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my kids are five and twin uh three-year-old twins, but like there's gonna be a season really soon where like they're gonna need me at the ball field at at five o'clock.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: But right now they don't.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so now is my time to like pull these things out of me and try to try to grow in a way that's gonna help support the life that I'm just coming in in the next couple of years.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, how did you I think that fear thing is a big thing in business?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that really helped me, I I literally remember the day I had a Tesla and I loved it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: But this was a long time ago.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is when Tesla was fairly new, no one really knew about them.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember um reading an article about Teslas and how big their gaps were in their car because they were a new startup.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Elon's wasn't really a car guy, he was more of a tech guy.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's these massive gaps, and I never noticed them.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like it wasn't a big deal to me.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then someone I read an article, and this is why I don't buy Teslas.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Look at the gaps in here.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked at mine and I was like, oh, yeah, those are kind of big and they're different, they're different sizes on there, but I never noticed it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, but the car's super fast and it drives itself.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, you know what?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I thought this car was like the coolest piece of tech I've ever owned.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And right now it's the best AI tech that I own by far.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And but someone was still critical with it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know what?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's gonna be critical no matter what I do.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So who cares?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And just go and just do it and just stop caring.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that really helped me.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I know in dental, dentists are you have to be hypercritical of dentistry, like the clinical dentistry.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be because it's you're dealing with such small, small spaces, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to have this attitude of perfection to be a dentist, I think, clinically.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: But then in business, you have to turn that off and be like, all right, let's break some things and let's mess it up.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it's a hard.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: How do you like how did you come to balance that?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this may be off topic, but like the the quote is strong can strong convictions loosely help, right?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And like the people that I know and like where I've gotten, but when I think of like some of the names that I mentioned, they have really, really strong convict convictions about maybe their model or how they've decided to grow or whatever, but they hold it really loosely.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, you could convince me in a weekend to do something different, right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes back to the curiosity.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they're they're curious to know other ways of doing it or other ways of growth, or how can I how could I prep this tooth a little bit differently?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of times, and I I felt the same way, um was we we feel we have uh we have no agency.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like my my coach, um, I kind of like the life and business coach talks about having agency.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And for so long in my life, I had no agency.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning I was just doing what I thought everybody else wanted me to do.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't I didn't believe that no the way that I want to present treatment is this way, and I believe in it so much that that's how I'm gonna do it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do it like that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, I've got to do it like that guy.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it just wasn't authentic, right?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like when you're truly authentic with how you present treatment or how you filled your buckets or how you show up every day at work if you're an associate, or like that shines through, and that's what draws people in, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: But when we when you start to try to be like, well, I'm gonna be a little bit of Blake and a little bit of Conn and a little bit of like it just doesn't work because it's not you.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: So how did you how did you get to the place where you allowed the fear not to overwhelm you on the business side, but keep the high clinical standards?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so the the the last the latter part was a non-negotiable.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wasn't I wasn't gonna allow growth to reduce the the product that we that we provide.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um But I I think the fear was getting over getting through the fear was just leaning on people that had been through it before.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I see how you tied that together.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I I remember before I bought the building, um, I called a family friend of mine that I trust a lot.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked him through like what it was gonna look like to to buy the building and then potentially build, rebuild the building.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that number still to this day is like massive.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It it like feels overwhelming, right?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: But he literally his his response to me after like 20 minutes of looking at it was like, if you don't buy it, I am.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, you're way smarter than me.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you like it, then I need to just get over my fear and do it.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of it is kind of like where we talked started this whole conversation was being in groups of people uh like your you'll find a DSS or that you'll find the DSI or even our mastermind group of people that think and do and live life just a little bit different than you, um, that maybe have maybe have experienced that, that you can leverage for your benefit uh to get you basically, and we've said this before, to fold time, right?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the whole point.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: How how quickly can we get to the to the end pool, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I think these groups are good for.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Really good.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's and it's folding time, but it's also breaking through your limiting beliefs because we all have limiting beliefs.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So when I got into business, I had all the limiting beliefs of why things couldn't be done a certain way.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it took a it takes a long time to break those walls down personally, but other people that you respect, so you can look at them as a dentist and go, clinically, I respect this person.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: They do great dentistry, but they're doing business in a different way that I thought you couldn't do, plus, do great dentistry.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of assumptions.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can't have 200 new patients and do great dentistry.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not possible.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why not?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why is that not possible?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: There no one's ever done that before.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of these limiting beliefs in the dental industry that just uh I think they block people.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that you've figured out how to break free of those and you're sharing it with uh the audience here.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So great stuff today.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you hopping on and talking through how DSI has helped you and the events helped you.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope other people can come to it.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we'll be podcasting there.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So stop by, say hello.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna bring on guests on the fly, which is fun.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we'll bring on guests on the fly, but we'll be talking specifically about how Dr.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Blake went from 20 to 200 new patients in under a year and a half.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's uh I hope to see everybody there.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And Dr.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Blake, as always, thank you so much.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.