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Dr. Ben Gregg is the founder and Managing Partner of Bloom Orthodontic Consulting and Gregg Orthodontics. He received his Doctorate of Dental Surgery from The Ohio State University College of Dentistry in 2005, and attended the State University of New York at Buffalo, to obtain his Master of Science in Orthodontics. He serves as a volunteer lecturer for the Orthodontic Residents at Case Western Reserve School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Gregg is focused on treating patients like "guests" while performing orthodontic care in a setting with a vibe!

1. What advice would you give yourself today if you were a 25-year-old entering this industry?

    

   You need a vision for your practice. 

    

   You need to know what you're trying to achieve, hire the people that will take you there, and learn how to manage those people effectively. My practice vision has remained the same since we started in 2008: "A visit to Gregg Orthodontics will be the most awesome experience of your life!" It's easy. It's simple.  But it's also not achievable.  We can't make this the best experience of your life….But we can sure try.   Once you put your vision in place, you have to get the right people on board.  Get rid of the people holding you back, or work to improve them.  If someone had trained me on that at a younger age, I could have grown to achieve this vision much faster.   It's hard.

    

   Managing people is not common sense. It's just not.  It's hard to tell which person is helping and which person is hurting you.  And even when you start from scratch, by year 4, if they're not the right person– you have to move on from these people.  When I look back on that, it's the most challenging part and the advice I wish I had received.

    

2. How do you manage this today?

    

   It takes swift and intelligent interaction. And in our industry, it's even more challenging because we work right beside our employees that we need to manage.  

    

   The most significant difference is in knowing when and how to take action as soon as possible. The thing about having a consultant like me on board, who's also an orthodontist, is that you can say, "Yep, here’s how to manage this situation…the same thing has happened to me in the past and will likely happen again."  Change your mindset.   Get great at hiring, training, and onboarding.  Know what you're solving for. 

    

   I need good people to achieve my vision, and to solve that, I must have great hiring, onboarding, training, oh…and firing.   The hardest part is always the people. Your team has to shine for you; in today's market, it must happen.  That's the vision.  I always go back to the vision to lead me.

    

3. What's your favorite interview question to get the right people onboard?

    

   I'm the last person you'll speak with during our interview process.  I usually ask them, "What's your typical weekend look like, or what did you do last weekend?" because I want to work with people I'd likely enjoy hanging out with, since we'll be together all week. 

    

   That question gives me a significant lead.  They'll say, "I'm going to this cool concert!"  Great.  Tell me how you got into this music and what you like about concerts.  That gives me a little bit of insight into their personality and shows me if they can talk to people about meaningless stuff.     This question helps solidify it.

    

4. What's a recommended book you're reading?

    

   Excellence Wins, by Horst Schulz. 

    

   This dude created what the Ritz-Carlton is today.  His book is excellent for orthodontists because it talks about the Ritz-Carlton experience, and we can all apply these principles in our practices.  He recounts the history of how he created this incredible experience and the challenges he’s had along the way – all dealing with managing our team and customers.  He teaches about dealing with high-end clients and the ways to create an awesome customer service experience.  

    

   Often, we're the ones dealing with a challenging person, and this book gives you guidelines on many things you need to know.    Hospitality is the key to business growth in this industry.

    

5. What’s on your billboard you’d advertise to all?

    

   Everything is Easy.

    

   While this phrase is a bit ridiculous, sometimes you need a break from life’s challenges, and refresh with the "This is so easy" mentality.  It will put a smile on your face and make you relax! Most things we stress over do not deserve the bandwidth we give them.   Don't give your stress a voice.  Say you're a long-distance runner, and you're on mile 75, and still have 25 more miles to run, you can't physically say “I’m exhausted”, because once you speak the words, you've given your pain a voice.  Don't give your challenges a voice. Because as soon as you voice it, it becomes true.   

    

   So instead, start voicing something positive you love, like “Everything is easy” or, “I feel outstanding!”

    

6. What's your favorite business pearl, learning, or failure that has set you up for success?

    

   It’s funny, we're all looking for one thing that fixes everything. The magic bullet. 

    

   It's not there. 

    

   It doesn't exist!

    

   You need consistent, repeat interactions with proper coaching.  And then, those changes become a reality and a success for you. 

    

   That’s my favorite business pearl, and we justify this every day with our Bloom Clients. One pearl here or there won’t create appropriate change like consistent, repeat interactions with proper coaching…bottom line. I don't have just one failure that has set me up for success, because there's a whole boatload of failures.     It's all the trite things you hear.  Fail forward.  Don't give your challenge a voice.  There's not one mistake/instance that has led me here.

    

7. What would you spend $100 or less on to improve a practice?

    

   It’s tough to impact a bunch of people for $100, but this one is pretty solid—I’m buying a ton of flower seeds and planting them near the office. 

    

   Now I have something to look at, and give them to my patients. Each patient gets to make a bouquet on their way out of the office (we provide what’s needed). It's excellent for the patient experience, and flowers make people happy!  That aligns perfectly with our vision, “Gregg Orthodontics will be the most awesome experience of your life."

    

8. I've always thought you have one of the most creative minds in this industry—what’s something every practice should consider?

    

   We created something called MBS (short for Mind-Blowing Sh**!).

    

   During one of our “whiteboard idea days”, we were solving for a way to quantify how the Gregg Ortho team is making a memorable connection with our patients, because remember, I want to make this the most awesome experience of their life. We all think our team is having great/memorable discussions with our patients, but how do we really know? What we came up with was MBS. 

    

   You set a monthly budget, say $100, and your team comes up with things to gift people based on the meaningful conversations at the chair, and you distribute the money accordingly.  Then, you track this on your “End of Day Goal board”

   to make sure the money is getting spent and quantifying your team’s conversations.

    

   Here's a couple of examples:  A patient just got her ears pierced and she is telling the assistant how excited she is about this, but she really can’t wait for hoops! So, we sent her a pair of hoop earrings with a personal note for like 10 bucks. Another example…a patient with some new-found drum skills got to play on the high school field for a football game, so we sent him $5 glow-in-the-dark drumsticks! And listen to this story:  Years later, I talk that drummer's mom when she’s back for the second kiddo. She's like, “I credit you with this--there's a night every year when they turn off the lights at the high school stadium, and everyone in the band has glow-in-the-dark everything - outfit, instruments, everything.'  I credit you with sending my child glow-in-the-dark drumsticks, because everyone started doing glow-in-the-dark stuff after that, and now everyone looks forward to this event! It’s now a school tradition!”

    

   It's all about the vision. This is the best experience of your life—now I can track that. Are we spending MBS money every day? I'm like, "Ladies, are we talking to our patients?!" Now we can quantify it. This enables us to quantify our team’s ability to have great conversations with our patients. Everyone should be doing this type of stuff in our profession.

    

9. You can't leave a practice until…?

    

   ….You solve the challenges before the patient gets out of the chair.

    

   Solve for why they didn't start.  Solve for why they didn’t leave a review. Solve for getting them to tell their friends. For example, we feel Google Reviews are still very important and want the most reviews in the area.  They're valuable, but people struggle to get Google Reviews.  If they don't do it in the chair, they won't ever do it.  Having appropriate systems in place will get you reviews.  In a highly competitive environment, you must resolve this issue.

    

10. What’s a bad recommendation that’s touted as an industry “best practice”?

     

    That you ‘must be’ an all-digital practice to succeed.

     

    You can have it, and it makes sense for some people, but for the industry to create FOMO that suggests you "must do this" is simply not true.   

     

    Remember, the goal of business is to stay in business! You won't stay in business if you run short on cash flow, or if you rush to do what everyone is "touting" you should do and don’t think through your business model.  It all starts with your vision.  

     

    Digital is highly dependent on your practice, area, competition, and for some, even health.  If your back hurts, or you don’t have time for direct bonding, then consider IDB; if you're tapped out with physical space, then absolutely.  However, not everyone needs to have everything all-digital-all-now. Especially, many that are just starting out.

     

11. What's the hardest thing to convey to an audience when you speak?

     

    How important the practice schedule is. 

     

    It requires consistent massaging, moving, and work.  If you don't have a good scheduling coordinator, you won't be as productive as you could be--Starts, exams, things move around all the time, and your team needs to be trained properly to manage this.  You need someone to constantly monitor and manage your schedule, adjusting things immediately.  It goes back to your systems.   If you have an exam that canceled for the afternoon, you need someone to pick up the phone and get it filled…today! You have to rely on your team and your systems, and the schedule is often overlooked and a prime source to increase efficiency.

     

12. What’s your parting advice to all in the industry?

     

    Many of us orthodontists are not designed to run our practices the way they should be.  And what’s happened? 

     

    Other people who think they know what to do are flooding into this industry.  

     

    That's why you have PE money infiltrating us. People who come in and say, "I'll take care of this for you!"   For some, that's the right choice to succeed.   However, for those who prefer to remain independent, consider hiring a consultant. Bring in some mentors.  Be smart.   It's more challenging than you think when you're trying to be the leading producer, president, and marketing coordinator, while creating a team and a vision.  Hire somebody, and seek help.   

     

    I've learned a great deal from the consultants I've worked with.  

     

    Seek them out.

     

My Take: I’m a huge fan of Ben; always been.  He possesses comprehensive clinical knowledge, excels at practice management, and has a special talent for the new patient experience with innovative marketing (His MBS story above is a category of it’s own). With tremendous respect for what Ben’s built, I encourage every practice to consider Bloom.

To connect with Ben, shoot him an email at: [email protected]