Dental Practice Heroes

Your Practice Doesn't Have to Stay the Way You Bought It

• Dr. Paul Etchison • Episode 595

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Taking over a practice is hard, but a full overhaul is even harder. In this episode, hear how Dr. Rhonda Kalasho transformed a hygiene-only dental office into a modern, multi-location practice and retained most of the original patient base.

She shares how she pulled it off — from building trust with skeptical patients and getting case acceptance, to rebranding the practice and creating a team culture that supports her vision. Tune in to hear her take on female leadership, why delegation isn’t working for you (and how to fix it), and what it takes to grow a practice and a family!

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • The pros and cons of acquisitions vs. startups
  • Building trust with existing patients
  • Must-have technology in a modern practice
  • Establishing yourself as an affordable luxury brand
  • TruGlo’s competitive membership model
  • How to hire and lead for a strong team culture
  • Balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship
  • Challenges and solutions in female leadership

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Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.

Paul Etchison:

Would you take over a practice that had a completely different vision than your own? What is the secret to making big changes without losing the existing patient base? Today, dr Rhonda Kalasho is back on the show, and this time we're talking about how she turned an office where patients only came in twice a year for cleanings into an affordable luxury brand. Today, you'll learn how to build trust, starting at the first appointment when you acquire the practice, why you might be struggling to delegate, and the one thing that she says every dental practice needs to invest in. You are listening to Dental Practice Heroes, where we help you to create a team and system driven dental practice, one that allows you to practice less and make more money. I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, a dental coach, author of two books on dental practice management and the owner of a five-doctor practice in the south suburbs of Chicago. I wanna show you how being intentional about ownership can create a practice that supports your life instead of consuming it. So if you're ready to create a true business that runs without you, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Without you, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Paul Etchison:

Welcome back to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I'm your host, dr Paul Etchison. I got a repeat guest on somebody who came on the show man maybe about a year and a half ago, but just blew me away. She was from the episode where it was. I think it was something about acquiring a practice and firing the whole team. I don't want to say much about that, but it was one of those titles that you had to click on because you're like what is this about? But you know, a multi-practice owner in California. She's got three soon to have four practices. Multi-practice owner, someone who's still practicing a mom and just doing it all. So please welcome back to the podcast, dr Rhonda Kalasho. Welcome back. How are you?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Thank you, paul. Thank you for having me. I'm great. I'm 16 days after having my third baby. Congratulations, so I'm pretty tired, but you caught me. I'm here at the office.

Paul Etchison:

Well, funny story for the listeners is that I texted Rhonda like last week and I said I really want to do an episode with you. And she's like well, you know what? I just had a baby and I'm looking to get back into it, so let's party. And we scheduled this way. Like three days later she was ready to go.

Paul Etchison:

So, like I love I've always like when I met you the first time, I was just blown away about your leadership and just your entrepreneurial, just prowess, just like how sure you were about what you wanted with your practice. And I won't give away much of the previous episode. But Rhonda essentially said I acquired a practice, I knew what I wanted, I had my team and I went in and I didn't want to do the old thing, I wanted to do things my way. So she was very clear on the vision and direction that she took it in. But before we talk about where you're at now, let's talk about your practice journey, like what brought you into the first practice and how did that turn into two and three and now soon to be four?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Yeah, absolutely. I actually knew I wanted to go into owning my own dental office. I just didn't think it was multi-practice and that's because my background was mostly business. That's not the story for a lot of people that come into dental school. I was very familiar with accounting and all that stuff too. So when I got out I had an idea I want to own my own practice. I just didn't know how and I turned to kind of podcasts and reading some material that had to do with not only owning a dental office but owning business.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Right, I pick up multiple books and even marketing books or whatever. It is just kind of getting my foot through the door on what it took to open up a business and all that. So I learned the trade and then when I got it after my residency, I actually went to work for a great office in Orange County. I loved it. I was going to buy that one, but I understood at the time that it was. Once I started to understand what value what gives a value to a practice I realized that that actually was not the place for me. But an acquisition came up. So an acquisition came up in Hollywood, california. I was connected with somebody that didn't want to practice dentistry anymore. She was just kind of beat up, tired, because this job is really not for everybody, but she had a good hygiene program so she had a lot of recalls that were in the chair but there was no dentistry. So that, if anybody knows, is a goldm right Like so there's a bunch of people coming in but nobody is doing the exams. I ended up getting that that for very affordable, owned that about a year after graduating from my residency program, which was a GPR, and that GPR was so heavily intense in surgery and endo and everything like that, so I came out being a very intense super GP. Also, I'm like a CE junkie too. I still continue to get all the CEs and I kind of mastered the craft in doing the more surgically intense and difficult procedures which really grew my patient pool. I didn't have to send out things or refer out a lot, which kept a lot of things in house.

Rhonda Kalasho:

And that acquisition, which was essentially almost a bankrupt practice, that acquisition ended up getting 10x in the first year and so it was incredible, really eye-opening experience for me too. And you mentioned in the beginning I fired everybody during an acquisition. You have an option of keeping the team or letting them go. I also had a vision, because I was telling you I was reading a lot of marketing books and I was reading business books and I knew exactly what the kind of feel I wanted in that office from the people to the smells, to everything in that, to the aesthetics. I knew what I wanted and when I went in there it wasn't there. So I had to just gut the place and then from there I thought my acquisition was kind of difficult.

Rhonda Kalasho:

It was a little bit of a difficult turn because a lot of times I found that the patients were a little bit turned off where they were so used to just kind of coming in for cleanings. And then when somebody would come in for an exam and that big amalgam filling that's leaking and the tooth is gray and has a crack and I'm taking a picture of it and diagnosing it, they're like who's this one, who's this lady? Like that's never been wrong with it the last 20 years, why not, you know? So I had to come in kind of on my tippy toes but still super confident. I explained everything really well to patients. I spent a lot of time with them so that they were able to understand.

Rhonda Kalasho:

The treatment showed intraoral photos, trained my staff really well, where everybody was kind of repeating the same thing and then patients would stay. But the attrition rate and then trying to kind of blend these people to fit your mold gets kind of hard right. So sometimes a build out is sometimes easier, but it's hard in other senses because you don't have the cashflow right away. So if you kind of can mitigate your cashflow to be sustainable for at least six months, a buildup is definitely something that you can do.

Paul Etchison:

Now, what you did when you took over this practice is you bought this patient base, which I think a lot of dentists can relate to, because a lot of people do acquisitions. But I'd love to hear your take on. How did you approach that situation when patients that have been seen by a previous doctor maybe watched a bunch of giant amalgams and now?

Paul Etchison:

here you are with a different treatment philosophy and you have to gain the trust of this person because you don't want to lose them, but at the same time you see some things in their mouth that you're really not comfortable watching, Like how do you walk that line?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Yeah, I think it comes down to your confidence and you're able to talk to them like people and they really see that you care. It's your ability to communicate and I really think that the best tool for a dentist if nobody has this, I think every chair should become equipped with it is an intraoral camera. The intraoral camera is a must, an absolute game changer, and if your monitor is not clear enough, like it looks kind of blurry. I've seen that too. I've gone to dental offices my friends of ours that they're like oh you know, I just kind of go in sometimes, and not as a consultant or anything, but they'll kind of express some issues and say, but I just want to see their setup, but the intraoral camera being connected to a low scale monitor that gives you blurry images is not going to help, right. So sometimes you want to get one of those I'm not saying like get an OLED, but you do want to get those high definition monitors. You can even get TB screens to attach and then get a mount and attach it to directly to your dental chair where it's like in the patient's face and they can see it. You don't have to get these little small monitors. Invest in like a 25 inch, like really get it pretty good so that when they're sitting up, have them sit up during their treatment, their treatment planning. Get them face to face with you so that they can see the sincerity on your face. Kind of pull your mask down and don't talk to them with your mask up. Sit face to face with them, have a good conversation before you delve into the dentistry, ask a little bit about them and just kind of relate to them on a personal level. But then you go into the treatment and also, how do you build the rapport? How do you make them feel like they're competent in you? Don't just go all right, mrs Jones, you got three or four cavities and I think we're getting new fillings on this and this and maybe a crown here and the front will take care of you If you have any questions. It's just all jargon to them.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Instead, what I would recommend first is do a comprehensive treatment plan. That means go over their medical history before you even talk about their dentistry and you should know what the different thyroid medications are. You should know the diabetic medications and all and being able to kind of ask them about their hypertensive medications. And then you're not diagnosing them. But just know, they now know, oh, I'm sitting across from a doctor, I'm not sitting across from the hygienist, right. So they now feel like, okay, now you got the white coat on, Now you got the white badge on, right.

Rhonda Kalasho:

So after that you can even start palpating for any lymph nodes or start clearing yourself there, check their TMJ, have them open and close and really get a external visual and understanding of them. Hopefully you have like a iTero, which is the 5D scanner or whatever 5D scan. Those are awesome to also display right behind you too, when you're talking about, maybe occlusion, because they're going to wonder why do I have cracks there? Maybe it's their occlusion and their grinding or parafunctional habits, whatever it may be. But the intraoral camera with the background that you just showed that you knew a lot more than just dentistry. You gave them a comprehensive understanding of themselves and you can always say I understand the dentist before. Maybe they didn't bring it up, but they might not have the tool. This is where it gets. It will sell you.

Rhonda Kalasho:

You want to say something like they might never dog that other dentist. That is the worst thing you could do. So now, that person just probably didn't know what they were looking at. No, it's just, I always say they probably didn't have the technology available that we have here. That shows them, one, you're modern. Two, that, yeah, the other pro-dentists are not dogging them, and that actually just show that, on a personal level, that you're even, how relatable you are, you know, they feel a little bit more comfortable and confident with you.

Rhonda Kalasho:

And then when you say that they probably didn't have the technology, they now think, huh, what else can you find? Right? But now you took a treatment plan that maybe somebody would have been like, well, crown here and a crown here. And now you've comprehensively treatment plan them where you fix their perio health. Then you can go into occlusion and you can go into restore. Of course you want to handle anything that's really bad first, like abscesses or pain or any of that, and then at the end you want to say I know this seems like a lot and you went to someone that basically told you you were good this whole time. And then I'm coming here. You got to say the obvious out loud. You're coming here probably thinking that, oh, she's diagnosing a lot, but just understand that they probably didn't have this technology and I'm seeing these cracks and it doesn't make me feel good to just leave it there, so I would recommend that you at least restore this. What you should do is not completely not diagnose things, diagnose it all, but then give.

Paul Etchison:

What I love what you said is that I think the doctors that often have trouble with this is they walk in, they meet a patient that's been seeing a previous doctor for many years and they don't really do anything different. They just look at it and say, well, I know they didn't say anything about this, but you've got this, this, this and this, and there's no evidence to support where you're saying like, hey, mr Jones, I don't want to tell you that you have this stuff, but I'm not comfortable watching it. Do that? You have this stuff, but I'm not comfortable watching it. Do you see this? Do you see what I have here? Look, look, and I love the technology thing. I use that all the time Whenever I see a patient.

Paul Etchison:

Well, why did my doctor say anything about it last time? And I say you know what? I don't know what it looked like last time, but all I'm saying is like these x-rays, the stuff we have here is state of the art. It talks up your own practice. I love that. I do something very similar to that. Now. Talk about you'd have this first acquisition, now your next few practices, your next three practices, startups. So why the pivot from acquisitions to startups going forward?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Yeah, I was kind of tired of that, the trying to unconvince someone of, oh, you only need two cleanings a year and it's only what insurance pays for, and they were conditioned. You can condition your patient pool and then it's also like I wanted to. I'm not entirely fee for service but my associates are in network, I am not right. So I also wanted to have a group of people who were okay of being out of network in the fees. Right. So because we have so many providers, you could still be in network with some providers, but out of network with mostly me. So when I wanted to go to my second location that one I wanted to make sure that it was spacious enough. A lot of the acquisitions they were like three or four chairs. I just didn't also find the right fit. So I wanted to make sure they had at least five to six chairs. And all of our locations are not super huge. They're all kind of boutique-y but at the same time they're not the cheapest, right. What I wanted to create as a brand for affordable luxury right. So it's affordable luxury.

Rhonda Kalasho:

You go to the dental office. It's concierge. There's somebody available to speak to 24 hours of the day. If you're having any problems, you can text directly and you reach somebody. He can call the office. So you'll reach someone in 24 hours of the day.

Rhonda Kalasho:

We have an answering service and then that gets to one of the main nurses that are the assistants that are on call for that day, and that is because we have a membership base. So we're also. We have membership options for patients too that are really competitive competitive almost with insurance. And how I was able to do that is I have my own laboratory right, and so with my own laboratory I'm able to kind of the costs become little bit more digestible, and insurance doesn't pay for veneers or Invisalign and if it does, it pays a percentage. With our membership fee we're able to include everything and give them almost in some cases 40% off UCR. But 40% off UCR is still more than insurance would have paid us.

Rhonda Kalasho:

So I think that's why I wanted a second location I didn't want to come up with. I buy a practice and the person's sitting in the chair and they were used to Dr So-and-so, and then I come in and I'm like hey, welcome to Trulo. It's like because it's a brand right. Imagine you were drinking Arrowhead water all the time and I'm coming in with sparkling Per Perrier. It's like that you're going to get sticker shocked. It's not what people came for, so I wanted people to come to me Right, and so that's what the build outs and the startups came from.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, you know, it's interesting is like, what I hear you saying is that you've put a lot of thought into like, what are the promises of the brand? Like, what is what does this brand stand for? What do we do? Or concierge, we're available all the time.

Paul Etchison:

So you've actually defined who you are, which is really cool, and I think a lot of dentists could benefit from doing so. You know they feel like, well, I'm, I'm not the boutique-y like spa-like that well, it doesn't matter. I mean, who are you then? I mean, even if you don't define who you are, your patients have a view of you and who you are. I'm curious to hear, like, how has your leadership changed from going to one to two, to three, to soon to four different locations?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Yeah, a year ago, when you talked to me, I had. A year ago I had two and then I built two in about a year and a half, so it's pretty fast.

Paul Etchison:

How do you manage all that as well as like having your third child, like being a mom at the same time?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, I really caution people who romanticize owning a business and also being a mom. They're two of the most difficult jobs is motherhood and being an entrepreneur right? Because you're responsible for so many lives, not only your own, but as an entrepreneur, you're responsible for all your employees, not only your own, but as an entrepreneur, you're responsible for all your employees and their children. So you have a lot of responsibility and that's a lot of stress for a lot of people. And so if you don't have a lot of mindfulness, you're not mindfully secure, you know, like mentally secure and being able to really find joy in the chaos, because that's what it is.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Then it gets really stressful and it can be kind of a lonely world as well, because a lot of people can't relate to you completely. They'll wonder like, especially for me, I get who's watching your kid? And there's a really funny skit of she's a. She's a comedian. I had it on my Instagram but she was. She was like, well, the TV is watching the baby. But you know, luckily I have help. I have my mom and my mother-in-law and then I have a nanny, you know.

Rhonda Kalasho:

So it's all delegation. Even in your work life you delegate and in your private life, you should delegate. You shouldn't hold so much weight on your shoulders. But don't be surprised when the weight gets super heavy, because it does. It gets really, really hard and I think a lot of my strength comes because and it could be anything but I meditate a lot, but I'm religious, so, like I do pray a lot, so that does help. I feel like I get a lot of divinity through that and divine intervention. Sometimes it feels like I feel like I have somebody on my side and that, whatever that is, it's really important. Whatever you can find, if it's religion or if it's someone around you, Like I love podcasts like this because you can talk to people who are in the same.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Some people may think like it's all glamorous, right, and they'll say, oh, wow, she's got multiple practices, she looks so pretty and healthy and alive on Instagram, but they don't know that there is a lot of times where they're sleepless nights. There is a lot of stress. You're battling cashflow issues and you're talking to your CFO and trying to mitigate the next couple of months and you're trying to find out how much you're gonna spend on marketing in this location. This location spent too much. This one's too low. You're looking at your KPIs. You're looking at your KPIs. You're constantly studying your numbers and making sure that you are playing 40 chess with all your practices. You want to make sure that you know exactly what's going to happen in the next six months, because if you don't, you're not going to have a problem in your life. All these people that depend on you are going to have an issue. So there's so much stress that's involved in the field.

Rhonda Kalasho:

But I like it. So I really do like it. I love dentistry. I love it. I think it's artistic, I think it's medicine and art and science all meshed into one.

Rhonda Kalasho:

When you do these beautiful restorative cases and, like I said, I have my own laboratory so I know dental materials really well when you can pull off these beautiful aesthetic cases without having to cut down too much tooth structure but they're very sound, very, very beautiful and layered and cosmetic and you got that and the patient's super happy, your staff is super happy because they have a job and people like them, the patients feel good, they feel good and you just kind of you create this environment around you that's positive, then you start to really feel good about what you're doing, when you're wearing all these hats the mommy hat, the entrepreneur hat you can't try to balance them all in one head because one of them is going to fall off right.

Rhonda Kalasho:

When you're wearing your mommy hat, you wear it complete. So that means don't pick up the phone for work and all that kind of stuff and don't do a hundred other things while you're with your kids. Your kids should just be. You set aside time for just your children and just for your husband, and you set aside time just for them, and then when you're at work, you're a hundred percent at work, right, and so you have to give yourself you gotta give everybody 110%, which gets really hard. But at the same time, understand that the way that you come in to present yourself, if you are presenting yourself just a little bit slower, more mindful, more collected and ready to problem solve, you're going to notice there's going to be a change in the atmosphere around you.

Paul Etchison:

I love that analogy. Yeah, you know I'm curious. I mean you mentioned that you've delegated a little bit on the home front with. I mean you've got help with your mother-in-law and your mom and a nanny as well. Do you have that person on the business front? I mean you've got almost four practices.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. How does?

Paul Etchison:

that look like for your leadership team for running the businesses.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Yep. So for leadership, we're really highly into making sure that we understand the person's personality, like if they are a extrovert, then they would be good in post-op calls right, post-op calls how are you? You had an extraction yesterday. We're just making sure that you're doing okay, you're taking all your medication. They're talking to them, they're on the up and up Anytime we do any invasive procedures, we do post-op calls for them and sometimes a doctor can also pick that up too. But we really like that. We think that that's been really helpful.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Patients appreciate it as well when it comes to, for instance, the manager. The manager is a leader. They are not introverts. They are also not too social, like you know. They don't want to be everybody's friend, but at the same time they don't make enemies. So we use something called culture index, which is a personality, but called culture index, which is a personality, but it's a personalized test, but not really it's a job behavior, it's for job behavior, and then, when they are they fit the kind of characteristics you want for a particular job.

Rhonda Kalasho:

You put them in that role and then that's how you delegate appropriately, because you can delegate.

Rhonda Kalasho:

But you can delegate something to someone and it will never get done, because they're not meant for that. You're going to be, even if it's something as small as I'm delegating you to clean the entire storage cabinet. But that person is sluggish, not really organized you should probably see their own bedrooms. It's probably not that clean, right? So, like you want to make sure that the person that you're choosing to organize is organized right, so like they have to exactly do what you're expecting of them. They're going to be more happy, you're going to be happy, but at the same time, they also are going to feel fulfilled in their job, because a lot of job fulfillment comes from feeling as though their personal attributes are being displayed appropriately at work. So you get some people who are really logical or some people who are really creative, but they're in the back sterilizing. You know they may be better for lead positions and you just may not know that. And if you didn't test that out, yeah, so I love you.

Paul Etchison:

using the personality test it reminds me of, dr Henry Ernst is a DPH coach and a regular on the podcast and that's something that he very much does, and I forget which one he does it might have been Colby or something like that yeah, but he talks about that often and he says it's been a game changer for his practice. Now I'm curious if you've got any listeners and they're listening to you and they're saying I'm just curious, what specific challenges have you felt as far as leading a large team as a female and have you had to approach anything different? Because this is something I often hear with my coaching clients. A lot of them are female and they'll ask me like, well, how do I do that as a female, and sometimes I don't think I have the best answer for them. So I'm curious, like, what you think about a big team and any specific challenges to female leadership?

Rhonda Kalasho:

I know that men have been deemed the non-communicative ones, but I don't think that's always the case. I noticed that, also, females like to bottle things up, especially the ones that are in the leadership position. They don't like when someone does something and then they're like I just don't want to. They're too afraid to bring up something that they've seen that they don't like, right. They don't know how to do it, they don't know how to go about it, and then they get. They almost become introverted in their own little niche, and they shouldn't, because they are. They're big kahunas, right. So if something is not happening that you want to see done in your practice and it is not being done, you have to bring it up immediately, right? And it's something like this Like, let's say that I'll give you a example the office manager is a little too lenient on people coming in late, right, and by late I mean if you're not five minutes before schedule, you're late, right, like.

Rhonda Kalasho:

So if they are always late, they're coming past the time. You're already in huddle and people are kind of running in with their Starbucks cup and they're throwing things down and you're noticing that manager is not reprimanding that or in being too lenient on that that is something where you have to now question your manager's role. So a manager needs to call out stuff like that. They need to hold people accountable. You should not feel that you are the person that has to talk to them. See, if you're the leader and you're the owner, you don't tell the dental assistant hey, you're always late, that's not your job. That's where delegation comes through, and so communicate that to your office manager. Hey, I need you to be on top of your team, because if one person comes in late and that person gets the A-OK, then another person comes in late. We've set a precedent that it's okay to roll in five minutes into the huddle and they've missed everything, right.

Rhonda Kalasho:

And then you reiterate what was important about the huddle. The huddle talked about pending treatment that was there that has yet to be had by those patients. It talked about deductibles that a patient may owe, or if they have another cleaning, or if they have a waiting period or whatever it is. And now that person doesn't know. And then the way that you should communicate that to your office manager is you make them feel like they gave themselves more work because you're going to say now you have to explain it to the dental assistant, pass your time and you got a lot of things to do and always ask them.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Do you feel like that degrades you a little bit? Do you think that they're taking advantage of you? Always ask them. So how do you want to fix that? That's how a leader talks. You let them do the work. Don't ever dictate anything, don't tell them. I want you to fire them, I want you to give them a warning. I want you to don't do any of that. And then you gave them more feeling like they have more of a say in your practice. They now feel like leaders because you gave them a leadership role. And now you have also a companion, because that's really hard to find someone that you can also run your team with. If you feel like you're the only person that's telling everyone what to do, that world is lonely and inefficient.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, very much and I love, like what I heard you say was that, dr Rhonda?

Paul Etchison:

It is important to Dr Rhonda that people come in on time and myself, as the office manager, that's my responsibility to make sure that they do it. And I think what we often do is we let things slide, like you say, and then more people do it, and then one day we decide I'm not going to tolerate this anymore and we go say, hey, you show up late all the time and they say well, so does someone else, you never yelled on one other and now we're inconsistent. But I love that you brought that up because I think that's a lot of times me personally. I've noticed that with myself that the situations that have got to big, colossal proportions at the office like big things where there's a lot of emotions riding on the situation, the conversation were always things that I didn't address when they were very small and they are always things that I just cared about, just not enough to say anything, but enough to say anything after it's happened so many times, because I just expect that everybody has the same expectations as me and it's not the case.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Being a leader is. It's all about communication. I almost feel like my job at this point in my career is I manage people. I manage human beings. That's all I do. It's like I have a chess board of humans and I'm moving them Like okay, this one goes here now. But it's not even that I'm moving them myself. I'm whispering and I'm telling where do you think you should go?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Go to space of the head, because if you allow people some autonomy, you'd be surprised you get a really good turnout of people. They feel more fulfilled in their job too. Also, I should mention, like sometimes when you see even an employee so I make every little win for somebody a big deal, that's another thing. So like the office gets two five-star reviews in one week, and maybe that's not something you guys get right. Like maybe you guys get one five-star reviews in one week, and maybe that's not something you guys get right. Like maybe you guys get one five-star review every like three weeks, I don't know. Or like hey guys, you did so awesome.

Rhonda Kalasho:

I can't believe that you guys have five five-star reviews, and it's only you know, it's only Thursday. That's insane. I'm going to send you guys lunch. You do stuff like that that's super, super important. It builds office culture and office culture is felt everywhere. Even the patient feels office culture. So people are happy, satisfied, smiling, giggling Dentists are not passing by each other's in the hall. They look like they don't want to be there and everybody's just positive. Patients feel it too.

Paul Etchison:

Love it, you know. Final question is what do you see for yourself in the future and what do you see for really true Globe, Modern Dental, Like I mean, are you guys going to certain amount of locations Like what do you want?

Rhonda Kalasho:

Yeah, I'd like to open a couple more locations. One of my really good friends asked me he has a great podcast too but he was like how many do you want? I? Honestly, at one point I said I wanted 10, but I think it's getting to be, because if I want all of them to be five stars and I want them all to be like this, it's very hard to find the people. So the biggest thing and I know this is true for everybody it's hard to find good employees and so I have to keep that level. I have to replicate it every single time.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Once Starbucks opens, it's like 50th location. They're not all five stars anymore, right, and so there becomes a point where it gets really difficult to manage that and maintain that. So if I wanted to create that affordable luxury unfortunately it's not going to be 50, right, it's going to probably be less than 10, but I'm thinking more along the lines of about six so I think two more after this should be good. I just want to build out my brand, provide great dentistry, have amazing staff that love working here and love what they do. Hopefully they stay for a long time. We incentivize them enough to maybe stay around, and you know, I don't have a lot of turnover. I get good practices that are well-rated and well-respected and then I can die happy. Yeah, I get good practices that are well-rated and well-respected and then I can die happy.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, no, I love that, and I think it's perfect to have a good idea of what is enough, because I think a lot of us do go into it like, oh, I want 10, I want 20. But gosh, you know what? Thanks so much for coming back on the podcast. Congrats to you having another child.

Paul Etchison:

Thank you so much and being able to juggle it all and just be a good just, you know, a representative of what we really can aspire to and so many dentists can aspire to, not so much just like more and more business, but finding exactly what it is that is the right amount for you and your comfort level, while still managing family and the things that light you up and make you happy. So I think this was a really great episode for all the listeners and for management and just. I love hearing you. I'd love to get you on the podcast again, maybe a year from now, and just check in, but thanks again for coming on.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Then that time I'll probably be on the fifth one.

Paul Etchison:

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Rhonda Kalasho:

We'll see.

Paul Etchison:

Thank you so much, Rhonda.

Rhonda Kalasho:

Okay, my dear, thank you so much.

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Dr. Paul Etchison

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