Hello and welcome to season two of Dentistry Support the Podcast with your host, the kindhearted and infectious Sarah Beth Herman. We're back for a new season and ready to pack a punch. In every episode, we'll be sharing you quick, impactful insights into the challenges our dental community and leaders in all industries face.

Expect a little bit of flair, a few laughs, and you might even recognize a friend or two. Because of you, we are the number one podcast in dentistry and number one in management and business, and we couldn't be more excited. To keep bringing you practical wisdom and leadership with a servant's heart all delivered in just enough time for your commute or morning team huddle.

We are glad you're here, so let's get into it. Please welcome your host, Sarah Beth,  

what if I told you I started working in dentistry when I was 17 years old? At the time, I was waiting tables at a local restaurant. I worked at a bank.  I was in cosmetology school and high school. On Tuesday nights, I took college courses at a local community college.

I started out filing claims in the back of a dental office with no formal training, no clear path forward,  and somehow I ended up building a company that has supported hundreds of dental practices.  and has now employed over 600 people across the world.  We service hundreds of thousands of patients every month. 

I'm Sarah Beth Herman, and this is the founding story of Dentistry Support. My journey wasn't neat and easy or from a really strong bloodline.  There were no shortcuts, and it was anything but glamorous. But that's the part that people don't talk about. The messy, imperfect journey that shapes your success.

The setbacks. The frustrations. The moments that make you want to give up. They all become the stepping stones that push you forward. I didn't have that clear defined path that I was going to be in dentistry forever. But what I did have was experience, doubt, frustration, from working in dental offices from Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee, Arizona, California, and Washington, absorbing everything I could.

Working in DSOs, private practices, private practices that went to a DSO, management companies.  And before I ever dreamt of doing something on my own, I worked hard in the trenches, doing the kind of work that most people didn't want to talk about or didn't want to do in a dental office. It was real for me.

Maya Angelou once said, You may not control all of the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. That quote stuck with me year after year. My journey could have easily reduced me, but I refused to let it. Every challenge, every frustration, every doubt, I used them to fuel something bigger.

When I first entered the dental field, or the dental industry,  I wasn't handed a leadership position. I wasn't in charge. I was just a girl filing insurance claims in the back of a dental office, trying to make sense of what all of that even meant.  I was juggling those two other jobs and attending school.

Dentistry wasn't my priority back then. It wasn't even a part of my plan. In fact, I was in cosmetology school working at a bank and waiting tables. I was a teenager doing what any teenagers do. I was taking opportunities as they came. Without really knowing what they might lead to, I got my first dental job thanks to a friend who worked with me at TGI Fridays.

She told me, hey, the dental office I work at is needing someone to work part time and they need help in the billing area. Do you want to give it a try?  And I thought, hey, why not? I didn't even know what to wear and I didn't even know what billing was.  She said, just get a set of scrubs from Walmart and show up on Monday.

And I thought, that's kind of cool. I kind of want to wear scrubs.  I remember showing up for the interview,  the office was old, they had film x rays still, and they had that like musty dated smell that older dental practices sometimes have. The interview lasted a whole five minutes.  I was told I could start the next day.

And little did I know, this small, seemingly insignificant job Would change the course of my entire life. You see, I didn't take that job because I needed the money.  I was working there to help my family back home. My mom, who lived in Colorado while I lived in Illinois with my dad, was struggling. She had been through a lot of hard times, including addiction, and my family lived in extreme poverty.

At the time that I started at this dental office, I worked at the bank and direct deposit was a very new thing. I remember that because we were incentivizing people at the bank to set up direct deposit and they could get a 5 bonus in their account if they set it up. Or they could choose a free gift in the bank.

This particular dental office allowed direct deposit, and I sent all of the money that I made every two weeks back home. I actually never saw one paycheck from this dental office. It all went to my mom.  Just thinking back of who I was at that time, 17 years old, and choosing to do that,  that was such a big thing, and I, in many ways, I want to tell myself, good job.

That's pretty cool.  I worked at that dental practice for nearly a year before I relocated back to Colorado.  But that year shaped me in a lot of ways I couldn't have predicted.  I did finish cosmetology school, I received my associate's degree in business administration, I graduated high school, I left the bank, and I relocated, working four TGI Fridays, to Colorado,  and then I obviously left the dental office. 

While I worked at that dental office, I did everything from the billing to answering phones, bringing patients back, filing charts, all the things.  Dental offices are chaotic, and for many reasons, leadership, training gaps, lack of systems. It wasn't just this office that I happened to work for for that year.

I saw the same disorganization across multiple states, multiple practices, and every time I always thought there has to be a better way. And I'll tell you, at 17, when I started in the industry, I didn't think I was going to start a business. I didn't even think I was going to stay in dentistry. I thought I was going to open a hair salon, which actually I eventually did in my 20s.

But the more I worked in the dental industry, the more I realized the inefficiencies and the problems weren't unique to one state or one practice. They were everywhere. And that's when I think my wheels started turning to head towards leadership. Over the years, I worked in various dental environments, private practices, DSOs, multi location offices.

Dental management companies, each one teaching me something new. Before I was even 25, I had gained an incredible range of experience, but at the time I wasn't thinking this is going to be my future business. I was just trying to do really good work, to help offices run smoothly, to figure out better processes for the chaos that I always saw every time I worked for a dental office.

Little did I know all of those years of experience were laying the foundation for what would become dentistry support. I was building something in my mind, a solution, a process. But I didn't know it yet.  And that's the thing. Success doesn't come with a roadmap. It comes from showing up every day, learning and pushing through the frustration, even when you don't see the bigger picture.

For years, the idea of creating something bigger was slowly building inside of me. I just didn't know it yet, but every experience, every job, every position, every challenge, it was shaping the company that I would one day build. And that's where the story really begins.  Before I get into a defining moment that happened in 2014, there's something important you should know. 

Throughout my career, I have always been driven by the desire to advance. I know I talked about that very briefly.  I just wanted to step into leadership roles where I could implement new ideas. I never set out to own a dental practice or run a business, it wasn't even on my radar.  But what I did know was that I wanted to keep growing, to keep finding ways to make things better. 

I wasn't afraid of change, in fact, I embraced it.  All of these different offices that I worked in and these groups, I was always looking for the next opportunity. Whether it was a better role, more responsibility, or higher pay, I was ready to take the leap. My husband and I made agreements very, very early on in our marriage that We would go wherever opportunity was.

We wouldn't be afraid to move states, switch houses.  Yes, that instability was a little bit tough on our family at times, and we miss different people, but I have friends all over the U. S., all over the world now, and it's because I never said no to opportunity. Leadership was always so important to me, and I had a vision for how things could be done better, and I always wanted to be in a position where I could make a true impact, and I wasn't afraid to go wherever opportunity was.

In  2014, everything changed for me.  I remember driving home from Walmart, getting groceries.  I was in a 10 year old car that I still paid almost 500 a month for. I had a 30 percent interest rate, terrible credit, terrible financial planning, terrible finances. All of it was terrible.  I had been thinking about the issues that I'd seen in dental offices for years, lack of support, disorganization, frustration,  and right there it hit me, a company called Dentistry Support.

Great.  It was simple,  but it was perfectly capturing exactly what I wanted to do,  offer the kind of support dental offices hadn't experienced before.  I called my husband right away, excited but kinda nervous wondering what he would think.  Those doubts, they always creep in, you know? How was I going to make it work?

I didn't know enough dentists. I didn't have a dental client base. I wasn't part of any insider circles in the industry. I always moved state to state getting a better job, a better position, having more authority, going where the money was so that my family could survive.  I wasn't building a network for myself, or so I thought. 

I just knew one thing.  I knew that this was my moment to take a leap of faith.  So I launched Dentistry Support as a staffing agency. Dentistry Support  It actually was under a different name when we designed the staffing agency because I thought, you know what, I want to do dental staffing, but I also want to offer staffing for any industry because I think I could do this for everyone.

But I always held on to the name Dentistry Support. I went and got the website right away. I was figuring all the things out so I could have it.  I was thinking we would help dental offices fill staffing gaps and every industry fill staffing gaps. But as we worked with more practices, it quickly became clear that staffing wasn't the problem.

I mean, yes, staffing was the problem. But the true bottlenecks were insurance eligibility, billing, and phones. And no matter how I would staff these offices, The people that I was staffing them with were causing more of a problem than anything. They were just warm bodies in a chair. They were preventing the offices from actually focusing on the patient experience and that bothered me.

That was driving me crazy because the whole reason I wanted to support offices was to support dentistry, support the industry, but instead, even though I was giving them a warm body, it wasn't helping the industry. So I pivoted.  I expanded in those areas. But not before pausing for a few years  and having just a couple of clients,  having a couple really big positions,  and then all of it coming crashing down. 

In the early days of Dentistry Support, it wasn't just me building it. I had my family right by my side.  My daughter, who was only 11 years old when we first created the business, played a huge role in our very first few years. She was homeschooled, and my husband and I thought Why not teach her a few things about marketing and entrepreneurship? 

So we had her work our social media, and she worked our email campaigns.  For every client she landed, we gave her 25.  I'll never forget when she landed us our very first client.  That client is still with us today.  Watching her step into that role and learning how to communicate with businesses, with dental practices, with dentists, with professionals, and seeing her determination was incredible.

It really felt like a family business. I remember her sitting on the floor with her iPad, and she would literally be sending off emails, copy and paste, copy and paste.  Seeing her determination was wild. It was just, it was insane. It was like she was ready to go, and she was so young.  We were a small little business, but we were mighty, right? 

That client marked the beginning of what would become our core service, insurance eligibility. At that time, I didn't know how to integrate virtual billing services or virtual phones. Or any of the back office services remotely. But I could figure out eligibility and I knew that that's where most offices struggled.

So that's where we started. As the business began to grow, a major opportunity presented itself to me. So I thought, you know what, maybe I'm supposed to close the doors. I was offered a position as a C suite member of a dental group based out of Beverly Hills, California.  We were living in Arizona, but they offered to relocate us with a six figure salary, more than my family had ever made.

It was life changing.  The move was exciting. I learned more in that role than I could have ever imagined. I learned how to manage people virtually, how to build systems, how to create infrastructures that would later transform my own business.  But like most things, the honeymoon phase didn't last.  And after about six months, I joined another group as their chief operating officer. 

That was incredible. I found more inefficiencies in that group than I'd ever found in any dental business ever.  It was a great move for me to go from one to the other because I felt like I had more alignment.  After just three months, that group fired me. And to this day, I believe it was because I showed them too much.

Too many of their inefficiencies. Too many ways they needed to improve. And I wasn't just pointing out problems, I was actually fixing them.  I was hiring people for a fraction of what they were paying me, and I think that scared them.  I gave them everything, real solutions, real results, and suddenly I was out. 

They gave me two weeks of severance, and I remember driving home in a daze. I paid rent for a home in California that was more than anyone in my family had ever paid.  I did not know how we were going to make it.  My expenses were five figures a month.  No one in my family was going to be able to come and save me. 

I drove home from being terminated. I remember the elevator ride down to the first floor in LA.  I called my husband and I broke down in his arms when I got home. I remember saying, when I get there, I need you to meet me in the garage  and he said, is everything okay? I said, yeah, everything's fine. Just meet me in the garage.

so much.  I'll never forget how he just held me. He didn't seem angry or upset. He was just there, supporting me, holding me, as I was literally falling apart.  It took me 20 minutes that day to realize I wasn't done. Dentistry support wasn't done.  Over the next six weeks, I hit the ground running. I drove back and forth a six hour drive, meeting dental offices and owners.

And various consultants in dentistry. Week after week, I would stay for three days and drive back. I had a credit card with a 500 limit on it.  I would max out that credit card booking hotel rooms and pay it off as soon as somebody would pay me.  I remember that I would work 22 hour days, and when I say 22 hour days, I really mean I worked 22 hours.

I would sleep for three hours. Because I had met someone in my early 20s that told me that the human brain only needed to sleep for three and a half hours and so I somehow tricked my brain into believing that was true. The 22 hours a day that I was awake, I would build SOPs, I would build training modules, I would be hiring people, I was building out my brand. 

I had a team member overseas and I said, I can't pay you very much right now, I can't pay you very much right now. But what I need you to do is have faith in me. I need you to trust me that I can do this and that I'm gonna take this huge and I'm gonna help make all of your dreams come true if you can just stick this out. 

And she did.  And after six weeks, I had rebuilt Dentistry Support from the ground up and I turned it into a multi million dollar brand.  Here's the part they don't tell you about running a business and deciding to leave corporate America.  Growth doesn't come without sacrifices.  I had to make some of the hardest decisions along the way. 

One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make was firing my first C suite member.  Someone I had to build the company with.  Someone that  wasn't just a business decision to move on from, it was personal.  That was earlier this year. I had to fire someone who had been with me since the beginning, before I even started dentistry support. 

Friends,  I cared so much about her,  but as my company grew, it became clear that her performance wasn't keeping up at a pace where we were heading. It just wasn't. I tried everything I could to help her improve, offering feedback, providing training. Nothing worked. Letting her go was painful. But I realized that as a leader, my responsibility is to the company and the team.

Even when the decisions feel really personal, I have to keep going.  Leadership isn't just about celebrating wins, but it's also about making the tough calls that keep the business moving forward.  Dentistry support was only the beginning for me.  Once we built systems that worked and I realized those systems could be applied to other areas,  things changed. 

Today, I've grown from that one company and to five and a sixth on the way right now.  Every business was built on the same foundation, integrity, efficiency, and solving real problems.  All of the companies I have right now,  they are for the industries.  I've created a dental school, expanding into education and medical billing.

I launched mentoring programs for dental practices and businesses of any industry, all designed to serve them in the most comprehensive ways possible. And through all of it, our focus has remained the same, helping businesses run smoothly, reducing their bottom line so they can focus on what matters most, their patients, their customers, their clients. 

I didn't start at the top.  I started as a 17 year old filing claims in the back of a dental office.  Filing charts when the claims were done,  checking patients in, filling the schedule. I worked in offices across six different states and three different branches of how you can run dentistry. I learned everything I could about every single sector in dentistry.

I learned everything I could about everything in the industry, and I built dentistry support out of sheer determination. And if there is one thing I want you to take away from this, is that every single obstacle, every single doubt, every single fear, it was part of the process.  I didn't know how I would ever get my first client.

I didn't know if this would ever work out. But I trusted my journey and I trusted opportunity and I trusted opportunities that existed far beyond what I could see right in front of me. And it led to something bigger than I could have ever imagined. And for me, that's our that's good moment today.  I want to thank you for being here and hearing this story about this business. 

I hope that my story reminds you that no matter where you are, every step in your journey has value.  If you need resources, support, or just a little bit of inspiration, I want you to check the show notes.  I have a lot of communities that exist online and they're free.  When I tell you that working in dentistry  meant that I was for the industry,  what I mean by that is that I'm not all about the money. 

Yeah, my businesses are for profit and they need to continue to be that way so that I can exist and live and provide for my family.  But when I say that I'm for the industry,  I don't just say it, I prove it.  I have a completely free training platform on my website, DentistrySupport. com forward slash free training. 

If you're in dentistry and you need help, head there.  Go use the free resources that exist.  I have a completely free group on Facebook and LinkedIn.  They're called the Dental Collaborative,  a free place for you to post job ads, post Bounce ideas off of other people in the industry, ask questions, take polls, engage with people that just want to learn together.

No cost, no strings attached. You just get to be there.  This podcast, it's free for you. Listen, learn, enjoy it. Ask me questions. You can literally text me in the show notes. Send me a text. Let's chat.  I'm living out my mission right now. And I'll tell you this, it is not easy every day. I make mistakes all the time.

I am not the best leader. I don't do all the perfect things. I haven't been perfect to every client. But I'll tell you that I'm not striving for perfection. What I'm striving for is impact. And I want to make an impact on this industry, and I will continue to do so. Leadership isn't about having all the answers. 

Having a business isn't about always being profitable every second of every day, but leadership and having a business is about having the courage to keep going. Even when you don't want to, even when you can't, even when you feel like the whole world is falling apart, have the courage to keep going.

Until next time, I want you to keep leading with purpose and integrity  and recognize that you were meant for all of this exactly where you are right now.  If you would like to know more information. about my companies. You can check the show notes and visit my website and check out my bio. I'm happy to share that information with you.

And if not, and you just want to connect with me with this podcast, I'd love that too. Until next time, I'll catch you on the next episode. 

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Dennis Minute. Dentistry Support, the podcast. If you want to get in on the conversation or have something to share, join us on our Facebook group, The Dental Collaborative.

Looking to connect or to be a guest? Head over to DentistrySupport.  com. Or if you'd like to learn more about your host, Sarah Beth, or maybe you're thinking of starting your own podcast or looking for mentorship opportunities, well, just visit SarahBethHerman. com. If you've got just a sec, remember to rate, subscribe, and leave a review for the podcast.

That helps us keep growing. Thanks for supporting the show, and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of Dentistry Support the Podcast.