Episode 415: Building a Practice and Team That Set You Free with Jack Von Bulow

Angie: Welcome to Less Insurance Dependence Podcast. I’m your host, Angie. And this show is dedicated to helping dental professionals build stronger, more profitable practices with less reliance on insurance. There comes a point in many dentists’ careers where success on paper does not necessarily feel like success anymore. The practice may be busy, the schedule may be full, but somewhere along the way, the joy can disappear. So today we’re talking about how to find it again. I’m joined by Dr. Jack Von Bulow, founder of Temple City Dental Care and co-founder of the Impact Dental Assisting Academy. Jack practiced restorative dentistry for 46 years after founding his practice in 1976, and today he continues helping develop the next generation of dental professionals through hands-on education and mentorship. This episode is brought to you by Ekwa Marketing. Jack, welcome to the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast. It’s great to have you here.

Jack Von Bulow: Oh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Angie: All right, let’s get into it. Now, Jack, you practiced dentistry for 46 years. Let me say that again, 46 years. And you said that you didn’t really find the joy until about 20 years into your career. What changed?

Jack Von Bulow: Well, what changed was basically, that’s such a span of time. First 20 years, dentistry really didn’t change a lot. And coming out of dental school, we really don’t have training as far as business training goes, as far as communication systems, stuff like that. And so between, I would put it this way, as far as the materials we had, if I could do something that really looked lifelike in someone’s mouth with the materials we had and the way we went about it, I had the Pope on a hotline because I would have him come over and declare an amazing result, a miracle. And so that was part of it. It was like there weren’t that many things that were really all that gratifying. What I found gratifying was just actually working with people. And after 20 years, there are some things that happened.

Jack Von Bulow: We had somebody, I had experience, Boot Camp, where it was an organization founded by Walter Hailey, who happened to have three businesses go public. He’s a multimillionaire. He started out as a little guy who never got picked in school. He was the kid who was left out. He read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and he wound up buying the insurance company where he started out as the low man on the totem pole. And his two partners were owners of NFL football teams, the Houston Oilers and the Dallas Cowboys. So he created a CEO boot camp, and on one fine day, a dentist attended, and he looked at the dentist and said, now you really need my help. Because we really didn’t have any of that going on, the limitation of materials. I started out thinking, man, I’m gonna go 20 in and 20 out, then I’m gonna spend the rest of my life on the Amalfi Coast.

Jack Von Bulow: Maybe I’ll come back to California for college football. It didn’t work out that way. I really wasn’t happy with the first 20 years, but I was carrying around all kinds of guilt because my parents had sacrificed so that I could have the education, and my mom’s full-blooded Sicilian. And I go, man, if I quit, they’ll never find me. And it just wasn’t in me. But then the thing that turned things around, the materials changed. That experience changed. Walter Hailey had an expression where, dentists come in, and you guys need to have a ten on your forehead in order to attract people, as team and patients, who are tens, who are gonna be great. And so we just needed, he understood that, and it really struck home. So for that, that was a big deal for me. I actually left Los Angeles County for continuing education for the very first time, first time after 20 years in practice. And then we never stopped. We went all over the place and learned from the best, and learned to find the joy in the process.

Angie: Now, once you found that sense of joy, what changed first? Was it the way you led the team, or the way you treated patients, or the way you thought about yourself as a dentist?

Jack Von Bulow: You know, we kind of started where it would’ve made sense to start 20 years earlier. We found out, what is our purpose? What is our purpose? What are our core values? What are systems that we can use? When we started, after 20 years, but then we never finished, because I think it’s a continuing process, a continuing journey, and you have different people join in on the journey, to hop on the bus with you. And it was just that understanding, even something as simple as having a personality profile, like the DISC system, to go by so that you could deliver information the way the person in front of you best received it. And that’s kind of fun, just to figure that out. And it was like, when you have, I mean, we started in 1996. I took two people with me to Canmore, Canada, and basically by the time I finished, I had an associate, 12 employees.

Jack Von Bulow: And so things just grew as a result of that experience. But it was just an awareness that wasn’t there. And it was something where we looked for people who were a fit. And I mean, when I started interviewing people, when we came back from that trip, we had a, it was me, after 20 years, it was me, my office manager, a dental assistant, and we were just starting with a hygienist. That’s how we were. It was like Neanderthal. And then from that point, everything changed. And it was just understanding, I’ve always loved people. I was blessed to have good people to start with. But then we found out a way, that that’s what’s important to people coming in for care as well, to feel as though they’re welcome, to feel comfortable, to feel safe, to know that people actually care about them and like them. So it seems like simple stuff now. But back then it was like, oh, you mean there are systems to help us do that? So that was kind of the main thing, I think.

Angie: That’s really, really interesting, because I think a lot of dentists may recognize themselves in that story. They may have built what looks like a successful practice, but they’re exhausted, they’re frustrated, or simply not enjoying that work anymore. So this brings us to the bigger question. Why do so many practices lose that joy long before 20 years pass?

Jack Von Bulow: You know what, I don’t know. It’s ironic. That’s when I discovered it. I mean, I always found the joy in interacting with people and doing the best that I could, and helping them feel comfortable or calm about things, and really working hard to make their experiences as pleasant as they could be. But I think that we get so focused on the numbers, especially these days. I mean, I can’t even imagine a kid coming out of dental school $500,000 in the hole, and then if he wants to start a dental practice, he’s now a million dollars in the hole. And so, I don’t know, if I was a million in the red starting out, I’d be hard-pressed to find the joy as well. So I think that’s for people now. I think for dentists too, they’re in it for 20 years, they’re happy, and then they burn out.

Jack Von Bulow: I think you just have to look for, Walter Hailey had, what you’re looking for is looking for you. Look for what you want. So basically, we were excited about traveling places to go to learn. So we traveled all over the country, and my team was part of the adventure. And we also found ways to recognize people. It became way more people-related than numbers-related. And the numbers seemed to take care of themselves. If you are having a good time, we wound up having the entire building, but when I started, we were on one half. There was another dentist on the other half. And when he finally left, we took over the building, and then the patients that were his would come see us now, and they’d go, I always wondered what was going on on the other side, because it sounded like you guys were having a party over there.

Jack Von Bulow: And it was just that we had such great energy. It was a great fit. We really worked at it. We worked as hard on the people aspect, did clinically. Clinically, we went all over the country and learned from the best, did the whole Kois continuum. And he’s, in my eyes, the top restorative educator in North America at least. And I would come back, and for instance, everybody in my office had migraine headaches. I never had ’em. I go, I must be a carrier or something like that, because we would learn, and then we would take the occlusion course and we would make the deprogrammers. And what I would do is, basically they would get the deprogrammer, they felt better, right? Just learning addressed one of their major concerns. I’ve never had one of those, but I can’t imagine, just by being a spectator, how debilitating it is to have that issue.

Jack Von Bulow: We started, I signed up for Invisalign, could do it, American Academy of Clear Aligners, and they’re the top Invisalign producers in North America. And the first thing I did is, my whole team, hey, it’s on me. You guys are getting Invisalign if you want it. We celebrated our successes. A lot of my team members were with me a long time. I mean, I had two fantastic dental assistants who were with me for 20 years. My first office manager was there for me for about 25 years. Second one was there for 20. I think one of our core values, the number one, was family. And that was kind of what we were all looking for. And so the whole process of having core values and understanding different personalities and acknowledging people when they did well, instead of, and telling the world about it, it also helped that I write for local papers. I’ve written for, since 1998, and I would let everyone know how great a team I had.

Jack Von Bulow: And it’s like when people are really super appreciated, it’s amazing what they can achieve, and have someone acknowledge them and tell the world about it. I think that was a major factor.

Angie: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It’s very interesting. And like you said, when the owner feels it, right, the team also can feel it. So culture isn’t something that I think stays contained in the dentist’s office. Patients experience it every time they walk through the door. So that actually takes us into something you’ve clearly believed in throughout your career, the importance of the team, right? So, hundred percent. So how does a joyful, well-trained team become a practice’s best form of marketing?

Jack Von Bulow: Oh my God. You know what? Just the way they interact with people. I mean, our new business, training dental assistants, and actually describing how important they are, and that there’s kind of a crisis where there aren’t enough dental assistants to go around, but they interact with patients. I mean, it’s kind of a trite kind of a description of what happens when the dentist presents treatment and then he walks out the door, and then the patient looks at the dental assistant, like, so, do I really need that? Gonna be the best course for me? And I have fantastic dental assistants, and they really related to people. One dental assistant, I don’t care who was coming in, she could lead off with a compliment without even thinking about it. What people like to hear is their own name, and that somebody basically likes them, a safer a as it, we just created that kind of an atmosphere. That came from, I believed in leaders, among leaders.

Jack Von Bulow: So giving people a chance to grow and having confidence in them, and then basically giving them a chance to show initiative and listen to their ideas, where instead of me being the dictator or me making all the choices, no, we made choices together. And I think that just made a huge difference. And getting back to the original question, or the question that you just asked, I just think that when you give people the freedom to be themselves, and they understand the person in front of them, they understand, just by having a look at them and exchanging a few words, how they best receive information, and then having everybody, even first visit to the office, where we would have a tour of the office, the new patient would meet every single person. The whole process was kind of interesting.

Jack Von Bulow: We did some work with Jake Gyer, Scheduling Institute, and so before I did anything, right along the line, we would find out a little bit about this person. And then he had a rule where you have a four-minute conversation before you even mention teeth. And so they used to have to kind of cut me or give me, it’s like, four minutes is up, you’re at 10 minutes. Because I actually enjoyed all that. And so you got to know someone and understand them, and I think that was, they weren’t just a number passing through. We actually had a chance to, one of the conferences we attended, we were part of Crown Council. It was a really leading-edge kind of community-oriented, they had great clinical people. They visited countries to do mission work and all kinds of stuff.

Jack Von Bulow: But one of the things that they encouraged was basically getting out into the community. And so that was part of it as well. But we were all involved in the community, and I think the people that showed up the most, and the people actually know me because I’m in the paper, but then the dental assistants were the superstars. And it was just that they spent time with each patient. They made sure they really got to know them. The systems we had made it conducive, it brought out their strengths. And that’s why, and then they basically are the glue. They do everything. And that’s why I’m really looking forward to training the dental assistant, probably the top dental assistant I ever had, who’s also our team leader. And just to let them know that there’s more to it than passing the instruments. There’s a lot to gain out as a dental. I know all kinds of dental assistants who are hygienists. I know dental assistants who are dentists. I have one dental assistant who’s an entrepreneur. She basically is an award-winning speaker who also represents Align. She’s an Align speaker. She’s an ADA speaker and does webinars. And so the possibilities are there if you just give people a chance.

Angie: Definitely. That’s amazing. Now, I do want to pause on that, because there’s an important business lesson in a lot of things that Jack has just shared with us. A great team and a great patient experience give people a reason to stay, give people a reason to refer and talk about your practice. But first, the right patients have to be able to find you. That’s where today’s sponsor, Ekwa Marketing, comes in. If you’re a dentist looking to strengthen your online visibility, attract more of the right patients, and identify opportunities for sustainable practice growth, Ekwa Marketing offers a complimentary marketing strategy meeting. You can schedule yours at lessinsurancedependence.com/msm . Again, that’s lessinsurancedependence.com forward slash MSM. Now, Jack, you’ve taken many of the lessons you learned from decades in practice and brought them into the way you train the next generation. So let’s talk about that, right? Okay. Your Impact Dental Assisting Academy trains assistants hands-on with real patients. Why does that hands-on approach matter so much?

Jack Von Bulow: Well, I think the quality of human interaction, eyeball to eyeball. I mean, it’s great. I love this. I would’ve never met you or known about you guys at all if we weren’t able to set up something like this. So our outreach has been broadened exponentially. But I think when it gets down to teaching people, with me, it’s always been, it’s the way I’ve best learned. And I think there’s so much other than the particular skill that you’re learning, passing instruments, taking a digital scan or a digital film, that’s important. But I think the difference, and when we’re talking about the joy, the joy comes from people to people. And if you can do something, and this is what I think the big advantage of our school, we’re gonna pass all of that along.

Jack Von Bulow: I mean, we’ve got all the technology, because I’m working out of the office, we’re teaching out of the office that I established way back. And the new dentist, basically we’re friends to begin with. He was in my Invisalign group with AACA. And so, yeah, he welcomes it. And so in a comfortable environment, the office is just totally welcoming, warm. I think that enhances it. But we’re gonna teach the stuff that we’ve been talking about as well, all the communication skills, all the systems that we’ve learned. They’re not gonna get that even in some of the community colleges. Where we worked in Southern California, we worked with Citrus Community College, and a fantastic program. But what we’ll be able to do is pass on all the stuff that it took me 20 years in practice to learn.

Jack Von Bulow: That’s gonna be something that will pass along. I also mentor high school students, and there’s a program that I’m a part of. And basically they do the same thing in high school that took me 20 years to even have a chance to experience. And that’s my pitch to them. You guys are getting a 20-year head start. And this applies not just to dentistry, but to life in general. And if we can include that, I just think it’s for extra added attraction and advantage to have that going in. We want students that become dental assistants that are like Dana, my partner in this, that we just have to have them, if they can come in. My partner in the dental assistant school, Dana, we hired her, and without me even asking her to do it, her first job, in a small practice, other than doing infection control, cleaning stuff and things like that.

Jack Von Bulow: And she’d been inventory, without my even asking. When we did our first community effort, we applied it to our entire school district, every school. And so I came up with the idea, and the process came out of Landmark Education, something that I did with my first office manager. We did everything. It’s actually kind of a good example of the whole idea of having fun from it. But she led, I put her in charge of the whole thing. And so she was leading the other dentists, and I put her in charge of the whole project. We were the first school district in California to implement Toothprints, and it was child safety and awareness, and actually bite into something and retain your DNA and what you looked like at that age, and like that. And it was like, she just ran with it.

Jack Von Bulow: And she actually told me, she goes, one day, I know I’m gonna manage this practice. I go, you know, you’re right. And that’s what happened. When we did that, it’s funny, there’s another kind of, used as an example. We worked with Crown Council and Dental Boot Camp, and they brought in the guys from Pike Place Fish in Seattle. And they’re famous, they’re on TV. They do all kinds of team training, teamwork training, corporate, across the country, even the military. And so when I did Landmark Education, I did the whole program, even to the point where I’m gonna be a leader, and I go, well, I’ve been doing this for my own business, not to build Landmark Education. And at the end of it, the leader of our group, and we’re done with the leader program, let me know that the guys at Pike Place Fish did the program.

Jack Von Bulow: So I go, alright, team, guess what, we’re going to Seattle. So we went to Seattle and we interviewed the fishmongers. We stayed at the W. We, let’s learn service. We love service. The idea that you can do something that the patient or your team member or the community never saw coming, but it was something that was a little more than they expected. It’s just the endorphins that come from that. And when we’re all on the same page and thinking the same way, it is just awesome. So yeah, when we had that experience, we went back and took a course on creating a vital workplace. It wasn’t dentistry involved, it was business involved, but it was more about service. And then service, I think everybody just got a real charge out of being able to give the kind of service people never dreamed they were gonna get.

Angie: I love that. I love that. It’s very impressive as well, Jack. Now, let’s finish with something very practical. What’s one thing a dentist can do this week to start finding that joy again?

Jack Von Bulow: I think, and I’m still reading, I am Rlic and, in particular, thing that kind of, I always thought, and with new dentists, and even with the new dentists in our practice, I said, when you start, do the work, but gain the trust first of your team and then patients who are meeting you. And I go, you have to give it in order to get it. And so I think it’s tough, especially when we go through dental school, it’s kind of a dictatorial, authoritarian kind of a deal where people are telling you this, telling you that, and those, what do we know? Especially if you’re not getting business training. Dental school should at least share a version of, but you come out and that’s your instinctive way of doing things, is telling people. Well, I think you need to think about learning to listen, giving people room to grow, and then do that. You need to give trust as the leader in order to gain trust from your team. And until you have that, I think you’re just climbing uphill. You’re looking for some secret sauce that will make everything better. For me, it’s just a real basic step. And it’s not easy. I mean, you’ve made this huge investment, and now it’s like, and now I have to trust them? I have to, prove themselves. They got, well, give them a chance. And that would be my advice.

Angie: Sorry. Now, Jack, before we close, I’d love to leave the audience with this directly from you. You’ve had more than four decades to experience the highs, the difficult seasons, the lessons, and ultimately the joy of dentistry. So if you could leave the dentists listening today with one final lesson about building a practice, building a team, and enjoying the journey, what would you want them to remember?

Jack Von Bulow: Oh, I would, there’s a writer that I follow, and he kind of mentors me a bit. And I think you have to take some chances. You have to have the courage to do something that you haven’t done before. You have to keep on growing, no matter, in 46 years, I’m still curious. So I think you need to be curious. And the quote that I would use, the guy’s named Jon Acuff, he said, the road to awesome, it’s awkward. So if you feel awkward because you’re doing something that you haven’t done before, and if it scares you, that’s almost the green light that’s telling you, here’s my goal. This is kind of scary. I haven’t done it before, that’s why I should do it. And then I think that opens up all kinds of possibilities when your team sees that that’s what you’re doing. You don’t give them the chance. I mean, I know so many examples of, and it happened to me, especially the first 20 years. It’s like, ah, don’t worry about it. It’s new. I like what we’re doing now. And after a couple of weeks, we’ll go back to what we’ve always been doing.

Jack Von Bulow: And that’s not a way you can get from here to there. Especially if there is an awesome.

Angie: Alright, that’s amazing. Jack, thank you so much for joining us. Now, one thing that really stands out from this conversation is that finding joy in dentistry isn’t just about working fewer hours or making the practice easier. It’s about building the people, the culture, and the systems that allow the dentist to stop carrying everything alone. And when the team enjoys being there, patients really too. So for those listening who want to identify opportunities, send their practice and attract more of the right patients, you can schedule a complimentary marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa Marketing at lessinsurancedependence.com/MSM. And if you’d like support specifically around reducing insurance dependence and strengthening the business side of your practice, you can also book a complimentary coaching strategy meeting with Gary Takacs at lessinsurancedependence.com/CSM. Now, Jack, thank you again. It’s been a pleasure having you with us. And to everyone listening, thank you for joining us on the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast. I’m Angie, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thank you. Thanks, Angie. Appreciate it.