ROSS BRANNON

What made you want to become a dentist?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

My original plan was to go to medical school. Then when I was in college and had an appointment with our family dentist, he said, “You don’t want to do that. You’ll make a lot of money, but you'll never have any time to enjoy it. I go to the beach every single weekend.” He let me shadow him, and I thought, “I could do that.” He made it look easy. And what attracted me was knowing I could help someone's self-esteem, and be my own boss and create my own future.

ROSS BRANNON

What motivated your military service, and how did you get it to figure in with dentistry?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

My dad had been in special forces, and I had no intention of going into the service, but when I got into dental school, he called a recruiter to see if there were scholarships. There were, and I applied. I started doing my due diligence, which is a key word in life, check up on things. I talked to some dentists that had gone through it, and I realized I could get my school paid for and make a modest salary and really hone in on my craft for four years. I’m a long-term thinker. In the short term, the private sector would have been better. But in the long run, it paid huge dividends because the training that I got in the in the Army is second to none. They trained us so if we were sent to Iraq or Afghanistan or someplace else, you could handle anything that came in your door. That's paid huge dividends for me in my career.

ROSS BRANNON

You were there for four years. Did you get deployed at all?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

I don't know if I'd call it a deployment, but I was stationed in South Korea, just 10 kilometers from the DMZ. It was a little tense there. Only one other base was closer to North Korea.

ROSS BRANNON

Describe your practice and the service you offer to patients. You're a general dentist, but a lot of general dentists are typically cleanings and cavities, maybe a little other stuff. You're a little different.

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

I would describe it in one word: “comprehensive.” The only thing we really don't do is ortho. But, just about anything that someone needs, whether it's an endo or a complex restorative, IV sedation, just about anything anybody needs, we have the bandwidth and the skills to do it well.

ROSS BRANNON

How do you describe your approach?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

There are two ways to think about the comprehensive approach. One is looking at everything, and the other side of it is having a comprehensive skill set. So, on one hand, I have spent a fortune developing myself in many ways, clinically and professionally. My clinical skill set is being a holistic practitioner, and offering comprehensive treatment to patients. But you have to meet people where they are, so even if someone needs a lot of work, they may not be ready for all that, so just take care of what’s bothering them and eventually you have the chance to do more.

ROSS BRANNON

What do you see happening in the industry in the future, and how are you positioning you and your practice?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

Solo practitioners are going by the wayside. It's still going to be possible to be a solo practitioner, but I don't think it's going to make a lot of sense. I see a lot of consolidation. You know, Wall Street is yield-starved right now. There's no safe yield. They’re looking for stable cash flow, and a lot of people are buying up dental practices.

ROSS BRANNON

You're speaking of the DSO infiltration of the industry. It’s been said that in five years, 75% of dental practices will be owned by DSOs. What is your thought on that?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

I don't think it would be that high. I think that's unrealistic.

ROSS BRANNON

If you were graduating from dental school today, do you think you would be able to replicate what you have done, or has the industry gotten too different?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

It could still be done. The challenge for most people is their belief system. Who they believe, and who they listen to, and who they read. But there's always room for excellence. There's always room for growth. I believe that could it be done. I don't think anything worthwhile is easy.

ROSS BRANNON

What helped you achieve success outside of dentistry?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

Everything is all mindset, and I've tried to learn and model from people in the top of the industry. When I meet someone and they start telling me why they can't be successful in their current position, I'll challenge them on that. I'll say, “There has to be somebody in your field, your industry, who's crushing it.” If they say, “Yes, there are a few people,” I tell them to go talk to them and find out how they did it. They probably didn’t figure it out on their own, they probably hired a coach. When you try to figure things out on your own, you have a sample size of one, versus being able to leverage other people. Learning about their experiences, and how that relates to you, is very powerful.

ROSS BRANNON

How many days a week are you working now, and how much traveling do you do?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

Soon I’m going to be down to two days a week, and in the last year before COVID I was gone for nine weeks.

ROSS BRANNON

So, you’ve structured a practice that really gives you the best of both worlds. You can go as you please, travel with your family, and earn a phenomenal income.

In my experience, when we talk about general dentists, they own a job, not a business. They make a good living, but they own a job. There are others who are well into seven figures who are business owners who just happen to be dentists. Talk about the mindset difference between the two.

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

The one making seven figures believes. Thoughts are powerful. People don't give thoughts enough credit. Thoughts are one of the most powerful forces we have. Everything begins with a thought. Thoughts lead to actions, and actions lead to behavior and character, and character determines your destiny. But your destiny started a long time ago with a thought.

People have a financial thermostat. Most people are comfortable at a certain range. They want a certain amount of money in the bank. But then there’s something called the “deserve level.” The guy making $250,000 a year thinks that’s what he deserves. He will sabotage himself through belligerent, self-defeating actions that will prevent him from making more than that. If it goes below that, he’ll do things to bring himself back up, but he won’t go higher.

That thermostat, and that belief system are real, and really powerful. I am very intentional about what I allow to come into my brain. I don’t watch the news. I choose the books I'm going to read. I read the Bible just about every day. I choose what I put in my brain, because that's going to affect my thoughts. I don’t focus on the economy; I focus on my economy. I focus on what I can control. I can't control interest rates.

ROSS BRANNON

That's really good right there, your economy versus the economy. Focus on what you can control. What do you do for personal development?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

I work really hard on myself. I think Jim Rohn said, “Work harder on yourself in doing your job, and you can make a fortune.” I don't think there's a better ROI out there. Some people approached me about investments, and where to put money, and how to invest and that sort of thing. Your best investment is you, there's no better ROI than investing in you.

The chokehold point is usually the owner. A friend of mine has a sign company, and he does really well. He's made some changes in his business, but before that, he was the chokehold. He believed nobody could do as well as he could. Nobody could talk to the customers as well as he could. If you have that belief system, and you believe that you're always going to be limited, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, it will hold you back.

ROSS BRANNON

You recently almost sold to a DSO, but backed out at the end. Why?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

I was just curious. You hear these stories. And it was a relative. Financially, it was cheap to just kick the tires and see what I could get. Everybody should go through that exercise, just see what you get. But many people are selling the golden goose. Why would you sell? It's not going to work out in your favor. I understand, it depends on what you have going on in your life. It’s different for someone who’s 65 than my age. My daughter is about to turn nine. I’m not going anywhere for a while. I think you need purpose. I think the Lord blesses you with skills and gifts, and you need to share that gift. You need to serve and obey.

ROSS BRANNON

I don't think you and I are big retirement people.

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

I have the plan and works to get down to two days a week. I’ll work Tuesday and Wednesday, so I have long weekends on a regular workweek and I can focus on working on the business. But I'm not going to be in it as much. I could do that forever, even if I made 15% less. Real wealth is time freedom, but as you still need purpose. When COVID hit, I couldn't work for a couple months, because we were mandated to be shut down. That's what term retirement looks like. That would not be good.

The other thing I will tell you is that most dentists are not sophisticated thinkers. They don't understand how the math works. They'll play with the numbers, and say, “Oh, that's not enough money,” so they get a higher initial cash payout, but then what do they do on the other end? It's like a seesaw.

ROSS BRANNON

What advice would you give a new dental school grad?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

I would say to work really hard on yourself. I know it’s a broad umbrella term, but I would learn business, I would learn sales and marketing, and I would also focus pretty heavily on my clinical education.

ROSS BRANNON

Why would a dentist need to learn about sales and marketing?

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

You’re married. You had to sell yourself to your wife. Everybody's in sales. People think about the used car salesman stereotype, but that's not how I present. People ask me to do the treatment. Dental school is just basics. If you want to be independent of insurance companies, you need to focus on what patients want. What patients want is function. They want cosmetics, they want self-esteem. But you don't learn that in four years in school. You need to go to a dental institute. It's fun, it transforms lives. Ideally your sales and marketing skills would be higher than your clinical ability. Most of the time, it’s the reverse. That's why most people have all this know-how, but they can't get it off the shelf to the patient.

ROSS BRANNON

You could be the best dentist in the world, but if no one knows who you are, you cannot help anybody.

DR. STEVEN HATCHER

Even if it's a few thousand patients in your practice, you don't know how to present to them, you don't know how to sell to them. You don't know how to ask the right questions about how they want things to look. You don't even have to go off the street. They're already in your chair. They're already in your practice.

ROSS BRANNON

Reach the ones you have and reach more, and do it the right way. Thank you for sharing your insights.