Episode 144 – Turning Your Dental Passion into Profits with Dr. Bridget Lervick

“It took a long time to go this direction, but I’m doing what I love.” -Dr. Bridget Lervick

Are you listening to where your journey is taking you? 

Dr. Bridget Lervick has a story all independent dentists need to hear. She is living in the sweet spot all entrepreneurs seek: combining a life you are passionate about while seeing success in your business.

Her story is so powerful because she had the bravery to stand up and say “I want this and I’m going after it”…and her passion is backed by numbers. You’ll hear us say this a lot at Productive Dentist Academy –  if you take data and marry it with emotions that equals success.

As a new dentist, Dr. Lervick knew nothing about lip and tongue ties. But when she became a mom for the first time, she experienced pain and issues breastfeeding. With the help of a local dentist, her daughter had a frenectomy, and discovered a need for education and service to moms struggling like she did. Today, she is living her passion helping moms and their babies, and her dental practice is booming.   

This won’t be your story. But we invite you to listen in to see what the possibilities are when you have the audacity to chase what you care about. Join us today as we unpack Dr. Lervick’s success and how to:

• Harness your passion to grow your practice
• Leverage your most powerful marketing tool
• Find the support you need to grow your numbers

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Bridget Lervick
From that, like the goodwill the community, I’ve had several moms that have become patients, one drives from like, 45 minutes away and just told me she’s like, I’m sending my kids to you. I’m telling all my family because like, you are going to be our dentist. And so it was like, Yeah, so there’s, there’s definitely that aspect once you kind of help somebody with something so significant in their life, you know, it’s, it’s an honor that then they trust you with their dental care.

Regan
welcome to the everyday practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson, and my co host, Dr. Chad Johnson and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice. If you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are anything but ordinary. Buckle up and listen in.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Welcome, everyone, to everyday practices. This is Chad Johnson with my co host Reagan Robertson Reagan. How you doing today?

Regan
Good morning, afternoon and night. I’m doing exceptional Chad.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Excellent. Yeah. So today we have a special guest, Dr. Bridget, Larvik. And Reagan, do you mind? We’re gonna foreshadow a little bit because we’ll back up here in a minute. But can you do me a favor and kind of brag on Dr. Bridget for a minute and talk about how she’s kind of gone from from X to Y in her journey? Can you kind of give us some details on those stats?

Regan
Absolutely. The reason that we have invited Dr. Lovett to be our guest today is because she is a shining example of what it means to be brave step into your authentic self. And we have the data that follows that and so one of the things that you’ll hear me say often at productive dentist Academy is when you take data and you marry it with emotions, you get success. And when it comes to becoming a patient becoming client making a buying decision, if you don’t have the data, the hard this is what it is paired with the emotion, you can’t get that buying action to occur. And Dr. Bridget has really honed in she’s become an expert in this one specific niche or niche which is

Dr. Chad Johnson
defending worms the nice niche discussion. Okay, keep going sorry.

Regan
So let’s get into the fun data. You guys are going to want to hear from Bridget because in just a year I think it is she has increased her new patients 60,000. By last quarter alone, she has basically tripled her new patient production within the last 12 months. She was getting a two to one return on marketing and now she is getting a seven to one return which we really like to hear. And my favorite stat of all, we know that word of mouth is really powerful and can be your most powerful marketing tool that you have Bridget’s patients referrals have gone up 20 to one, the data speaks for itself. When you decide to be brave, understand who you are, why practicing dentistry is important to you. And maybe some surprises along the way. And how you can use dentistry in a really unique way to educate people connect with people and help them transform their lives. So that is why we’re excited to talk to Bridget today. Bridget, welcome.

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Thank you happy to be here. That was a lovely intro. So thank you. I hope I live up to it.

Dr. Chad Johnson
A nice warm welcome for a Minneapolis area. Non warm morning, I’m sure

Dr. Bridget Lervick
yes, I’m sure it’s cold there too.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Yeah. So you worked with grand slammer from PDA productive dentist Academy, Niki green, can you kind of tell me how that went? Like, you know, not all details and stuff like that. But what how was your experience with that? What did you learn through learn, you know, kind of fledgling up through PDA with Nikki.

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yeah so, that was one of my best experiences in dentistry. Truly, if, if I could have moved her whole practice up to Minnesota, I would still be there. But yeah, I had been in dentistry about five years before I joined her or living in Texas, and she happened to be in my neighborhood and we just connected actually at a Starbucks. And I became her associate and she is just a phenomenal dentist, a phenomenal businesswoman, a phenomenal teacher. So that was truly one of the best experiences I’ve had in dentistry. And I continue to refer back to the way she does things in and what I want for my practice. So that’s how I got introduced to PDA and had your great team become my own resource and learned a lot of the really valuable skills. So verbal skills that I now have in dentistry. So I feel very fortunate for that experience.

Dr. Chad Johnson
So when you moved on, and you moved back to Minnesota, one of your goals was to get plugged back in. Did you start a de novo practice? Did you buy a new one in Minneapolis? How did that work

Dr. Bridget Lervick
I bought from a dentist who had retired Yes, back here about a year and a half, kind of searching for the right practice kind of filling in covering for maternity leaves as as non signed into a non compete as I could, as I as I looked for a practice close to my house and landed in an awesome practice from a dentist who retired and was fantastic and loved by his patients. So it’s been a good transition. Yeah.

Dr. Chad Johnson
And to kind of get to the point of so that way, we can pivot to the, you know, how this has mattered in your practice. Tell us what problem you are having with your firstborn?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Oh, yes. So actually, when I was in, when I was living in Texas, that’s when I became a mom. And so as a brand new mom, like many moms, I just kind of didn’t know exactly what I was doing. I knew that I wanted to breastfeed. And so as I was, as I was kind of going down that journey, I was having some significant pain, did not know that lip and tongue ties could be a factor, and then found my way to a dentist actually in Fort Worth, Texas, who treated lip and tongue ties and actually treated my daughter and kind of changed, changed my whole life.

Dr. Chad Johnson
So at that point, when you because it looks from your website, when we were, you know, reviewing some of your data and stuff like that you were you use a co2 laser. Were you trained at the time on that?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
So no, I actually. Well, when I took over my practice, I had done some training. But when I was when I became a mom, I knew nothing about lip and tongue ties. So my first introduction to lip and tongue ties was as a nursing mom, I knew nothing about it as a dentist. After that experience of going from incredibly painful nursing to Oh, wow, this is totally different. This is what it’s supposed to feel like, after having a release. I did seek out training and decided to become certified and learn more and more as much as I could about lip and tongue ties so that I could help moms just like me.

Regan
Bridget, did I hear you correctly? And you just said you didn’t know about the lip and tongue ties either as a dentist? No, because that is amazing to me because I had no idea. Yeah. And if we don’t know that there’s got to be so much of the population that has no clue. Yeah, and

Dr. Bridget Lervick
even. And that’s one of the first frustrations that a lot of moms now that I provide this service come into my practice is, you know, they didn’t hear about it from their medical provider. They didn’t hear it from anyone and so worse. Yeah.

Dr. Chad Johnson
From their from the medical provider, they almost I don’t want to overuse the word, but they almost gaslight them. No, that can’t be a thing. It’s not really a thing really like, oh, yeah, I’ve heard of, you know, some moms and stuff like that, because I knew, you know, some laser frenectomy stuff. So the moms and stuff, they’ll be like, No, the doctor said, No, that can’t even be an issue. But I saw, you know, on this mom group on Facebook that I should get this address. So there’s a cult following of people that are, you know, thrilled with this kind of treatment and stuff like that, and they’ll start sending referrals. So the cool thing is, Bridget, if you’ve tapped into that, you’ll find that you know, people, so tell me about that. How’s that going for you?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
It’s great. So actually, one of the best things that I did in my community is actually connected with. So when I first knew that I wanted to do this, it was kind of like how do I figure this out? It’s a whole new service. But lactation consultants and chiropractors are a great network because it’s usually the team approach. I mean, I can do a ton of releases. But then if that baby can’t go and learn how to use their tongue, or if they have some other, you know, tightness in their body that they need, there’s the success rate is not going to be as high and so it really is a team approach. So I had networked with lactation consultants with chiropractors. And so now I’ve got some really great referral sources in the community that I trust, they trust me, they know, if they send me their patients, they’re going to have a good experience. I know that when patients have their office so there’s a lot of power in a kind of connecting with the community and other providers.

Regan
So Bridget, this is blowing my mind and I usually like to wait till someone’s done talking. I just have to jump out of my skin to two reasons why one because my own daughter and I had such a hard time for the first six weeks of her life and she was my firstborn. I thought I was doing something wrong. I thought it was all 100% me and I had a great nursing coach, who would she even came to our house but it took six solid weeks and any new parent knows six weeks ago. so long when you’re trying to just nourish your child again, and you just really, actually kicked in something extra for me as well, because when my son was born seven years later, I took him to the chiropractor, because his little head almost seemed like kind of crooked. I mean, it just they said that was fine. They’re like, Oh, no problem at all. And I’m like, well, he seems kind, okay, I guess. So. I took him to the chiropractor. He wasn’t having a too difficult time nursing. So I was really, really, really grateful about that, but a few adjustments and his head was very normal again, but everything in his body relaxed, like you could tell he was like just flowing functioning better. And I’ve never thought about networking in that way with chiropractors and nursing coaches, you know, together with you and the frenectomy is Bridget, I think of marketing. Oftentimes as people feel like it’s just a push of service, or they feel like it is being too forward. Like mentioning what you do is being too forward. And really, I think of marketing as connecting people and connecting with a problem, and especially something so touching is this where we don’t even know it exists. So can you tell any, any of our listeners right now, I mean, me in particular, I’m really interested in how you started your journey in educating the community about this, after you discovered what, you know, what a great gift it was for yourself.

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yeah, so actually, I mean, I, I actually sent out almost like little referral kits. So I would send a couple articles. And then a letter actually describing kind of what I went through why I’m doing this service went through I, you know, I experienced this with my daughter, I know what it’s like, as a nursing mom, I, you know, have a laser and I treat it kind of as a letter, along with a few articles. So if lactation consultants didn’t know about it already, and then actually also sent them a book. So there’s a pediatric dentist, Richard Baxter, who wrote a book called tongue tied. So I actually just bought several of his books, and then just sent that as part of the referral kit to different practitioners kind of around the area, whether it was chiropractors or lactation consultants, and then from that, I mean, those providers are very interested to find somebody who’s tuned in and who kind of has a personal story. So they would call me we would chat. And then I started getting referrals from other providers to

Regan
wow. So that is it that when we think of marketing, I think of it as a layer cake. So you’ll hear Pete hear PDA, say that often, it’s like a layer cake. So you’ve got your word of mouth buzz, you’ve gotten other than some books and a letter, it didn’t cost you anything stamps. So it was something that you could just go out and connect with on a relationship level. What have you done with your current patient base to educate them? And you know, my follow-up question is, what are you doing with the community at large to educate them?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yeah, absolutely. patient base. I mean, we have a few things in the office. So it’s interesting, because I actually, for this particular procedure, it’s Wednesday afternoons. So our Wednesday afternoon is baby day. So we try not to schedule other patients during that time. But throughout that day, we’ve got like, nursing pillows around I mean, people see babies coming into the office. So as far as educating our current patients, we haven’t quite gotten there. But so many of our patients are like, Why are their babies babies don’t have teeth. So we always take the opportunity to tell that story to our existing patients. And we’ve had a lot of good conversations. And it’s almost everybody has a story. It’s so funny, because it’s always, you know, my daughter went through that, or my grandson has that. And so it’s once you start talking to people, so many people can identify with the issues that it causes. Yeah, and they

Dr. Chad Johnson
don’t even realize that there was a solution. But, you know, even some grandmas might be like, yeah, oh, my goodness, I would never have thought of that. But I feel like would have been able to address that.

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yep, yep. Exactly. Yeah. And then out in the community. It was just interesting when I started implementing this because it was January of 2021. So still in the middle of everything COVID. So there wasn’t a lot I could do in person. But there are some great Facebook groups. So Facebook, moms groups, I’m part of tons of Facebook mom groups. So I will kind of offer, you know, solutions there when I can. And then there’s also a great group in my community. That’s like a first and second-time mom group where moms can get together. So I did that after my second kiddo was born my son. And so they’ve been a good resource to just connecting with them and giving them information to say, hey, if this comes up, you know, I’m a resource.

Regan
So what I love about this, Bridget is the consistency with which you’re sharing your message. I hopped over to your website, took a little preview at it right on the homepage, I noticed that you’ve got an “Are you having trouble breastfeeding?”, which is a crazy statement, right? If you’re going to a dental website, and then you have it looks like audio well and discovering why, like you were sharing your story about why you’re so passionate, and the result like that I shared at the beginning the data with the return coming away. So do you find that you are picking up dental patients as a result of producing these protected dummies?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yes, yes. So I mean, the procedure itself is not a massively productive procedure. I mean, it takes me about an hour for the concept, that procedure itself is quick, but we plan about an hour per patient. So the procedure itself, it’s maybe equivalent to like two-thirds of a crown in our office. But from that, like the goodwill, the community, I’ve had several moms that have become patients, one drives from like, 45 minutes away and just told me, she’s like, I’m sending my kids to you, I’m telling all my family because, like, you are going to be our dentist. And so it was like, Yeah, so there’s, there’s definitely that aspect, once you kind of help somebody with something so significant in their life, you know, it’s it’s an honor that then they continue to don’t care.

Regan
So you’re building an incredible amount of trust and then Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, how many days a week do you

Dr. Bridget Lervick
work? We’re Monday through Thursday, eight to five, it was a great schedule when I took it over.

Regan
So the other days, you get to do cosmetic dentistry. Is that right? Yes. Wow. And your eye popped over to your reviews also. And one of the secret tips that we often talk about is, are you really living that true patient experience? Are you really delivering what you say you’re going to deliver and reading your reviews are so emotionally charged about how much you have helped their family and helped them with things that they had no idea even existed and your calm demeanor and your caring demeanor? And Baby, you know, my baby was having such a rough time, I was having a rough time. And they’re also referencing where they found you in the community as well. So this word of mouth buzz, I feel like it is snowballing in this past year. So what do you think is going to be your next step in this journey of sharing your authenticity with everybody?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
As as far as like continuing on? Yes, well, I hope to make it bigger. Honestly, we’ve got like a half a day where we do this procedure, but we’re kind of busting at the seams. And so I would love to kind of, you know, continue on and open up more with pediatric airway and things like that. But in terms of continuing to tell this story, I mean, we have several it kind of started with one chiropractic office that referred us all they’re paying. Now now I’ve got maybe like, four or five. So yeah, I feel like it’s definitely I don’t know, it’s an honor to kind of be a trusted provider. Because here in Minneapolis, there are actually several people who also do frenectomy isn’t it’s it is a great network of people. But like you were saying it was very important to me as I was implementing the process that we set it up in a way that was comfortable for me because as a mom, I just had such a great experience. When the dentists that did my daughter’s frenectomy did it. I mean, there was such great follow-up care. So I really took lessons from that. Because I didn’t want it to just feel like this. Okay, come in, we zap a laser in your baby’s mouth, and they’re gone. You know, it’s I wanted it to feel like a very caring, thorough, attentive thing, because I knew that moms that had gotten to that point were pretty significantly emotional and needed that extra TLC. And so I just hope that word of mouth continues because I think that truly is the best way to, you know, spread the word of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

Dr. Chad Johnson
You know, what that’s called? What is it the little oral appliances that you were like a sequence of them?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yes. Yes. There’s like the Alpha appliance. There’s like the Myobrace

Dr. Chad Johnson
Myobrace. Yes. I was wondering if maybe, you know, like you to continue into that because it’s gonna hit that type of person.

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yep. That’s my next step. And so I had done some training actually, when I was in Texas, also to do like early expansion, like functional ortho. So that’s totally up my alley. So I that’s kind of my CEE journey, I think this next year is to get you to know, airway and kind of hit the, you know, six, seven-year-olds that maybe didn’t get a tongue tie addressed that then it caused, you know, more aural development issues and mouth breathing and all that. So yeah, huge passion area.

Dr. Chad Johnson
If you get a chance, at the, you know, at some of these next workshops, if we have the speaker back for airway management issues. It was, you know, like really good stuff. Now, I’ve taken a good amount of CEE on it but uh, that was sleep groups solutions. Man, I like they just laid it out plain and, and, and more pragmatic. And so even not on a pediatric level though it includes that just even airway all together and boy, that was good so and what a good bang for your buck. So I was glad to have set in on that. So just a little plug for that. Great.

Regan
Bridget I can I want to take my children to you. And that’s what building trust is, I think you’ve done such a great job and how genuine you’re being. And, you know, I have just one last question for you. And what piece of advice would you give to any dentist? Considering this? Or what would you do differently that you could advise them on as they start their journey into looking into bringing frenectomy into the practice?

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Um, let me think so, piece of advice would definitely be to build a community of other providers because I do think that that number one just helps you get the best outcomes. And then number two also is a great referral source. As you kind of build things and then the other thing is, I am more of a personality that is aim, aim, aim. Think about firing a. So took me a long time to kind of go in this direction. And you know, it’s always one of those things where the when I when I try to give an injection to a child, that’s like the most nervous I ever been in dentistry. Well, when I was in the chair, and had a laser and was going to be doing a procedure on an infant, there is no words for like the level of nerves. And so it maybe took me until my like, fourth or fifth baby that I treated in my assistant and I went through this journey together. It was like how we’re going to hold the baby, what are we going to do with them? You know, and I learned all of it practically in the courses that I had taken. But when you’re actually, you know, caring for somebody whose baby it was it was kind of intense. And so they’re right there watching? Yes, no, actually. So how we did it, that’s the other thing that I would recommend is have a we call it now a quiet room. It started as our nursing room, but not every mom is coming in wanting to nurse and so we kind of changed our verbiage. So we actually encourage moms to come to the quiet room and get ready to nurse afterward. So we actually do the procedure, I walled off an operatory that wasn’t we didn’t have a door that closed. So definitely have a quiet space in your office where you can maybe do this behind closed doors. I really

Dr. Chad Johnson
liked the implication. But that is also mother-centered and delivery instead of hey, why don’t you wait here away from your child while we work on something really scary, you know, with needles. Yeah. And, but to say, why don’t we bring you your baby and you wait here and relax. And then you can bond you know, and somebody

Dr. Bridget Lervick
to feed them after. We’ve definitely kind of curated our experience so that it feels intentionally cared for we put, you know, sparkling water and a snack in the nursing room. We have a baby here that we turn way up. So, yeah, we’ve definitely kind of intentionally structured the way that we do it so that it’s minimal. My baby’s crying somewhere without me. Yes, yeah. And then I try to calm baby down as much as they can before we bring them back. And Oh, that’s cute. Yeah. So but that’s always the fun. It’s the fun walk through the office getting to bring baby back to mama.

Regan
That’s right. Well, Bridget, I just listened to a TED talk where I learned that psychologically, when you get like that intuition like you said, you were an aim, aim, aim person, I definitely follow that same route as well. I’ve learned that psychologically, you have five seconds when you get that intuitive. Maybe I should go up on stage and speak or maybe I should do the karaoke, whatever it is, you have five seconds to make that decision. And if you don’t use the emergency brake goes on, and you won’t do it. And you can lose a lot of time in between being pulled to what your true passion is. And you got to that point, Bridget, where you acted within your five seconds and you’ve transformed countless lives in the process. So I just really thank you for your bravery. And thank you for connecting with your community and helping transform it you’re doing great work and we’re proud of you. That’s awesome.

Dr. Bridget Lervick
Yeah, feels good. It’s strange being the dentist that sees babies but it’s it’s so fun. It is I would not change it. Wednesdays are like my favorite day.

Regan
Oh, well, I look forward to when I see you in person. Again, hopefully at maybe September’s workshop. We’re looking at bringing in airways again to that. So we’d love to see you again. And in the meantime, keep saving lives lady. All right. Thanks, everybody. Join us again in a couple of weeks for a new episode of everyday practices by Chad, by Bridget. Bye.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Everyday Practices Podcast. GUEST, Chad, and I are here every week. Thanks to our community of listeners just like you, and we’d love your help. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share? Or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome? Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com And don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at https://productivedentist.com/podcasts/ See you next week.