Grace Over Grind in Dentistry (E.156)

“I believe dentistry can be comfortable, compassionate, and built on teamwork. That is my why.” – Dr. Leslie Pinson

Brief Overview of the Episode

When Dr. Leslie Pinson took over a retiring doctor’s practice in 2020, she inherited two decades of entrenched habits, outdated systems, and an unexpected surge of new patients. With support from her IGP advisors, Angela Golden and Rosie Yacone, she rebuilt her practice around purpose, patient experience, and sustainable systems.

In this conversation, Victoria and Dr. Pinson unpack how she moved from overload to alignment, from plateau to 22 percent growth, and how staying rooted in her why unlocked performance she once thought was impossible.

What This Episode Reveals

• Why female leadership is reshaping private practice
  • How overload sneaks up on even healthy practices
  • The turning point when a team shifts from silent resistance to full contribution
  • How coaching from Angela and Rosie stabilized growth and restored clarity
  • The real reason consistency outperforms charisma in leadership
  • How a legacy team can embrace new systems without losing culture

What You’ll Learn

• How to reset a legacy team without replacing them
  • How risk factor conversations improve trust and case acceptance
  • Why scheduling discipline is the antidote to burnout
  • How profitability incentives protect both the doctor and the team
  • How coaching accelerates decision-making and reduces daily friction
  • How to scale without compromising patient connection or joy

If This Sounds Familiar

• You inherited systems that no longer match the practice you want
  • You feel stuck between too many new patients and not enough structure
  • Your team is loyal but resistant to change
  • Growth is happening on paper but not in your daily experience
  • You are leading with heart but tired of carrying everything
  • You know you can grow, but not in the chaos you are in now

Next Steps

If you want to build an investment grade practice that grows with intention, supports your team, and restores your quality of life, connect with the IGP coaching team.
Success requires support, and the right systems turn overwhelm into opportunity.

---

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Welcome to a very special investment grade practice podcast here today. I am Victoria Peterson, your host, and joining me is the lovely, talented, so proclaimed app all in herself, Dr. Leslie Pinson from Ohio. Leslie, welcome.

[00:00:19] Dr. Pinson: Hello. Thank you. Thank you, Victoria.

[00:00:23] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Glad to be here. This is wonderful. We’re, we’re just gonna talk story as they say here in Hawaii.

[00:00:29] Dr. Victoria Peterson: I wanna just talk story with you today because, um, I want to, as a female entrepreneur, I love female entrepreneurship, particularly in the space of dentistry. And if we listen to the overarching narrative right now, it is that, uh, more and more females are graduating dental school. Yay. Plus equality. And, but the other narrative is they don’t really want to own a dental practice.

[00:00:59] Dr. Victoria Peterson: [00:01:00] That’s just too hard. Let’s leave that to the corporates. Let’s leave that to the CPAs. Let’s leave that to the guys. But you, my dear, are one heck of an entrepreneur and I can’t wait for people to hear your story. Well, I thank

[00:01:13] Dr. Pinson: you. Thank you. I can’t wait to share it. Um, it, it is a journey for females. It is not the.

[00:01:21] Dr. Pinson: Easy road, but I think it definitely takes, um, a balance, as you stated. I, I do call myself an nap because, you know, some things just have to keep running and other things have to be shut off and you just make it all work together.

[00:01:36] Dr. Victoria Peterson: That’s amazing. Well, we’re gonna find out how you make that work. We’re also joined today by your IGP coaching team and yeah.

[00:01:45] Dr. Victoria Peterson: One of the things that’s a little different about us at Productive Dentist Academy is that you don’t get one of us. You get like a whole. Background singers behind you, right? So we have Angela Golden, our VP of [00:02:00] Client services. She’s your business advisor, working on strategies and helping you make some of those decisions.

[00:02:05] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And we have Rosie Yacon who is your team development coach, and I think it’ll be interesting for people to see how you work with advisors and how they work with your teams. Because I’ve been consulting since 1995. As you can imagine, it’s changed just a little bit in that time and, uh, I think you, you, um, are an example of how to really utilize the support that’s around you.

[00:02:35] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Mm-hmm. So, uh, welcome Angela and Rosie. Uh, we’re glad that you’re here as well. Yeah. Thank you. We’re gonna kick off with you. Give us the, the 4 1 1. You, you graduated, you live, you own, you bought your practice. Just give us the foundation here.

[00:02:56] Dr. Pinson: Uh, foundation. Graduated from Ohio [00:03:00] State, uh, college of Dentistry and started in a DSO.

[00:03:05] Dr. Pinson: Um, and being a, a partner in that atmosphere, the only female in the practice out of the other three docs. And then in 2020 when we all shut down, my, my greatest mentor asked me, Hey, I can’t do this. I’m older. Can you take it? Um, so exiting from, um, that franchise type of dentistry and entering into private dentistry.

[00:03:33] Dr. Pinson: Was an unusual step, not the step most likely taken. And then on top of that, being the solo owner was, you know, not the trend at the time at all. So, um, a big leap of faith to go against all trends. And so now, um, I’ve been practicing solo, um, and private owner for the last five

[00:03:57] Dr. Victoria Peterson: years. I love that. So what was the [00:04:00] biggest, so you went through an environment that had all the management systems, all the checks and balances, everything there, and now suddenly you’re taking over for a retiring doctor, uh, with different systems.

[00:04:13] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Yes. Was it, what did that feel like?

[00:04:18] Dr. Pinson: Um, that was. Crazy. That’s the only word I can use is crazy. Like, what am I doing? How am I taking a step as far as, you know, systems backwards. Um, so. The encouragement was, okay, we’re going to maintain the system, uh, and just slowly increase it. When you had a retiring doc and staff that was retiring with him, right.

[00:04:49] Dr. Pinson: Um, I inherited a staff that had already been with working 20 years, so they had their own way and for me to step in and to, um, start to [00:05:00] turn up. The notch, uh, was an experience in how to do that in a systematic way. So once we got to the point that we were accepting new patients and increasing patient flow, what does this look like?

[00:05:15] Dr. Pinson: Which was all new for my staff. What do we do next? And that’s when PDA came and saved the day. ’cause honestly, I didn’t really know what to do next. Like how do I manage this growth? Um, which was a lot to manage. Not only staff, patient load systems, as you say, um, and, and still maintaining the excellent care.

[00:05:40] Dr. Pinson: That was my part of my standard of care. So it was, it was a big leap, a big crazy

[00:05:47] Dr. Victoria Peterson: leap. So what year was that? So you, 20 20 20, you walk into private practice, very different. You’re taking over from a retiring doctor with a team that had probably just hit auto rinse and [00:06:00]repeat years ago. Um, and they’re retiring out or staying on and you’ve gotta figure out what to do that.

[00:06:06] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And you shut down and you gotta learn COVID protocols and you can only have one. Patient. So you probably honestly looking back at it, pick the perfect time to take over because in the beginning, the advice generally is don’t change much, just go with the flow and, and don’t upset the apple cart. You couldn’t upset the apple cart.

[00:06:25] Dr. Victoria Peterson: It was already upset. So very upset.

[00:06:29] Dr. Pinson: But. But I still did that approach. I was very slow about making a lot of big, big changes to make sure that patients stayed comfortable. Um, retention mattered to me. I, I grew up in that practice. It meant something to me and the people there. So retention was a big part of making sure that I stayed.

[00:06:50] Dr. Pinson: Um. In contact and in touch with the legacy he had already created. So, um, maintaining that was, was a feat as [00:07:00] well.

[00:07:00] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Okay. I’m just putting, I’m connecting the dots here. So are you saying that the receptionist or the hygienist that was there, like they were cleaning your teeth in high school before you even became a dentist?

[00:07:11] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Yes,

[00:07:12] Dr. Pinson: yes.

[00:07:13] Dr. Victoria Peterson: You connected the dots correctly.

[00:07:16] Dr. Pinson: So that, and you’re the boss, that in its own essence is, is a, is a part of the journey too. How do they see me not as a child, and see me as now their boss and a respectable business owner and um, a friend and all of the things in one big happy bubble. So. Wow. So yeah, it was, it’s been a wonderful journey.

[00:07:42] Dr. Pinson: I’m happy to say that just everybody stayed. I think most of the original staff has just retired. We have a retirement party today. Wow. So, so that’s, that’s a compliment in, um, in the success in its own that we didn’t drive people [00:08:00]

[00:08:00] Dr. Victoria Peterson: away. I wanna, I, I really wanna congratulate you and highlight that because again, um, if you read mainstream, like you buck the system, I think you looked at the system and said, that’s not how I’m gonna do things.

[00:08:14] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And I love that because mainstream would be, yeah, termin. Those and start fresh with people who will follow you, your people, right? Mm-hmm. And so to have 90 plus percent team retention five years later, um, is unbelievable. Uh, that’s, that’s wonderful. So congratulations on that. Thank you. It’s hard. It’s hard.

[00:08:42] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Um, dentistry’s easy except for the people part.

[00:08:44] Dr. Pinson: Exactly, exactly. Um, no one prepares you for this aspect of dentistry. Um, but I think being a female and being, um, in tune to others is where that makes a difference, [00:09:00] I think. Um. That’s where we share the compassion, that’s where we share more emotion, um, and still be able to maintain order.

[00:09:09] Dr. Pinson: Um, yeah, and, and so I think that. That’s where the females have the ability to thrive in dentistry. For sure. For sure.

[00:09:19] Dr. Victoria Peterson: That’s right. So a lot of times, um, on this podcast we talk about exiting. Building an investment grade practice is also about entering correctly. And setting it up day one so that you’re not just cash flowing, but you’re building value year after year, after year.

[00:09:38] Dr. Victoria Peterson: So it sounds like you, you’re there, you survived, you thrived in COVID, you started building, and then you hit this point that’s pretty predictable. I call it peaked and plateaued, and you’re like, I’m there. And then this, and I don’t, like, I you get into new territory. So tell us when that was and what, what caused you to pick up the phone and start [00:10:00] searching for support?

[00:10:01] Dr. Pinson: So, uh, 2023 to 2024, we were overloaded. So I had came in and told the staff, I have a five year goal. Within five years we’ll be at this point. We blew that out of the water with new patients and, and was. Over capacity, I would say overloaded. Um, you don’t really say that very often. Like I’ve had, I have too many new patients, but we had a lot of new patients.

[00:10:30] Dr. Pinson: I mean, over 45 a month. Um, so. It was, it was a lot to take on. And so with that growth, what do we do? How do I stay productive? How do I still treat every patient the way that they deserve to be treated and the way that I want to have conversation connection. Um, still be able to service with a laugh. I, we laugh constantly.

[00:10:57] Dr. Pinson: I laugh constantly, I think at my office. So there’s [00:11:00] never a dull moment. We are cracking jokes. We are having a good time. Um, so to how do I keep that atmosphere going in the midst of all the craziness and so. The girls found PDA saw Dr. Bruce on our di and they were like, he said everything we needed. And I was like, okay.

[00:11:24] Dr. Pinson: And so from there we started talking about scheduling. How can we make this so that I can continue to do what I love to do for each and every patient? So, and that’s what kind of helped us take the chaos out mm-hmm. And become a little bit more coordinated. I mean, um, be able to walk on two legs and smile and talk and treat patients and patients have a good time.

[00:11:49] Dr. Pinson: So that’s, that 24 year was the year to try to make that transition and put things into play. [00:12:00] And I am happy to say that this December when we’re leaving, we. Are calm, we’re chaotic. I think last year I was running out of the office door, like, leave me alone. Um, but it’s just another, it’s a different sense of, of peace at this point.

[00:12:20] Dr. Pinson: Um, we feel accomplished. We feel like we’re still servicing the patients the way we need to, and it’s a very good feeling that has come out of the coaching with Rosie and Angela stepping in. Conditioning this team to work together that have been together, which is, that sounds odd to say we, we coached a team that’s been together for years to work together, and what that means is increasing the better communication and how do we.

[00:12:53] Dr. Pinson: Hand this off, how do we make the patient journey a full journey, start to finish? Um, so [00:13:00] that’s, that’s been a big turning part and I think that has also spurred more new patients because they’ve done such a great job. We have done such a great job of continuing the care and being, having the ability to do so.

[00:13:14] Dr. Pinson: So, yeah.

[00:13:16] Dr. Victoria Peterson: I, you articulated so well, uh, the wall that doctors hit. Um, and, and I think that’s where burnout comes, because you could have just said, okay, we’re busy. And we just need to do what we do to get through the day and it’s busy. But you didn’t accept that. You, you had, I’m gonna come back to this in just a minute, but you had a standard of care, uh, uh, a cultural North Star that compelled you to say, I wanna take the best care of my patients.

[00:13:46] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And I wanna take care of more of them and I wanna grow, and I don’t know how to do that. But somebody might, uh, Angela, I’m gonna come over to you right now. When you first, uh, met Dr. Penson and you were just strategically looking [00:14:00] at all the assets she had of her practice and where, where she could start calming this chaos, what stood out to you?

[00:14:09] Angela Golden: Well, when I first met with her, her office manager, um, it was like, we do not want any more new patients. We can’t handle them. And the, I think a big thing that happened was a train of thoughts, a switch in the train of thought happened. Um, and that was, I, I think it was last March. I believe that that train of thought.

[00:14:35] Angela Golden: Switched happened and it’s, the team took on a whole different level, in my opinion.

[00:14:42] Dr. Victoria Peterson: What was the new mindset? What, what changed?

[00:14:45] Angela Golden: W We talked a lot about risk factors and communication with patients and the way that we talked to the patients and the patient journey, and that mind shift happened with the hygienist.

[00:14:59] Angela Golden: It [00:15:00] happened with the assistants. Mm-hmm. They started really getting involved in the team meetings where at first they were very quiet and it was more of me talking and nobody, do you remember that Leslie? I remember that. Is anybody gonna say anything? Yes. No. And then it shifted in it. It was amazing to see the whole team started, you know, getting involved in the profitability incentive point and making sure that we were hitting grab bag and it was a big shift.

[00:15:31] Angela Golden: Mm-hmm. So.

[00:15:32] Dr. Victoria Peterson: I love that. So for those who have not worked with Productive Dentist Academy, let me, let me spell out some of this alphabet soup here a little bit. So, um, having a patient conversation about risk factors is really a specific communication tool, um, based on the work of John Coy and Frank Spears about, um, dentistry being a biological disease, not a mechanical.

[00:15:57] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Uh, end point. So when you’re [00:16:00]talking about, um, you know, there’s a couple different styles of managing a practice. There’s the growth model of if we do two crowns a day now and we wanna grow three 30%, let’s do three crowns. We’ll just add one more crown. And we’re doing like units of measure. For, for growing the practice, this is very different because it looks at each patient and what does that particular person need comprehensively and how do we talk to them about it comprehensively without them running out the back door screaming and giving us bad Yelp reviews because we were over diagnosing, right?

[00:16:38] Dr. Victoria Peterson: So the fear is if I tell ’em everything, I’ll get bad reviews. But there is a, um, so that’s what Angela’s talking about with the mindset shift of, I can be comprehensive, I can talk about their specific risk from their medical, dental histories, how you got here, and it, it, it shifts everything within the practice.

[00:16:58] Dr. Victoria Peterson: So that was [00:17:00] one of the beautiful things you pointed out, Angela, and then also. The profitability incentive point, there is nothing more discouraging. And Leslie, I I didn’t prep you for this. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this, but when you put a bonus system in place for the team and they’re earning more, and you as a doctor are not taking home a paycheck, that does not feel,

[00:17:21] Dr. Pinson: that doesn’t, that doesn’t feel good.

[00:17:21] Dr. Pinson: No. And I have been in that position because, uh, when I took over the practice. That’s how it felt. Yeah, that’s exactly how it was because he was in retirement. He worked for his staff and vice versa. So yeah. So it was a different to kind of come into his shoes and accept what was given at that point, because that’s all we had.

[00:17:49] Dr. Pinson: That was, it’s tough. It’s tough to see that going out, but,

[00:17:53] Dr. Victoria Peterson: um.

[00:17:54] Dr. Pinson: Yeah,

[00:17:54] Dr. Victoria Peterson: yeah. You

[00:17:54] Dr. Pinson: take on hundreds of

[00:17:56] Dr. Victoria Peterson: dollars of debt and you don’t get the paycheck, and the team [00:18:00] wants a bonus.

[00:18:01] Dr. Pinson: Yes.

[00:18:02] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Lots

[00:18:03] Dr. Pinson: of prayer,

[00:18:04] Dr. Victoria Peterson: lots of, lots of faith. And that’s what, uh, our PIP, it’s called the profitability incentive point. A lot of times people will use a bam or a formula of like salaries, times, something to set up those plans.

[00:18:17] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And what we found is that doing that, you might cover the day-to-day cash flow. But you also need to look at those balance sheet items of how much am I paying on my principal for my loans? You know, what am I getting paid as a return on investment as an investor in this company? And am I getting my paycheck?

[00:18:36] Dr. Victoria Peterson: So thank you for bringing that up, Angela. That’s that’s how we structure our goals, because sometimes just saying. Nationally, doctors grow 5% year over year. You grew 7%. Yay. Well, that 7% may not have paid your bills. So, all right, so we got in here. We had too many new [00:19:00] patients. We had a mindset shift. Now we know how to take care of patients, and we know how to set our goals in a way that.

[00:19:07] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Is a win for the team is a win for the doctor. It’s a win for the business. Rosie, you’ve been working with the team on systems and developing those things. What, what shifts have you seen?

[00:19:19] Rosie Yacone: Yeah, I mean, tons and we just had a team meeting where it’s all about celebration with Dr. Uh, Penson’s team, and I’m so glad today we get to pull the curtain back a little bit and.

[00:19:31] Rosie Yacone: Put a little spotlight on one of the most resilient, happy, positive people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and, and I did think that’s made such a difference in how the team responds to the type of leadership that she brings, because it’s not easy, you know, the. Navigating a lot of the interworkings of any dental practice is challenging, but certainly in, you know, what she’s already described.

[00:19:55] Rosie Yacone: But pace has been really important and I, I know Dr. Pinson [00:20:00] touched on that and how fast or how slow or how much you can really. Integrate and implement at one time with the team is really, really important and has been a sort of a focus. Me and Dr. Pinner always aligning, you know, are we ready for this?

[00:20:15] Rosie Yacone: What’s our timeline on this? How is this going? We’re very mindful of process sticking and it becoming habit before we move on, regardless of how long it may take, because we are developing long lasting systems that. Have intention of being there for years and years to come for the practice. So the pace of integration has been really, really important to making sure things stick and everyone understands the why.

[00:20:49] Rosie Yacone: And that’s been really a big shift with mindset. Why do we even do this? Why do we care about this? Why are we spending so much time looking [00:21:00] at a template? Why is a template even important? So we’ve really spent that time with the team to make them see it in a different light, and then they finally got to feel it.

[00:21:13] Rosie Yacone: They finally got to feel the systems working, but now they understood why they were important, and Dr. Pinson does a remarkable job of keeping her patients and her team at the forefront of every decision she makes. Um, that is the most important thing to her. So that, keeping that at the forefront from your leader, um, uh.

[00:21:39] Rosie Yacone: Shows the team the direction that they’re heading, and you then start to see the system sticking and the system’s working, and then they start feeling the chaos and the crazy start to dissipate. And then they get to look back and go, wow, we had one of the best [00:22:00] months and we didn’t even feel, see, and that is where.

[00:22:05] Rosie Yacone: Like the confetti pops and all the celebrations come out because we get to look at hindsight and that doesn’t mean there’s not still work to be done. And that doesn’t mean we’re not still on a pathway to process yet. We get to get, say, Hey guys, like, do you feel that? Do you really feel that in the day you did it?

[00:22:28] Rosie Yacone: You made such progress? And that’s what we. We’re able to do recently. So it’s been such a pleasure and a joy, and I’m glad everybody gets to share a little piece of my joy that I’ve been able to be a part of

[00:22:44] Dr. Pinson: Rosie’s inter instrumental in. Comforting to the staff and bringing it all together. Um, Angela was bringing in the numbers and explaining things.

[00:22:56] Dr. Pinson: I mean, these two ladies didn’t, they had a hard [00:23:00] job. The audience was not just going to give it to them easy. And I think they, they realized that early on, but they, they kept pushing and kept encouraging and, um, you know, where it was size and crickets now where we’re talking and, and, uh, delivering. But she’s absolutely right with that aha moment.

[00:23:23] Dr. Pinson: It was even for me, I will say like I was astonished when she told me, um, that September was amazing and I felt like, man, we did nothing this month.

[00:23:37] Dr. Victoria Peterson: You’re the singular dentist who didn’t have a September. Yeah. Yeah. You

[00:23:42] Dr. Pinson: know? September, you’re like, oh, it’s just not gonna happen. I think that’s just ingrained in years of practicing.

[00:23:50] Dr. Pinson: You just know you have that low, and so that was my expectation. I think even in my huddle, I was like, my office manager was like, why does she keep [00:24:00] saying that? We’re not gonna, we’re not at goal today. We’ll, we’ll continue to press forward, look ahead. But it turned out to be our best month ever.

[00:24:11] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Isn’t that incredible?

[00:24:12] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Yeah.

[00:24:13] Dr. Pinson: And we took a day off just,

[00:24:18] Dr. Victoria Peterson: you know, we often say success requires support.

[00:24:22] Dr. Pinson: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:22] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Right. And you have done a great job of surrounding yourself with support. Um, what kept you resilient? And, and every team goes through like four cycles. Like they’re like. In the beginning, they’re forming and, and it’s either like, yay, this is gonna be great.

[00:24:39] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And they’re enthusiastic or they’re like, Hmm, I don’t know. And, and then they’ll get into the second stage, which is very predictable. It’s a storm. Like, I thought what we were doing was just fine and I’m gonna, you know why I don’t wanna do this and you can’t make me do that. And you know, and there’s a lot of chatter in the hallways [00:25:00] and in the parking lot, there’s more parking lot conversations than there are.

[00:25:04] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Team meeting conversations, you know, in that stage. Mm-hmm. And then the third stage, you get through the storm, you think it’s gonna be good, but then it’s the reluctant contributor. It’s like, yeah, I know. Mm-hmm. I know you want me to do it. I know you’ve trained me on it. I know I could do it, but do I want to do it?

[00:25:22] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And, and you’re like. And then you breakthrough. And so it sounds like you’re in that breakthrough of, now I’ve got a peak performing team, they’ll take it on. But what did it feel like to you? Like, uh, because there are a lot of doctors that are somewhere between stage two and stage three. They’re in the storm.

[00:25:38] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Mm-hmm. Or they’re like, I have spent money, I have taken ’em to courses, I have bottom instruments. I’ve done everything I’ve begged and my team still isn’t on board. What encouragement would you give that doctor?

[00:25:52] Dr. Pinson: I would say, um, to that doctor, just hang on, just hang on. [00:26:00] Stay true to your why. Now, when I started, you guys asked me the why, like, of course I wanna be good, but you made me dig deep for the why.

[00:26:11] Dr. Pinson: And so what is your why? My my why is because I believe that dentistry can be comfortable. I believe that dentistry can have compassion, and I believe that teamwork is possible. Nice. Nice. I, I, I really do. I love what I do. I spent time trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and you know, as much as you wanna change to, to what everybody else does, I had to stay true to myself.

[00:26:41] Dr. Pinson: And so, yeah. Being able to say that and, and make that a part of my why. Um, and then to implement that with my staff and everyone else. That was the one thing that kind of kept the ship [00:27:00] moving forward, because in the moments of doubt, in the moments of frustration when no one else believes in you, why are you gonna keep going?

[00:27:12] Dr. Pinson: What is it worth to you? Is it just about money? Is it just about whatever, whatever it is, it’s, it’s, you have to stay true to why, why are you doing this? And so, um. I knew it was possible and I just had to stick it out. Just stick it out. Yeah. Lots of prayer. And when I lost sight of with frustration or the chattering, the whispering that you spoke of in the parking lot, oh, that can hurt your heart.

[00:27:44] Dr. Pinson: Ooh, it can hurt your heart, but, but I think if you continue to press forward. And stay strong. They see a strong leader that doesn’t waiver, that you don’t allow others to deter you [00:28:00] from what you’re saying you want to do. Um, it’s not a flimsy why. It’s a real and it’s important. And so that is, that is what sticks with people when they see consistency.

[00:28:14] Dr. Pinson: They see that you’re gonna be unwavering. Um, when you stay strong despite everything else thrown at you. Uh, that’s, that’s when the light shines. So it was dark, but. Joy comes in the morning. Just keep pushing.

[00:28:33] Dr. Victoria Peterson: I love it. No wonder, Rosie, you say she’s one of the most resilient leaders you’ve ever met.

[00:28:39] Rosie Yacone: There’s joy. I even hat off to the team too, right? They’re working hard. There’s, when you have this change, when you have new systems, when you

[00:28:51] Dr. Pinson: mm-hmm.

[00:28:52] Rosie Yacone: Uh, I

[00:28:52] Dr. Victoria Peterson: think Rosie froze. Oh, oops. Froze. Rosie, you froze. Then you turned into a A speed. [00:29:00] A speed.

[00:29:02] Rosie Yacone: Yeah. There you go. Um, but I do just wanna get my hats off to the team because they are working really hard and you know, when you look through every lens of every person who’s a part of the, any team, but yeah.

[00:29:18] Rosie Yacone: There are challenges and it, it is hard and change can be difficult and, um, some people move at different paces and some people work in different ways. We all know that we learn differently and they, they are really showing up and bringing them their best selves. And that’s where we’re starting to see systems take form because.

[00:29:42] Rosie Yacone: You know, Dr. Pinson is, is standing, you know, in her ground, in her space, and they are adopting what we’re implementing, uh, with them. So I do have to give my hats off to the hard work that they are, uh, showing up and [00:30:00]

[00:30:01] Angela Golden: performing. And we, we did go through that storming stage and then norming and then back to storming.

[00:30:07] Angela Golden: And we’ve been. And, but we’ve, because she’s such a strong leader and has that grace in her heart, yeah, I think it’s what’s really made it. Yeah,

[00:30:21] Dr. Victoria Peterson: I love what you said, Dr. Pence, and you said it is the consistency and we’re in the middle. Uh, this is November of 2025. So in October we start looking towards the next year.

[00:30:33] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Right. And we did our momentum planning and we fill out a business forecast for the next year that. About how many hours are we gonna work? What are we gonna produce per hour? How many new patients will we see? What’s our supply and demand for hygienists? What are we gonna accept as write-offs for the insurance companies that we accept and things like that.

[00:30:55] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And I always say that that document is the reflection [00:31:00] of your choices. And so when doctors come into planning very thoughtfully, the way you have then your business plan and your goals aren’t just something you pulled out of the cloud. It’s, it’s a reflection of your heartfelt choices that puts numbers to your why, right?

[00:31:19] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Mm-hmm. And, um, and that statement had, and it’s like, I promise my team that I will show up, you know, if I say I’m gonna work 12 days, I’m gonna work 12 days. And if I don’t work 12 days, I’ll still produce at the same level. I’ll just move my production per hour up. So if I say it’s a hundred thousand a month, it’s a hundred thousand a month, you can take it to a bank.

[00:31:44] Dr. Victoria Peterson: It’s, it’s a promise and. Some doctors say, I don’t know if that, but what if my team doesn’t show up and book the schedule or do this or do that? But it, it is part of the system of like, like you shared before, let’s get [00:32:00] really deep about why am I here? Who am I serving? What is the compelling reason for all of us to be here and deliver in this way?

[00:32:09] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And then your business plan. It just becomes an articulation of that. It’s not like a stretch, it’s not like I’m chasing, it’s that you’re magnetizing. Is that what that feels like to you?

[00:32:23] Dr. Pinson: I would definitely say it feels like that because it it brings it all together.

[00:32:29] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Yeah.

[00:32:30] Dr. Pinson: When you’re living in your, in your true space, you, you allow yourself to grow, you allow it to flourish.

[00:32:38] Dr. Pinson: Um, so that is. A big part of just trusting and planning. We, we are not taught to plan. We plan our procedures. We’re very systematic in everything that we do, but why are we not the same way in our practice and in our business and for our [00:33:00] staff? So promoting that and being a part of it and supporting it is really essential to the whole process.

[00:33:11] Dr. Victoria Peterson: I know our time is coming to a close, but I think I would be remiss if I left the story with she had too many new patients and we came in and magically had some words and life stressed and everybody’s happy because there’s like a part two, we’re gonna have to bring you back because you got all that straightened out and then you went and bought.

[00:33:31] Dr. Victoria Peterson: The records of another practice and folded that in. And you’ve continued to grow in 2025, not national average, which is 5%. You’ve grown 22% this year. So, uh, the story I’m hearing and thank you for sharing it. You and I don’t have a lot of time that we connect or collaborate together. Now I’m gonna kick Angela and Rosie out and just come hang out with you ’cause they’re having all the fun.

[00:33:58] Dr. Victoria Peterson: But, um, [00:34:00] that’s. That’s remarkable that your focus was on the patient and the team and the experience, and it shifted you to four times. You four Xed your growth over the average practice owner. How does that feel? That’s amazing.

[00:34:22] Dr. Pinson: I knew that, but to hear you say that, put a whole new, big, warm fuzzy on me.

[00:34:28] Dr. Pinson: But, uh, it, that’s astonishing. If someone had told me that was going to happen, I would’ve laughed. I would’ve, I would’ve doubted it 100%. Um, I think in your advertisement it says 1.5 times growth. That I didn’t think was achievable. And here we are at 22%. 22%. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And again, [00:35:00] uh, I, when you look back at all the hard work you put in with your team, with yourself, with, um, your patients, I still get to do what I want to do.

[00:35:13] Dr. Pinson: At the end of the day, love on my patients, love on my staff, and I walk out of there with joy because I got to do all the things I wanted to do. So, and on top of that, I have amazing growth. So I am over the moon ecstatic with, with that news and, um, grateful for the journey. Grateful for the journey, grateful for the growth.

[00:35:37] Dr. Pinson: So, uh, thank you for sharing that.

[00:35:41] Dr. Victoria Peterson: No, it’s, it’s our pleasure to be of support. You’re, you’re the one walking the journey and it is just a gift to us to be a part of that. Um, I wanna go ahead and pre-schedule you two years from now. Okay. Have you come back and you’re gonna go. Oh my God. I thought that was the best it [00:36:00] could be.

[00:36:00] Dr. Victoria Peterson: And now it turned into this. Uh, you are, um, you are just, uh, an inspiration for private practice owners, for, uh, entrepreneurship, for graceful leadership, and I think we are definitely coming into a time where grace wins out over the grind. You know, everybody’s really tired of the grind and so thank you for modeling the way of.

[00:36:26] Dr. Victoria Peterson: How putting people first, your patients, your team first, and having, you know, stronger education about the numbers and how they all work together. But we’re, we’re, we’re metrics informed.

[00:36:39] Dr. Pinson: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:39] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Right. Rather than chasing the metric. And that’s a strategy that can give double digit growth.

[00:36:46] Dr. Pinson: Yes.

[00:36:47] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Yes, it can.

[00:36:50] Dr. Pinson: Yes, it can. I’m so grateful. Thank you. Thank you for, uh, having me on this podcast, and I am, there are some amazing [00:37:00]people within this organization. I just have to say that, uh, doctors and support staff, so to be among this group is, um, is a, is what is an honor.

[00:37:13] Dr. Victoria Peterson: So thank you. Well, that’s another addition of investment grade practices.

[00:37:19] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Rosie. Angela, thank you so much for all that you do and joining us here today. Um, Dr. Pence and thank you for showing us what early stage of building an investment grade practice looks like, and I look forward to seeing you on our next Dr. Mastermind. It’s always great to see you on our monthly study club and mastermind sessions.

[00:37:39] Dr. Victoria Peterson: Uh, if you’d like more information about Productive Dentist Academy or our investment grade practice coaching. Programs. Don’t hesitate to reach out to angela@productivedentists.com.

[00:37:52] Angela Golden: Thank you all.