Dr. Marko Kamel — from 0 to 55-plus arches per month

”Progressive Dental has transformed my life, my practice, my family’s life, my team’s lives, and has helped me transform thousands of patients’ lives with full-arch dentistry! As dental practice owners, we must ensure three foundational principles are in place to scale in full-arch dentistry: marketing and sales, workflows, and investing in learning. You will see that you can set yourself up with all of these principles by attending one of Progressive Dental’s Closing Institute Boot Camps!” says Dr. Marko Kamel from Woodbury Dental Arts.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Dr. Marko Kamel. I have dedicated my professional career to providing patients with comprehensive restorative, surgical, and reconstructive dental services. I earned my dental degree from Cairo’s Ain-Shams University in 2000 and received my DDS in Minnesota in 2006. In 2012, after successfully building several dental practices throughout Minnesota, I opened Woodbury Dental Arts, a state-of-the-art dental clinic that is dedicated to total patient wellbeing, offering comprehensive preventative, restorative, and implant services.

Compared to other marketing firms, the team at Progressive Dental had an edge.

How did you turn your GP practice into an implant center?

At Woodbury Dental Arts, we took a leap of faith when investing in our business venture — failure simply wasn’t an option. To ensure success, we sought out innovative solutions and found the answer with Progressive Dental Marketing. Through their guidance and support, our practice transitioned from providing general dental services to becoming a premier dental implant center. This transition was only possible thanks to Progressive Dental’s expertise. From merely doing two arches per year in 2016, we ultimately increased to over 55 full-arch cases monthly. Our sales more than doubled annually ever since we partnered with Progressive.

What’s the secret?

As dental practice owners, we must ensure three foundational principles are in place: marketing and sales, workflows, and continuously investing in learning. Our advertising should demonstrate our expertise with full-arch dentistry in order to attract leads seeking the same treatment solution. Furthermore, this competitive market makes it a requirement to have a sales process that will help patients confidently move forward with treatment. By putting these pieces of the puzzle together — plus forming an educational commitment for ourselves — we will be on track towards providing worthwhile All-on-X cases for each patient. The second principle is workflows. In order to do full-arch cases in volume, you need an efficient and profitable workflow to accommodate as many patients as possible, while providing the highest standard of care. Lastly, never stop investing in learning, and get yourself mentors. This is crucial, both for yourself as a clinician and for your team. If you invest in your team, your practice will grow while their careers grow. I have always invested in extensive continuing education courses, seminars, and advanced training from the best to learn from leaders who are already doing this successfully. I have completed extensive continuing education courses, seminars, and advanced training in dental soft tissue grafting, zygomatic and pterygoid implant placement, and much more.

What was different about working with Progressive versus other marketing companies?

In 2016, I began collaborating with Progressive Dental Marketing — a dental practice growth consulting agency. Not only are they experienced in helping doctors expand services to include full-arch dentistry, they also specialize in creating individualized strategies for each of their clients. Our first conversation revolved around all aspects and objectives specific to my dental practice. Compared to other marketing firms, the team at Progressive Dental had an edge. By bringing together meaningful visuals, like videos and images, into one unified plan tailored perfectly for our needs — from website design to advertising campaigns — we quickly transformed my business goals into a reality. Progressive’s expert videographers flew in and captured genuine footage of our services. By truly telling the story of our practice and our patients through our marketing, we were able to not just position ourselves as implant experts, we were also able to build an emotional connection with potential patients, resulting in a dramatic increase in our leads. Every 6 months, I have their videographers come out to capture fresh new content of our patient’s stories to share through our marketing.

Why do you invest in your team?

Just like I invest in my career, I also make sure to invest in my team’s career. Not only did Progressive Dental help me increase leads, they also continually train my team. Progressive Dental created The Closing Institute to train doctors and their team to close full-arch cases in volume through a sales process that works. These events and their mentorship program have helped me with hiring the right team members, training them to handle the leads, answering the phone, scheduling the patients, following up with the patients, presenting financing options, and closing the cases. At The Closing Institute, attendees learn a sales process that is lacking in many dental practices.

Best advice on how to keep growing?

You’re just one person on your team. The reality is that you cannot do it all on your own. Everybody on your team has the potential to change a patient’s life, simply by doing their job and perfecting it. Your team is your biggest asset. How is a perfect team built? You have to hire the right people, train them well, and provide continuous coaching. The Closing Institute provides my team with continual training every week. They listen to incoming phone calls from leads and coach my team on how to improve their consultations, address objections, and ultimately close the case. Our Dental Practice Growth Consultants at Progressive Dental join me for a weekly call where we track metrics and assess whether my team is performing up to standard. Every 6 months, we reassess our goals and come up with new ones. Our goal for this past year was 500 arches, and our target for 2023 is 750 arches. We keep surpassing our goals, as is evident in our progress and commitment to accountability. Because of our team’s efforts, our practice has skyrocketed in both patient satisfaction and overall success since 2016 — a trend that is still holding strong today!

How do you fit so many cases into the schedule as a sole provider?

My number one priority is to provide the best care for my patients. In order to accommodate all your patients and keep increasing your All-on-X cases, you need to engineer a digital workflow that can increase your efficiency and profitability. Practice makes perfect, so I commit myself to practicing every single day to bettering our practice. Developing new workflows has been a fun challenge. To help me keep scaling up, I’m consistently networking with doctors who do these cases in volume, attend Institutes that focus on optimized workflows, and consistently research new technologies. The Closing Institute events have helped me connect with hundreds of doctors and resources in this field in order to do this successfully.

Why and where do you share your secrets?

After years of dedication, I have developed a passionate commitment to mentoring and aiding other clinicians with their development. Following in the footsteps of my mentors, I am eager to make an impact on this industry by teaching doctors how to scale their All-on-X cases. I truly get inspired by others and their stories. Now I speak at conferences, hoping to inspire others with my story. Each quarter, I enjoy speaking at Progressive Dental Marketing’s The Closing Institute Symposium — an honor that puts me in front of more than 700 attendees. It’s inspiring to remember that we all start from somewhere — but it gets even better when I learn something new every time I go! Surrounding myself with top implant clinicians, leading dental companies, and motivated individuals helps me challenge myself to push further for success. I always remind myself to never settle, always stay hungry, invest on my own, be open to any change, be extremely adaptable, and most importantly, to always stay humble.

Was there a point you believed you had plateaued?

I was convinced I had plateaued when I hit 23 arches per month. I remember addressing this to my team at Progressive Dental because I am someone who always stays ambitious about continually growing. When I addressed this to Progressive, they quickly reminded me of my goals and that our consistency and determination had been the main factors in Woodbury Dental Arts’ growth. So, we buckled down and perfected all three factors I keep mentioning — marketing and sales, workflows, and continuing education. Our team increased their closing percentage, I found new and improved workflows, and I kept investing in our learning. Now that I have hit 55-plus arches per month, I am dedicated to sharing my blueprint for success. I am also almost ready to hire associate doctors so they can also do over 55-plus arches per month at my practice. This way I can keep balancing surgery and mentoring other clinicians.

What next steps would you recommend for other clinicians?

I strongly recommend that you attend one of Progressive Dental’s events — The Closing Institute Boot Camp is the perfect opportunity to meet them in person and learn all their tips and tricks! You won’t regret it! Progressive Dental is constantly innovating their services with a client-centered approach. Thanks to them, I have been able to live the life I have always aspired to. Their experienced account managers are there every step of the way with you. With Progressive Dental, you will be connected with the best marketing and dental practice growth company in the world. They give you the capability to reach millions of people in your community. More than that, they enable you to connect with patients on a deeper level. If you cannot close cases, then you can’t transform lives. The Closing Institute team not only assists with your marketing efforts, they also equip you with all the skills necessary for running a business and closing cases successfully. Other marketing companies may just sell you zip codes, views, and clicks, but they cannot guarantee an exact dollar figure, which measures your return on investment. Progressive Dental is transparent and straightforward when it comes to results. Not only do they show you where the leads are coming from and what stage of the sales cycle the patient is in, their analytics will highlight an exact dollar figure that accurately tracks your ROI. Bart Knellinger, CEO of Progressive Dental, and Gerritt Cora, Vice President at Progressive Dental, have become like family members to me — as has everyone else on their team!

Progressive Dental has transformed my life, my practice, my family’s life, my team’s lives, and they have helped me transform thousands of patients’ lives with full-arch dentistry! As dental practice owners, we must ensure three foundational principles are in place: marketing and sales, workflows, and investing in learning. You will see that you can set yourself up with all of these by attending one of Progressive Dental’s Closing Institute Boot Camps!