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Corporate Profile: Burleson Seminars: Cultivating Success with Proven Strategy by Kyle Patton, Editorial Assistant, Orthotown Magazine

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Hailing from a family of 12 dentists, it's safe to say that dentistry is in Dr. Dustin Burleson's blood. Burleson worked in the marketing field during his college years and brings more than 15 years of experience in dental practice management. He oversees 40 staff members, four practice locations, exhaustive marketing plans and is the author of several books. His marketing strategies have generated more than $300 million in revenue for his orthodontic clients and his privately held practices. Orthotown Magazine sat down with Dr. Burleson to learn how he continues to translate his success into success for thousands of doctors around the world.

How did Burleson Orthodontics and Burleson Seminars get their starts?
Dr. Dustin Burleson: Burleson Orthodontics was founded in 2006 with zero patients. Today it has grown to over 7,800 active patients and four locations. Founded on the mission to serve others and a vision for changing lives, advancing the profession and supporting the community, Burleson Orthodontics added pediatric dentistry to its list of specialty services in 2010. Through a strong commitment to excellence and nimble ability to change and adapt quickly to the marketplace, Burleson Orthodontics & Pediatric Dentistry was recently named on the Inc. 500 | 5000 list of fastest growing companies in North America.

Burleson Seminars got its start after a whirlwind lecture and seminar circuit tour back in 2009 and 2010 when I was invited to share my marketing, management and employee training automation systems to large groups of entrepreneurs. Speaking to audiences of over 2,000 business owners and sharing the stage with marketing legends like Dan Kennedy and Shark Tank celebrity entrepreneurs Daymond John and Barbara Corcoran, I quickly discovered there was a hungry market in the dental and orthodontic communities for accurate information on how to build profitable businesses without sacrificing time away from family and friends.

What is your experience in ortho?
Burleson: My experience in orthodontics starts way back in childhood. There are 12 dentists in my family, so we're literally born into the profession. I worked for my orthodontist in high school and observed his practice before leaving for a unique six year combined undergraduate and dental school program at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Dentistry. I thought I was saving two years of college but they really just crammed four years of undergraduate studies into two years. I didn't have a life for six years, but that's exactly what I wanted. To say I was driven was a little bit of an understatement.

While in residency, I was able to work as a general dentist on the evenings and weekends to support my family. Although I love restorative dentistry and all of the variation and excitement that comes with a far range of services, I really found I liked orthodontics even more. Right after residency, I opened my own practice from scratch in a town that had over 60 other orthodontists. Probably not the most logical thing I've ever done but it has worked out to be a huge blessing and wonderful opportunity for me and our employees, families and the community.

Why are you so excited and passionate about helping orthodontists?
Burleson: Orthodontists are heroes in my mind. They go to school for 10 years or longer and take a huge responsibility for the success of their families, their employees, their patients and their communities. They drive a huge tidal wave of confidence for patients young and old and they do it with continued pressure from insurance companies, discount plans and federal regulations that attempt to squeeze the margins in most practices to the point that I've seen new clients who have had their income cut in half or more in the past few years alone.

The reason I fly all over the world giving seminars and speeches about orthodontists and the reason I write books and articles about orthodontists is simple: I want to see them improve their practices. Today's orthodontist has been completely riddled with insane amounts of competition, not just from other orthodontists or dentists providing orthodontics but from an economy that has lost 8 million full-time jobs, an economy where more than 92 million Americans or 37 percent of the civilian population aged 16 and over have no interest in looking for a job, according to Pew Research and Bureau of Labor Statistics. In an economy where all of us as orthodontists are competing in a world with horribly-weak consumer spending power, you are not just competing with the discount insurance provider down the road, you're competing with every other place that grabs the consumer's attention and diminishes spending power. Your competition is anyone your patient compares you with.

Tell us about your team.
Burleson: Our team is strategically positioned throughout the globe in order to help our clients receive the resources they need on their time schedule. The business development specialists at Burleson Seminars travel to the offices of our clients to help train their treatment coordinators, clinical assistants, administrative employees and associate doctors. Our web development, content publishing and marketing automation teams are also available to help clients quickly implement the strategies they discover at our seminars and private workshops. Together, our team has the sales, marketing and management experience orthodontists need with the added benefit of Burleson Seminars being the only orthodontic practice management consultant that is also a Founding Fellow at the Institute of Coaching with the Harvard School of Medicine.

What sort of success have orthodontists had working with you?
Burleson: Over 1,600 orthodontists in 19 countries throughout the globe are implementing Burleson systems with tremendous success. Our average new client after attending the flagship Treatment Coordinator Boot Camp training sees their new patient conversion rate nearly double. Sustaining that dramatic improvement over the period of a year typically results in over $1 million in revenue boost with patients who were already coming to visit but leaving the orthodontist's office without making a commitment to start treatment. Our subsidiary, Burleson Media Group, has helped scores of orthodontists get their first book published and breakthrough to their market with valuable information that all of us assume our patients know but in reality none of them actually understand. Brilliant orthodontists with incredible passion for helping patients with cleft palate, TMD, surgical issues, or airway problems, are all coming to realize that they must take the time to educate their prospective new patients with valuable content. If you think the marketplace is full of clear, concise and valuable information for patients, just try typing “TMD cures” into Google. We've got a long way to go, but our doctors are blazing new trails when it comes to positioning their practices as valuable resources for their communities.
What do you think the future of orthodontics looks like over the next 10 years?
Burleson: Orthodontics and dentistry as a whole are undergoing rapid adaptation to an economy with fewer and fewer full-time jobs with dental insurance benefits. In the next 10 to 20 years, barring any unexpected regulations or legislation, we're going to see more consolidation of dental practices into group models like medicine experienced in the not-too-distant past. This will reach beyond the most-obvious urban areas and extend into the suburbs and even rural practices as insurance companies are forced to adapt to the Affordable Care Act and fi nd more unique ways to squeeze the margins of their discount providers. Student debt will continue to crush most new graduates and an adapting workforce with more young females who wish to start families will require dental and orthodontic practices to step up to the plate and offer better tuition reimbursement opportunities and/or paid maternity leave in order to attract the best providers.

In the next couple of decades, the private practice model is not going away. It will simply be required to adapt and focus on relationships more than ever, value-building more than ever and precise target marketing so that the practice has a model more like Apple and less like Samsung when it comes to attracting raving fans and giving them more of what they want. Obligation and need will not suffice as motivational tools to new and existing patients. It will be painfully obvious within 20 years that your best patients, the ones who will really support you, are a much smaller subset of your practice than you initially suspected and that you must continue to provide the things they really want in order to survive.

Your practice is going to become much less about you and much more about your target market and what you're doing to serve them. Everything else is going to be noise or distraction in an economy that continues to shift rapidly.



Please explain how you approach practices/doctors and what your goal is.
Burleson: Our goal with clients is to help them change more lives, advance the profession of orthodontics and support their communities. We start with the doctor and his or her family. If we can't break through at that level and establish a successful leadership mindset with generosity and a bright vision for the future, we stop right there. When the doctor can see what it is that he or she wants to accomplish, often with our guidance, we see dramatic things happen in the practice. Our ability to break through to the employees, patients, families and community is drastically accelerated.

What's the biggest challenge orthodontists face that you are able to provide solutions or advice for in order to help them create success?
Burleson: The biggest challenge orthodontists face is the dual reality that they must be an excellent clinical practitioner as well as an astute business owner. Most of the information they've been given on either side of this dual reality is incongruent with true success in both areas. It goes all the way back to the concept that got us interested in dental school and orthodontic residency in the first place. We were all told if we just complete dental school, go through our residency, get good grades, do good work, buy a practice or start one with a sign and a drill, we're guaranteed success. It's an entitlement attitude that no one wants to admit they have. Deep down we're all a little pissed that going to school for 10 years or more is not enough to succeed in today's complex marketplace. No one told us the reality of the situation. Then I come along and show orthodontists the other 1,412 things they should be doing if they really want to succeed in this profession and the message falls on deaf ears. So, the biggest challenge we face as orthodontists is really ourselves.

What sets you apart from other coaches/private coaching groups in orthodontics?
Burleson: Hands down, the difference between me and other self-proclaimed gurus is that I make more money doing what I do rather than teaching it. Teaching orthodontic practice success strategies simply gives me an outlet to share what is working across the globe with other top specialists and pay it forward. My coaching and consulting also supports my cleft palate foundation where families who need but cannot afford orthodontic care or surgery for their child with cleft palate can get the care they deserve. I'm here to help orthodontists build better practices, live more fulfilled lives, focus on their family and legacy and discover they can have a compelling vision for their world and actually see it come true. None of these worthwhile endeavors happen simply by throwing more money at them. You've got to dig a little deeper if you want to enjoy real success.

What's the best way an orthodontic practice can get in touch with you or get more information?
Burleson: Orthodontists are encouraged to visit www.MyOrthoSecret.com for a free book that will help them understand exactly what opportunities they are missing when it comes to building the orthodontic practice of their dreams and how to quickly implement the secrets I've stumbled upon.
Orthotown Magazine
April 2024
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