Guest: Dr. Jeffrey Burns
Small-Town Implant Dentist & Boutique Practice Owner
Dr. Jeff Burns, a dentist with a boutique practice in a small town, shares his journey of providing high-quality dental care and the challenges of attracting patients to a rural area. He discusses the impact of marketing on his practice and the importance of team buy-in. The conversation highlights the success of his practice and the value of working with a reliable marketing partner.
Dr. Jeffrey Burns shares his journey of building a successful boutique dental practice in a rural community, exploring patient acquisition, marketing, team buy-in, and the importance of having a reliable growth partner.
00:00 Introduction and Practice Background
Dr. Jeff Burns
Yeah. So my name is Jeff Burns and I graduated from West Virginia University in 94 and I moved here to New Market, Virginia with my wife and my three kids. New Market is a very small town. It’s a town of 3000 people. It was just a nice thing to be able to come to a small town because the people in these towns, especially in this part of the country are very loyal and they are just, they’re just good people. And I think that, you know, from growing up on a farming background that, you know, my dad always taught me two things. He said, you do good work and you treat people right and you won’t have any problems. So I’ve followed that my whole life when it comes to practicing. My practice is, you know, it, I don’t, I mean, it’s a boutique practice, but it’s a general practice, but we have, you know, the latest equipment. We really try to have five-star service and we just, not only say it, we walk the walk.
01:09 The Rewards of Dentistry
03:03 Challenges of Attracting Patients
Chelsea Morrisey
And you’re in, if people aren’t familiar with the New Market, you have a very small town and you’re sandwiched between two larger cities, but not huge. What cities are you between again?
Dr. Jeff Burns
Yeah, I’m between Winchester and Harrisonburg. And actually I’m closer to Harrisonburg. Winchester is about an hour away and Harrisonburg is about 30 minutes away. They have about 50,000 people and I would say Winchester is about 75. So.
08:05 Building a Reputation in a Rural Area
And I think that when you cultivate that kind of group of really doing the kind of work you want to do, always, you know, it’s funny, I’ve made my practice kind of like out of a fine dining restaurant and where the front of the house, is the people that work out front, know, your people that answer the phone in the back of the house, of course, is where the food’s cooked. And we always talk about when I started doing this, that I would train the front in the back. So all my servers were trained in the kitchen because that way that they knew exactly what was being made. So if someone asks them out front about a product, they understand exactly what it is because they actually worked in the back with me. So, you know, When you take all of those things together, where you’re doing high quality dentistry, your service is great, the people in the practice are taking care of the patients like they should be taken care of, then you develop a reputation of you might not be the cheapest person in town, but you’re the best person in town.
Chelsea Morrisey
Yep. so just to kind of summarize, because I’m really familiar kind of with what we’ve done with you and what you’ve done yourself, it’s you stand by your work, you do excellent work, you’ve always put a focus on having the highest quality technology. I mean, especially for a rural area, your practice is very modern, very advanced, and you have a reputation in doing this for 30 years of being someone that is going to be here.
Dr. Jeff Burns
And I was going to say the other thing is that when you get into doing this, you have to have a vision. And I don’t, you know, when I say it, you have to have a vision. You have to know where you want to go. And if you want to do full arch or if this is what, you decide, you know, this is what I’d like to do, whether you want to do full arch, whether you want to do gold crowns, whether you want to, whatever you want to do. You have to be able to relay that to your team. And they need to understand and then they need to take ownership of that. And once that happens and you can guide them and say, is where I want to go. Now take me there. Well then, well then that’s when the good stuff starts happening.
13:30 Team Buy-In and Vision
Meaning your staff will be able to listen to the patient while they’re in the consult room talking about the problems that they have and all the different things that they’ve had happen in their life because of their teeth being bad. And then bring them back when you do the surgery. if they don’t want to watch the surgery or watch part of it, have them there for the reveal. And once they see like, that reveal and then a testimonial, then you don’t have to do anything else because then they say to themselves, you know, always hear people talking about, my gosh, I don’t want to come in. I’m worried about things hurting. It’s too expensive. To now they’re identifying with people that come in and have like really, really bad problems. And now they are so grateful that you guys, everybody in that office had a part, some way, of getting that person’s and changing their life.
And you need to have that experience with them. Like today we had a reveal and the guy walked out of the room and we always ask him, do you mind if we have some of the staff come in? There’s like seven people standing there. And so they’re like, You know, what happens is as you cultivate that, you don’t have to go ask them. They want to be there because they’ve gotten to know the patient through the process. and whether they took the phone call, whether they did the console, whether they did the records, whether they did the surgery, whether they made the provisional that goes in their mouth. They are somebody, you know, most of the time the whole staff, whether they did their cleaning has a part in that. So they come in, they want to see what happens when their life gets changed. That’s how you get the energy and excitement with your staff. And once you get that, well, then you just got to kind of shape it and make sure that you’re, that you keep everybody on point. and make sure that everybody is continuing to do their best.
Chelsea Morrisey
Yeah, it’s really interesting. So you’re not just saying, hey this is my vision, buy into my vision. You’re saying, let me show you this patient, the journey of the patient and the vision of where we can take this patient together. And it’s not like, hey, I want to do this procedure more, so help me line my pockets. It’s like, I want to do this procedure more to help patients and let me show you what that means. And now everyone is bought into helping patients.
Dr. Jeff Burns
Yeah, one of the things that I think some people have a hard time with is just the relationship with their staff. If you really want to do this in my opinion, it’s not just volume and money, but if you really want to do this the right way and get something out of it, it’s just not another person that you’re doing surgery. You’re putting teeth in, but really, you know, having it affect you, I don’t know, for lack of a better word, having it affect your soul about what you’ve done to help these people. Then there has to be a level playing field as far as your team is your team. We always go back to the Navy SEALs and how they work as a group and one, in a one unit. And, yes, I’m the manager, I’m the boss, but They all feel like they can come to me and say things and I will listen to them. And you have to have that relationship because when you have that relationship and they feel like, your staff is like, you know, this guy, I really believe what he wants to do. And he’s not just to your point, lining his pockets that we, and you get them to buy into, the amount of people that we can help. And then every person that comes in and every surgery you do, it just makes that more real. And you find that You just create this atmosphere of, who are we going to help next? And what’s that going to look like? and then you have buzz throughout the office where, you know, did you see Mr. Williams when he came in today? no, I missed it. oh my gosh, you are not going to believe what he did. it really isn’t about the money and stuff. mean, yeah, at first you’ll be like, this is great. But once you start doing enough of it, you realize that you have an effect on people as far as your office does.
21:32 Success and Marketing Impact
Chelsea Morrisey
I mean, you worked with marketing agencies before us. So what does this meant for your practice and what’s been the difference in kind of what we’ve been able to do together?
Dr. Jeff Burns
Well, I think that, what it’s meant for the practice is that it’s like anything else. If you have something that you love and you want to do it, you have a partner that’s helping you do that. So what working with you and working with your team has meant to me is it’s filled this wonderful void that I’ve had about something I love to do that I couldn’t do as much because I didn’t have the means to get the patients in. So now that I’m getting the patients in. then I’m able to fulfill something that I like to do in my team. And not only that, it’s helped us grow as a team to realize that the more that we do this, we continue to love, this is really something that we enjoy. So you know it’s nice because if you wanna set your sail to this destination of doing this type of dentistry. It’s great when you have a partner that will come in and actually do what they tell you they’re going to do, like you guys.
And I would say that probably one of the nicest things about working with you guys is that you have good managers. The setters are setting people with good leads. In the past, what my problem was that I would be working with people and specifically the people that are setting the appointments for these patients, these leads, that they just weren’t qualified. And to be honest, there’s nothing that makes you feel bad when you have a patient that’s very excited and has high expectations of being able to do this. And then they come in and you’re starting to talk about price and financing and realize that, there’s no way they’re going to be able to do this. for us, it sucks because, we’re excited, they’re excited. And then it’s kind of like, when you have setters that are actually doing what you’re telling them, or as things progress, you’re modifying the way they approach them and the information they give them. It’s great because you get high quality leads from you. And that’s what I was missing on the other ones.
It’s funny. You know, all these groups that are out there, they all say the same thing. You know, we’re going to give you high quality leads. We’re going to give you this many leads. And it’s kind of like, you know, my practice. Everybody says there are five star practice. Everybody says they do the best work. Everybody says, you know, but you got to walk the walk And I think that that’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed about working with you is that you walk the walk.
Chelsea Morrisey
Yeah, thank you. appreciate that. If someone was on the fence about working with us, they had worked, maybe gotten burned before like you, what would you tell them?
Dr. Jeff Burns
Well, I mean, that’s the easy one. I mean, if somebody was on the fence, first of all, you are going to get burned by other people. And it’s like anything else. If you place an implant, it fails. Are you going to stop placing implants? No, maybe you need to either make your technique better or buy a different implant or whatever. But the thing is you have to continue to pursue if that’s what you want to do. And I think that what I would do is When I looked at your company and we talked about this high quality lead thing and I realized that there is a void in this marketplace for these companies that are not established and don’t have good people that have been working with them for a long time to where, the person that is selling you on the company talks about all these things, but They really just don’t have the actual people to back it up. And it goes right back to my practice. It’s the same thing. You know, the people that work with me, they’ve been working with me for a long time. They’re all very good at what they do. And so that makes it so when the patient does come in there isn’t a weak spot. And that’s what working with your company has been really nice because other companies, there’s always a weak spot, you know, The person that talked to me, they might’ve been great, but then the manager, my account manager might’ve been like, they’re all right. The people that were helping me with videos, they might’ve been, you know, just so-so. But you really gotta have accumulation of people that are on the top of their game. And I think that’s what you guys have going for you, is you’re not just one face. your many faces. And once you get into it, you understand that it’s a finely tuned machine that really works well to get you what you need to have.
Chelsea Morrisey
Yeah, and I’m excited to share that with the team because I think we have done a really good job of hiring incredible people who, like you, are very passionate about getting not just our clients’ results, but also these patients. Because we’re the first step. We talk to them as well, and there’s nothing that we want more than to celebrate their success and them having moved forward with treatment. So I really appreciate it. think… I’ll let you get back to your day now, but I can’t thank you enough for just speaking about us. And I can’t wait to share this with the team. So thank you for being an amazing client and look forward to another amazing year. 2026 is already starting off even stronger than 2025. So I’m excited to see how we do.
Dr. Jeff Burns
Well, thank you. Well, thank you guys. i mean, it’s like I said, it’s been a good ride I’ll be honest with you. It’s been one that I probably wasn’t expecting. when you get into working with another marketing company, especially when you’ve been burnt, you’re so like hesitant. and I’ll tell you, Working with Spencer has been one of the best things that I’ve ever had happen because working with him and you and how all that synergy is, you know, it really is the icing on the cake when you have somebody that can, make sure that everything’s getting done, not just, with your company, with other companies. and that’s kind of, been nice. and he was the one that introduced me to you guys. So I think.
Chelsea Morrisey
Yeah. So for anyone listening, I have a podcast specifically with Spencer, who is an amazing consultant. So you should go and listen to that one as well. I do agree. Spencer plus The Implant Engine is definitely a dream team.
Dr. Jeff Burns
No, that is absolutely correct. i mean, you get the two of you guys together. then, and one other thing I’d like to say is that to any of your people that are kind of on the fence and getting into this or might’ve been burnt, you have to do what you tell us to do. I mean, that’s the big thing. If you want us to do something, all you gotta do is do it. If you do what you’re told, then you’ll get good results.
Chelsea Morrisey
Yeah, sounds good. Well, thank you, Dr. Burns. We will reconnect real soon. I appreciate it. Glad you’re feeling better. You have a good day. All right,
Dr. Jeff Burns
Have a nice day. Thank you. You too.
ROAS
Revenue Returned
Every month you wait, patients who should have been yours are choosing someone else. Not because they’re better doctors — because they built the system.
