How Dr. Brian Marino Scaled from a 3-Op Struggle to a 4-Practice Powerhouse

What does real growth actually look like? In this episode of Dental Wealth Multiplier, Jonathan sits down with Dr. Brian Marino to unpack the raw, behind-the-scenes story of how he went from a cramped three-op practice with $800 rent to leading a four-practice group with a strong associate team, real estate holdings, and a thriving mentorship model. They dive into the tough decisions, the systems that worked (and failed), and the mindset shifts that helped Brian transition from burned-out operator to confident CEO. From team challenges and failed associates to wealth-building through real estate and mentorship, this episode is a masterclass in scaling smart and staying sane. If you’re thinking about growing beyond one location, this is the episode to listen to before you do.

Find Jonathan at jonathanmoffat.com.
Learn more about Aligned Advisors at alignedadvisors.com.

Find Jonathan on LinkedIn
Connect with Dr. Brian Marino on LinkedIn

Catch new episodes weekly and dive deeper at dentalwealthmultiplier.com.

—

Watch the Episode here

Listen to the Podcast here

How Dr. Brian Marino Scaled from a 3-Op Struggle to a 4-Practice Powerhouse

Welcome to another episode of the show. Our guest is Dr. Brian Marino. Dr. Marino is a client of ours. We’ve been working together since 2020. We were talking about this before we went live. We met at a dental conference in Ohio the week before COVID went ballistic. It was when people were still traveling and all that. We’ve been working together since 2020.

Dr. Marino, I appreciate you coming on here and being willing to share your story. You’ve got an amazing story that a lot of people will find valuable and insightful. I’m so proud of you and happy with the progress and all the success you guys have had. That’s something that a lot of people are going to enjoy reading about. I appreciate you being willing to come on and share that with us.

Thanks for having me on. I’m glad that we’re not in those COVID days anymore.

We were talking before. I remember being in the airport, flying home from that trip. It was not super busy, but still busy. A few people had masks on. I get back to the office, and my team’s like, “Was everybody in the airport wearing a mask?” I’m like, “No. I saw three masks.” Fast forward three days, and everyone had a mask. It was complete chaos.

We’re located about twenty miles from ground zero, where COVID exploded in the New York Metropolitan Area. Northwestern New Jersey got hit pretty hard. We’re back and stronger than ever. That’s good. That’s in the past.

That’s right. Why don’t you start by telling us about your story? How did you get into dentistry? What was it like buying your first practice? We can go from there.

The Early Days: From Associate To First Practice Ownership

I like to say I was a little bit late to the show in dentistry. I had a lot of fun in high school and had drifted through high school a little bit. I didn’t know I wanted to be a dentist. I come from a family of small business owners. I went to college locally. I was working with my dad and his business. I decided in the second semester of college that I was going to transition. I got sparked by some interest in science and biology.

Eventually, long story short, I transferred to Rutgers in New Jersey. I did some volunteering and decided, “This is a path for me. I love science. I love medicine. I don’t want to work in a hospital. I would love to own my own business and be a practice owner someday.” I have an aunt who’s a dental hygienist. She’s in North Carolina. She’s retired. I said, “Let’s give it a go. Let’s try to go to dental school.”

I went through dental school and had typical struggles like anybody else. I wasn’t the top student in the class by any means. I got through and did okay. I did an associateship, like most people. I was an associate for about 4 and a half years in 2 different practices, 1 small and 1 large. This is back in the early 2000s. I did a residency program prior to going out and working in the private workforce. It was interesting because I saw the two different offices. One was very small, which had a single doctor, single admins, and single hygienists. The other one was a larger practice.

Long story short, the associateship didn’t go anywhere. It was great working with the doctors, but there were empty promises. It was like, “We’re going to do some more things together. We’re going to do a partnership together,” but that didn’t materialize. We went our separate ways. I’m still in contact with them. He was a great guy, but I decided, “I’m going to do my own thing.” I went and purchased a practice.

I have an interesting story about my dental practice. I bought a very small three-op practice in a small town in Northwestern New Jersey. It was about 850 square feet total, the entire office. It had three ops. It had a bathroom and a waiting room. We used to brag and say it was standing room only because the waiting room was so small. There were four chairs in the waiting room.

When things got backed up or a mom brought her kids, there we were, with people standing at the door, staring at me as I glanced to see them waiting in the waiting room. It was mine, though. You have a lot of clients. Maybe some associates tuning in to the show are itching, like, “I’m going to get out there. I’m going to buy my own practice. I want to have that.” Hang that shingle, they used to say.

I was super proud. What do you do? You bring your parents. You bring your dad to the office and show him. He looked around and said, “Can you get your money back?” I looked at him and was like, “It’s mine.” He was like, “I know. Can you get your money back?” I’m like, “No. I signed a Bank of America loan for ten years.” The typical 2007 rates were upper nines, upper eights, or low nines. I’m like, “What don’t you love? The outdoor furniture and the turf in the waiting room? Is that an issue?”

We made it work. We did our best, typical head down. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and there was a lot I didn’t know. There was equipment breaking. I had no idea what I was doing. I was treating patients, and I was doing the best I could with the tools I had in my toolbox. It was a typical, “Let’s treat some patients.” We went through some tough times. I had a very small lean-and-mean staff. We had a low rent because the place was so small.. It was $800-odds a month or something for rent. Thank God it was, because it gave us a little bit of breathing room when we were having a hard time making payroll.

I practiced like that for quite some time. My goal was to be out of there in five years. We were out of there in seven. We bought the building down the road, moved it, built it out, and went from 3 ops to 6 ops. We had more space than we could ever fill. We wish there were 8 ops or 9 ops. That’s a little bit of the story of the flagship practice. That was our first practice.

When you bought the building down the road and moved the practice, were you afraid any prep patients wouldn’t come to you or wouldn’t follow you, or is it like, “We’re going to get a big, nice enough space. We’re not worried about that.”

We were ready. It’s not too difficult to be busting at the seams with two ops and a hygiene op. Even though I thought, “I’m a big shot. I’m going to move down the road. I’m going to double my space, going from 3 to 6,” it felt like a jump, but it quickly filled. One thing that’s interesting is that you think about the environment. We’ve talked about this on calls. Getting treatment accepted when you have a small three-op shop that doesn’t look that great. We try to fix it up with fresh paint, fresh floors, and new equipment, but it’s tiny. People judge you a little bit, unfortunately.

When you’re in a big facility that has all the latest and greatest technology, what I found was that case acceptance and treatment acceptance went way up. Anybody thinking about renovating their space or moving their space to a more attractive facility, not only is it nicer for you to work in and for your team to work in, but I have found that people are saying yes to treatment. Maybe we’re getting better as a team, or maybe the environment played a role in it. Maybe it’s a combination of both.

You’re in the bigger spot, from 3 ops to 6 ops. At some point, you brought on an associate. What was the thought process around, “It’s time to bring on an associate,” and making that transition?

I got tired of running around, using 4 ops and 2 and a half hygienists. I was not burnt out, but I was getting a little tired. I said, “I could go faster. Maybe I can get some help.” It was shortly before COVID that we brought in our first associate doctor. It worked out great, and then COVID hit. Long story short, that doctor is at a dentistry, and she decided, “I don’t want to go back.”

We had a nice conversation. We split on great terms. She left dentistry entirely and had some family circumstances that she had to attend to. Shortly after that, I brought in my second associate, Dr. Kelly Fennelly, who’s still with us. She has become our strongest associate doctor or our strongest producer. From a production collection-wise, she’s the greatest out of the four offices.

Expansion To Multiple Locations & Real Estate Strategy

That’s awesome. When we met, it was right after COVID. You had 1 office, and then you went to 2 offices. I have these memories. I still remember exactly where I was sitting during COVID, going over the Excel spreadsheet, looking at that second location, and running the numbers to projections. Talk a little about what it was like, both mentally and physically, to go from 1 location to 2 locations. How did you find that other location? Was there any hesitancy or fears going into that second location that you may or may not have had? We’ll then talk about how that came to be after you purchased that second location.

Fears, yes. I don’t think anyone’s human if they’re not fearful. You had mentioned over the years, “You’ve got to be a little scared and push through. On the other side of that fear is a spot that you wouldn’t get to if you didn’t push through those hard times.” We were 2 doctors doing some nice numbers in the 1st location. When you and I met, we had been around a circle of doctors who were talking about multi-practice ownership. This goes back to 2020 or 2021, when that was in vogue. They had another location. People were trying to add practices and maybe try to get some high EBITDA multiples on a sale. People were thinking about growing and selling.

For a very short time, I was thinking, “Can I have a lot of locations and then maybe sell?” Ultimately, my wife, Kristen, and I decided, “What are we going to do? You’re only 45 years old. You’re a dentist, and you’re a business owner. That great payout might be nice, but then what?” For the second location, we did a mailing campaign. We mailed out to doctors in the area. We did a ten-mile radius, something that we thought would be manageable.

A doctor who was nearing retirement reached out to us. Long story short, he sold to us and agreed to stay on. Unfortunately, he wanted to stay on longer and had a medical situation that didn’t allow for that. Our fears started to come to fruition there. We were thinking that the senior doctor was going to stay on and help with the transition.

Surprise, he’s not. He’s not there anymore. When he’s not there, you’re slowly losing teammates either by our choice or by their choice to leave because the prior owner is not there. They’re like, “Who’s this new guy? We’re practice number two. We want to be practice number one.” We went through all of that. That practice was interesting.

I’ve always had an interest in real estate. We like to own real estate and the practices that we look to. It’s a nice long-term wealth-building strategy. You could probably speak more to that. I could speak to the basics of it, but renting back to your real estate holding company. From a long-term play for wealth creation, it’s a nice thing. Also, for family members whom you may want to transition real estate to, it’s very tax-friendly to do that.

We were in that mode of buying and buying real estate. We were hearing a lot of people in the industry at that time talking about real estate, building out practices, and doing those things. We bought the practice. We bought the real estate from the seller. We bought the unit above. Coincidentally, we were about ready to break ground on a second-floor expansion, and the doctor next door said, “Would you like to buy my condo unit?”

We bought the condo unit from the physician next door, so we ended up with 3 condo units, where we maybe only needed 2. Long story short, it has worked out fine over the years. We subsequently renovated that practice. It’s an eleven op. We’re growing it. It’s not full by any means, but we have two and a half doctors there. Things seem to be going along well there.

That’s great. Around the end of 2000 or 2001 is when you guys closed.

2021.

You’re at four locations. I know you’re getting ready to buy the real estate for one of the locations and relocate it again, which you’ve already had a successful history of doing. That’s exciting. What would you say to people who are reading this and sitting here, going, “He’s at four practices. That’s great. I’m, I’m at one practice,” or, “I feel like I’m stuck at two.”

What did you have to do both professionally and personally to feel like you could take on and you could handle four? Maybe talk to us a little bit about that journey. Were there some areas or some pivotal points that stood out to you in terms of, like, “Once this happened, I was then in a place where I felt like I could shift my role a little bit and be more of the CEO of the company and over these practices.”

The Leap To Four Practices & Shifting Roles

Yeah. You have to because there are only so many productive hours in the day. By no means would I recommend core practices to anybody who has one practice without mastering the clinical side of dentistry. My background is a little bit more entrepreneurial. I like to say I was in business before I decided to go to dental school. I’ve always been around people in business. It’s how I grew up. I love the flexibility of that. That’s what attracted me to stepping away from the chair.

Specifically, going from 1 to 2 was a real mindset change because you’re a dentist, and you can’t imagine not being in that location. I was very fortunate to have Dr. Fennelly there. I felt confident in her abilities. It started with half a day a week, like, “Let me jump over,” and then it became a day a week. I never did a lot of dentistry in the second location, pretty much just implants and surgery. I help the doctors with some Invisalign treatment planning. Mentoring and all that was ongoing virtually and in person. You get to the point where you feel like you’re driving around and going from office to office.

People get a little hung up on the numbers. If you had said to me when we met in 2020, “In 2025, you’re going to have four locations,” I would’ve been like, “You’re out of your mind.” I’d like to say it happened by some grand plan, but honestly, part of it was a little bit by accident, and maybe even me pulling the trigger a little bit sooner on those.

For the 3rd and 4th practice, we purchased and closed those on the same day in December of 2023. We were with one practice pretty much from 2007 to 2021. There was a long run there. Clinical dentistry is very comfortable. I went through a lot of continuums, Invisalign, surgery, and all that stuff. I felt like, “I’m very confident in the dentistry on X cases and all of that.” It then was, “In practice number two, let’s play the real estate game a little bit and get that part in. That had worked well with one.”

I remember you were like, “Are you sure you want to go for that fourth practice?” Jonathan was pumping the brakes a little bit on that. The third practice was solid. For the fourth practice, we purchased it from a failing DSO. I read one of your episodes, talking about how many DSOs are failing. Back in December 2023, it was a location that didn’t fit our model, but we went for it because it was a deal.

Anytime you hear someone say, “It was a deal,” what you’re saying is that it has been a project.

I vividly remember being in the parking lot of location two, and you were saying, “We had one of these years ago when we had our eight locations. We ultimately had to sell it off because it was under-producing. You’re going to put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it. It’s not going to be worth all that effort if you put that same effort in practice 2 or practice 3.”

We had the financing package all in there, and I said, “I’m going for it.” I remember you saying, “Okay. I’m here for you.” That practice, ironically, is going to be moved into a beautiful, new, professional building under 12,000 square feet with other tenants. We’re going to do a build-out. We’re going to grow that. In a way, I like to say that even though that certainly wasn’t our intention, by taking the leap of faith and pushing through, you’re in a situation where you have a practice that’s not super profitable. You have to make some decisions. How can you pivot and maybe turn it around?

The one most important thing to mention to your audience is that this is not an overnight game. This is a long game. In multi-practice ownership, to say, “You have four practices,” or somebody has 8 practices or 10 practices, up until 2021, I had 1 practice. From 2007 to 2021, it was 1 practice. There’s nothing wrong with that. I could have stayed like that and had a great life.

My advice would be to think it through because even though everybody wants to step away, it does add a lot of complexity, a lot of challenges, and a lot of growth on the part of the owner to say, “I’m a dentist. I’m going to step away from a clinical mindset. Now, I have to learn leadership skills. I have to learn communication strategies, body language, and a whole different profession to be an executive or business owner.”

With multiple locations, you’re going to do some travel. It adds some layers of complexity. I remember talking to Dr. Chow. I remember talking to him. They had one location. It was a big, very profitable location. He’s like, “Why would I buy more than one location? We have this massive location. We make more money at this 1 location than people do out of 6 or 7 locations.”

To your point, I love what you said. There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer. For some people, geographically or demographically, you may not be able to have a big 21-op $8 million or $9 million a year practice. You want to have a bigger footprint. It makes sense to have a bigger footprint. Where you guys are in New Jersey, it makes sense because you have these small towns and these pockets. You can create this nice network through those rural areas. Word travels that this is a great organization to be around from a team member and patient standpoint.

Even with this new, exciting next venture with this real estate that you have, you already have some experience going from a small three-op practice to moving to a big op. You learned a lot along the way. What were some things that were surprising to you that you were like, “I wasn’t expecting that,” as you went through this journey of going from 1 to 4 locations?

I don’t know if we have enough time for that. I could talk for hours about that. I’ll bore everybody. To give the reader some perspective, the first flagship location had six operatories and no ability to expand. Going back, and what’s worth my two cents, had I been able to add 2 ops or 3 ops to that practice, I would’ve done that before going to a 2nd location.

The second location was 5 ops that we expanded to 11 ops because of the way the layout was. That’s a very long game. We still had a lot of runway left on that practice. It’s growing. It was a practice that was doing $1.3 million or $1.4 million when we purchased it. It’s doing multiples of that now. That’s a nice trajectory. To go back to that quickly, if you said to me, “Could you have 1 practice with 20 ops in 1 location?” In a geography that would allow for a building of that in New Jersey, to your point, parking lots are an issue. We don’t have as much space as you do in Texas, out West, or somewhere in Florida.

I would much prefer, and it’s way easier, to have everybody under one roof because of the logistics of it. People borrow instruments, or are like, “There’s an implant motor for this office that we don’t want to spend on a practice we’re trying to build up. Take the implant motor in a duffel bag and place some implants.” These are things that we were doing early on. We’re not doing that now, thank goodness. All of those problems go away.

Plus, as most of the readers probably realize, I have four CBCT units. I have eight iTero scanners. I have four leases on all that equipment. Looking back on it, the flagship location was unique. It was an old historic home that we had put money into to convert. Had I been able to take that practice, move it, and even make it bigger, that speaks to mindset.

I was in 3 ops with a 3-op mindset. I thought, “I’m going to 6. I’m good.” Now, I say I wish I had more, but back then, six was double. It was like, “I can’t imagine needing more than six for 1 moment until we needed more than 6.” That’s why I say I went on this journey and did the best I could. I didn’t overanalyze or overthink things.

As far as the biggest challenges, to go back to your question, the biggest challenges along the way were that I probably wouldn’t have pulled the trigger on that fourth practice. I would’ve taken Jonathan’s advice, and I would’ve said, “Three is enough.” I was buying two practices in a single day and having to put a whole new staff in there, equipment problems, and everything like that.

Also, geographically, the locations are a little bit further than ideal. If somebody’s thinking of multi-practice, try to keep it as close as you possibly can. It’s nice to be able to bounce between offices. Two of the offices are only ten minutes away from one another. That’s nice. You’re not competing with one another. You’re building a region. If you have to get in the car and drive another 40 minutes, that’s where it can get to be a little challenging, especially with overlap with team members, too.

What we’re finding is that locations 1 and 2 are much easier to grow because we can overlap and share a team. To get somebody to go to location four, the one that’s been struggling, we have to entice them and make it favorable for them to be willing to take that trip down there. I’d say geography and maximize your primary space first. Try to utilize your team efficiently so you can have overlap. You can have a lot of cost savings there, too, if you do that.

Geographically, location makes that part easier, too. It’s easier for an assistant to jump over to another practice, a hygienist, or a doctor if they’re close. Certainly, you get that benefit.

You can even share patients. It sounds simple and maybe not this huge idea, but alternating Saturdays. If somebody from one office has an emergency, they go to the other office. Little stuff like that can add up over the course of a year in terms of revenue and making your life easier as a multi-practice owner.

Mentorship & Overcoming Challenges In Leadership

Something you’ve done well and certainly better than most is building up training and support for your associates and being there as a mentor. A lot of doctors say they want to mentor other doctors, but I don’t think they understand what that entails and what that includes. Talk to us a little bit about what that looks like with your doctors, mentoring your doctors and training them, and how you have those check-ins with them. Share that because what you’re doing there is something that we talk to a lot of clients and doctors about. We’re like, “You should be doing this,” but very few do.

At first, it was a little challenging. We were thinking about technology and how we utilize technology the best. I’m a big believer that there’s nothing like being in the office, mentoring your doctors. That’s great when it was myself and Dr. Kelly Fennelly. One doctor, one location, and one associate is easy. You’re upstairs in your office, and the doctor has a question, like, “Could you check this X-ray? Could you look at this cone beam? Could you come down and help me with this patient communication challenge I’m having?” That’s easy. Add 3 other locations and 7 other doctors. You can’t be everywhere, nor should you have to be. You have to try to develop systems.

Honestly, it’s been a lot of trial and error. We’re back and forth. We started with one-on-one meetings with each associate doctor. We do it for one hour per week. It’s Zoom-based or live in person. This was also when I was doing clinical dentistry. I want to make it clear, too, that I was at the chair until February 2025. I’m still at the chair approximately one day a week. I help out with certain implants or surgical cases that the practice or the organization needs, or I’m in the office doing dentistry or mentoring in a mentor role. Up until February 2025, I was working 30 to 35 hours a week, plus having these 4 locations. A total recipe for burnout. I wouldn’t advise it for anybody.

I remember talking to you at the end of last year. You were not in a good place.

Full transparency, I was not in a good place. Honestly, for better or for worse, I was raised like, “Dig in and get it done.” It was old-school Italian upbringing, like, “Work harder.” I’m like, “What do you mean work harder? I’m doing 80-hour weeks and 40 hours of clinical.” They’re like, “Work harder.”

I saw a saying earlier that I love. I was raised the same way. The saying goes, “When the wind stops, bring down the sails and pull out the oars.” We’re still going this direction, but it’s going to require a different way of getting there.

You’ve heard the analogy of taking time to sharpen the ax as you’re cutting down the trees. There was no time to sharpen the ax. You’re running and scrambling. You’re like, “This negative patient interaction in location four, let me go down and PR that. Let me fix this. Let me do this.” We’ve had conversations. I’m like, “Where can I best serve the organization and the patient base?”

You and I both came up with, “You have to serve your doctors as you serve your patients. Indirectly, through your doctor’s treatment, your patients are going to get care.” It sounds easy, but when you’re also trying to take care of those implant cases and doing whatever the doctor needs, it’s hard. To get back to the mentoring, I said, “I need to be 100% in on the doctors.”

Remember, the doctors are 100% chair-side. I’m hanging out on a Tuesday morning with nothing in my schedule, wanting to jump on a Zoom call with some doctors because there’s a lot to review. I would review a lot of their cases. I do a lot of auditing. We use Open Dental, the iTero scanners, and the cone beam scanners. I’m virtually logging into all the practices. Everybody gets the full series, the cone beam, the iTero, and everything.

You pretty much have a lot of what you need, photographs and everything. It’s almost like the patient’s right there in the chair. It takes time to go patient by patient. I started doing video summaries for the doctors. I’m like, “I would advise you to do this. I would advise you to do that. I saw your treatment plan shows an implant here. They’re also going to need a sinus elevation.” I’m trying to get a feel for where their knowledge is.

The one thing I did, and Jonathan gave that to me, was the spreadsheet of assessing where all the doctors are. We have doctors who are 1 year out of dental school to doctors who are 6 years out of dental school. In the last couple of months, we hired a doctor who’s in his mid-60s and has 35 years of experience. He’s taking over a lot of the surgical demands.

To get back to the mentoring, it’s a lot of virtual. I like to try to be in offices strategically when I can, even if I’m doing virtual with another doctor that’s in another location, to get a vibe of what’s going on in the practice. There are going to be questions that come to me from the doctors who are in that location. Honestly, I modeled it with what I didn’t have. I didn’t have a mentor.

I felt like in my journey from 2003, when I got out of residency, to 2007, when I was a practice owner, there was not the amount of growth that there should have been or could have been. There was nobody to ask questions to. It was, “Do the best you can.” We used to joke that they were off placing the implants and doing the Invisalign cases, and I was doing quadrant composites all day on insurance patients. I learned how to do quadrant composite dentistry efficiently.

I always said to myself, “I don’t want my associate doctors to have that experience.” Even though I liked the doctor I worked with because he’s a great guy, and we left on great terms, I feel like he wasn’t able to be there for me as I needed. He would admit this. This is nothing against them. They’re wonderful people, but I realized that doctors don’t know what they don’t know, and there is a lot they don’t know. I can empathize with that.

They want mentorship. They tell you they want mentorship.

It’s hard for them to see until they go through a little bit of hell themselves. You don’t want to do that. You want to insulate them from difficulty. You don’t want them to fail. I had a lunch meeting with Dr. Fennelly, my lead associate doctor. She was like, “It took me two years working with you.” She and I were laughing. She said, “When I met you, I thought you were insane for wanting to spend 60 minutes on a new patient. I wanted to see that patient for twenty minutes.”

We book for an hour, gather the records, and talk to the patient. If we have time, we can develop a treatment plan. Sometimes, for the complex ones, we can’t. We have to bring them back for what we call our patient discussion visit. We slowed it down, and her production went way up. They keep hearing me say, “Slow down and speed up.” There are different variations of that. You heard different variations, like slow is smooth and smooth is fast. There are all those different variations. The doctors who hang in long enough realize the value of the mentorship. That’s, by design, what we hope.

It’s such a big missing piece. We’ve had masterminds and guests on the show talk about it. It’s a big missing piece that a lot of the DSOs are not providing to their doctors. As you scale, that gets harder. I’ve seen what you’ve done and the way that you’ve purposefully, by design, had those meetings. Make sure you’re checking in frequently with your doctors, letting them know what those expectations are, and reviewing the cases with them. All of that is evidence of the success that you’re seeing in the practices. I remember sitting down with you and Kristen and creating a plan and goals for 2025. You were like, “By February, we’ve got to be done. We’re going on this ski trip. I cannot be tied to the chair. I got to be out of it.”

That’s a little bit of a soft subject.

The first one was great. The problem is you had so much fun going on your 1st ski trip that you went on a 2nd one.

Our first ski trip was in Park City. I was like, “We’ve got to go to Park City. Best powder in the world.” I went to Park City and tore my ACL. The beautiful thing about having other doctors is that I was out with the ACL tear and repair. That is one thing I’m very grateful for and thankful for. The doctors could hold down the fort when I was out.

As your kids are getting older and going off to college, you and Kristen have both been able to go visit them whenever you want to. This has all been building up. It’s always fun for me to see it come together. I certainly think you’re in a spot where you’re watching it come together. Being able to achieve some of those long-term goals that the two of you have is exciting.

You and I both know there are going to be more challenges. We talk frequently every week. We talk about the different challenges, obstacles, and things that are happening. That’ll continue to happen. As you continue to grow, you’ll see more. As you reflect back on your journey, you’ve given us some great nuggets here.

Is there anything else that you’d want to share with anyone tuning in to this show who maybe wants to go down a similar journey or is considering a similar journey, like, “Make sure you do X.” I thought you made a good point about taking your time and maximizing your first location. You’ve given some good input. Anything else comes to mind that you’d want to share with anyone who’s tuning in?

Do your due diligence on the practices. When you’re purchasing a practice, do your due diligence. Plan for the worst-case scenario. Sometimes, even if it’s a 5% chance or a 10% chance, that could happen. Two months into a new practice ownership, you would have to bring in a whole new team. Equipment can break that you don’t think is going to break. Have a little bit of a backup plan.

We went from 1 to 2. If I think about all the challenges that occurred, that would be a long discussion. Don’t give up. You have to keep grinding. You have to keep going. There is a way out. It might take you months or years to get out. I don’t want to rag on that younger generation and sound like an old curmudgeon, but nothing is overnight.

We’ve been on this journey for 22 years. It’s a lot of buildup. It’s multi-practice ownership. Sometimes, I hear people thinking, “I’m going to get out of the chair after 1 or 2 years out of dental school.” I’m thinking to myself, “Yikes.” I was still prepping crowns and trying to do solid clinical dentistry. You have to have that foundation of real, solid clinical dentistry. Maximize your first practice.

If you think that getting a second, third, and fourth is going to be easier than just doing clinical dentistry in your first practice, even if you’re a good producer or a super dentist, a lot of days, honestly, it’s easier to be chairside. We’re getting on the other side of that. When you’re going from one to two, two to three, and three to four, or two to four like we did, I don’t think you can plan for everything. You have to be willing to say, “It’s going to be hard. I’m not going to give up.” Surround yourself with good people, continue to learn, and do the best you can. That’s all you can ever do.

I love that. Be resilient. Stick it out. Keep pushing forward. Sometimes, we go to conferences, listen to podcasts, or see someone at a study club, and we’re like, “They have four practices. Dr. Marino is doing so good.” They don’t see all the hard work and the beatings that you took for years up to that point. Not only that, but also the hard work and dedication that you’re putting in to keep it going.

Mentorship is a lot of work. A lot of times, too, it’s a different role. We were talking a little bit in our mastermind about how you’re having to learn a different role. From when you graduated, for fifteen or eighteen years, you’re drilling teeth. All of a sudden, you’re like, “I’m having to shift to be a teacher and a mentor and train.” You have to have those bumps, bruises, and success experiences and stories to be able to mentor people. Otherwise, it’s hard to meet them where they’re at if you haven’t been there.

The other thing, too, that is missing in dentistry, in general, is that we’re technical by nature. We’re technicians. We spend years learning how to look into mirrors, prep teeth that we can barely see, do all these great things, and rebuild mouths. The whole communication side, like the whole connection and the relationship with the patient, is what got us from one tiny 3-op practice to a 6-op practice. It was all built on relationships, connecting, and caring for people. I try to instill that in the doctors.

It’s hard sometimes because we joke and say the young guys and gals want to move quickly. Sometimes, it’s like, “Let’s slow it down. Build that relationship with that patient.” Slowing it down to speed up is probably what has helped me the most in my career. It was not by design. It happened by accident. You had mentioned this to me, and I didn’t appreciate it until I was here. You said something along the lines of, “You’ll have more bandwidth or your head will be open to seeing opportunities that you don’t even see because you’re head-down treating patients or head-down running from office to office.”

We have some other interesting things that we’re going to do. We want to develop a dental assisting school and maybe an admin training institute. The real estate side is interesting from a family standpoint. You can’t do that when you’re 40 hours a week with patients, and then you’re also going to run your practice. Stepping away is the biggest thing that has been able to do for me. It has allowed me to see a life outside of treating patients.

You’ve done such a good job. A lot of people, what they’ll do is they get to a point where they’re like, “I have more free time. I can spend more time on the golf course.” Certainly, you need those things. You have to have that as part of the reward of getting to that place. For the ones who truly use that opportunity and leverage that opportunity and the time that they have, that’s how you ultimately start scaling up and building significant wealth. To your point, you’re starting to see opportunities. You’re starting to put opportunities together. You’re starting to go, “Oh my gosh.”

What’s interesting is that you hear people like Alex Hormozi or other people talking online about this. I’m a strong believer because I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I see there are opportunities everywhere. The problem isn’t finding opportunities. It becomes saying no to all the opportunities that there are. There’s going to be an abundance of opportunities out there. You have to put yourself in that position to be able to recognize that. You’ve done a good job of doing that.

Thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your story. This was super interesting. It’s always so interesting. I always get text messages and emails of people reaching out and saying they appreciate it when we have doctors like you come on, tell their story, and share the things that they’ve learned.

As a community, we learn and grow together and from each other. Hopefully, as a result, we will build a better community. If more owner-doctors took the initiative that you’ve taken with training your doctors, they would be better associates. You’re doing a lot of things well. I congratulate you on that. Thanks again for coming on here and sharing with us. I appreciate your time. For everyone else, we’ll talk to everyone in the next episode. Thanks, Dr. Marino.

Thanks so much.

Important Links

• Pequannock Valley Dental Associates
• Dr. Brian Marino on LinkedIn
• Dental Wealth Multiplier on Apple Podcasts

About Dr. Brian Marino

Dr. Brian Marino is the founder of PV Dental Associates, a growing dental group in Rhode Island known for its patient-first culture and team-centered approach. He launched his first practice with a simple goal…to provide excellent care without losing the human side of dentistry. Today, he leads a thriving multi-location group, blending clinical excellence with strong leadership and an eye toward long-term growth.