The Ultimate Dental Growth Strategies to Scale from $700K to $2.5M | Thor
Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap through Practice Ownership
Dr. George Hariri | Shared Practices Network
4.9 • 559 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Think you could grow a suburban dental practice from $700K to $2.5M in four years without burning out? In this high-stakes episode of Practice Under Water, George sits down with "Thor," a high-intensity owner who has done exactly that. Thor shares the raw numbers behind his explosive associate to owner transition, revealing how he moved from 15 new patients a month to over 90 by mastering Google reviews and direct mail.
However, success has brought a new challenge: the "Sunday scaries". George helps Thor evaluate the dental business strategies needed to stop being the bottleneck in his own five-operatory building. They discuss the "pseudo-specialist" pivot—moving away from general dentistry to focus on high-value ortho and implants—as a way to maintain dental practice profitability while regaining control of the schedule.
This episode serves as a survival guide for dental practice ownership, tackling the psychological hurdles of dropping insurance, hiring a second associate, and the risk of taking a temporary income hit to achieve long-term longevity. Whether you are looking for sustainable dental practice growth or trying to navigate the complexities of dental practice management, Thor’s journey offers a roadmap for high-producing dentists who want to lead a team-led practice rather than grinding in the chair forever. Learn how he leveraged dental growth strategies to build a practice that produces $250,000 a month with only five operatories.
Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to another episode of Practice Underwater. |
| 0:05.6 | I have with me again, Thor. |
| 0:07.5 | And if you listen to the first part, then you're probably like on the edge of your seat for this episode. |
| 0:12.2 | At least I am. |
| 0:13.5 | And I have not nearly the long type of break that you guys do listening. |
| 0:16.9 | I really, really enjoyed my episode with Thor that we just did last week. |
| 0:22.7 | And I wanted to kind of maybe, for anyone who didn't listen, we always say this, stop, go back and listen to part one, then come to part two. But assuming you're not going to do that, I'll just give you a brief overview. Or maybe you listen, then I'll just kind of catch you up. You know, Thor's been on practice underwater before. Suzanne interviewed him back in 2002. And so now that would be on the shared practices archives. Then Thor was just buying a practice. In 2022, he bought a practice doing $700,000. In 2022, he did $1.1 million. He went up to $1.5 the following year, then the following year, then $2.5 this year. Things are going super well for Thor. And I think Thor almost had some like apologetic tone to him in the last episode where he's saying, like, you know, I know things are going well. I kind of feel guilty for asking for more, but I want these different things in my practice in my life. And some of the things that were sort of the core complaints were some stress leading up to Mondays and Tuesdays, which were Thor's |
| 1:11.5 | clinical days. Thor works two days, has an associate that works three days and finds that, you know, |
| 1:17.2 | when Thor gets into the office, imagine like grinding really hard, working through lunch, staying late. |
| 1:22.0 | You know, that's kind of Monday and Tuesday. Thor also would like doing cosmetics, some extractions, |
| 1:27.0 | loves ortho, does some basic implants. |
| 1:29.8 | And I think that the conversation that I had with Thor last time, you know, Thor's in a five-operatory |
| 1:34.2 | space where Thor owns the building. And so there's that whole conversation about like, do I stay |
| 1:38.8 | here? Do I move? Do I cut insurance? Like, there's just a lot of different options. And Thor has worked really hard and has, frankly, sees the opportunity that ownership |
| 1:48.5 | has provided to do extremely well. |
| 1:51.0 | You know, Thor inherited a practice that had five to 15 new patients a month. |
| 1:54.0 | I think a big part of part one was me trying to understand how the hell Thor is seeing |
| 1:57.2 | 94 new patients a month in a somewhat saturated area. |
| 2:00.1 | And the reality is that Thor just |
| 2:01.9 | provides great experience and does all the little things really well, in my opinion. What I kind of |
| 2:07.2 | ended the episode on was really talking about this pseudo-specialist route. I want to eliminate that |
| 2:12.8 | rush, right? I want Thor to be thinking on Sunday, like i got two associates going to handle the rush of the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. George Hariri | Shared Practices Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. George Hariri | Shared Practices Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.