 Hello everybody, welcome back. So my name is Andrea and I'm going to talk to you guys about starting your own dental hygiene business. So whether it be a mobile dental hygiene business where you're going into people's homes, or they're coming into your home so I don't have any experience opening up my own physical practice location so I didn't buy a building space somewhere or rent a building space so I don't have experience with that. But all in all what I'm going to teach you guys is how to set up your own dental hygiene business and how to succeed at it. So that's the main thing. It's one thing to start a business but if you're trying to learn to start a business from somebody who's not successful at it, there's no point because they haven't figured out how to be successful themselves. It doesn't make sense to learn from somebody like that and then try to be successful on your own. The best thing we can do as business owners as entrepreneurs is learn from somebody more successful than we are. There are more successful dental hygienists than I am and I'm constantly learning from them. But we all have to start somewhere and I'm going to teach you guys how to be successful at it in one year's time because that's how long it took me to truly be successful in my business. Now how do you measure success? I measure it by being full, having a full schedule of patience. That to me is successful. Successful to me is having a schedule full as I said, but also making a profit. Ask any business out there. The first two years is when you typically do not make a profit because there's a lot of expenses, which is normal for a new business. You have to spend money to make money. But I did it making a profit. So I was not in the red, if you will. I was in the green and I made a large profit. I'm not just talking, making a profit of $1,000 after taxes, but I did very, very well and I continue to do better per month. We're in a pandemic right now and I can happily say knock on wood, my business is better than ever. So I want to teach you guys how to do that. So stay tuned, watch the videos. I'm going to teach you guys step by step what to do literally step one and that is the thinking about starting your business phase. I'm going to talk to you about that. I share my real life experiences starting a business from just simply thinking about it. I hit so many roadblocks just thinking and thinking about it, because nobody else was a mobile hygienist in my area. I would do a search for mobile dental hygiene and find nobody. I would look on Facebook, Instagram, Google. I maybe found one person, but it was no help. I talked about more about that later on. But that's where I hit roadblocks was okay, I can't talk to anybody with experience. Nobody knows what mobile dental hygiene is, but I know there's a need for it. I would go to dental supply companies and talk to them. And they would basically say, okay, we're not used to dealing with a mobile dental hygienist. This is how much things are, we're talking tens of thousands of dollars. And I'd be saying, okay, I'm not a dentist with, you know, a staff of 50. I'm going to be one person, but I do need the same things that dentists have such as a sterilizer, masks, gloves. I was looking at a cavatron, the ultrasonic, you know, scalars. I was looking at instruments. I was looking at a compressor unit to travel mobile with me and that has the air, the water, the suction. I'm a restorative dental hygienist. So I needed a slow speed hand-peach attachment, plus a high speed hand-piece attachment. I was looking for all of that. I'm not that big, so I needed things that were portable. And that's another thing that I talk about. I talk about what I bought from Amazon that was so much cheaper and the best, you know, talking from mobile dental chairs, talking about dental materials. I talk about all of that. And then what you really do have to spend the money for dental supply-wise. The rule of thumb is anything that goes inside the mouth, you cannot buy from Amazon because we need it to be regulated, you know, because it's going inside somebody's mouth. But a portable dental chair, I bought off Amazon. So much cheaper and it's a good one. It's light. I can carry it and it does the job. So I talk about all of that. I talk about checklists too. So checklists that you can check off as you go forward. Well, you need a business loan. I did. I took out, I believe it was a $25,000 business loan. I took that out. But how do you do that? Do you do that first? Do you do that before or after a business plan? I talk about all of that. So if you want to send treatment electronically, let's talk about dental softwares. Let's talk about insurance companies. I go through all of that because it can be very overwhelming. I know it was for me. I did it the hard way by doing it all myself. But now I feel like a pro because now that I have it done, I can tell you guys how to do it the easy way or the hard way. What I did wrong because I made mistakes, you will always make mistakes as you go along. I did right. So I talk about that, of course. I talk about dental supplies that I didn't really need and that were truly a waste of money. But then I talk about dental supplies that I should have ordered so much more of because when I needed them, they were out of stock and I couldn't necessarily work until I got them. I talk about things that I realized were more important to me when I started seeing clients and patients. I talk about handling accounts, booking appointments, how to deal with difficult clients, how to deal with clients that do not pay you right away, how to deal with all of that. So I do have experience as a dental professional since 2005. I had to think about that. I was a receptionist for a dental office. So I dealt a lot with booking, handling appointments, insurance companies. I was a dental assistant as well. So I have done chair side paperwork, predeterminations, estimates. I am, of course, a dental hygienist. But then I also became a restorative dental hygienist. So I can do things chair side that a dental hygienist cannot do unless you have that restorative specialty. So I can do temporary fillings. I can cement temporary crowns. There's a long list, but that really helps me in my mobile practice. Now, let me say, depending on where you live, you need to look into this yourself. Not all areas allow dental hygienists to open up their own practice. So please do your homework that way and find out if you are allowed to. As an example, in Ontario, we are allowed to, but we need to have another specialty. We need to become an independent dental hygienist. I had to think about the term there, independent dental hygienist that is self initiating. Okay, so we cannot have our own practice unless we're a self initiating dental hygienist. We need to take a course in order to do that. Unless you've been working for a certain amount of hours, then you can just do it, but they do suggest a certain course. You need to be a part of the Canadian Dental Hygienist Association if you want to send things electronically to insurance companies. So there's kind of little things like that that you do have to know. If you live first, and then there's also applying for your master business license, but don't be confused. Don't be overwhelmed you guys. I go through all of this step by step with you. So, you know, this is going to be fun. So stay tuned for the videos. I'm doing these videos because I've been getting a lot of emails lately of how to start your own dental hygiene business. I've been doing this because I've been doing more advertising lately. People are paying attention. I think that's great. There's no such thing as bad competition. I want there to be more mobile dental hygienists out there. I want there to be dental hygienists who see patients in their own home, in a room, in their home. Patients don't necessarily want to go to a cold sterile dental office that smells like a dental office. They want to support you. If hairstylists can have a business in their own home, why can't we? If, you know, your nail technician can, you know, do your nails in her home, why not? So we can offer this amazing service. I'm going to teach you guys how to do that and be successful at it. I cannot stress the word success enough because you can learn how to start your own business forever. But if you're not successful, it's going to be a waste of money and nobody wants to do that, right? Nobody wants to waste their money. The best part, which I don't even think I've said yet, is the expenses to start the business isn't bad. As I mentioned, I took out, I believe it was $25,000 business loan, but I also purchased the best of the best. Okay, you guys, I'm going to teach you guys how if you don't have that kind of money, if you can't take a loan out of that size, which isn't really that much. If you were to think about it, if you were to open up your own dental hygiene practice, renting a building somewhere, it would be a lot more than that. So I teach you guys all of that. So stay tuned, you guys. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you guys very soon.