 Hello everybody, welcome to my channel. If you haven't yet, please click like and make sure to subscribe so you get the videos This will be a good one. Let's talk about dental hygienists starting their own business And let's talk about your first year in business and what to expect a very popular Question for dental hygienists who are thinking about starting their business or have already started and maybe your first year didn't go as planned So I left myself some notes. So I didn't forget to mention certain topics So the first year in business really does depend on a number of factors Do you have a mobile business? Do you have a patient in your in your or sorry? Do you have a practice in your own home or do you have a standalone practice? I can talk specifically about a mobile practice and having a practice in my own home because that's what I have done personally I've been in business now for almost about two and a half years So the first year in business, this is when you likely don't have anything so you'll have a lot of expenses My expenses include getting a sterilizer. I needed new instruments. I needed, you know, a dental software I needed an intraoral camera. I needed masks, gloves, bibs Now we need PPE. You might need things like toothpaste, mouthwashes to have on hand for your patients I needed a patient chair for my office and I needed another patient chair to travel with me mobile I needed a saddle stool to sit on one for my office and one for mobile My big expenses probably did include my compressor unit that houses the air, the water, the suction That was about six thousand dollars and of course the sterilizer. That was about ten thousand dollars I needed a new laptop specific for my patients. There are a lot of rules where your patient Stuff needs to be protected, you know, things like that. So I did get a new laptop I needed one anyway, so it just kind of worked out But all of these things you will need for your first year of practice and talking about dental supplies So that's my second point here Or sorry, I meant to say you can't only buy and bulk. Well, no, you can you can so let me just kind of fix That off a bit here So talking about dental supplies as a dental hygienist owning your own practice You're not a dentist where you're going to see hundreds of patients a day, right? You might see one patient a day, maybe not even that at first, but the thing is you can't buy 10 Bibs, you know, you can't buy 10 masks 10, you know So you have to buy and bulk meaning boxes of 300 gloves per container Bibs come in like hundreds, but the thing is sure you can buy less you can buy less bibs less masks Less anything, but you might be paying $20 for 10 versus buying a thousand for $50, you know Like I'm just picking out numbers here. So obviously you're going to buy in bulk what I did buy in bulk probably the most of was my Pouches for sterilizing they don't come in packs of 10. They don't even come in packs of a hundred I don't think it's like thousands. I still have my same pouches that I'm still using I haven't needed more for two and a half years So you will get a lot of expenses initially But you need that to get started if you're lucky and maybe you know a dental office who is okay to let you use Their sterilizer, maybe you know a dental office that is okay to say here. Well, you can pay me for a hundred a hundred sterilization pouches you can pay me for the Internal and external indicators you don't have to buy thousands and that would definitely help you out if you're able to do that I just didn't have that luxury. So a lot of expenses Working two jobs. So this will really determine. Well, are you going to make money in your first year of business? Probably not because are you going to just quit your job and work full-time in your own business? If you're able to do that then that means you can market you can advertise more you can truly work on your business I didn't have that luxury either. I was still working part-time in a dental office because I needed to make the money I didn't have a choice. You know, I couldn't just have a A slow week with my new patients and make no money, you know, I had to constantly be making money We have to pay the bills. But if you're working another job, you don't have as much time to really focus on your own business So you're not making as much. So that's just kind of how that comes into play The last point is well, you're waiting to spend the money on probably a lot of things You might be thinking do I really need an interoral camera right away? Maybe not so you're waiting to make money to spend money If you don't have an interoral camera, you know that it doesn't really set you behind So that's a bad example, but let's just say you were waiting to purchase Let's just say business cards. I don't know. I just thought of something now Let's say you're waiting to purchase business cards. You don't want to spend a hundred dollars on business cards You're waiting until you make the money. Well, if you had those business cards now If you just spent the money for those business cards, you could hand out three business cards per patient And you could get patients from those business cards. So certain things and that's my last point here So certain things I know you want to wait to spend the money But I suggest for certain things getting them right away because that will actually help you make morning Make more money now and not later. I do have another video of Tips on things that I suggest you do need right away in your dental hygiene practice And then I have another video of things where you don't need right away So definitely check that out on my youtube channel Moving to the next one the second year you guys gets better because you're more established You probably have a rhythm at this point You might not be working at the the other dental office or other job anymore because you want to focus on your own business You can try to start to make money back that way But you won't be making you know hundreds of thousands of dollars like a dentist would okay So don't be thinking that these things take time. You need to build up patients You need to have your patients come back Even if you're amazing and see a hundred patients. Well, are you that amazing where they want to come back to you? Maybe not. So you have to think about all of this Um, so the second year the third year the fourth year things will hopefully get better If things don't get better then you need to look at your business plan and figure out what you're doing wrong I did forget to mention in your first year you likely have a business loan to pay off That business loan might take you several years to pay off So you're truly not making as much money as you could until you pay off that business loan So just kind of things to expect it's still exciting like i'm hoping i'm not discouraging any of you This is extremely exciting Start your business you can do it another common point people ask me is well Is it worth it to start your old business or do you make more money working for somebody else? What I want to say is if you're thinking that you're not meant to be a business owner You're truly not yes, it's about the money But if that's your first thought Then maybe you will be more comfortable working for somebody else because that's completely different Um, if you do well, of course you can make more money doing your own thing because you can set your own hours You can determine what your expenses are you can kind of go that way working for someone else It's a time clock. Well, you have to work more hours to make the same money If you want to make more money, okay fine make more hours, but at least in your own business you have that flexibility. Okay But that's another video for another time having your own business is amazing I love to talk about all of that. So comment below of any questions and thank you guys so much for watching