Brett Allen (00:19) Hi, Brett Allen here, host of the Marketing 32 show where I connect with leading dentists, dental influencers, and industry experts to uncover the latest strategies, insights, and innovations that help dental practices grow and thrive. Welcome back to the show today. This episode is brought to you by always our team here at Marketing 32. We are the only dental marketing agency and team that I know of with a performance guarantee that is truly invested in the growth of your practice.

So if you’re not growing in that first month that we work together, you don’t pay. It’s that simple. We really try to find practices that we know we can help and we partner up with you and it’s a win-win. So if you need help with your marketing, visit marketing32.com, hop on a discovery call with Brax and we’ll see if it’ll be a great fit. Quick shout out to Dr. Jeff Grove, we recently had on the show. He’s with Ascension Dental Coaching. If you need help growing your practice from

just the ins and outs and day-to-day operations of being in the trenches. Dr. Grove has been an awesome strategic coach for many, especially if you’re trying to go the multi-location route. She grew a practice to eight locations, if I remember right. But go check out that episode, lots of value we shared there. Introduction for today, I’m excited to have Dr. Mohammed Attia.

On the podcast, he is an esteemed leader of the Alexandria Center of Dentistry in Franconia and Alexandria, Virginia. He brings over two decades of expertise since graduating in 2002 and completing a postgraduate general practice residency as a master of the Academy of General Dentistry, diplomat of the American Board of Oral Implantology, and fellow of both the AAID and ICOI.

He’s among the top few percent of dentists in implant and general dentistry. So excited to talk about implant dentistry with you guys today. Dr. Adhya integrates cutting edge technology from CEREC same day crowns to CBCT 3D plant surgery, ensuring patients receive modern, precise and comfortable care in his practice. He’s a passionate educator and leader. He serves as a past president and current CE chair of the Virginia Academy of General Dentistry.

frequently lecturing on avoiding implant complications for elite professional audiences. You guys, we’ve got a wealth of knowledge and an expert today in regards to implants. Dr. Atiya, welcome to the show. Excited to have you on.

Mohamed Attia (02:51) Thank you so much. Thanks so much. I’m really excited to be here.

Brett Allen (02:54) Yeah, I’m glad that Laura, Dr. Laura Schwent introduced us. Um, she was on the show recently. If you guys are interested in mindset and personal development in your career as a dentist, you definitely got to talk to Laura Schwent and check out that episode. But I’m glad she introduced us. Yeah.

Mohamed Attia (03:12) I’m sure that it was amazing. It’s

well needed, especially in dentistry. We’re just talking how hard dentistry is and ⁓ you can get burned like very easily. And it’s important for dentists to realize they need the time to sit back and just take it easy sometimes because it gets overwhelming very quickly.

Brett Allen (03:25) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there’s a lot of burnout, right, in the industry. And I think mindset is a big part of that as well as ⁓ getting the right support, either from consultants, advisors, or especially your team, right? Like how we work with our teams. Yeah, but I’m excited to talk with you about implants today. It seems like you are an expert in that space and you’re an educator and helping a lot of dentists learn how to implement ⁓ implants into their practice, perform those procedures.

Let’s talk all about that. How did you go from practice ownership, operating in a practice to becoming an educator and leader in the implant space?

Mohamed Attia (04:17) Well, I love dentistry. I’m a general dentist. My office here in Alexandria, Virginia, we do everything. So I do all my fillings, my same day crowns, which I enjoy. ⁓ Rube canal, Invisalign, conscious sedation, sleep apnea, you name it. We do all aspects of general dentistry. My patient appreciates that we do everything under one roof. ⁓ I really have a passion for it. I enjoy dentistry.

to the max, you know, for me, it’s really what helped me through the years to get better and keep going because I really enjoy it. I enjoy implants, of course, as you can tell. It’s an integral part of my practice. I love offering that to my patients because I know it is the best alternative to natural teeth. Like, I grow…

Brett Allen (04:47) Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Attia (05:11) and had my both my grandparents had dentures and I saw how much the suffering was like you know not able to eat or like you know function as normal like you know was with their dentures. It definitely not ideal treatment and always wanted to offer my patient a better solution and for me implants make makes a best solution to replace these missing teeth.

Brett Allen (05:16) Mm.

Mm-hmm

Mohamed Attia (05:41) So, ⁓ been practicing for 23 years now and lecturing started, I always wanted to lecture and teach. I always had the passion, I always had like some students come to my office to observe. I always have that good feedback, they like enjoying being there and see how we do it. ⁓ Either like dentist, like newly grad dentist or students in the dental school.

⁓ Sometimes we even host like students in hygiene school or dental assisting schools. They come here to as well to observe. So I really enjoy that and ⁓ for a long time I’ve been trying to see like I feel like I don’t know what what should I be talking about because I feel like everybody knows this stuff, right? ⁓ But then I got the opportunity one time many years ago to lecture and it was just a short lecture. It was like

Brett Allen (06:12) So I’m to turn it to you now.

Mm.

Mohamed Attia (06:39) 20 minutes lecture I was invited to do it and the feedback was crazy. I’m like, I thought like everybody knows this stuff. Like this is what I’m doing in my practice. Everybody was like, ⁓ wow. I’m like, okay, so I actually, maybe I can start like lecturing and helping people and show them how we do it and that would be beneficial for them. And that’s where we started. And for me, I usually like to speak about complication for implant density because

Brett Allen (06:46) the

Thank

Mohamed Attia (07:10) I had to go through a lot. Like I had to learn the hard way with many things. So for me, I feel like the best way to learn something is to learn the bad side of it. Okay, what could go wrong? How can I avoid that and how can I fix it if it go wrong? And I just, yeah, I feel like it’s working. I feel like people enjoy it and I’m helping a lot of like new docs just like, you know, getting on their feet and…

Brett Allen (07:11) you

Mm.

Mm. Mm.

Mohamed Attia (07:38) understand implant dentistry and ⁓ I enjoyed it.

Brett Allen (07:38) Mm-hmm.

That’s awesome. you, how many of your students or people that you’ve worked with are, are fresh out of dental school versus the seasoned practitioner that’s looking to add this now as a service in their practice?

Mohamed Attia (07:56) It’s really a mix because I usually get invited to a lecture for like an event. Sometimes I don’t even know like what level the audience are. I’m sure it’s all mixed like between expert and newly grad. But I teach at the Mexico course as well. And most of them like usually starting their implant career. And I like that more. I really enjoy that more because I feel like I can help them early on.

Brett Allen (08:08) Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mohamed Attia (08:26) and guides him, hey, don’t do that, I did it. You know, it’s like, ⁓ I enjoy ⁓ guiding them early because I feel it’s most beneficial for them. ⁓ But other than that, different events, different audience, and it all have different ⁓ impacts.

Brett Allen (08:26) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. How much of your ⁓ process of your program, your teaching is based on placing single implants versus doing like arches and all on X cases?

Mohamed Attia (09:00) We

cover all. So what I like most is usually a full day. So I do a full day talking about complication. We usually start with like single implants and then multiple implants and full arch ending up the day. I like also to do like workshops. So sometimes I like to do a full day of lecture and then maybe a half day of like workshop or hands-on. I like

get to do workshops for different techniques too sometimes with like newer technology or what you could use like you know for certain cases so every event is different it all depends what they they want to focus on and and what the audience want as well.

Brett Allen (09:31) Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. When you’re doing your education, your courses, ⁓ are these small kind of group settings where you can get real intimate with each of the attendees and do you practice on ⁓ cadavers, things like that? What’s involved with the technical side of things and how you’re doing all of that?

Mohamed Attia (10:07) For lectures, it’s usually open. Usually lectures have like a large number. The workshops, we limit the number because you need to have that one-to-one connection. So it’s usually a small group for the hands-on. When we do the live surgery courses, usually we try to limit the number to really few dentists. you know, because we…

Brett Allen (10:11) Okay.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Attia (10:33) You need to really study the cases with them, help them stand by their side, placing the implant, guide them with every single placement. So it really need almost one-to-one monitoring. So we really limit the number to very few. ⁓ Also when we do the live surgery course, we customize it, meaning we survey the attendees and we make sure

Brett Allen (10:44) Hmm.

Mohamed Attia (11:01) we know what they want because some dentists come to a life surgery course because they want to place their first implant or maybe they place a implants before and they don’t have the confidence yet they want to come and start placing implants so that’s a different group some of them they’re coming they’re already placing some few implants but they want to do more complicated cases or they want to do more

Brett Allen (11:20) Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Attia (11:30) different procedure like grafting or they want to do like a full arch. So we try to listen to every one and we try to get them the right patient for them and try to make it basically customized for them. So they’re not coming and just getting any random cases. So we try to give them what they really need to help them out.

Brett Allen (11:52) Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome. I almost wish I was a dentist and I could ask you some point blank questions that would be coming to mind. Or if we had a dentist here, another person who doesn’t know implants or who has placed in, because I don’t know if I have the right question to ask for you, but maybe a good one would be like, what are the challenges that are often associated with implant dentistry and ⁓ especially for those who are getting into it? What are some common pitfalls or?

setbacks or maybe even misconceptions or limiting beliefs that dentists have around implants. Maybe you go all of those.

Mohamed Attia (12:29) Well, I think the

biggest setback we have right now is I feel like they’re not getting enough of dental implants in dental school. So basically, new grad graduates, most of the time, they never place an implant in dental school. So all the implant education is based on them to go and get it, which is, I would say, normal. But they have to understand implant dentistry nowadays is not

Brett Allen (12:39) Hmm.

Wow.

Mohamed Attia (12:58) Optional anymore. It is not like Something that you you can just not do you really have to understand implant dentistry You need at least to be able to restore those cases Understanding how to help these patients and okay, where can I start? Okay, so implant dentistry is integral part of general practice dentistry nowadays and I feel Dental students should graduate with some

basic knowledge of implant dentistry, if not more. ⁓ I highly recommend all my dental students to go for residency program, which I always believed residency program should be mandatory, but that’s a different discussion we can have another time. But after residency program, they really have to go for dental implant education. I recommend multiple courses that usually

Brett Allen (13:30) Mm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Attia (13:55) almost a year long course, like the MEXIC course, which I always recommend my students to go to, which I did myself like maybe 20 years ago. But ⁓ it’s basically once a month for almost a year. And you go there for three days every time, you get the basic knowledge, you have hands-on training, you do cadaver training. ⁓ Most of them now have live surgery part of it too, you do it on…

Brett Allen (14:15) Mm.

Mohamed Attia (14:25) live patients, I feel it’s really important. And that’s just to get you ready to go into implant industry. After that, live surgery courses helps a lot and you learn. But yeah, feel like most dental students nowadays are not really prepared with just graduating dental school. They need a lot of training afterwards.

Brett Allen (14:34) Mm.

From dental school.

Is there a reason why they don’t focus on some of these additional certifications, specialties, and dentistry in the school? I guess it’s very complex and requires a lot of time to get…

Mohamed Attia (15:04) Probably, probably time because even especially after COVID I feel like the requirement are really less than before. Most of the students that I see like new associates coming here to like you know apply for jobs or stuff like that I feel like they didn’t have enough experience. So I don’t know. don’t know if it COVID had the big role in it just kind of have a big hit on it or

Brett Allen (15:10) Hmm.

Yeah.

Mohamed Attia (15:31) or what happened but yeah they definitely got impacted by that and I feel like requirement need to be adjusted to a higher level because I feel it’s not enough. ⁓

Brett Allen (15:43) Yeah.

What, uh, so if, I’m a dental student and all the way across the other side of the country in Washington or California or something, if, I can’t come to, to work with you, is, the, you said the maxi program, is that kind of a broader maxi course?

Mohamed Attia (15:59) Maxi course is everywhere. Yes, the Maxi course is

by the American Academy of Implant Industry. But yet, almost in every state, I think there are so many, I think at least 15 or maybe 20 courses across the state. But yeah, it’s totally worth it. have no financial benefit from recommending it at all. So yeah, it’s just what I did and it really helped me a lot.

Brett Allen (16:08) Okay.

Mm-hmm.

And you recommend doing that in dental school while you’re, while you’re, or wait right out of.

Mohamed Attia (16:29) And you cannot do it in dental school right

after graduation. I would say it’s ideal. I understand it’s expensive and most of the dental students, graduate and you already have like lots of student loans, but it’s a great investment. ⁓ I think if you’re interested in implant dentistry, you really would have to do it as part of your investment in your dental career. But yeah.

Brett Allen (16:35) as an associate. ⁓

Yeah, you got

Right.

Yeah.

I think that was the thing that was most fascinating to me that I didn’t know about before we focused in on dentistry as an industry that we wanted to help back in 2018 when we were analyzing all the different customers we had that we were helping with online marketing. One of my first clients actually from 2014 at ⁓ Revive Dental Implant Center in Phoenix, Dr. Kent Howell, ⁓

I was scrolling on Facebook and I saw this before and after picture of a patient that had, I mean, you guys have seen these cases in dentistry where the mouth is just completely, there’s hardly any teeth left. There’s all kinds of gum problems. ⁓ This patient had severe oral hygiene problems, right? ⁓ But right next to that picture was a completely transformed individual, smiling, perfect teeth, top and bottom.

full arches in a day, And I can, I was just blown away by the transformation of that. I reached out to Dr. Howell and I said, what do you guys do? What is that? He told me all about this patient and the work that they do as prostatonists and periodontists working together to place these arches and the impact it has on the lives of your patients. That to me is like,

is huge and I think it’s the most beautiful part of dentistry, not just the hygiene or the cavities, the drill and fill bridges, but the total transformation that you get with implants is just amazing.

Mohamed Attia (18:23) you know.

this transformation it’s what give you that satisfaction it’s amazing I want to tell you like I don’t really enjoy full arch cases I don’t enjoy it’s a lot of work it’s really invasive it’s too much but once you see the patient transformation my god you’re like okay I cannot I can never stop doing these cases because just give you that you’re giving this patient a whole new start like it’s

Brett Allen (18:45) A lot of work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mohamed Attia (19:02) hey, know, we’re starting over again, here you go. A whole new smile, a whole new confidence, the impact you put on this patient is huge. Yeah, you can never ⁓ get that with anything else.

Brett Allen (19:12) Yeah.

I’ve seen, we had one doctor we’re working with, Dr. Fulcher. He sent me a video of ⁓ immediately after, maybe not immediately, I can’t remember what it was, but he had the patient bite out of an apple. And they were, they were like, are you serious? I could just bite an apple? Because they, you know, so used to dentures or whatever, you know, problem they had, but yeah, it’s phenomenal. And that’s cool that you get to help.

Mohamed Attia (19:28) Hmm.

Yeah. Amazing. Amazing.

Brett Allen (19:43) other dentists ⁓ improve the services they offer to their community to be able to have that impact. That’s neat. ⁓ Yeah. So one of the things I always like to ask is ⁓ if you could help our listeners have one epiphany, one big takeaway from this, ⁓ what would be that bit of advice that would really have a big impact either

Mohamed Attia (19:52) the family.

Brett Allen (20:12) could be implantology, could be related to their practice. What’s that one thing that can really help make a difference for our listeners in your experience?

Mohamed Attia (20:21) For me, it’s love what you do. I was lucky, I really have a great passion for dentistry. I love it, I enjoy it. I think that’s what really give me the drive to keep going and keep learning. Dentistry is not as easy as it looks. It’s really tiring, you get overwhelmed all like very easily. So you really have to enjoy it in order to keep going. ⁓ love what you do, enjoy it.

Brett Allen (20:43) Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Attia (20:51) ⁓ If you are a new dentist definitely get credentials ⁓ and Credential is not important. What’s why I’m recommending getting credential with American was AGD American Academy I’m sorry ⁓ the AGD and AID is the process of getting credential with Academy of General Dentistry and American Academy Implant Dentistry is what gonna

give you the experience. In order for you to get like a master for the AGD, you have to go with a lot of exams and do attend a lot of CEs and have certain hours. With the AID, you have to do multiple cases presented, do exams, be examined like oral exam and having like, you know, discussion about the cases. You will learn through the process. So I think for all new dentists, they should go through that. It’s going to give them

the drive and at time give them the experience. And of course it’s good to be credentialed, hey I’m a fellow or whatever, but that will never bring you patience. Patience doesn’t understand what these letters mean. But you, in order for you to achieve that, you will go through a lot that will teach you so many things and will hone your experience for sure.

Brett Allen (21:59) Right.

Yeah, thank you. That’s great advice. ⁓ we talk about burnout with Dr. Laura Brenner on our show. If you, if you want to go back and listen to that episode, ⁓ you gotta love what you do. think implants, while it’s hard, ⁓ we’re talking about that impact. ⁓ maybe this is for you and maybe it’s a way that you can really start to enjoy or take your, take the satisfaction you get from dentistry to the next level by adding implants to your practice. You mentioned something briefly there about

being a fellow or being highly credentialed and respected and ⁓ that doesn’t necessarily bring implant patients into the practice. In your experience, what does bring patients into the practice? What kind of marketing have you done? What’s been your experience to really get these cases, you know, to get the word out that you do this and to get patients attracted to you?

Mohamed Attia (23:06) The best patient you get is word of mouth. Word of mouth is the work you do for your patient. I’m gonna bring you more patients. If you do it right and patient are happy, it will always bring you some more patient bags, their families, their friends. This is the best patient you’re get. Other than that, of course, yes. As you know, all the social media, Google, having ⁓ your patient leave good reviews online makes a huge impact.

Brett Allen (23:10) Mm.

Mohamed Attia (23:36) ⁓ And then when the patient go on your website and then see okay you’ve been through that you you your have multiple credential you experience and what you do then They give you a phone call. That’s how it all start. So of course marketing you are the experts you you I Mean marketing is not easy. It’s it’s really involved. You have to get all

Brett Allen (23:52) Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Attia (24:05) this media together in order for you to get your name out there ⁓ in order for the patient to finally land on your page or your phone number and give you a call. That’s all what it takes, but it takes a lot of work. I’m sure you can give us even more advice on that. Where would you think is the best marketing resource?

Brett Allen (24:08) Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Word of mouth is definitely the cheapest, right? It doesn’t cost anything to give your patients an awesome experience and to impress them so that they want to talk about their new smile or to talk about the amazing dentistry and level of care and service that you provide. But if you want to go beyond that, like the practices we work with that are wanting to scale and add fuel to the fire and really start to implement a process, a strategy,

to get to that next level, right? If we’re at 80 to $100,000 a month, how do we get to double that, triple that, or quadruple that? How do we scale that to multi-location? There’s a lot that goes into that, and there’s a lot that goes into attracting the patients online. A big part of it is the right offer, and like you said, demonstrating who you are on your website. All of your online presence needs to convey

the quality of care that you provide, your website, your social media, your reviews. And if you’re not dedicating any kind of resources or time to making sure that that reflects the level of care that you provide and the experience when they come into the practice, then your ads aren’t gonna really work very well and the results are not gonna be great. So a big part of what we do is try to put together a game plan where we really do capture on photo and video.

the essence of the practice and the team and the doctor, as well as the patients and the impact you’ve had through testimonials, interviewing patients. We pull all of that together to make sure that’s reflected on the website as well as the content that we’re putting out in the ads. And when it comes to implants, ⁓ it’s a much bigger life decision as well as, you know, it’s a big invasive procedure, especially if you’re doing full arches, top and bottom. ⁓

as well as cost, right? This is an investment in their health and in their lifestyle that requires a big amount of money. And so there’s a whole choreographed experience that has to happen, both from interacting online, following the ad, the landing pages, the experience when they interact with the practice, how are we following up with this patient to get them scheduled, to when they come into.

for their initial consult, what’s that like? Is all of this buttoned together in a nice cohesive ⁓ strategy so that we get the best return on investments. But when done right, we’re seeing 11X, 10X, 12X return on ad spend, so we’ve got a lot of practices that are doing well over six figures a month on just $10,000 of ad spend. And so you really have to work with a team that knows what they’re doing and has.

a lot of the things buttoned up like we do, but I’m glad you asked that. Ask me about it. Yeah. Well, Dr. Atia, this has been awesome. Yeah. Tell us, for anyone interested in working with you or finding out more about your unique approach to implant dentistry, education, lectures, where should we send them to connect with you?

Mohamed Attia (27:32) Amazing, that’s amazing. Yeah, yeah. Well, you’re working expert,

I think

my email would be great. My website as well. They can always call the office. They can email me directly as well. I’d love to answer them and help them. Yeah. And I don’t know why, but mentorship makes a big difference too. Not only for just the dentist, but I want to tell you a funny story. I don’t know how much time we have, but…

Brett Allen (28:07) Okay, we’ve got.

Mmm.

Mohamed Attia (28:22) I had a patient one day came to me and ⁓ she had a pain from her wisdom teeth. And ⁓ I helped her with her wisdom teeth. So we got her ⁓ in, we got her numb. We took the four wisdom teeth out and it was pretty much a straightforward procedure. This patient fell in love with dentistry that day. She was like, my God, I did not have any pain. I love dentistry. She ended up going to dental school.

Brett Allen (28:48) Wow.

Mohamed Attia (28:51) and graduated and became a dentist. And I forgot that because I’m like, wow, I just had an impact on my patient. just like, and when she was in dental school, she came to my office to shadow. It’s like, for me, I’m like, wow, it’s like, that’s that’s great. So yeah, just ⁓ helping people just, I don’t know, to always give you that great feeling. You help somebody and they, I don’t know.

Brett Allen (28:53) What?

This is cool.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Attia (29:20) You change their life, so for me it means a lot.

Brett Allen (29:23) Yeah, that impact is huge. ⁓ That’s a lot about what we focus on too. We have our whole process is called the practice impact formula. It’s all about how are we impacting the practice for growth. And our team, we brand ourselves as the practice impact team. So everything we do is about that. And that’s a phenomenal story that you had that kind of experience with our impact on your patient’s life to then affect the outcome of their career and what they’re pursuing to.

to give back to other people. That’s awesome. ⁓ Well everybody, if you wanna learn more, the website is alexandriadentistva, like Virginia.com, and we’ll put that in the show notes so you can click right to it and see the about page that has all this detailed information as well as testimonial videos behind Dr. Atia’s ⁓ education and… ⁓

Mohamed Attia (29:55) That’s great, that’s great.

Brett Allen (30:20) leadership in implantology. ⁓ And then we’ll also, of course, include Dr. Atia’s email. So if you want to reach out directly to him to find out more and take that next step. Or just ask questions, right? If you have any questions about implant dentistry. Thank you again, Dr. Atia, for being on the show. It was awesome.

Mohamed Attia (30:38) Thank you so much.

It’s an honor. Thank you so much.

Brett Allen (30:42) Yes. Until next time everybody on the Marking32 show, you guys have a great day and thanks for listening.