Lasting Impressions | Fall 2014

NSU COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE © 19 Phelps said he learned that new graduates and established dentists often had the same lament. “They would say ‘I felt like my school prepped me to care for my patients, but not to run my business.’ The fact that dentists are most often small business owners is too often skipped over,” he said. “I’m a planner, and I wanted to plan for that. Dr. Hottel helped me think outside of the box. I thought, ‘My class needs to hear this.’ I made it my mission to provide those opportunities,” Phelps added. Another opportunity came when Douglas Rolfe, D.D.S., an NSU clinical professor, asked Phelps to join his private practice as a dental assistant. This gave Phelps a chance to observe all parts of a dental practice in action. “You have to know all your positions,” said Phelps. “I saw how dentists should inter- act and bond with their patients. But I also saw how import- ant staff interaction is with the patient.” Finding the right personnel led Phelps to turn recruiting strategies into a business called The Hiring System, which he says “almost guarantees me a superstar employee. I sell other doctors my system of hiring. They all tell me it brings them the best employees.” After college, Phelps returned to his native North Carolina and joined the practice of his wife’s den- tist. As he tried to grow the practice, Phelps discov- ered the pitfalls of business ownership, despite doubling their revenue the first year. He learned that he was spending a lot of money each month on marketing, but not getting a return. “Dentists don’t spend much on marketing, but marketing is the catalyst of growth,” Phelps said. People were calling the office in response to advertisements they had seen placed in local publications—but they weren’t making appoint- ments. So Phelps hired a team of program dev- elopers, as well as individuals to listen to the phone calls, which lead to another business, Call Tracker ROI. “We were missing about 200 calls from patients who received voice mail or a busy signal. Of the calls that were picked up, we were only converting 24 percent into an appointment. So we invested time in telephone training. Now we convert 86 per- cent of calls into new patients,” he said. Now he has expanded Call Tracker ROI to show other dentists, as well as other doctors and lawyers, how to increase their practices and better serve their patients and clients. “I show [clients] the opportunities they are miss- ing out on each month and how they can receive a thousand percent return on an advertisement,’’ Phelps said. “I work with professionals all over the country to help them identify the problems in their marketing sys- tems and provide solutions. I tailor my system for their needs.” A regular guest on the Charlotte Today Show (on NBC) to dis- cuss current topics in dentistry, Phelps believes in giving back to the community, including participating in his local Dentistry from the Heart program. “Every year, we provide a free day of dental care in the community. I wanted to serve 1,000 people and donate $500,000 in dental care back to the community,” he said. In two years, Phelps is halfway to his initial goal, serving 500 people and donating $250,000. Phelps, who has been married for 16 years and has two sons, ages 7 and 4, also stays connected to the College of Dental Medicine. He helped organize his 10-year class reunion and is presi- dent of the CDM Alumni Society Advisory Board. “We’re planning to organize events that bring the alumni together for reunions and fellowship, all while providing continuing education that can ben- efit all our practices,” said Phelps, who shares his practice with, among others, another CDM alumni, Henry Ernst (’05), D.D.M. “Our alumni committee is actively looking for volunteers from all classes to assist us with future events. It’s important to net- work with other alumni from NSU,” he said. u “We’re planning to organize events that bring the alumni together….” —Chris Phelps