www.charlottesmilemaker.com
Interviewee: Dr. Robert Lloyd DDS General Dentistry
Interviewer: Cas Snethen
Background
I completed my undergraduate degree at NCSU and after that went to UNC School of Dentistry and got my general dentistry degree in 1990. I moved to Charlotte and opened up my own practice, I’ve been here ever since.
Did you know early on that you wanted to get into dentistry?
Yea absolutely, I had decided early on in life, around grade school, that I wanted to be a dentist.
What do you feel drew you to the field of dentistry?
I think the main thing was that I really liked working with my hands. I am intrigued with mechanical stuff. When I was growing up going to the dentist I never had a bad experience. I never had any pain, shots, or cavities. Looking at the drill in the dental office I always thought it would be cool to use. It started as an innocent childhood fascination. So I asked my mom about dentistry and she said that it was a good profession and you can make good money. Kids like money to you know.
What do you feel drew you to the field of dentistry?
I think the main thing was that I really liked working with my hands. I am intrigued with mechanical stuff. When I was growing up going to the dentist I never had a bad experience. I never had any pain, shots, or cavities. Looking at the drill in the dental office I always thought it would be cool to use. It started as an innocent childhood fascination. So I asked my mom about dentistry and she said that it was a good profession and you can make good money. Kids like money to you know.
Did you immediately open up your own practice or did you go into practice with someone else?
I did immediately open up my own practice. The arrangement that I had was a little unique in that I rented space with in another dentist. He had more space than he needed so he let me rent part of his office. So I didn’t have nearly the overhead that I would have had by myself.
What were your beginning market strategies in the industry?
One of the other benefits I had in this unique experience was that the other dentist had a full practice, so he gave me a lot of patients. I moved to Charlotte in July and by that point the phone book had already been printed out for the next year so I wasn’t even in the phone book for the first year. To be honest I don’t think I did any advertising that first year, maybe some very low budget marketing, like welcome wagon, a company strives to help new businesses. All of my patients came from Dr. Brittan the doctor I rented space from. Referrals were another big part of my advertising.
Currently you have a great web site, what kind of emphasis you think your website plays?
We track all our new patients and where they come from. I only have a small number that have come from the website exclusively. Although I do think that the website has an effect reinforcing my other marketing. I heavily advertise on the radio.
Do you have partners? Why or why not?
I don’t currently have partners. The risk of taking that on is a lot. To add another dentist full time would change the dynamic of the work environment. You have to have the patient volume to support it and then there’s increase in facility cost. Things are working well as they are. It seems like there’s a trend now for having group practices and multiple offices. You can make more money doing that but just the toll it would take emotionally and mentally I’m not really willing to risk it. I feel like my plate is full currently with my work and my family. I’m not ready to shave off time from that in order to invest more in my business.
Is it difficult to find a balance between work and family given your hours are not constrained to 8 hour days?
In the beginning it wasn’t that difficult. I did have crazy hours early on, coming in on Friday and Saturday, just whenever patients needed me to. Even if it was my only patient for the day I would still come in on my days off. I worked longer hours, although I may have had holes during the day. I had no kids at the time and my wife worked with me. So we kind of benefited from this situation greatly. Balancing my personal life really wasn’t difficult.
What is your definition of success?
My definition of success is to find intimacy with God and complete the purpose for which he made us and put us here. There is a role that he has mapped out for each of us to do certain things. Living and fulfilling that purpose and getting on that track as early as possible in life and staying with it. To me that is success.
