Aditi: Take a step back, analyze, and see what kind of practice you have on a high level. What is the demographic that you're serving? I serve a very tech-forward population, so they want all the things. But if you are in a rural area or serving a population that is more blue-collar, maybe they don't want all these services. We want to be providers who make smart investments because, ultimately, you are running a small business.
Anne: Hi, everybody. It's Anne Duffy, and welcome to the Just DeW It podcast. Okay, ladies, get ready for this one. One of my dearest friends is on this podcast with me today. You're going to love hearing from her, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about her before we get started. Dr. Aditi Agarwal is a practicing dentist, practice owner, and co-founder of Practice By Numbers, built to solve her own operational pain points and now helping practices scale sustainably.
Anne: A respected speaker and clinician, she brings an operator-first lens to dental technology. Fun fact: she's lived in three countries before the age of 25 and is a classically trained musician. Please help me welcome my dear friend, Dr. Aditi Agarwal.
Aditi: Thank you so much, Anne. It's always such a pleasure to have any kind of conversation with you, whether it's in person, online, on a podcast, on the phone, or at a meeting. It is just so amazing.
Anne: Oh, you are so welcome. You've been a light in my life since day one, and I think we've both grown. We were talking before we got started about our strengths. Let me tell you what Aditi's strengths are before we get started because, as you know, StrengthFinders is a pillar of DeW.
Number one: harmony. Aditi, this is fun. We have some time. I'm going to read what harmony is, and this all maps onto you. You're a negotiator. You can see both sides of a situation. You're great at asking questions and able to arrive at consensus. You're a great facilitator. How about that?
Number two: connectedness. Spiritual, doesn't sweat the small stuff, strong faith, considers consequences, helps others see purpose. I know that maps onto you.
Empathy. Creates trust, brings healing, knows just what to say or do, emotionally intelligent, and understanding soul.
These are so good. Developer. Grows talent in others, a teacher, coach, enjoys helping others succeed, invests in others.
And last but not least: arranger. Flexible, organizer, juggler, aligns and realigns tasks to find the most productive configuration possible. You're an efficient conductor.
Now, Aditi, that does make sense to me that you are the co-founder of Practice By Numbers, that you were working in the dental office, and then you figured out how to arrange things so it could make your life easier. I know you didn't set out to build a tech company, but you built PBN to fix your own practice operational headaches. If you look back, what was the tipping point where you realized what worked for you could help practices everywhere?
Aditi: Honestly, what helped was that before Practice By Numbers, I was struggling to figure out why my case acceptance was so low. Where was I going wrong? As a dentist, I'd always say it's my fault. I know how to present the treatment. But I had already been working as an associate for seven years before I opened my startup. I was very confused as to how, when I was an associate, I was able to get treatment acceptance, but I was not able to get it in my own practice.
Anne: Hmm.
Aditi: It was very interesting, and I just did not know what I needed to change. When I started measuring things, I really started to understand, wow, my case acceptance is low because I didn't have enough financing options for my patients.
Anne: Oh.
Aditi: I never thought about it that way because, as an associate, I never handled the finance part of it.
Anne: Right.
Aditi: I had no idea. It was just one of those magic things that happened. This time around, though, it fell on my shoulders, and I was trying to figure out why. When I found out my why and made changes in our financing options for the patients, my practice started to grow. I didn't even add any procedures. I didn't have to go learn to do anything fancy. I was doing bread-and-butter dentistry. But just tweaking one little piece of the puzzle, I saw incredible growth for a startup practice, month to month.
Then, as I grew, so did the things we were creating within PBN, which at that time was not Practice By Numbers. It was just a tool that my husband had created for me. We talked about it, and I said, "Wow, this is doing something. This is helping." So he said, "Okay, why don't I quit my day job, and let's do this full time. We're going to give it two years and see where it takes us." By then, I had seen enough growth in my practice that I could say, "Okay, we can manage this financially, where I will take on the brunt of running the home while you can see if this is going to work as a business."
Anne: Wow. You know what lights me up? When we go to meetings and we're talking about PBN, Practice By Numbers, and somebody's listening to us and says, "Oh, I use Practice By Numbers, and I love it. It just changed my practice. It changed everything about it." Then the next person will say the same thing, and it's like, we don't know what we don't know. If you hadn't experienced that, when we say it is truly built by dentists for dentists, it really is. I think there is something about that intuition within the system, that secret sauce that you have with PBN, and you have extended it and grown it.
Aditi: Absolutely. We have added so many things over the years. PBN is now nine years old. It has definitely grown and flown. I was its incubator, but now there are so many more dentists who use us on a daily basis, who tell us about their issues, their problems, and what they would like to see.
Honestly, until now, nine years in, we have grown year after year, all inbound. We have not made a sales call in nine years.
Anne: What? Tell me more about that. What do you mean by all inbound, not made a sales call? It's all word of mouth?
Aditi: It's all word of mouth. Our growth is 98% word of mouth, whether it's online, in person, at meetings, or whatever. The product really has sold itself.
Anne: Has legs. Has legs.
Aditi: Yes, has legs.
Anne: And can run.
Aditi: And run.
Anne: Yeah, and wings. That is super cool. Now, that's something I did not know because that's how we've grown DeW. It always blows me away. We go back to one of our principles: good DeWs find good DeWs, but good people find good people. That also speaks to your relationshipping. You're so high in relationships, Aditi. That really is what has built PBN.
Your tech team must go crazy because I bet you go to the office every day. I know you're still practicing, and you own a very successful practice. You sold one already. That's awesome. Every dentist's dream is to be able to build something and sell it. I bet you go home every night and say, "I got another idea for you."
Aditi: It is amazing. The great thing is that now we have a wonderful insider group. These are people who've been using PBN, dentists who have successful practices, and they've been using PBN for years. It's so amazing because I see it from one lens, but now we have people who see it from all these different lenses.
They bounce ideas off of us, and they're like, "Hey, what do you think if we could..." It is so gratifying for us as a company to be able to say, "Sure, I think we can make that happen," or, "What would make it better for you? Let's see if changing that in the product or developing a little bit more in the product will help you."
Being able to do that, that ability, the agility, and the nimbleness, because we are still privately owned, is amazing. I was reading just this morning about the Mars family and the chocolate bar, the Mars bar.
Anne: Okay.
Aditi: It's still privately owned, and it was started by this gentleman in the early 19th century here in Tacoma, Washington, which was where the first Mars bar was created. They were talking about how the product is more important than the family or the people behind it and how it has spoken for itself. We all know a Mars bar and all its different products. Now they have so many products that are under the Mars brand.
Just looking at that and seeing how they have created something and then taken it forward, not by putting themselves front and center, but always putting their users front and center and the product front and center, was incredible. This was my morning reading for today.
Anne: Oh my God, you're such a geek. I love how you keep growing in so many different ways. But that is really cool because when you think about it, if you had an idea and you wanted to go to a big company, for instance, Appleā€”and, of course, where your practice is, you see all the Apple and Google people because you're up there in the Seattle areaā€”you know how much red tape there would be for one idea from one dentist. You would be like, "I have this great idea," and it is a great idea. But to get it from the idea to execution and the product, it's impossible.
This is really such a gift, that it's privately owned. It comes to you, you can go to the team, you can figure it out, and the sky's the limit. This thing is just going to keep growing. I know you have over 100 employees now. You're pretty special, my friend, because a lot of us DeWs are still carrying a lot of the weight of everything on our shoulders. You are nine years in, with 100 employees, so many offices are using it, and then so many offices are telling other people to use it. When I think of how much big companies spend on marketing, congratulations. I'm glad to know you. And don't forget us little people when you get to the top.
Aditi: Never. Never.
Anne: I know. You're just amazing.
Aditi: I have a special place in my heart for DeW and all its members. They are just such amazing women. It takes a lot to uplift women, and I've been through it all. I think if we can share and help each other, it's a pretty rough and tough world out there. If we can help each other just a little bit, it goes a really long way because women uplift other women. That's the way they move.
Anne: It's innate in our DNA. The other thing about DeW, too, which is kind of fun, is what we were talking about before we got started. I mean, definitely, I'm a better mom. My kids are all grown, but since DeW, I've learned from so many young moms, and I was a better daughter, better sister. All those different facets of being a woman in the world and the relationships through DeW. Nothing is off the table. When you come to the retreat, it's a vault, but nothing's off the table because we all have things that we're going through, good, bad, and indifferent. It's great to have someone to celebrate a win with. It's just so super.
I've known you probably for at least eight years, Aditi. When I think that you were only a year into this journey that you've created, it's extremely encouraging and inspirational to all of us who are building something we wanted to do for other people.
What would you tell a young dentist or somebody who hasn't been using AI and is kind of afraid of it? Graduates are getting out, and they don't know which way to go. What would you tell a young dentist who's skeptical about bringing AI into their front practice?
Aditi: Honestly, there's a lot of noise out there. It is definitely hard to differentiate, but it is also very important to understand. In general, because I practice in Seattle, I am in a very tech-forward area. The funny thing is, if I'm not ready for it, my patients are. Eighty percent of them are employed by either Microsoft, Google, or Facebook. They're very tech-forward. Serving these patients, I really get to understand how they consider AI, and a lot of them are very pro-AI.
As dentists, we need to understand that this is here to stay.
Anne: Yeah.
Aditi: It is the new frontier. It's like the dot-com era, for those people who don't know, in 2000 when we had Y2K and the whole internet era. This is one of those. I was having an interesting discussion with the director of AI at one of these big tech companies. We were having a conversation because I'm a geek like that.
Anne: Yeah.
Aditi: He was saying that change management and change cycles, back in the day with the wars and things like that, used to be 50 years, then 20 years, and now we're going to see change cycles of five years. So we better pull up our socks because there are going to be a lot of changes, and there are going to be a lot of them in healthcare.
Understanding that AI has good, bad, and ugly, and really saying, "Okay, how can this help my practice?" Really dissecting it. Can it help my practice? Is my practice too small? Is it medium? Is it big? What size practice am I at where AI will actually help, whether it's an AI receptionist or AI X-ray reading? What's really going to help? Am I in a small practice where I want to get more patient buy-in on my treatment planning? Maybe then it's a good idea to get the AI X-ray reading because that can generate reports, and I can share it with my patients, who can then see what I'm seeing. There is an increase in accepted treatment rates when you use that.
But it depends on what you need. You don't have to get it all because it depends on the size of your practice and what kind of practice you have. Are you seeing geriatric patients? Obviously, if your patients are 70-plus, you don't really need to get an AI receptionist. They probably will not talk to them.
You have to first see what kind of practice you have. So take a step back. That's my biggest advice to a young dentist who does have their own practice. Take a step back, analyze, and see what kind of practice you have on a high level. What is the demographic that you're serving? I serve a very tech-forward population, so they want all the things. But if you are in a rural area or serving a population that is more blue-collar, maybe they don't want all these services. Really understand. I've always been service first.
Don't just buy tools. Dentistry has tons of things to buy, clinically and non-clinically. But we want to be providers who make smart investments because, ultimately, you are running a small business. When you're running a small business, there are overhead costs. There are so many things, and of course, with growing costs of supplies and staffing, it is always this very delicate balance that you're trying to manage. It's hard. It's really hard. As a young dentist, it's even harder because you're not established yet. But you want all the things, and I get it that you want all the greatest and the latest.
But first, really step back. There is no harm in being a bread-and-butter dentist. What it means is really understanding: what value am I going to bring to my patients, and what value am I going to bring to my practice overall if I add this? Whether it's in time, saving staff headaches, or the value of my patients understanding their treatment because maybe they don't understand it.
Maybe it's the value of saying, "Oh, I'm a busy practice. Even with whatever number of front desk staff I've got, I'm missing too many phone calls. I really need to have an AI receptionist in place who can probably take over the overflow phone calls or maybe be able to connect with patients after hours."
There are so many things that you could get, but you really need to step back and see what you need. Nothing's cheap. Everything is expensive, but everything can bring value. The funny thing is, a lot of people, including myself early on, would blame my tools for not doing what I wanted them to do. But I never stepped back and said, "Well, what is it that my practice really needs?"
Anne: The noise. All the noise. I think that's so smart because when you're going to purchase something like this, you're going to stick with it. It's not like we don't change. I think there's a tipping point right now with AI. I honestly do feel like there's a tipping point. If you had an old system, this is the time. You said it with change management: five years. Five years.
There are so many practices that haven't looked at this, haven't stepped back in the last five years. They either don't see that they're worth it to be able to do that, to make their job easier, to make it easier for their team, and there are some things that are available. Really take your time to make sure that you're going with the right program. Go with a program that will be nimble and flexible and be able to give you what you want.
Even someone like me, I'm all into AI. Whoever dreamed, honestly, three or four years ago, that I would be into AI? I'm like, "Oh my God, this is amazing." If you're not using AI in a practice, there are very few people who would really have confidence in you to be able to work on you and give you the smile, the health, and everything that you need to have a long and healthy life. So, yeah, you've got to jump on the train, but you've got to get into the right program, one that's going to suit you and one that everybody else is using, apparently. That's like, sign me up.
Aditi, a lot of our DeW listeners are women thinking about taking a bigger leap. They're not sure. In fact, if you're listening to this, you do not have to be an entrepreneur to be a DeW. You just have to be a woman with a toe dipped in dentistry. So it's a little bit of a misnomer. But most women who stick in DeW, I would say all the women who stick in DeW, want something more. They have dreams. They want to live those out, and they don't want to just play small. That's the thing that we try to stress. You've got God-given talents. Use them.
They want to take a leap. They want to start something. They want to say yes to more, and it might not even be in dentistry. It might just be crocheting little hats for kittens, and that's their dream to have as a great side gig. I always say, "Don't quit your day job," but side gigs are really fun, and all women are spinning 10 plates.
What's something you wish someone would have told you before you added co-founder, amazing speaker, amazing dentist, amazing mom, all of these things that you are, to your plate on top of dentist? What is something you wish somebody would have told you before you took that leap, which you did just nine years ago?
Aditi: That it's okay to be you.
Anne: Mm.
Aditi: It's okay to not have the strength to carry it all. It's okay to give and expect grace. It's okay to tell your staff, especially if you are a dentist who has a practice, that you're tired and that you need them to step up.
Anne: It's okay.
Aditi: It's okay for you to be vulnerable with your staff and with your patients. You spend more than eight hours every day with your staff. It is really important to have that vulnerability with strength, that today is a rough day. I do have a different job. I do other things, but I'm here. I want to be able to serve my patients, but I don't think I can take any more on my plate today. That is today. Tomorrow will be a different day. Tomorrow, I will have space on my plate.
Understanding that it is okay to be overwhelmed, and then communicating that with whoever you're working with, whether it's your staff, your coworker or co-founder, or the people at Practice By Numbers. I always set these expectations. Someone will be like, "Hey, when can we do this?" And I will say, "Maybe not today." What is the urgency? How much time is this going to take? Really understanding that and saying, "Not today," is okay.
Anne: Yeah. We just think we can be superwomen. Super everything. That's so beautiful.
Aditi: We do. We give so much to so many different people that I realized, as we hear about, unfortunately, colleagues and many dentists who commit suicide, every other week, we are seeing this is definitely becoming an issue. I think people are carrying so much overwhelm, and they are not able to share that overwhelm.
Anne: Yeah.
Aditi: When you are the kind of person who has to give so much, whether it's to your patients, your staffā€”and I'm saying this as a practicing dentist nowā€”and then you come home and you have children, a spouse, and parents, you just don't have enough to give. Then the version of you that your kids get maybe is not the version that you want them to see. Then you are not able to sleep at night because you're guilty because your kids got the worst of you.
For me, one of the most important things is that I understood that I have to pour into my own cup, find a way to make myself happy, and not wait for finding that perfect friend or perfect partner or perfect whoever it is to find ways to fill my cup.
When I'm on the road, which I am a lot with PBN, I have made this new rule for myself that whichever city I'm visiting, I try to find what it is known for. If you're in Chicago, it's the House of Blues. I will take time out in the evening, and if it's just by myself, I will go and have an evening at the House of Blues. It is something simple like that that helps me refill my cup.
Just find what helps you refill your cup, whether it's snuggling in and reading a book, going for a walk, or whatever fills you up and gives you a way to recenter yourself. For me, it's music. For other people, it's different things. It's activity, dancing, walking. But find ways, and then do that. You don't even have to be gone for a long time. Usually, it's half an hour at the most, and you come back energized, and you are able to really be the right person or be the person you want to be for your family.
Anne: It's just giving ourselves permission to have joy just for us. I love it. I was going to say, a concert at Notre Dame in Paris would be really lovely as well. You made me think about that. I also admire you so much. I'll never forget when we were at Nacho's, and you were like, "Yes, we're going to go." So we went to see Nate Bargatze, and we had so much fun. Then we ducked into a Ritz-Carlton and had a martini.
Honestly, Aditi, if you hadn't said that and you hadn't forced it on me, so to speakā€”you bought the tickets before I even could say, "Well, I don't know"ā€”it was such a memorable time. I'm really trying to remember the joy was for me and to continue that on. This message, if you're listening, is really important. If you're at any meeting, pretty much almost any meeting, there's going to be a DeW sister there that you can grab by the elbow and say, "Let's go. Let's do it."
Aditi: I know. I really did grab you that day. I said, "Well, you want to see him? Let's go see."
Anne: I know it.
Aditi: You were like, "What?"
Anne: I was. I was so glad about that, and I have really tried to do more of that. You've got to hang with some people who do that, guys. I might not be that person who's going to think about it or go for it, but you've got to hang with women like Aditi, like Deb Carrier, who are like, "Come, come, come, let's go. Let's do it, ladies. Let's do those things."
Remind each other that our life is important also because that will keep you from burnout if you don't keep stuffing it and don't keep thinking, "I have to carry everything." We don't. We don't have to carry it. There's plenty of people, but we have to communicate it, and that was your message also. You've got to ask for help. Is there a woman out there who doesn't want to help somebody else? Really, that's another innate quality of women.
Aditi: But we can't read each other's minds, so you have to ask. You have to ask. That is one thing that took me a long time to work on myself.
Anne: Mm.
Aditi: I'm the boss. I'm the dentist. I'm the owner. There's nobody above me, so who do I go to when I need help? But then I realized that those people who are working with me in my office are capable too. If I can share some of the load with them, I was so surprised as I started to slowly put down some of my load and share it with them, that they would come up with amazing ideas of being able to solve problems. Or they would step forward and say, "Well, Doc, we got this. We can do this for you. How about you do something else?" Having that support, and they wouldn't know until I asked.
Anne: I know it. You really have got to communicate. I also think that gives you some buy-in for your teams. They want to know how they can be part of the success of the practice. They want to feel good about their contribution. You don't get any of that in dental school because all you have to be in dental school is perfect, and then you get out and you're like, "Okay, now what?" These are all life lessons that you're learning from Aditi, who's been there. She's done that. She's doing it.
How do we find you, Aditi? I know that a lot of women and men who are listening to this are thinking about PBN and how to get on board with a company and a system that is so deeply tied to the dental roots and can make decisions and customize it for you. How do we get in touch with you?
Aditi: The best way is our website, www.practicebynumbers.com. You can always find me on LinkedIn. I'm all over social media with Anne, so you'll find me on Facebook and LinkedIn. I always respond, so if you have to leave me a message, feel free to leave me a message. I'm happy to respond. If you need to email me directly, my email is Aditi, that's A-D-I-T-I, dot Agarwal, that's A-G-A-R-W-A-L, at practicebynumbers.com. It's a long one, but it's memorable.
Anne: We'll put it in the show notes for everybody, too. Don't forget, you can meet with Aditi because she's one of our speakers at our DeW Retreat this year, November 12th through the 14th. Oh, and guess what? By Friday, we're closing it, so this will probably be out after we close our membership. But then we'll have a bundle for you ladies who say, "Dang, I missed it this year," so you can get on to DeW and sign up for next year because we always sell out. It's going to be amazing in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Aditi: It's going to be incredible. It's one of my most favorite places, believe me, in the world. I love Charlotte. I've been trying to get my husband to move, and he's like, "Never." We're not moving out of Seattle.
Anne: Maybe just get a little beach house or a little mountain house, and then we can gather there, too. You never know. Never say never.
Aditi: Never say never. But I love Charlotte. It's one of the most beautiful places, and it's so underrated.
Anne: It was a secret. Now I think it's one of the top places people are moving to. Easy airport to get in, and we love it. We got here 34 years ago. We never left after 10 moves, so it says something. It speaks to me as well.
I love you, Aditi. Thank you so much for being with me today. Before we leave, what was your one instrument that you were classically trained in? Was it piano?
Aditi: Yeah.
Anne: Oh my God. There's a piano at the resort. Did you play last year? Can you sit down and play?
Aditi: No, I am not playing. I'm speaking this time.
Anne: Okay. Next year, you're going to play. I'm going to give you a song to play. It'll be my favorite, which everyone thinks is so old school: "Climb Ev'ry Mountain." I love that song. So maybe practice that song.
Aditi: I love that song too.
Anne: That's my favorite.
Aditi: The Sound of Music, right?
Anne: Yeah. I think her name was Peggy Brown or something like that. Maybe we'll play it again this year. We'll have a star. It's an amazing song. I love it.
All right, everybody. Thanks for joining us. We love you all. Most importantly, for everyone listening, keep doing you. We'll see you on the road. Thank you.
Aditi: See you on the road.
Anne: Bye, Aditi.
Aditi: Bye.
