Mastery/MBC Consultants

The Power of the Internet Enables Dentists to Be Successful

Dr. Marc Cooper, President and Chairman of The Mastery Company, has inspired over 2,100 dentists and 6,250 support staff to extend their knowledge beyond teeth and gums.

The Mastery Company (www.themasterycompany.com) trains, educates, and develops dentists to consistently and effectively lead, own, and manage their practices. The one-year Mastery of Practice Program transforms tooth-mavens into business-minded entrepreneurs.

When Dr. Cooper founded Mastery Company in 1984, he stopped practicing periodontics to become a full-time consultant.

“I had 14 programs in 9 states. At the time, I would joke that my home was seat 11A on an airplane,” said Dr. Cooper. “I was going from dentist office to dentist office and found myself exhausted.”

On a trip to Silicon Valley, Dr. Cooper saw other businesses flourishing on the Internet and at that point, he realized that Mastery Company could thrive online.

Dr. Cooper traded his airplane seat for a Dell Inspiron 1000™ Notebook and a Logitech® video camera. And by taking advantage of technology, The Mastery Company developed into a virtual consulting firm.

Since 2002, The Mastery Company has delivered its Mastery of Practice Online and Coaching Programs via the Internet. Each module – Leadership, Ownership, Management, and Marketing – runs for three months, allowing participants to focus on one subject at a time.

The program’s Internet platform is mutually convenient for Dr. Cooper and program participants. Lessons, taught live as Webinars (Web-based seminars), enable Dr. Cooper to deliver personalized presentations from the comfort of his own home. And with seminars recorded and uploaded on the Web, users can listen to or view presentations anywhere, anytime.

In addition to web conferencing, the Mastery of Practice Online Program also utilizes email, shared calendars, individual coaching calls, and group conference calls. This package of communication tools facilitates a virtual close-knit relationship between Dr. Cooper and program participants.

Access to all of these tools plays an important role in teaching dentists and their staff how to build a successful practice, so participants are given personal password-protected Web pages, tailored to individual objectives, which serve as resource portals. In addition to being the gateway to Dr. Cooper’s communications tools, the portals connect participants to resources, information and each other.

Each module, for example, has posted reading lists including links to buy the books from an online retailer. Other features include downloadable templates (in Microsoft^® Excel and Microsoft^® Word) that can be customized to fit the needs of the practice. In addition, community pages link the members of each office, facilitating dialogue among participants.

The Web portals also allow participants to evaluate themselves against objectives. Prior to entering the first module of the Mastery program, dentists and their staff post Strategic Plans outlining individual and group goals. Throughout the program, the plan serves as a tool to measure success. After the program, participants are encouraged to update their plans annually, so they can continue assessing progress at their practice.

As Dr. Cooper’s program places a strong emphasis on evaluation and critique, the Web pages contain hyperlinks to online surveys that assess key assets of the practice, such as dentist and staff satisfaction surveys and performance reviews. By encouraging participants to score and examine their own performance and that of co-workers, dental practices are motivated to implement change.

The transition from live to real-time has landed tremendous results for The Mastery Company and its clients. Dr. Cooper has significantly reduced the number of staff, from 11 full-timers to merely 1.5. Today, he employs one IT professional and a part-time bookkeeper. And the shift to the online business model has had incredible cost-saving benefits. Pre-Web, Dr. Cooper’s program cost dental practices anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000. The new price tag: Less than $15,000.