Lessons - How a Celebrity Dentist Built a Multi-Million Dollar Brand | Dr. Jon Marashi - Celebrity Dentist & Entrepreneur

In this lessons episode, learn how to choose the right cosmetic dentists by asking the right questions and demanding real, before and after examples. Learn why subtle, well-designed veneers should preserve your natural teeth, not shave them down to stubs. Learn how to avoid the risks of medical tourism and the importance of trusting a qualified professional over shortcuts that can lead to irreversible damage. When you think about the work that you do, I'm sure you see a lot of bad work because I see a lot of veneers that blind me, but if somebody is just looking for your advice on how to craft the perfect smile per se, what is your advice to them? What should they be thinking about if they want to get some work done? You know, everyone, when it comes to aesthetics, right, is subjective in nature. And the niche that I've carved out in cosmetic dentistry has been the quiet luxury of smiles, you know, doing things that are tasteful and look appropriate and not flashy. And some people want that other luck, and no judgment, you know, they want those big white choppers, but there's a lot of folks that unfortunately get an unintended result. I think that's what I'm trying to avoid for people. So, you know, my advice is, look, if you're out and you're looking to have cosmetic dentistry done, and I can't take care of everyone, I just want to me, there's a lot of fantastic dentists everywhere. You know, some of the questions you should be thinking about are, you know, you're going to interview your dentist, you know, ask them, what do they think? What's their aesthetic? What's their opinion on it? But more importantly, ask them to show you before and after samples of their work, because there's actually smile libraries you can purchase of before and after. So that's not going to work. Yeah, it just shows examples of what cosmetic dentistry can be. So you know, say, show me examples of your work, where the starting point is similar to my condition, and the end point is something similar that you think would look good for me. And if someone has done enough of this, they'll have an extensive library to show you like, hey, look, here's what I did for this person. Here's where they started. You can see the similarities and here's where I was able to get them. And if you see enough of that, you're going to have a good sense of this person's design and abilities and aesthetic and determine if it's right for you. If you keep seeing cases where you're like, I don't like that one. I don't like that one. I don't like that one. And their only answer is, well, we'll make yours different. You know, you might be rolling the dice a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just by, or if you have a friend that, you know, you like their treatment that they receive, then, you know, that might be a good starting point, you know, better than picking a name out of a hat. I see these examples of veneers where they shave the tooth down to nothing. It's not supposed to happen. Well, can you explain what's happening in those cases versus what it should be? Okay. So let's start with what a veneer should be. A veneer once again, by definition, is just a covering. That's it. And it goes on the front of the tooth. Now, if you think about it, if your tooth is already in the correct position, and you put a covering on it, it's thicker than what it originally was. Right. With me. And you can only increase the thickness so much before it doesn't look right. Yeah. So if your tooth was smaller or normal size, and you bump the thickness just to smidge chances are you won't notice, which means when the veneer goes on, you don't need to do any drilling because it's additive in nature. Yeah. Okay. Or if the tooth has kind of a weird shape and you can't get the thing to fit on it, maybe you got to modify the surface a little bit so the thing can lock on properly, because there's a geometric shape that's required. But generally speaking, if that's required, the amount of modification, and when I say modification, this is what the layperson would would call like shaving or tooth grinding, is a half millimeter or less. You realize how tiny a half millimeter is. It's almost imperceptible. So that's how it's supposed to be done. How it ends up being done. A lot of the time is by dentists that haven't had appropriate training because there's not a lot of really great training out there. And it's very quick and easy to whack a tooth down because they say, oh, just let the lab guy worry about it. And that's more of like a crown preparation, not a veneer preparation. A crown is where the tooth gets whacked down to like 50% of the size that they put a covering on it. But the reason why that's being done is because there were some major structural durability issue of the tooth that they had to basically grind away the broken down parts to cover the thing and make it durable again. But if your front tooth or your front teeth didn't need that. Why on earth would you want them whacked down to nothing? And then there might be working with the dental laboratory where the technician is not as well trained. They don't even know what the client looks like. And they just and on the model, the teeth might look really good. But it's like seeing a dress in a window. And then the woman tries on and said, no, this doesn't doesn't fit me very well. So it's rampant in our profession to a fault. And truth be told, I rarely meet a dentist that purposely is trying to do a crummy job. But if you don't have the training, then, you know, you're you don't even know that you're not doing a good job, right? You just think like, oh, this is okay. So half of what I do these days is revision dentistry where someone went somewhere else and they got that unintended result. Now I'm the fix it guy. You can't if your teeth are shaved down, you can't fit right? Well, you can't make the tooth grow back. You're right. That's a one way street. But what I can do is get rid of the crazy horse teeth, remove them. They actually have a laser and the energy from the laser goes through the porcelain and it debons it. It falls right off before they had to drill it off. And in drilling off the porcelain, they drill off more of the tooth unintentionally. And then the the the shave down tooth got even smaller like how crazy is that? So I have a laser that can remove these things. And then I can bond a new set of veneers on that are smaller, thinner, yet stronger. So at least the tooth looks normal again. I understand. So what's happening? What's happening when people get that little like shave down and nub thing going on? Compared to what you do, if you put on veneers, you could take off the veneers and they could still have fully functional teeth. If you have done a no prep design, meaning no surface alteration. You just bonded the veneers on it 100% correct. The veneer can be removed. The surface can be repolished and it's like going back to square one. Do you see a lot of this with medical tourism? People trying to get cheaper veneers in all these different countries? Oh, yeah, I had this guy, this guy named Jeff. He went to Columbia. And the funny thing is, Jeff is really rich already. He just got bad advice and he flew down there and the crazy thing is they knock him out. They have an anesthesiologist while they're doing the procedure. And something went horribly wrong and he woke up in the hospital with no teeth. They shaved him all down and they couldn't finish the procedure. And he's like, well, I can't leave the country without teeth. So he recovered for a couple days and went back and they put him under again to finish the thing. I mean, he could have died. And he got back up to the states and a guy lives down in South Orange County and half the teeth broke because they weren't engineered properly and they weren't bonded properly and his teeth were shaved down as a mess. And long story short, he got referred to me and he's telling me the story. And I was just like, like as shocked as you are. I mean, I thought I had heard it all. I was like, oh my god. So, you know, it was a full revision case. I mean, I had to remove all the porcelains and rebuild the bite and get them the aesthetics and everything is fine now. But you know, there's a lot of folks who who travel because once again, the stuff is expensive. And that's not to say that if you go abroad somewhere that just because you practiced dentistry in a foreign country that you're a lousy provider, of course. I think what it is, it's a cautionary tale that sometimes you get what you pay for. I think so too. I think that the forget teeth, just medical tourism in general is very scary to me. I mean, you see all these horror stories about all these injections and all these plastic surgeries go horribly wrong. And also, I mean, the anesthesia, the anesthetic part of it, there was just a case anesthetic is not good to go under again and again and again and again. Either I think that this is not your feel, but somebody just died from having an anesthetic for full back tattoo. Yeah, because now they're doing full anesthetic general anesthetic for some longer tattoos. Okay. So I mean, if you, if you, if you don't have to go, do you have to go under anesthetic for veneers? No. No. Oh, so this is like very strange that. Yeah. No, it's elective in nature. I mean, like, look, you don't have to go under for colonoscopy, but a lot of people prefer to say, yeah, yeah. And obviously, if you're, if you're, the point is if you're doing something where you're going under, maybe do it in the US at least where you're a little bit safe. I have a board certified anesthesiologist doing it. Yes, not just a technician. Yeah. Because the standards of care are different in different countries. And that's what you have to be careful of. That's it. It's not that there's not good doctors all over the world because there is, but you just have to make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into. Have you ever had to turn a patient away for a request that they had? Oh, all the time. Yeah. Why is that? You know, what happens is you get to a certain level of proficiency in your career and then word gets out. And so you get a lot of people that want to come and see you, which is exactly what every business person wants. But sometimes as a result of it, it attracts the crazies. And in my world, you know, the crazies are the ones who come in and they bring a folder with them and it's about this thick. And it's got their records from five, 10, 15 different dental offices. And they've been to multiple dentists and how their procedures done over and over again. And as you start to listen to the story, you realize that it actually wasn't the dentist. It's it was the patient's expectations. And there, there are some folks that no matter how good you are at doing something, you're not going to be able to deliver because their expectations simply just aren't possible. They're unreasonable expectations. Now, earlier in my career, I didn't have the people management skills or even the experience to sniff that out. And you know, you're hungry to do the work and you do it. And then you just end up getting your ass handed to you and it sucks. But now that I have more gray hair on my head, you know, I learned to read the signs and I've had to tell people, you know, you sit and you listen and because they've paid you for a consultation. And they are there for you to tell them the truth. And so and that's what I have to do. And sometimes it's very difficult. And I tell them I say, listen, I hear what you're saying. And after listening to you, what I believe to be true is that I can't help you because I'm not going to be able to give you the outcome that you're looking for. And what I don't want to be is the next name on the on the graveyard list that you're carrying with you of someone who couldn't deliver. It's not fair to you to spend that time. It's not fair to you to spend that money. If I already know right away, I'm not going to be able to do that. And most of the time when I'm saying that it's because what they're asking for are like crazy, big, thick white teeth. And that's just not my thing. I don't do that. But it's not like, I don't know what else what if the people get like any like jewelry or stuff in their teeth or you know, I get those requests once in a blue moon. There's actually some dentists that have built very successful practices. I got a buddy of mine who does like the the grills and the diamond stuff and the teeth and the charge of fortune for it. So, you know, people don't really come to me for that sort of thing. It's more for the veneer thing. And, you know, for, for, you know, having a beautiful white smile. But there are versions of it, you know, the chick lady teeth and the horse teeth that that's just not my thing. And some people want that. And they want it on steroids. Yeah. And so, you know, that's where I find myself saying, hey, listen, you know, I don't provide that service. So, and it's funny. It's like the second you tell someone, no, they want you 10 times more. And they think that they think it's and they'll beg and bleed. And it's very, you know, it's very kind of them. They believe in you that much. They say, and they'll offer you any amount of money. I don't care where to cost. And you're like, look, it's not about the money. You know, it's just that I can't do this. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.