2. We're concerned about the licensing thing. Is this something that has to be completed before the first class could be started, or would we start marketing the first class while applying for the license? How long does the process normally take? How important is it to have it? Any other information or thoughts on the licensing process would be appreciated. A: I can't say for sure. The process normally takes 1-2 months. It's only important if your state regulatory agency says you have to have it. You can get around the whole licensing process if you become under the umbrella of another existing vo-tech school in your area which doesn't offer Dental Assisting as part of their CE, i.e., you would be their program, teach the course, run the school in your facility, all they would have to do is put your course in their CE catalogue. That's what we did initially and it kept the licensing folks off my back. Our package shows you how to do that. Eventually, I realized that in order to sell this school to docs in other states, we had to go through the licensing process ourselves to be sure it could be done.

3. We are thinking of starting the school in our section of town. This is a fairly well-to-do area. Would this location be a disadvantage in getting students? Would it be better in a less affluent area? In other words, do you think we would have trouble filling the classes at this location? A: I don't think your location will affect you adversely in any way. Affluent folks have daughters who need a career just like anywhere else. You can market (advertise) to as wide an area as you wish, there is no restriction in our license regarding that.

4. We also thought of possibly running the program on Sundays instead of Saturdays and were wondering if you thought this would be a good idea or a bad idea. A: Sundays may be OK, I don't know, I never tried it. Many people go to church on Sunday and/or want to be with their families so this may be a factor.

5. How many classroom hours and clinical hours does your program have? A: Our total classroom hours for the course is 80 hours. That is roughly divided into 40 hours of lecture time and 40 hours of clinical practice. Additional time is spent in home study.

6. Do you have to be an accredited teaching facility in order to certify the students? A: To become a "certified DA" according to the AADA (American Academy of Dental Assistants) in Chicago, you can graduate from a so-called "accredited" school (has the "blessing" of the ADA) and take the certification exam or you can work as a dental assistant for 4 months (I think) and then take the certification exam. You do not have to be "accredited" by the ADA in order to certify as I have outlined above. I tried years ago to become "accredited" with the ADA but was informed by the Grand PooBahs in Chicago that any "accredited" course must be at least 6 months, 5 days a week long. I thought that was ridiculous and asked them if they would consider my course. They said I could apply (for a NON REFUNDABLE fee of $1500) and they would "consider" it. My response was, "Homey don't play dat game!" and never looked back.

7. Do you pay for advertising for your school? What media do you use? A: We compensate a couple of local vo-tech schools to be included in their CE catalogues, other than that, it's word of mouth. We did advertise in newspapers and use other promotional means contained in our dental assisting package during the start up.

8. Does your class use a textbook to supplement what is taught in class? A: We use a commercial textbook and a 120 page fully illustrated in color student syllabus (written by me), as well as other teaching aids and handouts which are exclusive to this course. Other programs selling for much more than ours use commercially available textbooks, workbooks and other materials which sell for a total of about $200 on the open market. Before spending $20-40K to get a box of stuff you could have bought for $200, call me and I’ll tell you where to buy it, that is if you want to reinvent the wheel and develop your own program from scratch.

9. How many hours of work outside the classroom is required of students? A: There is no externship required of students in our local program, although you could do it if you wished to. We offer the students an opportunity to come into our office for half a day during work days to observe. They must make prior arrangements and we only allow 2 at a time during the morning or afternoon. We make this optional as some students work or are not interested. If they do come in, we request that they buy scrubs and dress appropriately for our office. If they are far enough along in the course (half way), we even let them sit and assist (with the patient’s permission). The patients’ usually love the chance to be a part of this training session.

10. Is there a demand in my area for such a course? A: There's a demand in any area, whether its upper, middle or lower income areas. There are always untrained potential students (or their parents) who would be willing to pay for training to become a dental assistant.

11. Will the market hire graduates from my program, and at what starting salary? A: The Atlanta market has been hiring our students for the past 18 years. When I go to the Hinman meeting in Atlanta, many of my former students come up to me and thank me for giving them the chance to become the successful dental assistants they've become. After graduation, our students start out anywhere from $12 an hour up to as much as $16 and hour.

12. I also am trying to get info from the ADA on certification requirements, can you help here? A: Certification from the ADA is a dead end. I pursued it years ago but the powers that be at ADA headquarters cling to the belief that it takes a minimum of 6 months at 5 days a week to train a dental assistant - a total waste of time in my view. I was told by the ADA that I could apply for their "blessing" (certification) at $1500 application fee but if they didn't agree that a 10 week course was sufficient, my application fee was non refundable (See also question 6)

13. What help can you give me with state licensing? A: As part of your package, we have provided a complete set of our state licensing documents with all the “exhibits” and documents asked for by the state together with and all the forms and questionnaires filled out so that you can see how these applications work and what to send into your state when they ask for similar documentation.

14. Will this work in a small town? A: We have several users in small towns who are doing well with the system, one in a small Indiana town is getting 15-20 students per class on a regular basis. Some of our most successful and profitable users are in small towns like Effingham, IL; Connersville, IN; Swampscott, MA.. While our license agreement gives you an exclusive territory, you are not limited as to how far out you wish to carry your marketing.

15. Will my staff enjoy doing this? A: Just ask them! See if they would enjoy teaching dental assisting using the latest state-of-the-art audiovisual aids AND make $200 a day doing it. I have a waiting list of assistants and former students (now assistants) who want to help teach our course. Most staff members love the chance to share their knowledge and experience. The satisfaction of teaching cannot be overemphasized, it has given staff members a whole new enthusiasm for their job.

16. I want to delegate this state licensing thing and startup hassle to one of my assistants. Is that a good idea? A: It has been my experience that when the person with the largest financial interest in a business (that’s you) takes an ACTIVE role in setting up the program, the job gets done. You may have a great assistant who will get the job done, but chances are she/he may look upon this task as one more thing to try to get done in a busy working day and it will be pushed aside. Can you afford to let this Golden Goose of an opportunity be pushed into the storage closet of your office?

17. Do you explain in your package how to market the school and go into detail on how to set it up? A: I am known by my staff as the “Great Organizer”. This package was put together by me with one thought in mind, “Is there any detail I have overlooked or omitted from the package which might be useful to a person knowing nothing about setting up a dental assisting school?” The answer is, “NO!” I have included everything in my knowledge base into this package.

18. How come your program is only $8995 and others I’ve seen are $20,000 even $40,000? A: Virtually every single competing program on the market is a copy of mine. We began this in 1987 and have the most experience to share with a potential purchaser. Several of the high profile, more expensive programs being sold actually bought my program then started their own businesses to resell the idea. One program which is several times the cost of ours uses commercially available textbooks, student workbooks, and teaching manuals. Why would you pay $20,000 or $40,000 for something you could buy on the open market for less than $200? Our program, the audiovisuals used to teach the lecture portion, the 120 page student syllabus and all exams, tests, handouts, etc. were custom designed and written by me personally for this course. With the exception of the supplemental textbook, there is NOTHING off-the-shelf in this program. There is no other dental assisting program that can make that statement.

19. Why is there a no refund policy? Why can’t we buy the program on a trial basis? A: If this was a dishwasher, curing light, autoclave, etc., I’d be happy to take it back and give you a 100% refund. The answer (unfortunately) is that the materials, documents and A-V materials are easily copied and plagiarized (ask me how I know!) then returned to me for a refund. Or else, someone gets tired of the state licensing process and gives up, even though it is doable. That is not my fault or the fault of the program. If you want to see the ENTIRE program before you buy it, just buy a plane ticket and I’ll show you the whole shebang — PowerPoints, documents, syllabus, promotional material, course materials, everything. Hey, if you have a photographic memory, you won’t have to buy it!

20. How easy is it to get your staff to teach the program? A: That is probably the easiest thing of all! With the overhead of this program running about 18-20%, you can afford to pay your staff a good salary to teach. We pay ours $85 for a half day and $200 for a full day of teaching (sometimes we need extra instructors for the afternoon clinic, thus the half day). Plus, they love to teach. It is a very satisfying and stimulating job for them. It is so different than their jobs of assisting, now they are in control instead of being in the doctor's shadow.

21. What is your take on dentists who have bought your program and not followed through in setting it up? A: The simple answer is, they dropped the ball. Or worse, they assigned one of their staff to do everything. How do you think a staff member would feel if asked to do another job (a difficult one at that, and not at all related to why they were hired) in addition to their already heavy daily work load? Staff members have NO financial interests in seeing this business opportunity become successful, so why should they be motivated to do it? Our experience is that unless the doctor takes an ACTIVE role in setting up the program, it won’t get done and will end up in the storeroom. How many times have we all come back from a great CE seminar with the staff and the new ideas never get implemented. This is just another example of that problem.

22. But I have competition in my area from commercial vocational schools, how can I compete with these? A: In the Atlanta area, there are three or four other schools teaching dental assisting. Some are the 6 month, $10,000 tuition types. There is no competition or comparison between our program and these schools. These schools are typically after “government aid” students (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) and that’s why their programs are 6 months long. To qualify for government aid, the program (any program, I’ve even seen a “Night Watchman” school with a 6 month program for cryin’ out loud) must be a minimum of 6 months long. Are you starting to get the picture? When we used to have an Open House prior to the start of our class, mom’s and daughters would come and say, “We’ve been to XYZ School and wow, did they high pressure us to sign up, how should we decide?” My answer to them was this, “When you finish this meeting and tour our facility, you will know the right decision to make.” I have never lost a single student to these other schools with that answer.

23. How hard is it and what is the time frame to getting licensed by the state? A: The time frame can be from 1-2 months, depending on your persistence and the state’s bureaucracy. The key is to keep at it. We will help you with any questions as to what they are asking for in the way of documentation and “exhibits” for your program. We also provide a complete set of our application to the State of Georgia, showing ALL the exhibits, questionnaires, documents and other materials they asked for before granting us our license. It will help to guide you in your own application process. We also provide you with a proprietary way of starting up your class without having to become licensed by the state at all. We used it for the first three years of our operation and only became licensed when we began selling the program to other dentists. I then chose to become licensed in our state to prove it could be done with our program.

24. How hard is it to figure out how to set up and operate the program, after all, you’ve been doing it for 18 years and it’s easy for you? A: Yes, it is easy for us and we’ve made it easy for you. Everything we know about operating this program has been put into manuals, documents, “READ ME FIRST” instructions — virtually all the documents, forms, advertising, promotional pieces, registration packets, class instruction, setting up each class, operating the A-V materials, collecting the money, financial arrangements — everything you need to understand how to operate this program has been spelled out in easy to understand instructions for each part of the program. Our state-of-the-art PowerPoint™ lecture material complete with embedded pop-up videos will keep your assistant teachers "on message" at all times. My assistants tell me it is so much easier to teach with this new system.

25. Other Dental Assisting Schools costing much more claim they have the “magic bullet” to successfully market their program. Do they? A: Don’t be misled by this simple sales trick. Marketing of your dental assisting school is simple and straightforward. It is done through newspaper ads, yellow page ads and other marketing which our program goes into great detail to show you how to do. After being in operation for a few years, your former students, through word-of-mouth advertising will be sending you enough students that you can reduce your marketing budget considerably. But again, there is no “Secret Kryptonian Anti-Matter Marketing Plan” that these other programs claim to have.

26. I saw a video from one of your competitors showing their instructor teaching a class. She was lecturing in front of the class with no slides or videos to help her. It looked very difficult and very tiring to do. Is this the way you teach your class? A: Not at all. Our program uses state-of-the-art PowerPoint™ lectures which have been custom made just for our program. These PowerPoints also have embedded, professionally made videos which play automatically at appropriate times during the PowerPoint presentation. The assistant only has to follow the material on the slides and videos to be easily guided through the morning lecture. Ask your assistants whether they would rather stand up in front of a class with no audiovisual aids and lecture like a 4th grade teacher or use our custom made, state-of-the-art presentations? I think the answer is obvious.

27. Why did the "underwear" guy from Texas who offers a competing program for $40,000 sell his personal school? A: Good question! I frankly don't know why anyone would want to sell a consistently profitable and low overhead business. Even after 19 years, I still enjoy operating the program locally and the 18% operating overhead expenses makes it a no-brainer to continue until I'm stone-cold and toes-up. This school is truly the Golden Goose if there ever was one. I am puzzled over the fact that if my competitor's school is so effortless to run that he sits around on Saturdays in his underwear, then why did he sell it? His explanation was he had to pay off enormous credit card debt. So my question is, why would you buy a program from someone with business credentials like that? How could his program be any better organized than his business affairs?

28. Do you hire students from your class? A: One of the great benefits of operating this school is we have NEVER had to put another ad in the paper again. Since 1987, whenever we've had a vacancy, we hire someone from the current class. What better job interview than to observe someone for 10 weeks and watch them work and learn. They are thrilled to be selected to work in your office as well.

29. How good is your program compared to other competing programs on the market? A: I'll answer that by saying one dentist who spent $40,000 on a competing program has just bought ours for 10s of thousands less because, as he stated, "It is much more technologically advanced and better organized." Dentists seeking our student graduates in the Atlanta will call our office and say, "I hired one of your students 2 years ago and I need another one just like her -- she's great!" Our former students are so pleased with their education and resulting job in the dental profession that they refer other students to our program on a continuing basis, so much so that we hardly have to do any advertising. We have been doing this for over 18 years now. Buy with confidence, buy from experience and buy the best.