“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

When I started the Nifty Thrifty Dentists group several year ago, I had two main goals. The first was to create a forum where dentists could save money on all things related to running a practice. For too long, the only way to buy supplies was through the major dental supply companies. Due to their monopolistic practices, they made a killing by selling products with huge mark ups. There were no other options.

With the increase use of social media in all aspects of our lives, it was the perfect time to utilize this mode of communication to break the chains that these companies had on practice owners.

I’d like to think that this first goal was achieved.

The other goal that I had was to create an online community where dentists could exchange advice, knowledge, and support each other in our career endeavors in a positive environment. The internet has allowed us to meet and interact with people thousands of miles away instantaneously and that has opened the door for an incredible ability to learn from each other….good or bad.

I’d like to think that this second goal is progressing well.

A perfect example of this was a question that I posed to our group a couple of years ago. The question was what expensive lessons did we learn that were not so Nifty Thrifty. Without mistakes, there cannot be successes.

The response was huge and was one of the most popular posts of all time.

What does that say about us? We are all members of this group because we want to save money on our practice expenses but we also want to be productive members of the dental community. We not only talk about our successes but our not so successful decisions so that we can learn from each other.

I want to thank all of the Nifty Thrifty members for making this group so productive and engaging. Please keep sharing because as anyone with little kids know, sharing is caring! Let’s share our happiness and frustrations together!

You can check out the Facebook conversation about this topic here.