510 - FIftteen Years, 760+ Episodes, and a Business Transformed by Podcasting

In 2011, Gary Takacs joined my four-week Podcasting A to Z course with an idea for a podcast specifically designed to serve dentists.

Gary was certainly not new to his profession at the time. He had started his own dental practice management consulting firm in 1989 after spending the 1980s learning his craft with two larger consulting organizations. His marketing model consisted primarily of writing articles for dental publications and speaking at conferences around the country.

Then he discovered podcasting.

Gary saw the potential for audio to give him an ongoing way to share useful information with dentists beyond the people who happened to be sitting in the room when he was speaking.

That decision changed his business.

The Thriving Dentist Show now has more than 760 episodes and has reached dentists in 188 countries. Gary shared that he has published weekly for 748 consecutive weeks without missing a single week.

Even more significant is what happened to his business as a result.

By 2012, Gary says the number one reason dentists contacted him about his coaching and consulting services was because they listened to his podcast. The podcast also became the number one reason he was invited to speak at conferences. Eventually, those opportunities expanded into an international speaking career.

Gary explained that meeting planners could listen to the podcast and essentially "sample" his thinking and communication style before taking the risk of putting him on their stage.

What surprised Gary most about podcasting

One of my favorite parts of this conversation had nothing to do with downloads, clients, or revenue.

Within the first year of producing the show, Gary realized that he would continue podcasting even if nobody listened.