‘It is easier now’: from no patients to Rodeo Drive

Dr Sam Saleh opened his Rodeo Drive practice with no patients and no reputation in Los Angeles. A quarter of a century later, he explains why social media gives today’s young dentists an easier route to visibility, and what they must deliver once people start watching.

Dr Sam Saleh was in his 20s, had no patients in Los Angeles and was being warned that his new dental practice would fail.

Despite having no established reputation in the city, he committed to a space on Rodeo Drive, one of Beverly Hills’ most expensive addresses. Other dentists in the area, he recalls, were waiting for the venture to collapse.

‘I had no patients, I had no history,’ he tells Alan Clarke in the latest Stateside Sessions interview. ‘I literally came and took on probably the most expensive real estate rental that you could.’

Working through the uncertainty

Saleh admits there were moments when he feared that his critics might be right.

‘Were there times when I felt like it was going to fail? Were there times when I felt like we weren’t going to be able to make it? Yes, 100%,’ he said. ‘But we just worked through it.’

Now, 25 years later, the King’s College London graduate practises in Beverly Hills and London, travelling between the two cities around once a month. He treats patients from several countries and has developed an online following measured in hundreds of thousands.

Saleh believes social media has removed one of the barriers he faced at the beginning of his career.

‘Today, it is easier than it was when I started,’ he says. ‘Social media was not a viable option for expansion of a practice.’

Dentists can now publish their clinical work without waiting for traditional media coverage. Over time, that visibility can help them find an audience and demonstrate where their strengths lie.

What happens once people are watching

Saleh warns that attracting attention is only part of the task. Dentists must be able to support their online claims through the treatment they provide.

‘Once you have a voice and you have a platform, the onus is on you to provide the work and provide what it is that you’re telling people you can do for them,’ he says.

His advice is to identify an area of strength and continue developing it.

‘If you’re good at something, work harder at becoming better at what you know,’ he says. ‘That will be your natural edge because people will then be drawn to whatever it is that you do better than the average person.’

The interview also explores Saleh’s life between London and Los Angeles, the demands of treating an international patient base and why he considers an in-house ceramist essential to his aesthetic workflow.

Catch up on previous Stateside Sessions:

• Inside Hollywood dentist to the stars Jon Marashi’s smile studio
• US and UK dentistry: ‘the future is together’
• US dentistry: a new world of possibilities.
• A cosmetic dental giant’s journey to $10 million revenue.

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