Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Black Business Month Spotlight: D2O Dental


1816 L Street
Sacramento, CA 95811
Phone: 916.442.7000 


In honor of Black Business Month we are profiling owner of D2O Dental, Dr. Edward Wiggins

Q: Where did you grow up?
A: Grew up in South central Los Angeles and Inglewood.

Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
A: I play tennis, run with my dog Bruce along the river, travel, and scuba dive.

Q: How long have you lived in Sacramento?
A: I've been here in Sacramento since 2008.

Q: Are you married, do you have children?
A: I have been married going on 6 years and we just had twins in February, boy and girl, Austin and Presley.

Q: When did you know you wanted to own your own business?
A: I never took directions that well even when I was younger so I think I've always wanted to be independent and control my own destiny through my own business.

Q: What made you choose your profession?
A: I had a great orthodontist and dentist growing up and we had a fantastic relationship so I looked up to them. Then I met my mentor, another dentist from Inglewood who was giving a talk while I was at Morehouse, I started working in his office during the summers and haven't looked back since.

Q: What were some challenges you faced starting your business? 
A: Finding great employees was the most difficult challenge I faced. It took a while to get our A team together as well as get everybody on the same page.

Q: How did you fund your business initially?
A: Funding was totally secured through financing
If you have employees, how did you find them?
All of my current employees come directly from colleagues that I trust or past relationships. Craigslist and monster.com like sites haven't worked for me.

Q: How do you find your customers and clients?
A: Clients find me through referrals on the internet such as yelp.com (presently the highest ranked provider in our area), visibility of my location, and direct patient referrals although initially I did have a magazine ad and did some direct mailers which I think helped in the beginning.

Q: What is the worst business advice you have ever received?
A: Worst business advice I had was don't start a business at the height of the worst recession since the great depression.

Q: What advice would you offer aspiring entrepreneurs?
A: Listen to your inner voice, it’s usually right. Don't procrastinate, if nothing else, get started with a business plan, it can help you discover challenges you may not have thought about and give you a good starting point.


Dr. Wiggin's 5 Pillars to business success 
1) Market disruption. What makes your product different? Whether it’s keeping your prices low with the same or better quality, or offering a new or better service, there needs to be something that distinguishes your business from others.

2) Visibility. There’s no point having an outstanding product or service that no one knows about. Whether its location, networking, or the internet, visibility and marketing is key.

3)  Employees. A major key in any great company is putting the right people in the right places. Then keep you staff happy. Employees need to be rewarded and share in the growth and profitability of the business and be appreciated.

4) Learn from the best. Look to the leaders in your industry and other industries to help refine your ideas and systems. Good to Great, Any of John Wooden's leadership books are good places for anybody to start with.

5) Believe in yourself. Your team and customers have got to believe in your message, and so you have to believe first. Then you can come up with a ever evolving mission statement that will guide your business for the future. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please keep your comments respectful. Also note that your comments are monitored and can be removed at any time.