Mike's Newsletter | AI Takes the Calls. Tesla Takes Flight.
Welcome Orthoprenuers!
Every week, we bring you the latest in practice management, marketing, profitability, and next-level ortho techniques so you can work smarter, grow faster, and build the practice you want.
In this issue:
🚨 News Update
🦾 Mike’s Prompt
📢 Juan’s Marketing Tip
✨ Astro Outlook
🗓️ Plan Your 2026 CE Calendar
🔥 Trending in the OrthoPreneurs Facebook Group
🎙️ The Orthopreneurs Podcast
✨ Final Thought
📰 News Updates
📞 AI Is Already Handling 20,000 Customer Calls a Day for Starlink
xAI just released Grok Voice 3.0, its latest voice model, and disclosed some impressive real-world numbers. Starlink is using Grok to answer roughly 20,000 customer calls every day, with about 70% resolved without a human.
The AI isn't just answering questions. According to xAI, it can verify customers, troubleshoot equipment, issue credits, ship replacements and handle sales. One in four Starlink sales calls handled by the system reportedly ends in a purchase. The model is now available to other developers for $0.08 per minute.
Why it matters: Voice AI continues to improve rapidly. If the staff answering your phones are not a competitive advantage, it may be worth investigating this as something to implement next year.
🤏 The Rise of Micro Machines
Atomic Machines recently unveiled the Matter Compiler, an AI-powered manufacturing system designed to turn digital designs directly into working microscopic machines.
The company says the system can design, manufacture, measure and improve devices across areas including mechanics, fluidics, optics and biosensing. Instead of creating an entirely new manufacturing process every time someone invents a new micro-device, the goal is to make changes largely through software — potentially shrinking development cycles from years to weeks or days.
Atomic specifically identifies force, shear and strain sensors and biosensors among the types of devices this manufacturing approach could eventually enable.
Why it matters: If this type of manufacturing works at scale, it could make entirely new categories of tiny sensors practical. Imagine brackets that measure forces in real time, or aligners that know whether they are fully seated and how long they're actually being worn. Not necessarily the most useful news item this week, but sure is fun to think about.
🚗 Tesla Reveals the Flying Roadster
The new Tesla Roadster was revealed last week. It uses SpaceX-inspired compressed-air thrusters and fans that allowed the prototype to lift off the ground, jump and flip over a lineup of Tesla vehicles and maneuver in midair. Tesla also demonstrated a 0–60 mph time of less than one second.
Tesla says there will eventually be three versions, culminating in a single-seat Rocket edition with 10 thrusters. Production is currently planned for 2028, although given the Roadster's long history of delays, we'll see.
Why it matters: Because it's freaking awesome!
🦾 Mike’s Tip of the Week: Practice FeedForward
Giving feedback is hard because most of us instinctively want to tell someone what they did wrong and what they should do differently.
The FeedForward approach shifts the conversation. You explain the problem and its impact, then ask the employee to help come up with the solution.
Try this prompt: Copy and paste it into ChatGPT, replace the bracketed section with a real situation you're dealing with, and then practice the conversation before you have it.
I want to have a conversation with an employee about this problem:
[Describe the situation]
Help me practice a feedforward approach.
Role-play as the employee. My goal is to clearly explain the problem and its impact, then ask you to come up with your own solution rather than telling you what to do.
Respond realistically to me one message at a time.
If I start solving the problem for you, coaching too much, becoming accusatory, or telling you what the answer should be, stop me and suggest a better way to phrase what I said.
At the end, tell me what I did well and what I could improve.
The goal isn't to script the perfect conversation. It's to get comfortable presenting the issue differently, asking better questions, and letting the employee take more ownership of the solution.
✨ Astro Outlook: Scorpio Season Calls for an Honest Audit
Week of October 19: The Sun enters ♏Scorpio♏ on October 23, traditionally associated with looking beneath the surface, asking harder questions, and addressing what has been ignored. For practice owners, the practical takeaway is simple: not every problem needs a new solution. Sometimes you need to understand why the current one isn't working.
The practical moment: Look at one area of your practice where the numbers and the experience don't match. Maybe your marketing generates leads, but consults aren't converting. Maybe production looks strong, but overhead keeps climbing. Maybe your schedule is full, but your team is constantly stressed. Instead of immediately changing something, investigate what's actually happening.
Best use of the week: Pick one metric that's been bothering you and follow it back to its source. Ask questions, review the numbers, and talk to the people closest to the process. You don't need another initiative this week. You need a clearer understanding of what's already happening.
🗓️ Plan Your 2026 CE Calendar
The Sleep & Airway Meeting
Fri, Dec 04 | Arizona Biltmore, LXR Hotels & Resorts
THE MOST UP-TO-DATE CLINICAL INFORMATION ON
SLEEP-DISORDERED BREATHING & AIRWAY.
CLOSE MORE CASES
April 1–3, 2027 | Fairmont Austin
Close More Cases is here — the fastest money in orthodontics isn't more leads or more ads, it's closing more of the patients already in your chair. In this 1.5-day intensive, Dr. Glenn Krieger sharpens the clinical close while sales expert Victor Antonio unlocks the psychology of yes — and it's training you put to work the Monday you get back, no long rollout.
Bring your TCs, walk out with one shared process, and start closing more cases immediately.
Tickets are live now — secure your spot before it sells out.
LEARN MORE ABOUT CMC
The Orthopreneurs CE Calendar keeps every major workshop, congress, and study club event in one place — searchable by month, so you can plan your travel and your team's coverage well ahead of time instead of scrambling the week before.
Whether you're chasing CE credits, looking for your next study club, or just want to see what's coming up before you lock in your schedule for the quarter, it's worth a five-minute look every month.
Bookmark the calendar, pick your priorities early, and stop letting CE planning become a last-minute scramble.
📢 Juan’s Maktering Tip: Market Around the Calendar Parents Actually Use
Most orthodontic practices build their marketing calendars around promotions, campaigns, and monthly budgets.
But parents aren't planning their lives around your marketing schedule.
They're planning around school, sports, holidays, vacations, and work.
And with Thanksgiving and winter break approaching, this is a good time to get ahead of their scheduling decisions.
Here's the play:
Look at upcoming school breaks. Identify when families in your community may have more flexibility to schedule consultations.
Promote convenience, not just treatment. Instead of another generic braces advertisement, try messaging like "Planning ahead for winter break? Schedule your orthodontic consultation before the holiday rush."
Show real availability. If you have early morning, after-school, or school-break appointment options, make them easy to find on your website and social media.
Create a simple seasonal campaign. Use email, social posts, and targeted advertisements to remind families that they can plan consultations around their schedules.
Coordinate with your front desk. There's no point promoting convenient appointment times if your scheduling team doesn't know which openings are available.
Track appointments by campaign. Measure which seasonal messages generate actual booked consultations rather than just clicks and impressions.
The bottom line:
Good marketing doesn't always create new demand.
Sometimes it simply reaches families at the moment they're ready to act.
Make it easier for parents to fit orthodontic care into their lives, and you'll give them one less reason to postpone that first appointment.
🔥Trending in the Orthopreneurs Facebook Group🔥
💬 Consensus on poaching team members from other Orthos?
FTR I’m the poached not the poacher
🗣️Sharing experiences can help make the right choice for you!
🎙️ On the Podcast: Want to Make More Money? Increase Your Case Acceptance | 5MF
We spend so much time thinking about marketing, advertising, referrals, and getting more people into the top of our sales funnel. Those things absolutely matter. But if those patients are already walking into your office and your case acceptance isn’t where it should be, you may be overlooking one of the biggest opportunities sitting right in front of you.
In this Five Minute Friday, I break down three basic ways to increase profitability: bring more people into your funnel, improve case acceptance, and reduce overhead. The problem with overhead is that there’s a limit to how much you can realistically cut. But improving case acceptance allows you to generate more production from patients you’ve already spent the time and money to acquire.
✨ Final Thoughts
This week's stories are a good reminder of how quickly the boundaries keep moving.
AI can now handle thousands of customer conversations without a human. New manufacturing technology could enable sensors and devices that previously weren't practical to build. And Tesla apparently decided that keeping cars on the ground was optional.
Some of these technologies will matter to orthodontics sooner than others. But the possibilities keep getting more interesting!
– Mike Vidikan
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