CASE STUDY
From Working Hard to Working Smart
How Dr. Matthew Tomala Created More Growth, More Clarity, and More Capacity
Dr. Matt Tomala entered The Leadership Thread as a highly productive endodontist running a busy practice built around accessibility, speed, and strong referral relationships. Like many specialists, he had spent years working five clinical days per week to remain available for emergencies and protect referral relationships from growing DSO competition.
The practice was successful. Production was strong. But internally, the model was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
The office relied heavily on Matt’s constant clinical presence, leaving little time for leadership, strategic planning, marketing, or referral growth. Vacations, CE courses, and even time away from the practice began feeling financially stressful because production depended almost entirely on him being in the operatory.
One of the biggest mindset shifts came when Matt realized the issue was not simply needing more patients.
The real opportunity was creating a more intentional structure around time, scheduling, and leadership. Rather than continuing to add more clinical hours, the practice needed to maximize productive patient time while creating protected space to actually work on the business itself.
After joining The Leadership Thread, Matt and his team began redesigning the practice around greater efficiency, schedule clarity, and intentional growth.
An important part of that shift also came through conversations within The Leadership Thread community. Through peer collaboration with another specialist, Matt gained a fresh perspective on how certain elements of the practice could be structured differently to create additional growth and capacity.
While his individual production was already strong, seeing how another doctor approached expansion helped him recognize opportunities he had not previously considered. Rather than replicating someone else’s model, the conversation sparked new ideas that influenced how Matt began thinking about efficiency, scalability, and long-term sustainability.
One of the most significant changes was restructuring the weekly schedule:
- Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday became focused treatment-heavy production days
- Wednesdays shifted toward evaluations, emergencies, referral growth, and marketing activities
- Fridays became overflow and spillover days
The practice also became far more intentional around referral growth and relationship development.
Rather than relying solely on availability and reactive scheduling, the team implemented structured outreach efforts, increased office visits, and created more consistent referral touch points with both existing and new referral sources.
Operationally, the practice aligned scheduling around daily production targets and began tracking referral growth, performance metrics, and schedule efficiency more intentionally. At the same time, Matt started shifting from operating purely as the clinical producer into a more visionary leadership role, recognizing that long-term growth required protected time outside the operatory.
The impact created immediate momentum.
Key Early Results
- Q1 revenue increased 18% year-over-year
- Referrals increased 13% year-over-year after implementing referral marketing initiatives
“We’re starting to hit quarter four goals now.”
Dr. Matthew Tomala
But perhaps the biggest transformation was not just operational, it was philosophical.
The practice stopped measuring success simply by staying busy and began thinking more intentionally about how time, leadership, production, and growth all work together.
What once felt reactive became structured.
And what once depended entirely on working harder began evolving into a practice designed around sustainability, clarity, and long-term growth.
