Dr. Pirjo Friedman

Since graduating in Finland I have worked as a dentist for over 30 years, first in Israel and presently Canada. Being fluent in four languages has helped me create a multi-lingual and diverse practice in Toronto’s fashionable Yorkville area. The practice has evolved substantially and now includes six associates and seven support staff. I pioneered the philosophy of “relaxing dentistry,” and now, with 1,000 active patients, the clinic has become a thriving and ever-growing dental practice attracting an average of 25 new patients every month.
    Building a new business can be challenging for a woman. As I was working to grow my business, I was still very much involved in the day-to-day running and maintaining of the family home. As a mother of three daughters, and at the time, the president of the Women Entrepreneurs of Canada, I was kept very busy. But I was determined to build a successful practice and with no textbook solution, I decided I would experiment and find my own path in order to make it work. I attribute my success to a number of factors.
    While maintaining a steadily applied work ethic, and maintaining a positive way of thinking, I believe you can have it all. My life is abundant. I am energized and healthy. I have a wonderful family, a beautiful home and a successful business with remarkable employees. I managed to create all this with minimum effort; that is, without spending every waking moment at the office. I achieved this by bringing balance in my personal and business life.
    At one point early on, I was commuting between Israel and Canada, spending five weeks at a time in each destination. I soon realized that couldn’t go on and in deciding to close the practice in Israel and focus on Canada, life began to take on a different form.
    In Toronto, where I had purchased a practice, I had acquired the previous practice owner’s patient list but it was not enough to build the thriving and profitable practice I intended. By that time I had been practicing dentistry for twenty years and developed my experience through hard work and exertion and I wanted to create a winning practice quickly. I had loan payments and office expenses, causing endless sleepless nights of concern and anxiety. I began to take every possible measure to attract patients and promote my business. I used traditional marketing activities — placing ads in various publications and launching a website. The most effective method however, was networking, I joined a number of organizations and I went out every night for networking meetings.
    Soon, my networking began to pay off by supplying an increasing flow of new patients whom I had met personally or were referred to me. Although networking is a very demanding method at first, it became less time-consuming after a while. I now have a significant number of patients who provide me with new patients regularly by word-of-mouth referrals. The era of sleepless nights is over!