A Personal Welcome
A word from JM & Dr. Chris Phelps
The Silent Crisis
The hardest part of dentistry isn't in the textbooks.
Dental school makes you a clinician. It does not prepare you for the weight that comes after — the debt, the empty chairs, the payroll that lands whether or not the schedule does. The stress and anxiety of ownership are real, and almost nobody is taught how to carry them.
So too many carry them alone. Behind the steady hands and the calm chairside voice, there's a quiet epidemic in our profession — isolation, anxiety, burnout, addiction, and worse. We don't say it out loud often enough. We should.
Our founder learned this the hardest way: a dentist he mentored, clean and sober for years, relapsed under that pressure and died days later. A devastating reminder of a crisis we've stayed silent about for far too long. The Chairful Dentist exists to break that silence — and to build something better in its place.
“You can’t outwork a problem the system created. A better way isn’t a luxury — it’s survival.”
Read This If It Sounds Familiar
Does it ever feel like you’re succeeding and suffering at the same time?
Do you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions? You got into dentistry to change lives — but lately you’re just surviving the daily grind. The numbers might even look good from the outside. Inside, it’s a different story.
If this is your reality, it’s not your fault.
You were trained to be a great dentist — not to carry the relentless pressures of ownership. You’re surrounded by your team and patients all day, yet you can feel completely on your own. In our profession, almost nobody talks about it.
You are not alone in feeling this way. And it doesn’t have to stay this way.
Our Mission
A profession where dentists thrive, not just survive.
The grind is broken
Working harder inside a system designed to drain you isn't grit — it's a trap. You can't outwork a problem the system created.
A better way is survival
A practice can deliver elite results and protect the wellbeing of the person in charge. Those two things were never supposed to be at war.
No one carries it alone
Your practice should fund your life instead of consuming it — and no dentist should face the weight of ownership alone.
That belief became a system — and a community to carry it with you.
“Helping dentists become the architect of their practice instead of the prisoner of it.”
Introducing The Chairful Dentist™
The only dental community built on a simple truth.
Your well-being isn’t the price of success — it’s the engine that drives it. Tired of choosing between your practice and your sanity? We help you build one that’s profitable and fulfilling, through three things working together:
The Chairful Method™
Our six-pillar operating framework for a liberated practice — from reclaiming your independence to protecting what you’ve built. The videos, scripts, checklists, and tools top owners have used to boost production up to 30% in 4–6 months, while preventing burnout. Implementation, simplified.
The Peer Community
You’re not alone. Connect with practice owners who get it — share your wins, solve problems together, and build real relationships in a confidential, high-trust space.
Know Your ChairMath™
ChairMath™ is the mathematics of finding leverage in a dental practice. Hundreds of KPIs, but only a few actually fuel growth. We show you exactly which numbers deserve your focus to keep your chairs full — clarity instead of overwhelm. Our philosophy: Find the Source Before You Fix the Leak™ — diagnose where the pathway is really leaking before you spend a dollar patching the wrong hole.
The blueprint behind it all is The Chairful Method™.
Everything included
One membership. Everything you need to build a practice that serves you.
Your Chairful membership isn’t one thing — it’s a whole ecosystem working together. Here’s everything you get.
Dr. Chris Phelps’ Content
Dr. Chris Phelps has spent 20+ years building one of the most comprehensive dental practice libraries in the industry — as a clinician, a multi-practice owner, and a content creator who has worked with thousands of dentists. His course library translates that experience into structured, actionable modules covering the clinical, operational, and leadership skills that actually grow your practice. This isn’t theory. It’s the playbook Chris used to build to $6.5M in annual collections.
Community
Chairful is the community for dentists who are done doing it alone. A peer network of practice owners and leaders who’ve earned the right to be real — about the hard stuff, the stress, the wins, and what actually moves the needle. This is the room where you can put down the performance and just be a human. And find out the person next to you is dealing with the exact same thing.
Let’s Go Win (LGW)
JM Ryerson’s leadership and performance coaching program — built for high-achievers who want to lead their practice with clarity, confidence, and purpose. LGW’s WIN framework (Worth, Intention, Now) gives dental owners the identity-first mindset to stop reacting and start designing the practice and life they actually want. As JM puts it: “Most dentists are great clinicians who were never taught how to lead. Let’s Go Win fixes that — by helping you build from who you are, not just what you produce.”
Weekly Zoom
Every Tuesday at 8:00 PM EST, the Chairful community comes together live on Zoom. It’s part hot seat, part strategy session, part peer support — the kind of real conversation you can’t have with your team or your patients. Members bring their biggest wins, toughest challenges, and real questions. No scripts. No pitch decks. Just dentists helping dentists. 📅 Tuesdays, 8:00 PM EST — join link in your member portal.
Events
Chairful events are where the community gets in the same room — virtually or in person. Our first live event is here: the 2027 Mindset & Performance Accelerator, January 8–9, 2027 in Charlotte, NC — a two-day “start your year off right” goal-setting workshop (with a little horsepower on the side). From deep-dive workshops to live Q&As with industry experts, events are designed to give you the insight and momentum to make your next big move.
View the event & register →AI-Infused Workflows
Here's the uncomfortable truth: most of what it takes to run a practice — recall, reminders, intake, insurance, follow-up, reporting — is repeatable busywork, and somewhere a practice like yours has already handed it to machines. Andréas Lengyel, founder of Lenryx (our affiliated venture — where intelligence becomes execution) and the systems architect behind Chairful itself, shows members exactly which hours to take back and how. Vendor-neutral, owner-first: your stack, your data, your keys. And when you'd rather have it built than build it, that's what Lenryx does.
Start with Andréas's free Teardown →Chairful Interview Series
Real conversations with the dentists, vendors, and community members behind Chairful — the people, the stories, and the lessons that shape this community. Featured here on the site and on our YouTube channel. New interviews coming soon.
Buyers
You already buy supplies, labs, and services every single month — so why pay retail? As a Chairful member you buy as part of a collective, unlocking the kind of pricing usually reserved for large group practices and DSOs. By pooling our purchasing power across the community, members save an average of 50% or more on the products and services they’re already spending on. It’s one of the fastest ways your membership pays for itself — without changing a single thing about how you run your practice.
The first Chairful live event — Charlotte, NC
Two days at Charlotte Motor Speedway to start your year off right — a goal-setting and reverse-engineering workshop for the year ahead, with a high-octane Ferrari & Lamborghini racing experience.
Trusted Partners
Your membership can pay for itself — and then some.
Members get access to a vetted network of Trusted Partners — the vendors and services we’ve negotiated real savings with. On average, they represent $200,000+ in annual savings for a typical practice.
Savings shown are illustrative and vary by practice. Intro contact: JM Ryerson.
The Chairful Method™
A proven system for a practice that serves your life.
Every pillar does two things at once: strengthen the practice, and protect the human running it — without sacrificing your health, your family, or your peace.
Reclaim Your Independence
PPO → out-of-network → fee-for-service → membership. Stepping off the insurance treadmill, one plan at a time, replacing production before you drop anything. Not just better margins — no longer being squeezed by a system that caps your worth while your costs climb. Independence is what makes everything else sustainable.
Marketing That Brings the Right Patients
Attract the patients you actually want, with a tracked, diversified system instead of guesswork. Stop “hunting” with one big bet; start “fishing with many poles.” When the right patients fill your chairs and you can prove what's working, the financial fear that fuels so much anxiety starts to lift.
Ethical Persuasion & Case Acceptance
Built on the science of Dr. Robert Cialdini — our founder is one of the rare Cialdini Method Certified Trainers in the world. Influence as honesty, not pressure: present options clearly, lead with the truth, help patients say yes to the care they need. A healthier practice and a calmer doctor.
A Team Built on Natural Wiring
Using the Kolbe system, build a team where people work with their instincts, not against them. The right person in the right seat, and the friction that masquerades as “attitude problems” disappears. The right team carries the load with you, so you're not the only one holding it all up.
Mindset & Time Freedom
Drawn from Strategic Coach: Focus Days, Buffer Days, and Free Days. Most dentists never protect real time to rest, plan, or be with family — and stay trapped in reaction mode. Freedom of time comes first; money, relationships, and purpose follow. Your wellbeing, put on the calendar and kept there.
Protect What You've Built
Practical, proactive protection — your finances, your team, your structure, your future. Knowing your practice is safeguarded removes a whole category of background dread, freeing your attention for the work and the life that matter.
Inside The Chairful Method™
The Chairful Patient Pathway™
The patient-journey framework that lives inside the larger Chairful Method™ — the 7 steps that carry a patient from first attraction through conversion, case acceptance, and lasting retention. Every step grows the practice and lightens what you carry — that’s the Chairful Way.
“Elite results and a healthy life were never supposed to be at war.”
Why We Exist
The founder's story
When Dr. Chris Phelps opened his first practice in Matthews, NC, he was $473,000 in debt with empty chairs and the crushing weight of payroll. Dental school had made him a clinician — not someone ready for the stress and anxiety of ownership.
Then a dentist he had mentored, clean and sober for years, relapsed as an associate in Phoenix. A 10-day bender. An intervention. Rehab. And three days later, a massive heart attack took his life. A devastating reminder of the silent crisis in our profession.
That loss made one thing clear: the grind-it-out path is broken, and a better way isn't optional — it's necessary for survival. So Chris built a system across his next practices that produced elite results and protected the wellbeing of the person in charge, growing to over $6.5M in annual collections.
That system is The Chairful Method™.
Stay Chairful,
Dr. Chris Phelps, DMD, CMCT — Cofounder
The Movement
The people behind it
A small, sharp crew rowing the same direction — each bringing a piece of what dentists actually need.
Real Dentists, Real Results
A better way isn't a theory. It's already working.
“My production grew from $1.9M to $3.3M.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, I grew my production from $1.9M to over $3.3M — a 74% increase.”
“I cut my hours by 30% and grew to $2.1M in production.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, my practice grew from $1.8M to $2.1M in production while I cut my hours by 30%.”
“My production is up by 24%.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, my production jumped by 24% and collections by over 20%. After two years, our practice is up 37%.”
“I increased my production by $200K.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, my production grew by $200,000 in a year — enough to finally pay off my practice loan.”
“My practices grew by $294k while taking a full week off every quarter.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, our two offices grew by $294,000 in production and $250,000 in collections in just one year. I was also able to hire new associates and start taking a full week off every single quarter.”
“I grew collections 17% while seeing 25% fewer patients.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, I had the confidence to go out of network with the majority of my PPO plans. As a result, my collections grew from $1.2M to $1.4M in a year, all while seeing 25% fewer patients.”
“I cut my workweek by 50% and scaled to over $1.5M.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, I was able to cut my workweek from 6 days down to 3 while scaling my practice beyond $1.5M in production. I even took home my first $60k profit check in a single month.”
“I dropped 3 other consultants to follow the Chairful System.”
“After working with Dr. Chris Phelps and using his Chairful Method™, I dropped the 3 other consultants I was working with. I'm now more confident than ever, doing full mouth implant cases from start to finish on my own.”
Individual results vary. These reflect the experiences of specific members of the program.
Your Questions, Answered
Before you decide.
Join the Mastermind
Which option is right for you?
The smarter alternative to a $30,000/year dental consultant. Three ways in — each built to make your practice serve you, not consume you.
Founding-member pricing — limited to the first 50 dentists who join.
The average dental practice loses $100,000 or more every year to inefficiency, empty chairs, and missed opportunities.
To fix it, many dentists spend $30,000–$70,000 a year on consultants and coaches. We deliver that same level of guidance — for a fraction of the cost.
For committed owners going from good to great — the closest seat to the work, in a small room of peers.
- Everything in Grow With Others — the full Chairful Method™, live hot seats, replays & community
- Small-room mastermind — an intimate, capped cohort that meets regularly to solve real problems together
- Priority live hot-seat slots — your cases get to the front of the room
- Done-with-you implementation — guided rollouts, audits, templates & accountability, not just coursework
- Phelps Institute training access — clinical & influence/case-acceptance training led through The Phelps Institute
- Direct access to Dr. Phelps' frameworks — the strategies from his books, taught and applied in the room
- Annual founding-cohort gathering — connect with the inner circle in person
- The Case Acceptance Form
- The 5-Star Google Review System
- The Cost-Cutting Checklist
- Private Mindset Check-in Call
For dentists who grow best plugged into a group of peers.
- The Chairful Method™ — the six-pillar blueprint for a liberated, profitable practice
- The Chairful Patient Pathway™ — the 7-step patient-journey framework for increasing your production & collections
- Dr. Phelps' greatest-hits video training — strategic goals, marketing for quality new patients, front-desk phone language, case acceptance, dental membership plans, building the right team, and reducing attrition
- One hot seat included — a private, small-group hot seat of your own (ongoing hot seats are an Inner Circle upgrade)
- Full access to all past & future session replays
- Access to our private community — your questions answered by the collective + experts
- The Case Acceptance Form
- The 5-Star Google Review System
- The Cost-Cutting Checklist
- Private Mindset Check-in Call
For dentists who want the method and move at their own pace.
- The Chairful Method™ — the six-pillar blueprint for a liberated, profitable practice
- The Chairful Patient Pathway™ — the 7-step patient-journey framework for increasing your production & collections
- Dr. Phelps' greatest-hits video training — strategic goals, marketing for quality new patients, front-desk phone language, case acceptance, dental membership plans, building the right team, and reducing attrition
- Access to our private community — your questions answered by the collective + experts
- The Case Acceptance Form
- The 5-Star Google Review System
- The Cost-Cutting Checklist
- Private Mindset Check-in Call
Our 45-Day “Chairful” Guarantee
For every dentist accepted into the mastermind, we’re so confident this program will deliver tangible results that we stand behind it — your well-being and your practice both.
You weren't meant to carry this alone — and you don't have to.
The Chairful Dentist is a movement of dentists who believe the practice should serve the person, not consume them. Whether you're drowning in debt with empty chairs, or quietly burning out at the top of your game — there's a better way, and a community building it with you.
Join the movement. Reclaim your practice. Reclaim your life.