The Success Of A Company Depends on Those Who Are Carrying Out The Vision of The Company And Their Team!
Published: 01/21/2022
Have you ever looked at how far you’ve come during your journey in life? Everyone has a story of how they started in their career. A few of our teammates have exciting stories such as diving with sharks, hosting a popular radio show, working at one of the most well-known colleges in the country, an amazing Graphic Designer, or a viral YouTuber. Get to know us and how we started in our departments.
Marit, Director of Media Planning and Buying:
What made me want a career in media? Great question. I wish I had a fun story that included a twisting, turning journey of dreaming of various careers as a child, filled with anecdotes of the stories I told my family of what I wanted to be when I grew up. The truth is, I ALWAYS wanted to be involved in Media. I didn’t fully understand the potential or the array of opportunities that were available until I got to college, but I knew that one day all of my writing, talking, and notes sent home telling my family I was a social butterfly would pay off. I wasn’t a social nuisance; I was honing my craft for my future career!
To give you some perspective, my dream of working in media was pre-social media, pre-satellite TV/radio, pre-digital! Can you imagine that? Sounds like the dusty days of old, but I promise, I am not THAT ancient, lol. My options then were really centered around traditional media. Television, radio, newspapers etc. were the primary means of communication. I dabbled in all of them in college. I anchored newscasts for my campus TV station. I hosted a rock video show similar to the early days of MTV, where we actually played videos! I wrote for our school newspaper and I sat in the campus radio station like a groupie. I had the fever for all things broadcast!
Once I was in the real world, I begged my way into a TV station and launched a career in on-air, producing writing, sales, and marketing in general! From TV and radio stations, to a public relations firm and marketing agencies, I have literally, not only lived out my dreams, but enjoy new opportunities that have evolved in Media over the years. I have truly accomplished more than I could have imagined for myself! Today I am proud to put all of my media expertise to work as the Director of Media Planning and Buying for Progressive Dental and I could not be happier! I look forward to working with you soon!
Shelley, Director Of PPC:
My journey to becoming a digital marketing professional is slightly unorthodox. As a child I grew up wanting to be a marine biologist. I studied all the ocean’s critters and never seemed to stray far from my dream as a child or young adult. I grew up in aquariums, fishing, and eventually started my journey in the underwater world by scuba diving.
My main passion as I got older was traveling, especially to exotic locations. I love going to different countries & experiencing their culture. I quickly realized that it would be very difficult to travel on a marine biologist salary; therefore I changed my major to Marketing. As I entered the working world, I became fascinated by consumer behavior and how it applied to marketing. I also loved the trial-and-error nature that most marketing instills. I began experimenting with SEO and digital marketing at each internship and job position I took which helped me land my career at Progressive Dental.
Originally I started my career at Progressive Dental in the SEO department where I helped our dentists’ websites rank on Google. This position allowed me to get a general understanding of how Google’s algorithm worked and allowed me to dive into more technical issues like disavowing links on websites that had previously been hacked & are no longer displaying on Google. I found this position fascinating since Google’s search engine algorithm was always changing and I was able to learn something new each day by reading articles, watching webinars, and again thorough records of trial-and-error adjustments.
A couple years later our CEO, Bart Knellinger, presented me with the opportunity to learn Google Adwords, now known as Google Ads, in Progressive Dental’s PPC department. I thoroughly enjoyed this switch since I was finally able to see a direct correlation of my work by increasing conversions and most rewarding of all hearing about our practices closing cases from marketing. Today, I am proud to say I am the Director of PPC, a department that has nearly doubled this year!
So you may be wondering if I feel I made the correct decision in my career choice. 100% Yes! I love my job and its problem-solving nature. Each day I feel like some sort of marketing detective trying to figure out Google’s Algorithm. Since starting my marketing career I have been able to travel to some amazing places with both my family and my work family. Best of all, my husband and I are financially stable, able to travel to exotic locations of our choosing, and even own our own dive shop.
Scott, Director Of SEO:
So, where did my career decision to become involved in SEO and digital marketing come about? Hmmm … good question.
I did not start out in the marketing space. I spent about 20+ years in the IT industry and wore a number of “hats” starting out as an end user support specialist and trainer to progressing to system administration (servers) where I needed to establish rapport with both end user stakeholders and developers to accomplish complex tasks, and on to IT project management. During this progression I worked at a major university with 10K+ employees, a Microsoft Sharepoint Development subsidiary with 6 employees, and a medical manufacturing company with 350+ employees.
I guess you can say I reached a stage of burn-out and was looking for something different. So as I was contemplating my future I started talking to a few friends in the digital marketing world (specifically SEO) and I became intrigued with the inner workings of search. The more I investigated, the more I felt that my IT skills would transfer well into the search optimization world, especially now.
Why do I say “especially now”? Well, technology is changing so fast these days, and search is much more technical. For example knowing how to increase the load speed and web core vitals on a site or deploying structured data to help define entity relationships to Google. There is also an immense amount of useful data to parse through and organize in such a way to make it actionable.
What makes this rewarding? I have the opportunity to work with developers, designers, account managers, and business stakeholders utilizing the skills I have established over time to not only provide financial success for our clients, but also serve the information to those seeking transformative medical treatments for issues that they may have thought were out of reach either physically or financially.
Izzy, Digital Marketing Professional:
Business is rooted deep within me as I was raised by highly educated respectable parents. I was constantly surrounded by people who had a business background that actively worked in the field who have also helped shape my future. See, during my childhood years, I would visit my parents’ job a lot, but more specifically, my dad. I would watch him work, conduct meetings, interact with his colleagues both in and out of the office. He loves his title; which is a Financial Controller at a reputable company. Being so enamored with his knowledge and skill set, I had a strong desire to follow in my dads’ footsteps that I too wanted to become a Financial Controller. During my collegiate years, my major was actually Finance. The excitement that I had when someone asked “Izzy, what are you majoring in?” was indescribable. However, that twinkle in my eyes started to dim. As semesters passed, I began to feel like something was missing but wasn’t sure exactly what it was. I still had a passion for finance, however, I began to question, “Was this truly my passion?” That was something I asked myself for a few semesters. Luckily, I was able to find my true passion through work while in college.
I am a hands-on learner, so with that I have had the opportunity to explore many different vocations such as Early Childhood Infant Specialist, Bartender, Youtuber, Makeup Artistry, and of course, Finance. All fields were very interesting, however, being heavily involved in YouTube, I was more intrigued with the back-end of production. I truly learned the aspects of marketing, such as: branding, market research, and PR, just to name a few. In this journey, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside major companies in the beauty/cosmetic industry, headline Q&A panels, and featured in various beauty magazines. Being exposed to all of this, while in college, I had the opportunity to change my field of study from Finance to Marketing and was very thankful.
After graduating, gaining my experience in marketing by working in various companies, I was able to gain the skill set that I needed to become a PPC Strategist to now finding my marketing home here at Progressive Dental. Working at Progressive Dental, I learned that great communication, teamwork, and a fantastic work culture can help boost employee retention, clientele, and increase ROI. All of this is what my true passion consisted of when I was a young little girl watching my dad interact at his office. My choice in being in Pay-Per Click was a decision based on my love for marketing!
Sean, Graphic And Website Designer:
I started to design nick-nack stuff in Adobe Photoshop 7, etc when I was around 10-12. I remember using my parents' old Dell Dimension desktop computer with a Flat Screen, and before that an old CompUSA desktop with a CRT monitor. Instead of planning out my designs, specific to the clients need (there weren’t any clients back-then, just me and my mind), I would look up renders, stock photos or whatever else to turn into different beautiful (or so I thought) banners, avatars or whatever else someone wanted for use for their profile on sites. Staying up late at night, figuring out multiple ways I could learn more about different techniques or methods behind various effects, I learned all I could about these programs. Eventually, I, somewhat forgot about Graphic Design in high school due to multimedia hadn’t yet taken off in the same way it is now. When I got into Graphic Design, social media really wasn’t a thing. You maybe had a MySpace if you were lucky. Long before the days of Twitter and Instagram, Web 3.0 was somewhat a dream somewhere in the near off future.
I remember rediscovering my love and excitement for Graphic Design when I was in college. Being able to go to school for the thing I loved as a child, making something out of nothing and using your creativity to problem solve. Making something I enjoyed into a potential way to make a living was also exciting, my love for wanting to discover everything I could about Graphic and Web Design started again, but this time I got a lot more into the technical side of the field, i.e. principles of design such as hierarchy, balance, contrast, etc. I learned about traditional drawing, art, and art history, as well as things like branding, typography, UI Design and creating practical stuff businesses could use to promote their company. I wanted to use my skill set for something useful, I always wanted to do something that had the power to transform someone’s life. I eventually graduated from St. Petersburg College with an associate’s degree in Graphic Design and a bachelor’s degree in Project Management.
Now I get the privilege of designing high profiled and traffic dental websites as a Junior Web Designer for the leading dental marketing agency in the country. Every day is a new challenge and something to set a goal towards, no day is the same. One day I could be working on a dentist website in New York and then come in the next to be working on another dentist’s website in Los Angeles.
Not only that, but I get to work with a fantastic Web Design team and communicate with other fantastic teams like PPC, SEO, Media Buying, etc, within the company. The amount of experience I’ve gained in the short time I’ve been working here is absolutely priceless and I feel like it’s only going to continue to grow with a fantastic team and company. Progressive Dental Marketing has allowed me to network with other companies such as Biohorizons, Proceed Finance, Simplifeye, etc, which are other leading companies PD partners with.
I get to design websites that help dental practices market their transformative healthcare full-arch procedures across the country. Progressive Dental Marketing has helped me grow as a Web Designer by making me comfortable with the uncomfortable in my day-to-day life and I wouldn’t change this for anything!
Every amazing leader knows that the success of their company depends on those who are carrying out the vision of the company, which is their team! At Progressive Dental Marketing we make sure to have a great work environment and that starts by hiring the best of the best and making sure we are all growing together!
Are You Looking For Your Next Marketing Partner?
Interested in learning more about closing high-dollar cases? Attend The Closing Institute and learn how to predictably scale implant production by implementing advanced marketing and sales strategies from the leading experts in the industry! With courses in Clearwater, FL and Las Vegas, NV, this isn’t just theory. This is a tried and true method to grow your full arch production and develop your team to strategically and consistently close high-revenue, dental implant procedures.
Dental specialists interested in learning more about Progressive Dental Marketing's award-winning services and continuing education seminars are invited to contact the dental marketing company in Clearwater, FL. Progressive Dental Marketing can be reached by calling (727) 286-6211 or by visiting progressivedentalmarketing.com. Or feel free to explore our website and the several case studies we have!
If you are interested in hearing more from Bart Knellinger, come to one of our upcoming dental continuing education courses. Visit boostfullarchcases.com today to reserve a spot for you and your team!
Progressive Dental is more than just a marketing company, we are a company located in Clearwater, FL dedicated to dental practice growth. Our team was founded on creativity, collaboration and hard work. We are constantly evolving and are passionate about providing the best suite of dental marketing services for our clients. They are the reason we jump out of bed!
