After over 35 years in the Dental industry, Keith Crittenden’s AmericaSmiles Network is making great strides.
“We’ve grown a lot over the last five years. It's sometimes hard to believe,” says Keith.
Keith’s entry into the dental industry began soon after he finished high school and he soon launched his own dental lab and even became a partner in a thriving dental practice. “It seems like a lifetime ago,” he commented.
Keith opened his crown and bridge lab, United Artists Dental Studio, in 1984. In 1994, he created an online patient referral website called, FindACosmeticDentist.com as a way of making his dentists and his lab busier. In 1996, he became managing partner of Monee Dental Associates, a full-service dental clinic in Monee, Illinois.
But in 2000, Keith suffered two pulmonary embolisms and had to sell his businesses. “I didn’t know whether I was going to survive, and neither did my doctors,” recalls Keith, “I had to sell my businesses and concentrate on my health.”
After selling, his former dentist customers began asking if they were still going to be able to utilize the online patient referral network that Keith had started to help them gain more customers. Keith decided to keep it going, and AmericaSmiles was born. AmericaSmiles is a marketing service and technology company that exists to help dental labs grow and prosper. In 2010, AmericaSmiles launched a design and milling center, AMS Dental Technologies, Inc. to provide high quality, reliable and cost-effective restorations to labs. “The milling center is just another extension of our mission to support the dental lab industry,” explains Keith. “As a membership-based organization, we are held to high standards and our customers enjoy quality solutions at competitive prices.”
Over the last 20 years, AmericaSmiles and Keith Crittenden have helped more than 800 labs grow their business and increase profits. Today, the company not only provides marketing solutions and milling services but manufactures its own line of GenesisZr zirconia milling discs, offers implant components and impression material, and distributes scanners, mills, 3D printers, and ovens. “We’ve partnered with some of the best manufacturers in the industry and we pride ourselves in only selling products and equipment we actually use! We’ve built a nationwide network of dental labs and we’re still growing, come grow with us.”
Keith Crittenden has been a guest on 1 episode.
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217: Making America Smile, One Lab at a Time with Keith Crittenden
May 23rd, 2022 | 1 hr 5 mins
artistic, commission, dental, internet, laboratory, mailers, marketing, milling, one voice, podcast, postcards, pricing, supplies, technician, trade school, voices from the bench, website, zirconia
This week we talk to Keith Crittenden, the man behind AmericaSmiles. But behind the man is a great story of a lab owner finding a way to help his clients succeed so his lab could succeed. He comes on to shares his knowledge to other labs.