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Transforming Dental Experiences into Life Lessons

Dr. Jeff Buske

Summary:

A broken tooth on a first date not only sparked Dr. Jeffrey Buske’s passion for dentistry but also led him to a life dedicated to helping others find balance and success in their personal and professional lives.

In this episode of the Secure Dental Podcast, Dr. Jeffrey Buske, founder and creator of The Limitless Dentist Academy, shares his journey into dentistry and what led him to help other dentists find balance and success in their personal and professional lives. He emphasizes the importance of finding a niche within dentistry, like cosmetics or implants, and gradually transitioning to a fee-for-service model by building a reputation in that specialty. Dr. Buske highlights the dangers of tying one’s identity solely to being a dentist, advocating for a broader sense of self. He also explains how, through his own struggles with stress and burnout, he developed the “Limitless Dentist Academy,” a coaching program that helps dental professionals achieve balance across the body, being, balance, and business.

Tune in and be inspired to achieve balance and success in both personal and professional life!

Secure Dental-Dr. Jeffrey Buske: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental-Dr. Jeffrey Buske: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey everyone! Welcome to another episode of our Secure Dental podcast, where we bring in many different guests from both inside and outside our dental industry. Today we are joined by a special guest, Dr. Jeffrey Buske. I hope I said it right.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yeah, it's correct. You're right on target.

Dr. Noel Liu:
All righty.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Good morning. Good morning.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Good morning, good morning. So, you know, before we get started, I'm just going to give a shout-out to my sponsor, DentVia, a virtual dental administration company that administered all the back-end staff staffing stuff, you know, like, virtually for dental offices to equip our front desk and our managers. So, we are called DentVia. I'm a co-founder, D E N T V I A .com. That's again www. D E N T V I A .com. Now without further ado, I got this gentleman here. He calls himself the Limitless Dentist because he helped so many people get out of burnouts. So, with that being said and further ado, hey doc, I'm going to pass it off to you.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Thanks, Noel. I appreciate it, man, and thank you for having me on this morning. I'm excited to share a little bit with you guys and share a little bit of my story, and because I think it can be relatable. Gosh, I've been in dentistry now for 27 years and I still love what I get to do. Noel, you and I were talking for a second, both of us love doing implants, and both of us love doing full arch care, and I think that's also part of what I was put here on this planet to do, which is for me, it's about my purpose is really about what drives me. And my purpose is really about creating transformation in people's lives. It doesn't matter if I'm doing dentistry. It doesn't matter if I'm doing coaching. Sure, that's exactly what I was born to do. I was born to be a divine wrecking ball in some cases, and I was also born to be transformational in other cases. So, it's a fun part of life that I get to have an opportunity to live into. And as I was saying, being in dentistry now for 27 years, I can honestly say I think I've made every mistake possible, and I've been through a lot in our profession. Our profession can be very difficult and it can be very rewarding all at the same time. So, I'm happy to share any of my story with you guys today.

Dr. Noel Liu:
27 years, my man. That's awesome.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So tell me, Jeff, how did you get started with dentistry? We would like to hear that story first.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Well, gosh, it's funny because I grew up in Minnesota, and now I'm in Texas, that's where I practice and live is in Texas. But I grew up in Minnesota, so I grew up playing a lot of hockey, and I was in a high school hockey game, and I was playing hockey, and I got hit probably the hardest I've ever got hit anyway. Nonetheless, I broke my front tooth in half, and that was with a helmet on that was with a mouth guard in. And I remember I had a date that night. It was the first date, by the way, with a girl from another school, and I had half a tooth and I thought, oh my gosh, do I show up? Do I not go? And I thought, well, I might not ever be able to take her out again, so I'm going. So, you know, you've got a 17-year-old kid who's halfway self-conscious anyway, showing up. And anyway, she was like, oh my gosh, what happened? So I told her, and she said, do you still want to go? I said, of course, that's why I'm here. So anyway, we went out, had a great date, but it was one of those things that allowed me to experience what a lot of our patients feel, which is very self-conscious and, you know, kind of embarrassed with their smile and everything. And the artistry that went into the dentist that had to got an opportunity to fix my tooth. It just drew me in. I was like, wow, that is so cool. And it was just like I was just infatuated with the artistic ability for him. I was, you know, because I had the same thing. Our patients think, I hope that they can give me back a smile that I like. And I, you know, my smile was perfect until then, and so I just wanted to make sure it was back. And once he was able to restore that, I thought, wow, what a gift to be able to give somebody, and that was that. So, at 17, that was like it. I knew that's exactly what I wanted to do. I knew that I wasn't going to play pro hockey. I'm only six foot tall and £189 at that time in high school. So I was like, probably not going to go pro.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You rule that out, huh?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
So dentistry it was, man. It became really clear, though, at that point.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So, what dental school did you go to?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
I ended up going to Baylor here in Texas, and so I stayed and afterwards, and then, gosh, I went to work up in Coppell, which is right outside DFW airport, for a little while and had a great opportunity as an associate up there. And, you know, it was very interesting because that was a time in my life where I had taken so much continuing education, like been through all of Dawson and Eubank and Morley and all these cosmetic guys and occlusion guys. And just like, man, I thought I had everything. And I was like, man, where are the patients? Like, I was literally like eating ramen noodles at night, wondering, can I afford my car payment? And I was like, Holy shit.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So say that again. You were an associate, and you went through all the CE courses because you thought like, this is it.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
This is it. I was like, if I just, if I can have great skills, then everything will just line up. People will just magically come in because my name is out there, and I didn't realize that I had to be a marketer. I didn't realize that I had no advertising. I didn't realize that I had to lead.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
None of that. So, I was left in a very frustrated place. Like, the best way I can describe it now is, like, I felt like the guy who was all dressed up for prom; like I had all these amazing skills but no date. Like nobody to use them on. I was like, I got all this stuff sitting here on the back shelf. Let's go, you know, let's go, and so, I became very disheartened with dentistry. And matter of fact, at that time, I was thinking about walking away from dentistry because I was like, golly, this is just not what I thought it was going to be. I don't know, maybe some of you have felt that way, but for me, that was a reality. I was literally thinking, Holy cow! And it's so funny because there's pivotal people that come into your life at certain aspects and certain seasons at just the right time. I don't think it's a coincidence. I think it's a God thing. And for some reason.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Law of Attraction.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Bruce Baird was writing something on Dental Town at that time, and I was like, and he was writing about like what he was producing and things like that, and it was so far out of my comprehension, and I thought, what in the world? And so I'm going to say something, pardon my language here, so I wrote him a private message. And in my message, I literally said, I said, there's no fucking way you're doing what you're doing, and it can be legal. And he didn't know me from anybody. He could have told me to jump in the lake, whatever. And so he was kind enough to write me back. He said, no, we do this month after month after month. We have systems and processes in place. By the way, where do you? Yes, I said, I'm up in Coppell. And he said, oh my gosh, I'll be over in that direction next weekend at a sleep seminar. And that was when sleep was just on the kind of the leading edge. This was back in 2004. And so he said, why don't we get together and have a cocktail? I said, sure, what have I got to lose? So I went and met him and visited. And, you know, he said, where are you at? And that is such an important it's an easy question to ask, but when you actually sit there and think about it, it made me think. I said, well, where am I at really? And I just leveled with him. I said, am I honestly contemplating leaving dentistry? And so he found out all the continuing education that I did and he just asked me a question. He said, well, do you enjoy dentistry? And I said, yeah. I said, if I go out to practice the way that I'm, you know, wanting to practice, I think I would really love it even more. And he said, maybe you just need the right opportunity. So we decided that we were going to do a practice together, and it ended up getting kind of sold out from under us, and that was okay. But then, a different turn of events happened, and he lost an associate. And so, like within a couple of weeks he called me and said, hey, I have no idea if you have any interest in this, but would you like to come to Granbury, Texas and work with me? Now, that was 72 miles away from where I was living. And I said, you know what? I said, yes, let's do this. And so I went, and then I decided, I said, you know, if I come in there, I don't want to be just another associate. I said, I want to have an opportunity to be a partner. And so we sat down and we worked everything out and then worked through with Cane Waters and got a plan set in order, and then he and I practiced together. We were partners, and then we practiced together for 17 years. And it was, it was an amazing, amazing journey we take together. He was a great mentor, you know, and one of the things that I learned significantly from him was really about integrity, and there was nothing that he said that he promised that he didn't deliver on, which was really important. And so it was something that I get to carry through with our team members. And I think that's just such an important part of life and part of what I teach and coach on, and that's our whole baseline. We call it living by a code and that's, you know, we're not lying. We're not lying to others. We're not lying to ourselves. But more importantly, we're honoring our word. Because just like you, when you're up to big things, there's going to be things that are going to happen that you break your word on, but it's about cleaning it up. It's acknowledging it and getting yourself back in integrity, and making things right. There's still going to be consequences in life, but it's really about getting back in and restoring and re-honoring your work. I think.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's a baseline.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Very important with integrity. And integrity.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Is a foundation for everything.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yeah. To me, integrity is really is about being whole and complete, lacking nothing, and not hiding anything in the shadows or the darkness. It's really just being full and then wholeheartedly playing all in. So that was my transition into where I am still currently practicing, which is in Granbury, Texas, which is a little bit outside of Fort Worth, about 40 miles west and south of Fort Worth. We live on a beautiful lake here. We get to go play all the time. We love to go wakesurfing and have a good time on the boat with myself, my wife, and the kids. And we enjoy life here and it's a great place to be. Great place to practice. It's fun. You know, I was talking to a doc last night, and he was saying, yeah, I practice in a town that's like 15,000 people, and there's like 4 or 5 dentists here. And he was talking about having to take all these plans and everything. And I started to laugh, and I said, well, I said, let me just paint you a different reality. I said, I practice in a town of 7000 people. And I said, there's over 30 dentists here. And I said, and we take no plans. And I said, and but we learned how to market. And so we draw in people from all over. We bring in people from Dallas and Fort Worth and from sometimes Oklahoma and everywhere. I said, so your reality is what you truly make it. And I said, so. If you're in the mindset that the only thing that you can do is be on plan and boss, which I have nothing against. But I said, if that's your mindset, then that's going to be your mindset. I said, but you do have different opportunities. I'm just going to share with you my story so you can have an opportunity to consider something different. And so just you can see his eyes open up and say, I didn't think that was possible. I said, I'm in a in a town that's half of your size, and this is what we do. I said, it just depends on what you want to do. You can write your own story. That's the big part of it.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So I want to spend a little brief time with you on people who wants to go fee-for-service. And there's a lot of them out there. I see it every single time in groups, in different groups. There are like horror stories, and there are success stories. What is the best way? So let's say there's a solo guy working out from his own office, and what is the best way? He's heavily people-involved, man. What would be the best way to transition? Man, I mean, you need to share this nugget because there are a lot of people who are getting burnt out.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
That is such a great question because I will share this with you. Let me back up a second here. I had my practice with Bruce, and then halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth, there's kind of an area called Arlington and Mansfield. And for some crazy reason, I decided I'm going to just open up a scratch practice over there, too, because we serviced a lot of people there, and so I decided that'd be a good idea. Literally, I gave myself a second job, and that also invited in a lot of stress into my world. But opening it up from scratch, I also thought I better put some plans in place and then play over here, and it was kind of funny because I was also marketing. But what was funny is, I was shooting myself in the foot because, you know, I'm taking a 30% haircut at least on some of the plans, sometimes 40% haircut on some of these. And people that were coming in, they're like, oh yeah, we saw your ads and your marketing. And then we saw that you were on our plan. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm just killing myself here, you know? And it was brutal. And I will tell you.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Was this for the new location or?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
That was for the new location where I've practiced, we've always been fee-for-service, but I thought to get things off the ground, I better.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Did it affect your current one?

Dr. Noel Liu:
No.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Okay, okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Because that is 52 miles away, so plenty of distance away, but man, I really learned a solid lesson there. That office was one of the greatest teaching tools for me in all my life because it caused so much stress in my world. I almost ended up divorced. I'll talk about that later. Here we can have another little conversation a little bit. But to answer your question, what I did and I had associates over there running in that office, so I had to build a culture remotely. I'd have practice, I'd have marketing, advertising. I was also taking plans, and it was a very difficult task to establish remotely. I would go over there on Fridays and work one day a week. I would do bigger cases on Fridays for me to do implant surgery and things like that. But after a while it took me a while to establish that and to kind of establish some credibility in that area, and also for me to be able to bring in that type of care. So I think one of the biggest things for a transitional standpoint is really find your lane that you love to practice in and what you love. Maybe it's cosmetics, maybe it's implants, maybe it's clear aligner therapy.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Maybe it's sleep, maybe it's in some things. Anything. I think, just aside, you still need your bread-and-butter to always produce and to have that and to pay bills and make sure your overhead is taken care of. But when you can actually start to establish a name for yourself inside of a lane, I think then that is the time to start to double down on your marketing and your advertising in that special area, not just generalized advertising. Like, let's bring in the whole family. Advertising and marketing that is specific for those procedures that you love. Because once you've started to get the skill set required to apply that at an elite or a high level, now you can deliver on that, and now you become marketable. That gives you some ways to start to set yourself apart. If you're not doing anything in that realm and you're just doing general dentistry, and no, there's no offense to that. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you're not doing that, it's going to be very difficult to start to differentiate yourself. You need to have things that differentiate you. Like we've worked with John causes risk factors for so long. And I make that part of my talk when I'm sitting down the first time. And we use that in some of our marketing. We talk about risk factors. Nobody else is talking about that. There might be other people who are doing it, but they don't talk about it. They don't talk about it. They don't market it. They don't advertise about it. You have to find the things that make you unique. Does that make sense? So that's number one.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Absolutely.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
When those individuals are coming into your practice, it is a journey. It is an experience. They're not just coming through as a person that, you know, just coming in. I need a couple things done. You are creating an experience for this person to have everything from the phone call to what happens when they come into your office, the way that they're treated, the way that they're greeted, the way that you occur in their world when you walk in and introduce yourself, and I call it I like to think my mind thinks in frames and frameworks. And so I like to set the frame with the patient. After I greet them, we create some connection. Create three links to a chain that can't be broken. And as far as relationship meaning finding commonalities before we ever talk dentistry, sitting down with them eye to eye, just like you and I are doing. It's just eye-to-eye. Having a conversation, just being with somebody. So like, let me get in there and get in your mouth where I'm comfortable because they're in an uncomfortable place. So, let's get comfortable. Let's get to know each other and let's have a little bit of a human conversation. And then it's time to set the frame along the lines of, like, this is going to be a different experience than you've ever had. So I'm telling them that today, we're going to look at your risk factors. I'm going to analyze things for you. I'm going to tell you whether you're low, medium, or high risk along these areas. And then the greatest thing is, is I'm going to share with you here's things that you can do to lower your risk factors. Here's things that we can do to lower your risk factors. And then together, we're going to co-create a plan that works for you to get you what you want and need and desire. Does that sound good? I mean, it's just so easy.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Conversational. Right.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Conversational. So, to answer your question, I personally think one of the greatest ways to start to wean away from getting off from some of the PPOs is start to get yourself and your skill set up to a very good level, and to where you can have something that differentiates you, and then you've got to be able to apply the marketing, and you've got to be able to be willing to spend the money on the marketing to bring patients in. We usually spend between 8% and 10% on our marketing.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Wow.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
But gosh, when you're bringing in $400,000 or $500,000 a month, you can spend a lot on marketing.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Absolutely.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
And you can market anybody else. That's why it doesn't matter if there's 30 dentists where I live and there's 7000 people. It doesn't matter if there's 50 dentists here. I'm not competing with those dentists. I'm competing with the people wanting to buy a new home, wanting to buy a new vehicle, wanting to take a huge, expensive trip.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's what they are.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Does that make sense? Like I don't care about the other dentists. I mean, it's not that I don't care about them. I should say they're not my competition. Put it that way, so.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
I'm looking at things and I also have a very abundance mindset. That's also a very different perspective. So when you look at moving away from a PPO, to me, PPOs are kind of more of a scarcity mindset. So it doesn't really kind of fit that aspect of it. I'm taking the scraps off from the table of what the insurance is going to feed me. Does that make sense? As opposed to me writing my own story and saying, right, this is what I want, this is what I want for my professional career. This is the type of dentistry that I want to be doing. These are the types of patients that I want to be seen. I want to have happiness and fulfillment and joy, as opposed to the life being sucked out of me and feeling like I'm on a mission.

Dr. Noel Liu:
... for them. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
I think that's one of the problems, is dentists feel like they get on this treadmill and they start running, and they're like, hey, coach, when can I stop? Never, never. And they're on this never-ending treadmill because they're just working themselves to death as opposed to working in a fulfilling purpose, fulfilled practice.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You know what you just said, Jeff? It resonates so much with me because this is exactly what I'm trying to do with my associate dentist. When I'm trying to differentiate them, I try to work with them. Hey, what do you like? You like aesthetics? Let's talk about that. You like implants, or you like ortho, sleep, whatever. But some of them, they are so close-minded, just wanting to do bread-and-butter dentistry day in and day out. And I keep telling them, hey, this is just going to be another commodity. It's just going to get worse as time goes by.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yes.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Sometimes I think it's just in the mindset like you said.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yeah.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Because you're trying to differentiate yourself, it's so, so much more work, right?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yes, and that's why I said that one simple question that Bruce asked me a long time ago, like, what do you want, right? And not just like right now, but having those docs and you guys who are listening out here, ask yourself that question today, like, what do I really want? Like, if I look at my life now and I look at my life a year from now, and five years from now, and ten years from now, what do I want my career to look like? What do I want to have in life, not just in my dental practice? Because also there's a lot of identity problems. We identify as a dentist. Listen, dentistry is something that you get to do. It's not who you are. It's something that we get an opportunity, I think, an opportunity and privilege to do, but it's not who I am. There is so much more. I'm also a husband. I'm also a father. I'm also a businessman. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a leader. I'm also a marketer. I'm a closer. I'm all these different things. But I'm also when I start to look at those things, like when you start to get into leadership and things like that. You look at getting into things, into your identity that can't be stripped away. Because I see, and I'm 53, but I start to see in the dentists who, when they start to retire, if that has been their entire identity, they're left in a very difficult place once they walk away from dentistry because they're losing their whole part of themselves. And so when you realize if you tie your identity to things that can be stripped away, you can have a problem with that. I mean, even with some of the things I just mentioned, like as a husband, that could be stripped away if my wife died or decided to divorce me or my kids if something happened to them. All of those things can be stripped away when you start to tie your identity to those things. You have to be careful. That's why you also have to take that identity into deeper levels. Does that make sense?

Dr. Noel Liu:
1,000%. So let's lead right into Limitless Dentist, and let's talk about what's that all about, and how do you help these guys cope with themselves and cope with the environment?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
That's a great question. And it really has to come back to, as I was saying, I've made many, many, plenty of mistakes in my life. And the practice that I was talking about, it about sucked the life out of me. Creating that scratch practice 52 miles away, as I was saying, and I didn't really have the bandwidth or the capacity at that time to deal with all the stress, because there was financial stress in that. There was managing stress in that. There's leadership stress in that. You've got to cast the vision. You've got to enroll the team in the vision. You've got to create a culture all inside of that. And then you also have to meet expectations and deliver on high levels for patients in order to grow the practice, to get away from me and just to finish up. I then trimmed out plans one at a time. Just cut cut cut cut cut. And then we just transitioned that into full-all fee-for-service practice.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So you didn't do it all at once?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Not all at once. I cut 2 or 3.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
And then boom. And then I cut the next. I only had five, but then I cut. I cut the first, I want to say two, and then I cut the next three at one time. So, boom, boom, done.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Got it.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
But it wasn't all five at once. It was spread out. I want to say it was spread out over about six months.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Perfect.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
And it was great. And, you know, my associates, they knew that was happening and some of them were very worried. Oh my gosh, it's going to hurt. I said, just trust me. Please trust me. You're going to actually make more, and you're going to get paid more because you're going to be paid more for what you're doing, and you're going to love it. And they they all did. They thrived in that manner. So, we end up building up the practice enough to where actually brought in a prosthodontist, and it was perfect for him because he thrived in there. And that's what ended up building the practice there and then sold it to them. So it worked out very, very well, but it was a lot of stress in the meantime. Like I said, I had been divorced already in 2012. I blew out one marriage. So listen guys, dentistry can be very stressful. And I started this scratch practice at the very, very end of 2013, beginning of 2014. By 2016, this had taken such a toll on me because again, I said, I didn't as a, as an entrepreneur, as a businessman, I didn't have the bandwidth or the capacity to manage all of that stress. So I would bring that home, and I would bring it, unfortunately, into my family. And when you take irritation, you don't deal with that. Then, that leads to frustration. And then, when you don't deal with that, then that leads to anger. And then, when you don't deal with anger, and you push that down, then that leads to rage. And rage is not something that we're meant to deal with. So when we push that down comes out, it's like the equivalent of pushing a beach ball underwater and just keep pushing it down further and further. And the more you push that further and further when you release that beach ball, it's going to come up with such velocity and force. That's kind of the way that I think about rage. And when that rage would come out, it would come out with my wife, would come out with my kids. And it generally happens around the people that you love the most. And I would sit there and think, shit, man, I give my patients people that I just met the best of me, and then my family, the people that love me the most, get the worst of me, and that was brutal. That was a brutal truth that I had to come to the realization with. I also, and I'm just sharing it like it is. You guys can look at me and you can judge me, but I'm just telling you the truth.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I want you to say that again, because this is one of those things where I hear it day in and day out. They're like, really grumpy at home but the best version at work.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yeah, you give the best of yourself to your patients and some of your team. Not always your team, but your patients get the very best of you.

Dr. Noel Liu:
But not your family.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
The worst of you at home to the people that love you.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love it.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
And that's just the truth. And matter of fact, as I was building that practice, I looked at my family as getting in the way of my time to build a successful practice. Now, that's difficult to say, but that, again, that's the truth. And so I didn't have the tools to manage the stress at that time. I didn't have the tools. I was starting to feel burnt out. And so the only thing that I really knew to do was to sedate. So I would come home literally every day and just start to drink. I would drink, and I'd pick up my wife, and then she'd have to drink just to deal with my stupid, crazy ass. And it was like we would then just battle about stuff. And it was really sad because, over time, that started to destroy some of what I really love. If you guys watch the picture here, I was headed down towards divorce number two, until one night when my wife and I both had enough to drink, and we were just in this explosive argument, and literally, you know, her words just stopped me in my tracks. And she said, Jeff, I didn't sign up for this shit. And I mean, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, boom. Right between the eyes. I didn't even have a response. I didn't know what to say. I didn't have anything to say because it was the truth. And I remember there laying in bed that night and just. I prayed, and I said, you know, God, I realize that I created this mess, but I'm asking you to help me see a way out. Please help me. Please help my family. And it's crazy how things work like that. Didn't ever do anything on social media at that time or anything like that. I had just gotten onto Facebook for some ability to be able to do some marketing and things on there. And like this next week, this crazy thing came across my feed, and it was from a coach and a mentor who I still use. Guys, crazy psychopath named Garrett White. He ran something called Wake Up Warrior. And so I was sitting there, and I clicked on this ad, and my wife was cooking up some dinner, and I was listening to this guy, and it was like he was speaking into my it was like he was inside my head. I was like, Holy shit, this is exactly the way I'm operating. Even my wife, who is cooking. She stopped, and she said, who are you listening to? And I said, I don't know, but this guy has my number, man. And she was like, this is interesting. So anyway, you could click on a thing. And we ended up, she goes, do you want to watch that together? I said, yeah, I think so. So we watched like a 45-minute documentary, and it was basically it was like a video sales letter to come in and have an experience. And she looked at me at the end of it, and she said, you're going to go do that, aren't you? And I said, I think I need to. And she said I think you do too. And so I had no idea what all it was going to entail, what it was going to cost, how much time, what was going to be. And it was like a week-long process. The best way that I could describe at that time, Warrior Week, was it would be like if you took Tony Robbins and then you put together a Navy Seals Hell Week, and then you put together Brad Pitt from Fight Club. That was the combination of what occurred there. And so it was physical beatdown. It was, we were in and out of the ocean doing log PT, all kinds of different shit, crazy stuff, and things, and literally having like full-on boxing battles. It was crazy. But at that time in my world, that's what I needed. Like, I needed to be cracked open that hard in order for that part of me to die and for me to be reborn and come back as a different version to unlock new versions of me. Does that make sense?

Dr. Noel Liu:
1,000%.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
So it unlocked new levels in me that allowed me to come back and show up as a different way, as a husband allowed me to show up as a different way, as a father allowed me to show up completely different as a businessman, as an operator inside my practice. I started to lead in a different way. Why? Because I decided to lead myself in a different way. I started to see myself in a different way, and so, it started to look at moving from a victim mentality and then creating a leadership mentality. And we have a saying that victims wait and leaders create. And so when we start to look at it from that perspective, we start to see, gosh, I'm in charge of my own story. I have self-authorization. I can take and create what I want. And so I'm going to utilize my agency. And when you start to operate that way you start to shift how you occur. You start to shift your energy. You start to take care of like I got my morning. I start working on me early because I want to fill up my cup first so my cup can overflow onto others. If my cup is empty, then guess what? Every interaction that I have with somebody else has to be transactional. Because if my cup is not full, if I give you something more out of it, I've got to get something back. When my cup is plenty full, I can give freely without any expectation in return.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
That's a whole different animal. And I'm setting my own table. I'm not eating crumbs off the floor of circumstance.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Taking charge, right?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Absolutely. So, out of that, as I was saying, it changed and transformed how I operate and how I occur in life. And from that perspective, now that's what was born with, okay, if this is working for me, I know this can start to work for other guys. So I started to work with some of my buddies and friends, and they were like, Holy shit, this is working great. This is fantastic. And that's when I decided, hey, let's take this to, hey, a lot more professionals inside of our our space need this. So I coach men inside of the space, inside of our dental communities, here, inside of our profession, in order to create synergy and harmony really across four domains in our world. So across our body, our health, our fitness, our being, our spirituality, our purpose, and in my position to God in my life and then also our balance. So, our relationships with our wife, our kids, and in other meaningful relationships to your team members, your friends, your extended family, and then also your business or your practice and your bank accounts. Getting all four of those areas to work simultaneously is huge. Because what I notice, and you might notice this too, most men have maybe one of those areas, maybe two at best. Working simultaneously on fire at one time. The other ones are kind of slacking. Like, man, you may be killing it in your practice, maybe producing like crazy and doing well, but there's also this stress component. So you might eat like shit and eat fast food and then not spending enough time with your wife and kids, and you're like, oh, I've got like, I was doing like, I gotta build my practice. I gotta do this, I gotta do this. I'll get to that later. Well, that later never comes. Or you might be on fire with like, hey man, my fitness is on point, a six-pack. I don't care if you got a six-pack or not. It doesn't matter to me. I want to be functionally fit. I want to have longevity. I want to be able to go outside and play with my kids and have a great time. I want to be able to go out behind the boat and surf. I want to be able to go hike. I want to have functionality in my world. I don't want my body to be deconditioned over time. Dentistry is hard on your body.

Dr. Noel Liu:
1,000% man.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
And if you don't take care of it, it will destroy you, and it will shorten your career so you can have your body on point but then be slacking in other areas, too. So we want to create that harmony around all areas so that you can actually have a life that works, and we call having it all built on the foundation of integrity. Does that make sense?

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love it. So Jeff, here's a problem with our profession. Not only our profession, but people in general. We hear great advice. We really want to do it. But there's always this one thing that stops us, which, from taking action when you deal with your clients. How do you make them overcome that procrastination that, hey, I got to do it because if I'm not doing it, I mean, the only shortcut is getting it done, right? We all know it's good for us. We all know about the exercise routine and eating healthy, but why don't people do it?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Well, I'd say the one way that we get past all that is it starts with you getting honest with yourself. And because if you can tell yourself the truth about where you're at today, then there's a possibility and a future that's available for you and that you can and be willing to chase. But if you bullshit yourself and you lie to yourself, then there's no fucking way on earth. Anybody else, myself, anybody else can included, be able to motivate you to some bullshit existence that, you see?

Dr. Noel Liu:
Nothing's gonna work, right?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Because now, everything then is built on fiction and fantasy, and that's the way that most of our world operates is in fiction and fantasy.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Right.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
And so it starts with getting clear with yourself and telling yourself the truth and looking at the true facts of today. Once that's established, now you can envision a future that is truly possible because it's based in the reality of today. And I think that's one of the reasons that people stay stuck is, is the fact that they're living in fiction and fantasy, and everything that they're envisioning is just this total, other extended version of that fiction and fantasy. And so it just gives them a dopamine hit, and they don't move. They don't take action at all. But when they look at the true reality of where they are today and if they like where they are today, great. There's still another possibility of what's waiting and what can be upscaled and leveled up on the other side of that. So when we look at the possibilities, we start to see, oh, that's available in between. There is where we're at today and where we want to be. Or we can look at it like this: where we are today and where we want to be. And there's always a gap in there. And once we can see the gap of here's where I'm at and here's the new possibility, this is kind of my pit if I'm not loving where I'm at in life. This is my new peak up here. In between there, there's the gap. The gap is scary. And that's why also a lot of people don't want to move because it's like we've never been there. We don't know. We've never been. So it's easy, like, if you look at scale of life on like 1 to 10, and you're like playing at a level one, and you're like, oh shit, life sucks here, man. And somebody's like, hey, just do this and you'll be at like a level three. You're like, okay, let me do that. What's hard is when you're like playing at level six, level seven and life is comfortable, and then you're like, ooh, to get to level ten, I've got to let go. I might even have to put level 6 or 7 at risk to get to level ten. Holy cow! Like with what you guys are doing with real estate and everything like that, you guys do things very calculated, but in some people's minds, it's like, oh my gosh, that sounds going to be risky, right? And so, how do I take that leap of faith? How do I do that? And you have to look at it from okay, what am I letting go of? And what's the new possibility over here? There's always going to be some risk associated with things, but we want to take calculated risk. And guess what? We're not taking the big jump from here all the way to here in one leap, because you'll leap, and then you'll get a little short, and then you'll fall down and then come back and go right back into the comfort zone of where you're where you're loving life, right? So what we look at doing is, hey, what is the best next step that you can take to move forward in that? Let's just take that first step, their first step, to move us forward. I'm not even worried about hitting the home run. Let's just talk about, let's hit singles, man. Let's just hit singles. Singles aren't big and sexy. The home run is big and sexy, right? Let's hit the home run. But that's like making the leap from here to here. Let's just hit singles, and then pretty soon, after four hits, you've got to run. Now, it's not sexy, but it gets results. And to me, results are sexy. I'd rather have results than hey. Oh, that looks so pretty when I hit the ball far, but I got out. But it looked pretty when it came off the back, man. I think getting results that to me is sexy. When you look at my fruit, that's what I like to look at because it comes down to results. That's it. Everything that we're after in life is about creating the journey and after chasing down amazing results that are meaningful to us.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it, man, love it. So, what is the onboarding like, and how can people get in contact with you? Because they probably will have some questions. Okay, if they want to work with you, what does the process look like, and who are your ideal clients? Let's put it this way because you just said, like, you know, you got to stop bullshitting with yourself.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yes.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Right? I mean, would you like, take somebody who is like, still like, kind of like in the zone where they're fantasizing or somebody who's ready to go?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
That's such a great question. So part of the onboarding process is for me to sit down, and we have a one-on-one conversation for anybody coming into the game with me. It is an interview, and it is an application to come into the program because, A, I want to keep the program operating at a very high level, and B, we don't want to compromise that, and C, I want to see again if you're able to be coachable, because if you can't tell yourself the truth, then there's no way that you can tell anybody else the truth.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Exactly.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
And then there's no way to really, truly coach you. I would be doing you a disservice. That puts me out of integrity. Because if you can't be honest with yourself, there's no way that I can know truly where you're at and where you want to go. And if I can't do that, then there's no way that I can speak into that gap. But when I know and we know together, and we're excited about where we can go now, we can speak into that gap all day now, we can put the frameworks in order to get into work, and now we can go ahead and start to get the results to start to collapse that time to make that happen. So the best way to get ahold of me literally, is just find me on Instagram. It's D R . J E F F B U S K E, so Dr. Jeff Buske. Send me a DM on Instagram. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Jeffrey Buske on LinkedIn, easy to find there. You will find me on both those spots, but that is absolutely the best way to contact me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Perfect.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
As far as the onboarding process inside of there, like I said, we'll go through an interview, sit down and just have a conversation just like this. It's very easy. Just find out where you're at, where you want to go, and if I can help you, and if I can't help you, I'll at least look at it, pointing you in a direction where I think that you can find. I'm very interested in that. But our process is great. It's virtual for most of the learning. We do calls every week on Zoom, and it's with me. And so we're just tearing through things. We set up 90-day challenges and all four of those areas, and we just knock them out and have a great time along the way, and it's an awesome way to live. It's such a unique way to live. I want to throw one last thing in here because I think this is important. When you start to look at we were talking about results and fruit and this just came to mind. So I will tell you guys this with the framework of the core for the body being balanced in business that I was sharing with you, adding in that framework and then the framework of the code by living in integrity, those two things alone, that was it, period. Between 2016, when I started to apply this in my life, and 2021, I went back and ran the numbers because we bought a whole bunch of new equipment in 2022 for all of our full arch stuff; we got all our digital stuff. But between 2016 and 2021, I want you guys to hear this. I bought zero new equipment in my practice, and I didn't change anything about the way that I practiced. I added in no new procedures, no new technology. But check this out. I added an additional, not a total, an additional seven figures to my own personal production because of what I'm teaching, because of the code, because of the core four; those two frameworks alone added an additional seven figures to my production, all because of the way my mindset shifted and my leadership shifted. Our team was so became so powerful. And it, it's just is a culture that is pretty phenomenal and I'm proud of that. But I want you guys to hear that. I'm not saying that in a braggadocious manner, but I want to be able to quantify something for you so you can see, hey, this is possible. Well, is that possible for you? I don't know; I don't know how driven you are. I don't know any of those things. But what if even half of that was possible? What if even 25% of that is possible for you? Would that be meaningful to you? Would that be helpful to help put a kid through college? All of those things start to come into play, and again, without having to buy a $100,000 laser without having to buy, you know, whatever it may be. I mean, the price of equipment keeps going up and up and up as we continue to give our patients the best. Why not give yourself the best, best version of you?

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's one part we all neglect, you know. Yes, that's a fact.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yes.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And last thing I want to ask you is, what does success mean to you?

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Man, that is such a great question. I love that question because it's different for everybody, right?

Dr. Noel Liu:
Right. It's totally your version.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yeah, for my version, it is truly measured with my happiness and joy and waking up to a life that I am happy with. That, to me, is success. And so when I can wake up, and I'm happy with where I'm at professionally, where I'm at in my marriage, my marriage is on fire and not burning down on fire in a great way with my wife and having great relationships with my kids. Man! And my health is great. My connection with God is great. When those things are on point, that, to me, is success. And that also, as success increases, that gives you freedom. And so that's I think what we're also all after is freedom.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it. Hey doc, thanks a lot. So much for coming on, man.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yeah, it was fun, man. I appreciate it. It was a good time. I enjoyed getting a chance to visit with you. And thank you to the listeners, and hopefully, something that I said was going to be useful for you guys. If it sparks a conversation, I'd love to have a conversation with you and see if there's something that I can help you with.

Dr. Noel Liu:
100%. I learned a lot, too, so I mean, that was really insightful. Well, thank you.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
Yes, absolutely. Thanks for having me on as a guest, Noel.

Dr. Noel Liu:
All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining. Make sure to like and subscribe now. We will land our plane and check out our next episode. We all know where to reach Jeff at and I will definitely put the link down below. All right. Thanks, Jeff.

Dr. Jeffrey Buske:
See y'all.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDS.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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About Dr. Jeffrey Buske:

Dr. Jeffrey Buske has been practicing dentistry for 26 years, specializing in implant and full arch dentistry. Seven years ago, he faced a significant personal and professional crisis but made transformative changes that have profoundly altered his life. Today, he is the founder and creator of The Limitless Dentist Academy, which aims to reduce stress, overwhelm, and burnout among dentists by promoting a challenge-based lifestyle that fosters peak performance and limitless potential. As a mindset coach, Dr. Buske provides male dentists with practical frameworks to achieve freedom and success in their careers.

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Things You’ll Learn:

  • Dr. Jeffrey Buske’s entry into dentistry was driven by a personal experience with a broken tooth, which deepened his empathy for patients’ self-consciousness about their smiles.
  • Specializing in a specific area of dentistry, such as cosmetics or implants, is crucial for building a strong reputation and transitioning to a fee-for-service model.
  • Tying one’s identity solely to being a dentist is risky; maintaining a balanced sense of self that includes both personal and professional growth is essential.
  • Transformative programs can help overcome stress and burnout, leading to the creation of strategies for helping others regain balance and achieve personal growth.
  • Success could defined by waking up to a life filled with happiness and joy, a principle that can be shared with others through effective coaching.

Resources:

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The Hidden Cost of Perfectionism: How to Reclaim Joy in Dentistry

Podcast Cover Photo with Dr. Noel Liu, DDS titled "Reclaim Your Joy"

Summary:

Burnout can manifest as both physical symptoms and emotional exhaustion, making it crucial to recognize and address it early on.

In this episode, Dr. Eric Recker, Owner and CEO of Win The Now,  shares his personal journey through burnout and how he overcame it. Dr. Recker recounts his early experiences of feeling inadequate, which fueled a relentless drive for perfection in his career and personal life. This drive eventually led to severe burnout, characterized by physical symptoms and emotional exhaustion. After nearly selling his dental practice to escape the stress, Dr. Recker realized that running away wouldn’t solve the problem. Instead, he made significant changes, including selling half of his practice, reducing his workdays, and focusing on coaching and speaking about burnout and mindset. Throughout the interview, Eric emphasizes the importance of recognizing the signs of burnout, such as a lack of joy in daily activities and a sense of life becoming monotonous. He discusses how mindset and small, significant changes in daily routines can help combat burnout. Finally, Eric explains why he now dedicates part of his time to coaching other dentists, helping them identify the root causes of their burnout and develop strategies to regain control and find fulfillment in their lives.

Tune in and learn why seeking help from a coach or mentor can provide the guidance and support needed to navigate through burnout!

Secure Dental-Eric Recker.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental-Eric Recker.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hello. Hey, welcome everyone back to our Secure Dental podcast, where we bring in many different talents from both inside and outside our dental industry. Today we have a very, very special guest, Dr. Eric Recker. And Dr. Recker is practicing Dentist in Iowa. So before we dive into his details and his great story, I would just like to give a shout-out to my sponsor, which is DentVia. DentVia is a virtual dental assisting company that, you know, does all the back-end stuff, and they basically help the front desk office manager to take care of calls, scheduling, you know, like marketing leads and all that good stuff, all the front desk people they hate to do. So they do all the back end stuff and they help with our front staff. So definitely visit them at www.DentVia..com. That's DentVia.com. Now, let's get to the show. So I got Dr. Recker here. He is a motivational speaker, a dentist that practices in Iowa, and he has a great, great story to share with us. I'm not even going to try the intro. I will just let Dr. Recker go ahead and introduce himself, and just tell us a little bit about his history and how he got started. So, Dr. Recker, the floor is all yours.

Eric Recker:
Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Liu. I'm really excited to be here today. I can tell you the short version of my story. It'll only take about four hours. And so we'll just do that, and by then everybody will be well asleep and we'll have four episodes recorded, so we'll be all set. Right? I've been a practicing dentist for 22 years. So I graduated in 2002 from University of Iowa. But I have to go back way farther than that. So when I was in second and third grade, I was a little rough around the edges. I was a little husky, you could say. I was one of the youngest people in my class and where I grew up in central Iowa, recess kickball was life in the early 80s. And so at recess, we would go out and we'd form teams and we'd play kickball. Well, I was told that I wasn't good enough to play. It would have been one thing if I was picked last. But the problem was, I was told that I wasn't even good enough. So I would have to sit there and watch the people in my class play kickball while I stood on the sidelines. Well, after this happened enough, I remember steaming on the sidelines saying, I am going to be so good at everything I ever do in my life that no one's ever not going to pick me. Well, guess what that led to? It led to burnout, and it led to burnout in a huge, huge way. So what happened is everything in my life was not good enough. It wasn't good enough that I was in the top 15 in my dental class. I had to be in the top ten. It wasn't good enough that my practice was cranking. It had to crank more. It wasn't good enough that I was starting to run. I had to do more than that. So I went all the way through Ironman triathlon, mountain climbing; all this kind of stuff. And what it really led to was burnout. So pretty serious burnout. I had three what I would consider big seasons of burnout, where I had chest pain, heart palpitations, panic attacks, all that stuff, which ultimately led me to nearly selling my dental practice and walking away. The problem with that is that I would have just been running away from the burnout. And so when that fell through, I had to figure out what I really wanted to do with life. That was in 2021. And now at this point, I now have a partner in my dental practice. I've sold half of my practice, so are 50 over 50 partners. I see patients three days a week, and on the other days I coach and speak to people and groups about mindset, burnout, self-care, self-awareness, all of those kinds of things. So I'm in a great space right now, but it's been quite a road to get here.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's such an amazing story. So how old were you when you first realize that okay, they keep saying, I'm not good enough; what I got to do, I got to be the best? Like, what was the age frame?

Eric Recker:
So the first time that I said that out loud and it's something that was, I guess, hidden in my subconscious somewhere, because I only remembered it a couple of years ago. But it started in elementary school when I was standing there saying on the recess playground, believing that I wasn't good enough. And I just, I heard those words all the time. Anytime I would get a grade back that wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be: You are not good enough. Anytime I wouldn't be able, anytime I wasn't as good athletically as I wanted to be: You are not good enough. And I just heard it, and I heard it, and I heard it. And I think so many of us have those things that were said over us when we were younger that impact the way we live our lives and the way we do our daily living. And those things need to be identified, and they need to be retired and they need to be replaced with something that's much more productive.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So would you say that was an emotion that actually got you fired up? And if that was the emotion that got you fired up, I mean, how did you figure out that was defined as a burnout?

Eric Recker:
Yeah. So it took a long time. I had to go through the burnout. And what would happen is every time I would get burned out, I felt like something was missing. So I'm obviously, doing something wrong. Something's missing in my life, so I have to add something. Well, that was part of the problem. I kept adding more and more things. So my first real season of burnout, the one that I really, now, in retrospect, I know that's what it was, I was buying my dental practice from my father. I was building a new clinic. I was coaching both of my kids in soccer. I was on five different boards. And I was training for two Ironman triathlons. I mean, that's crazy, right? Who does that? That is way, way, way too much. But like the frog that gets put in the water and then the heat is turned up, I didn't realize until it was too much. So what I've realized is when we really get to that burnout space, oftentimes we have to look at everything that we have going on in our lives, and instead of adding something else, something needs to go. So what are all the things that are going on in our lives, and how can we look at all of those objectively and say, Okay, might feel like something's missing, but really something probably needs to go. And that's kind of where I got to.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So when you speak to people and when you identify their issue, or they ask you to help them identify, what are some of the traits or some of those things or patterns that I would say that you look out for, like if somebody is about to enter like, you know, burn out phase?

Eric Recker:
Yeah. One of the things that I've definitely noticed, and it was very true in my life as well, now that I look back on it, is life just kind of seemed gray. It didn't seem like there was a lot of color in life. A lot of the things that gave me a lot of joy weren't giving me joy during that season. I was kind of pulling back from things. I was feeling very introspective with my thoughts. I wasn't doing a great job communicating with my wife. I was holding it, trying to hold it all together and holding it all in. So if the things that used to excite you aren't exciting you anymore, what's going on with that? We probably need to pull the thread on that. One of the examples that I like to use for this is the movie: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. We're big movie fans at our house, and what happens in this movie is the main character, Walter, lives a very grey existence, and the cinematography in the movie is masterful. And it just shows everything's grey, it's dull, it's monotone. He's not living a very exciting life, but as the movie goes on, the colors start to appear, adventure starts to appear, he starts stepping into exciting things and his life goes from grey to extremely vibrant. So noticing the grayness, like you wake up every day and it just feels the same. You go to work with kind of a low level or a high level angst towards your job. You can't get excited about things. You also maybe don't get as bummed about things. You're just kind of hanging out in that middle space, and that's a good reason to start sounding an alarm.

Dr. Noel Liu:
How much of it do you feel, its internal mindset, and how much do you feel like it's external?

Eric Recker:
Yeah, so I think a lot of it, a lot of it is internal. It really is. We get into these patterns, and Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Whether that quote is actually his or not, doesn't really matter. But we keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect things to change. So if something's not working, how can we switch that up? What can we add? What's a little thing that we can add to kind of disrupt the routine? Sometimes it's as much as changing our drive home from work. Maybe it only takes us five minutes to get home. What if we, and that's my situation. If I drive to work, it's only about five minutes to get home. Sometimes that's not enough. I have another route to get home that takes me more like 20 minutes. And sometimes once in a while we just need to do that and roll the windows down and let the breeze blow through and just be quiet and experience the moment. So what are some things if we're feeling life is grey, how can we add some colour to our lives? Can we add an ice cream date with our family at the end of our work week to celebrate that we made it through another week? Can we have a phone call with a good friend? Can we reward ourselves with a little bit of time to just listen to music, or just hang out for a little while without anything to do? What are some of those things we can do to add a little color in our life? There's always going to be external pressures; we're not always going to be able to control those. But if we work on the things that we can control and influence things like our mindset, our habits, our routines, then we're much more likely for the rest of it to work well.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's amazing what you just said, because I believe strongly that that pattern that we have daily in our lives, it's got to be switched up. It's like working out at the gym, right? It's like you always have to have different routines. And what you just said, it just kind of resonated a little bit. So tell me something here. When you found out that you were burnt out and you kind of switched your mindset and now you started seeing things differently, was it one event or was it like a series of events that kind of got you to where you are today?

Eric Recker:
Yeah. So one of the reasons I am so passionate about helping other people is I went really far down that burnout journey, really far down it. And I believe if I hadn't done something about it, that there is a chance I might not be alive today, or there's a chance that at some point my life would be cut short because of the amount of stress that I had. So that's why it's something needed to happen. I mean, burnout almost made me sell my dental practice because I couldn't figure out any other way around it. I just figured that I had to leave it, and that's a pretty scary thought. And from talking to other dentists, I know that I am not the only one that is thinking right now. Man, this mountain of getting to a point where I actually enjoy my practice; that mountain's just too high. I never going to get to the top of that. I'm never going to get to the point where I enjoy what I'm doing. Well, yeah, you're never going to get there if you don't take the first step. So I went so far down that that it almost took me out. And boy, if I would have sold my dental practice and walked away, I don't know what the heck I was going to do. What was I going to do with myself? The burnout was going to follow me; that's the really tricky part. The burnout was going to follow me. It was going to be there wherever I was, and it was going to show up in different ways. So because I went through all of that, I thought, okay, I'm not alone here. I need to go to work figuring out what are the steps. How can we stop this along the way? How can we help other people move forward? And how can I really make a big impact? Because that's what I want to do. I love my practice. I love my patients. I love the relationships I've built with people over 20-plus years. That's amazing. But I believe that because of my burnout journey, I was made to leave a bigger impact, maybe on the dental community as a whole, or maybe just on different practices where people are going through those same issues. So I'm in that space where I'm fortunate to get to do both of those, but it's because I've done a lot of work trying to figure out, okay, what are other dentists struggling with? Wow, they're struggling with a lot of the same things that I was struggling with. Okay, how can we help people create a life that they don't want to get away from? That's really what motivates me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it. Love it. You know, there's a subsequent questions that I would like to ask you. It's a two-part question. Number one is: What are you doing now to help dentists get out of burnout? And number two is: Once they identified some of the actionable items by hearing this podcast, what can they do like right away?

Eric Recker:
Yeah. So one of the things that I'm doing for dentists is one-on-one coaching. The thing about being a dentist is it can be very lonely, especially if you are a solo practice. If you own a practice by yourself, you have teammates, but there's a hierarchy there, and you can't share everything with your hygienist, or you can't share everything with your assistant. It's just, we don't feel comfortable doing that nor is that their burden to bear. Or even where I was, I had two dentists that worked for me, but I was the owner and it was, it felt very isolated at the top. So what I like to do is come alongside people as an ally, kind of a, Hey, you are not alone. Here's somebody else who's walked this journey. Let's see if we can walk it together and help you be able to come up with some better systems and habits and routines so that you can feel better so that you can feel like you're not alone, so that you can feel like you have a plan going forward. And yeah. And so people who are listening to this and hearing some of the actionable steps, I love the phrase small but significant. It's one of my favorite phrases. So oftentimes we can go to a dental CE class and okay, what are we going to implement? Oh man. We learned all this stuff. We got to implement it all Monday morning and our, we come back and our team's teams like, Oh my gosh, he's going to bring all these new ideas. And, you know, just leave him alone for a little while. He'll, it'll pass, and we'll get to move forward. Yeah. Right? Because I know you've been to a class before and you're like, I'm going to implement all this stuff and I'm going to do all these things. And then Monday morning hits and we're like, right back to the grind and oh, great idea, but that's not going to work for me. So when I say small but significant, what I mean by that is you can't cure burnout by snapping your fingers. You just can't. It's a process. It's a journey. And we also want to create things and add things into our lives that help it to not come back. So what is one small but significant thing you can do today to push back the hold of burnout in your life? What is one small but significant thing you can do in your routine to switch things up to maybe make a change a little bit? I always come to work at ten till eight. I always feel fried when I come in there and then I'm ready to go I feel like I'm, but I'm behind the eight ball every time. Okay. Would it be better if you came in at 20 till eight and you had a chance to maybe review and do a couple things before you started your day? Man, I always worked through lunch and I'm always shot at the end of the day. Okay, what if you took 15 minutes of that lunch period, that lunchtime that you have, and you just sat at your desk and you closed your eyes? What if you tried that? So that's what I'm getting at. I'm always trying to help people do that. And some people think, well, I don't have a clue. What are the small but significant things I can do? Well, one thing that I have on my website is a five-day knock-back burnout challenge because I know so many people are facing this, and it's basically five steps that you can take towards easing the hold of burnout in your life. And then at the end of that, I talk about some options of coaching. If you want to work, see if we can have a call and see if I might be a good fit to help walk alongside you. But I'm somebody who believes in giving out a lot of resources. So there's several things available on my website, ways to help take care of yourself. I have a newsletter that I put out: Three Ways to Win. Just lots of great resources because I want to help. I want to be a part of the solution for sure.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, that's great. We'll definitely share the link to your website as well as all your resources. That'd be awesome. How long does a journey take, like for someone in your, you know, experience that who you've helped like in the past? Like let's say you got started with them on a coaching program. Does it vary by individual or is there like a specific time goal that you give your clients?

Eric Recker:
Yeah, that's a great question. There's a couple different paths that we can take. There is a three-month version coaching package that we use sometimes, and basically in that we meet ten times. And what we do is we get clear on what you want, and then we work on some systems and habits to get you moving forward. Typically what happens is people want a little more than that. They want to go a little bit deeper and not only have that initial coaching relationship, but kind of an ongoing mentorship slash coaching. And then after that, oftentimes we'll just meet once a month going forward. So that would be more like a year package. So we'd meet fairly intensely for those first three months, once every week or every other week, and then the rest of the time it would just kind of be monthly check-ins, seeing how everything's going, and then adding in some new strategies as we go along. And I have one person that I've been working with for about two and a half years right now, and she just needs that ongoing check-in, and I'm happy to provide that. So it's different for everybody. It really depends what you want to get out of the relationship.

Dr. Noel Liu:
It's such a great service you're providing, doc. I mean, honestly, before you know, you and I, we met I used to hear about burnouts, but, you know, it was always like something in the back of my mind. I never thought it was like a real, real physical thing. And I always thought it was more like psychological in nature; and which is psychological in nature but I always felt like, you know, it would be like sheer willpower for somebody to just come over it themselves. But hearing from you, it seems like, you know, there's a huge population that needs help and what you're providing, I think it's amazing because once when you're stuck in that rat hole, that's the world you're living in, and it's really, really hard to even identify with you in that hole before somebody, you know, can, you can actually reach out for help. So love what you're doing. How would somebody reach you at, do you have a link?

Eric Recker:
Yeah, absolutely. So home base for me is just my website EricRecker.com and there are links to the hiring me as a coach or to in really the thing I like to make it a really easy onboarding process. First, we do a no-obligation call. We just talk. I hear about your story a little bit, see if what I do might be a good fit for you. And we have a conversation about that. And then I will send you some options for packages and we can talk through that. So I really like it to be a very low-pressure thing. If we're not a good fit, then I'm happy to help you find somebody that is a good fit for you. But I always want to be part of the good part of someone's story. I'm super passionate about that. That's what I want to do. And so if we can work together to help you get to a point where you I mean, we're not always going to look forward to going to work every single day. Some people say that they do that. It's rare. But I want to get to people who are dreading going to work every day and help them discover hope and belief that good days are ahead because they can be if we work on it.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I really love the fact that you said, like, the first time you meet somebody, you ask them that what is it that they want? Because so much times we are like always, always get caught in the daily trivia of life that we really forget our goals, our passion, and we really kind of get sidetracked. And I think, you know, that is one of those things, I think, you're the expert. Once you get that online, I think everything starts falling into places. It's just the noise in this social media world of ours that we live in now.

Eric Recker:
Yeah. You know, as dentists, we're high achievers, right? A lot of times own our own businesses. We manage teams, we do all these kind of things. So when it comes to goal setting, we do that in the high achiever way too. We set 50 goals and there's no way we can pay enough attention to all of those goals. So a big part of what I do is helping people, walking alongside people and helping them get clear on what they really want, because when they get clear on what they really want, it all starts to make a whole lot more sense.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it, love it. Last question for you, doc. What does success mean to you?

Eric Recker:
Oh, man. Success means to me. So when I talk about success, I talk about my why or my purpose. So my why is to make a difference in this world that's utterly disproportionate to who I am. And for me, that is walking alongside individuals and helping them find a life that they love because we're meant to enjoy the lives that we have here. We're meant to find happiness. We're meant to have hope. Sometimes we just need some help along the journey. And that's what I want to do.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Great, I love it. Well, Dr. Eric Recker, thank you so much for coming along. I mean, this was a huge, huge help to many listeners who are actually burnt out. So if you are one of them that's burnt out, definitely, look this man up. EricRecker.com. I mean you cannot go wrong. Like he said, just a simple phone call to see if you're a good fit. And I think that will definitely pay off for itself. So with that being said, any last-minute comments, Dr. Recker?

Eric Recker:
Yeah. You know, burnout is a, it's a tough word and a lot of people don't want to raise their hand because burnout is like, Oh, there's no way I could have let myself get burned out. You don't even have to use that term. If your life just feels a little gray, if you're not excited about life, if there aren't things in your life that, if you're just feeling like it's become dull, that's similar to burnout. It's a stage on the journey. So I don't only work with people who say they are full-on burned out. So if you just aren't living the life that you want to live, if you feel stuck, if you just need some hope, let's have a conversation. Because that's what I love to help people do. It is my goal after I work with someone that they will leave with faith, hope, and belief that good days are ahead and we all need some of that, right?

Dr. Noel Liu:
Every single day. Hey, Dr. Recker was such an honor to have you with such good information. Thank you so much once again for coming on board and sharing your wisdom. So with that being said, we are going to land the plane and make sure you guys like and subscribe. Definitely look him up. EricRecker.com. EricRecker.com. And if there's any questions, DM me. In the meanwhile, look out for our next episode. Be great and God bless!

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDS.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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About Dr. Eric Recker:

Eric Recker is dedicated to helping others learn how to #WINtheNOW. Eric has taken on many roles throughout his life, including husband, father, dentist, elite success coach, pilot, speaker, author, mountain climber, and former triathlete. He has pushed himself to the edge, only to realize that what he truly sought wasn’t at the summit. Today, while managing a thriving dental practice he loves, Eric focuses on helping others learn to #WINtheNOW and uncover the life they are meant to live through his coaching and speaking engagements, through his coaching business. As a speaker and consultant, Eric shares stories and strategies that inspire audiences to live with hope, create a plan, and believe that brighter days are on the horizon. Eric and his wife, the amazing Amy, are now empty nesters. They, along with their two grown children, are proud residents of a small town in Iowa.

Things You’ll Learn:

  • Burnout can manifest as both physical symptoms and emotional exhaustion, making it crucial to recognize and address it early on. Ignoring the signs can lead to more severe consequences, including the urge to abandon one’s career.
  • Perfectionism often drives professionals to push themselves to the brink, but this mindset can be damaging in the long run. Shifting focus from perfection to progress can help prevent burnout.
  • Small, intentional changes in daily routines can have a significant impact on reducing stress and improving overall well-being. These changes can include adjusting work hours, delegating tasks, and prioritizing self-care.
  • The first step in overcoming burnout is recognizing the warning signs, such as a lack of joy in daily activities or feeling trapped by routines. Self-awareness is key to identifying when it’s time to make a change.
  • Seeking help from a coach or mentor can provide the guidance and support needed to navigate through burnout. Having someone to offer perspective can be a crucial factor in making lasting changes.

Resources:

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Categories
Podcast

From Paper Forms to Digital Success

Secure Dental Podcast with Guest Samad Syed titled From Paper Forms to Digital Success.

Summary:

Consistent, personalized communication is crucial for maintaining patient connections and reinforcing the importance of regular dental visits and pending treatments.
In this episode, Samad Syed, the CEO and Founder of SRS Web Solutions, brings a wealth of knowledge to optimizing dental practice efficiencies through his innovative platform, mConsent. He explores how mConsent transforms patient intake, enhances communication, and propels practice growth using deep integrations and targeted engagement strategies. From his engineering background and corporate expertise in productivity, Samad shares practical tips on reactivating patient databases and maximizing your practice’s potential.

Stay tuned for a fascinating conversation that could revolutionize how you manage your practice.

Secure Dental_Samad Syed: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental_Samad Syed: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
All right. Welcome to another episode of our Secure Dental podcast, where we bring in many different leaders from our industry, both inside and outside. And today, we have a very special guest, Mr. Samad Syed. And this guy is really great at what he does with his M consent. So we're going to dive a little bit more into it. But before we get started, this pod is sponsored by DentVia Dental Administration Virtual Company that actually takes care of all the back-end tasks for your front desk as well as your manager. So, definitely look them up. They do anything from call verification, lead generation calls, and all that good stuff, which our front desk hates to do. It's www.DentVia.com. Again, it's. w w w .d e n t v i a .com. Now, without further ado, I'm going to get started with Mr. Samad Syed, he is the actual CEO and founder of SRS Web Solutions. Mr. Syed, welcome to the show and let's pass the mic off to you.

Samad Syed:
Thank you, Doctor Liu. And interestingly, I just found out you're in Illinois, so I have some good memories of living in Chicago - the cold weather and all that stuff. Since I moved to Dallas, I missed the summers of Illinois. It's pretty nice to be around the lakes and the greenery, and it's beautiful out there.

Dr. Noel Liu:
It's all relative, right? Because it gets so cold and everybody enjoys the summer.

Samad Syed:
And you get away to that.

Dr. Noel Liu:
What better way to enjoy the city than in the summertime?

Samad Syed:
Absolutely, absolutely. So, a little bit about myself. I have a background in engineering. I did my MBA from Indiana University and got into dental well a few years ago, about eight years ago, when one of my friends, interestingly, in the Chicago area, invited me to his practice. My background in the corporate world has been in productivity and efficiency - Six Sigma master black belt. I care about where the money is wasted. So I looked at I used to look at different processes and I say that how can we improve this so we can improve the bottom line of our practices of, of our businesses. And he knew what I used to do. And he called me to his practice, and he said, tomorrow, I want you to come in and see what's happening here and see how can you help me. Long story short, I went into his office, and he took. He showed me a wall. And the wall has all the forms, about 30, 35 forms, where he said that I can't get the patient in without having them sign these forms. And it's a lot. Can you do something about this? This was back in those days where iPad was new and the technology was booming, said that why can't did you try this? And he said I'm giving this as a challenge if you can help me out.

Samad Syed:
And that is one. And I'm proud to say that it took us about a year and a half, and then we were able to transform his office, where we were able to completely change the experience of how patient intake works. We designed an iPad app where basically helps him to collect all his consent forms, medical histories, and all that are digitally and also designed an online intake form where the patients, before they come into the practice, is able to fill out the forms. So that's how it started, and it's all history. Today, we have about 2500 practices where we transform their patient, not only just patient intake. Now, we help them with three different areas in their practice. The number one is the patient intake part, which I just talked about. Number two is the patient communication part where, you know, the practices can text the patients, ask for the images, ask for the forms, ask for reviews, whatever. You have two-way text messaging with the patients' HIPAA-compliant text messaging. Also, we have a partnership with the phone company. Then, the number three is the practice growth. I was looking at a survey that they did last year.

Samad Syed:
And they said that only 77% of practices are able to fully utilize their capacity. Actually, the practices are only able to utilize up to 77% of their capacity in general. So, if you can see 100 patients, the practices are not able to see more than 77 on across across the board. Okay. So that's where we don't help with the digital marketing and all that. But what we help with is that we look at unscheduled treatment plans and say that how can we bring back patients into the practice who have not completed, who have treatment plans that are due? We also help with collecting payments, whether it's sending an online invoice, collecting text to pay, or we help with payment terminals in the office. On-site payment terminals and also the number one thing that we help them with patient reactivation. There are so many patients sitting in the database and people are and the practices ignored, this number one asset that they have, which is their patient database and people are not able to practice is not able to fully utilize what they have that close to them and bring back patients into their practice. I haven't showed up for a long time.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So tell me a little bit.

Samad Syed:
So this is the short of how we help.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So, you started off with your buddy's practice. This was when again? 2004?

Samad Syed:
2014 or 2015.

Dr. Noel Liu:
14 and 15. Sorry. So 14 and 15. And now you've grown it to like a 2500 doctor base, right? Practices?

Samad Syed:
Practices. Yeah.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's awesome. So, how do you guys differ from some of the practice management software out there? It's like most of them are doing that, right?

Samad Syed:
Yeah, of course, of course. One thing that we take very seriously is our customer support. That's what we take seriously. The onboarding experience, the customer support part. But what we look at is that nitty gritty of things where, for example, if you get if you go into forums, everybody says that, oh, we just digitize forms. But there are so many levels of the digitization of forms. It's not just collecting on-of-the-line forms, but making sure that the medical history integration is there. So, we have deep integrations. We have a partnership with Henry Schein. We are connected partners with Henry Schein. We are a technology partner with Patterson Eaglesoft. We integrate to a point where I see a lot of lacking in other systems where our integrations go deep and we also help with open dental. So our integrations are deep and we help practices at a higher level when it comes to patient intake forms, but also on insurance verifications. We help with the collecting. We have a tool that helps them verify insurance verification When the form comes in, we verify the insurance verification with the form because we all have all the information already. And we show them whether this person is active and active and then give them all the information that they need.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So, for some of the listeners out there, right? They are looking at their software like us, we use Dentrix ascend. So we have a cloud-based. How difficult is it for you guys to tap into their API, or is it something which you've already worked it out?

Samad Syed:
We have a partnership with Dentrix and On Demand. We can build the integration with the APIs whatever Henry Schein can support us with. So there's there are limitations to what they allow you to integrate. And whatever they allow, you'll be able to integrate with.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Okay, okay. And as far as practice management software. So this is not practice management software.

Samad Syed:
It's a no we call it a patient engagement system. That's what it is.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Okay okay. Got it. So what about what is this M consent? Is that the consent forms, too?

Samad Syed:
Yes. So, it does have online forms. M consent is a total patient engagement platform okay? And it has patient intake forms. It has online scheduling. It has an appointment reminder system, a text messaging system, insurance verification, treatment plan reminders, and a complete suite of what the practice might need when it comes to intake, communication, or practice growth.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So let me take my example. I'm gonna ask you a tough question. My example is with Dentrix Ascend. These guys have decks built in. They have patient communications built in. They have all these reminders, all this stuff built in. Dentrix Ascend, some of them are like ala carte, and some of them are extra services. So for someone to say, okay, I want to get onboarded with you, what would be some of the benefits to skip those guys and then jump over with you?

Samad Syed:
So the number one thing I see is our interface with the patients is super easy. The patients love to work with something super easy. We have forms that are easily built for the patients to fill out, sign, and send it over to you. So that's the number one thing. Our Appointment Reminders system is customizable where you can have messages in Spanish. You can have messages built out. We have worked on a plan of appointment reminders, looking at different surveys on how many times the patient should be reminded for them to make sure that they don't forget coming to your practice. So there's a little more data and analysis that goes back into our system when it comes to how different we are with some practice management systems like Dentrix Ascend, which have all the built-in vessels into it. But know that we have spent a lot of time into developing these features. Compared to this, we don't focus on building practice management. We focus on building patient engagement. So that's how it can be different.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And for some other concerned listeners out there, I'm assuming that it's completely HIPAA compliant. Oh.

Samad Syed:
You can't be in the industry.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I just had to like throw it out because some are going to be people that are not HIPAA.

Samad Syed:
100%, 100%. One thing that I did a survey, not I did, but our company did a survey with 250 offices, and we asked them two questions. The number one question that we asked is what are the top three challenges that are faced by your practice? The number one challenge that we saw was that the practices said the amount of administrative time that we spent; the dentist basically said that we want to spend less time on administration time and more time on the chair, helping the patients, taking care of the patients, and about 25 to 30% of the time still the dentist spend on administrative time. And the number two answer was the practice growth. As I said, they all want to fill out fill their chairs, and they're still not able to book the appointments at a level that they want to. So they feel like the practice growth is important. We want to grow our practice. There are some offices that said that we want to grow from one location to a second location and a third location, and then the last one, they said that the third choice was financial management, meaning that financial management is where you have the practices, who are struggling with the insurance reimbursements and are not the way it used to be.

Samad Syed:
So, the cost of running the practices keeps going up, and the insurance reimbursements keep going down. Of course, the gap that's creating, that's where the struggle is that we're seeing. So these are the top three challenges that we see. And based on that, we ask questions like how can we help practices with their administrative time. And that's where M consent comes in. And for the practice growth, one thing that I have been telling practices is that the number one asset that you have in your practice is not your location, it's not your equipment. It's nothing else but your patient database because your patient database is the number one asset. So take care of the patient database. And how do you take care of the patient database? Let me give you an example. Crescent Family Dental in Illinois. We're not very far from you. And they were struggling to the doctor calls me and he asked me, hey, Samantha, I need your help. Give me some advice on how to fill my chairs. I need to fill my chairs. How do I do that? And he was asking like, should I spend $5,000? What's the marketing budget that I should consider? And what I ask him is that how many patients you have in your database and how many patients that you have in your database that hasn't come back for past 18 months.

Samad Syed:
We pulled in the database and we saw there were 2500 patients. That hasn't been back to his practice. We worked with them. I helped him out as a friend. We designed a strategy for email, text messaging, and social media. Everything included direct mailing. And we ran this campaign for six months and the results were amazing. He started to see 40 to 60 patients coming in every month back into his practice just by reactivating his database. And the messages were simple as, hey, Doctor Hahn, want to see you in your practice. I haven't seen you for a long time. Would you like to schedule a cleanup? There you go. You have people responding. Hey, the doctor is asking about me. Okay? Yeah, I've been missing this for a long time, so let me see when can we schedule? So it's a super important thing that if through this podcast, if I can let your listeners know one thing, which is to don't ignore your patient database. And I wrote a book on this, and I'm going to shamelessly advertise this. This book is called The Art of Patient Re-engagement. And the book has strategies on how you can build this patient re-engagement within your practice.

Dr. Noel Liu:
It's called The Art of Patient Re-engagement.

Samad Syed:
The Art of Patient Re-engagement. So now there'll be people who tell you that I already do recalls, though. What does that now? How is that different? So, the recalls, let me tell you that the recalls are the email open rates have gone down, and it keeps continuing to go down. So just the recalls are not enough anymore. What you have to look at is that you have to have a strategy in place because there's a cost of patient acquisition, people have to spend 200 to $600 to bring in patients into your practice. Now that patient is sitting in your practice, and you're not doing anything with that, that's a sin. You have to communicate with them. You have to have a strategy of continuously having a communication in whatever most natural possible way. For example, I tell people, what you need to do is have your patients join your social media, and when you have a baby shower in your practice, or you have a birthday in your practice, or the doctor is celebrating something, put that on social media so they can see the human part of your dentist. They don't have to see the coupons all the time. Just something very simple as this is what's happening in the practice.

Samad Syed:
We are giving away Colgate toothpaste and stop by to pick it up if you're available.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's a great idea.

Samad Syed:
Building that natural connection is the thing that you have to start looking into. How can I? The patients that I've engaged with and the patients who know me are the ones I need to keep working with. To make sure. Then the cost of your patient acquisition is lower year over year because people look to spend five, ten, 15, $20,000 always looking for new patients. Of course, you got to look for new patients, but know that what you have already in your database is a treasure, and you can't afford to just ignore that treasure. And that's what I would say. And then also one more thing. This is a technical thing, but for your front office, you have to make sure that they're properly collecting the email addresses and phone numbers. If you're not doing that digitally yet, you're probably collecting that and keeping your database intact, making sure that whenever you want to use it and whenever you want to start those campaigns, you have the right data in place.

Dr. Noel Liu:
100%. You just nailed something right there in the head. A lot of times when we are actually just searching for the new patients there. We are just going outside of what we don't have. We're always focusing on what we don't have. And you should be focusing on what you do have. And that is exactly what you just said. That's great. That's great.

Samad Syed:
And one more thing I would say is that I want you to think about this. There are probably like, every practice, have six, or seven competitors around them, and they are willing to put 4 to 400, 300, $400 per patient that is sitting in your database to bring in their database.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Good way to look at it.

Samad Syed:
But don't ignore that. You have to have a strategy in place. Whatever you do, email, you do phone you make phone calls. You send text messaging, you have direct mail. You're trying to spend a lot of money on the patients that you don't have in your database, but you're not doing anything with the patients you already have in the database. So that is something that's needed. And we do help practices if somebody says that, hey, I need help with that. And they raised their hand and we said that, okay, we'll help you with we have an account manager who can help you build the strategy and put things in place for you. So people usually get confused with like, oh, well, how do I put these Excel sheets together? How do I send emails? And we got people in place who can help.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Sure, sure. So how does it work with you? So let's say is it like an ala carte service that you provide like different services? Okay.

Samad Syed:
Yeah, yeah. So if you come to our practice and come to M consent and say, hey, I'm using your forms and I want to see if I can, you know, reactivate my database. Sure. What does it take? Our account manager will sit down with you and help you put a strategy in place. And because every practice is different. Some people have 1500 patients that haven't come back in the past 12 or 18 months. Some people have like 5000 patients. I have a practice that has 10,000 patients who are working right now to reactivate their practice. He didn't realize that. When I asked him, hey, doctor Q, I asked him, how many patients do you have in your database, like, what do you mean by that? Okay, let's go look at your open dental, pull that up, and see how many actual patients that you have seen in the past few years. And his practice has been in a long time. So he had about 10,000 plus patients that, on command he can bring back into his practice. And he doesn't have to look for any new patients. If you have 10,000, if you can get like 5% back, that's 500 patients in a month if you have the capacity to take care of them.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Absolutely. No, I love it briefly. This one thing is how do you guys onboard? What is the onboarding process look like?

Samad Syed:
Oh, for the patient reactivation?

Dr. Noel Liu:
Correct reactivation, or if there's any other services that you provide?

Samad Syed:
So the onboarding process is pretty simple. Our sales team will walk you through whatever service you are looking for. And then we have an account manager that we assign to everyone who wants to be part of the M consent. That account manager is responsible for making sure that we're taking care of your practice. Whether you need forms, whether you need appointment reminders. It's a la carte service, basically. And we do have a great savings plan, or we are very cost-competitive. We don't charge, like $2,000 and we don't charge $1,500 just to get the practice onboard. So usually our onboarding cost is very low to nothing.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Okay. Do you guys like do the reactivation for general population across the board on the database, or is it like specific target patients that we can also like play with?

Samad Syed:
Yeah. We actually look at your database. Whoever you have in your database, we reactivate those patients so that they come back to your practice.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So I'll give you a good example for myself, like me and a bunch of my other associate doctors, we do a lot of implant surgery, right? And we have many consoles that come through the door on a daily basis. And some of these guys, it's been over six months, over 12 months, 18 months, or two years, you name it. Do you guys have something service like that where you can just say, hey, I just want to target Invisalign or maybe just implants?

Samad Syed:
Yeah. Absolutely. So we have something called an unscheduled treatment plan. So what we do is that we educate them or we don't go and tell them, hey, come back for our coupon. We tell them, listen, you are looking to make your smile better. What's a better way than getting it done? During the summertime, we actually have a program for people who get a treatment plan for cavities. They don't come back. We basically educate them. Telling them about procrastinating a cavity doesn't help. It doesn't cure itself. You need to make sure that it doesn't go to a root canal so that now you have bad teeth and you have to remove your teeth itself or get a new implant, which may cost you 15 to $20,000. Procrastination is expensive, so get it done early. So this kind of education messages that we automatically send out. So what we do is that we connect with your system and we read the codes that your procedure asks you. Yeah, yeah. And based on those procedure codes we designed messages that go out to the patients based on those codes.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Got it. Got it okay. No, that's great. That's great. Yeah. Anything else you want to add to how people reach you?

Samad Syed:
Yeah. So the best way for people to reach us as a M content is www.mconsent.net. And if the people who want to reach me for questions. I'm very good at responding on LinkedIn usually. I'll send you my LinkedIn if you want to add.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Yes, we'll have the LinkedIn profile.

Samad Syed:
The profile video submitted is my LinkedIn profile. So people who want to get in touch with me. Yeah. I'm so glad that we connected with Doctor Liu. And it was wonderful talking to you. Thoroughly enjoyed the discussion.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, great. Great. It was such an awesome experience to learn about what you do. And there is another niche that fulfills this market, so I'm very glad that we connected as well. Awesome. Thank you very much for joining us. And ladies and gentlemen, make sure to like and subscribe. And this is going to be the end of our show today. Definitely go out there, crush it all my dark colleagues, and be great and have a great day.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLuidds.com. That's n o e l l i u d d s.com.

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About Samad Syed:

Samad Syed is the CEO and Founder of SRS Web Solutions, a Minneapolis, MN-based company that developed the leading dental patient engagement software platform, mConsent. mConsent is All-in-One Digital Transformation Solution for Dental Offices which helps the front office go paperless thereby improving Dental office productivity and improving Patient experience. Over 10 million patients across the USA have utilized mConsent software to go paperless, leading to improved patient experience and increased office productivity. 

In addition to his work in the dental industry, Samad is also a Visionary when it comes to healthcare technology, he has used his 6 Sigma Master Black Belt skills and has trained over 400 business leaders on bringing productivity and profitability to their businesses. Samad completed his Master’s in Engineering from Wayne State University in Michigan and holds an MBA from Indiana University. 

Samad lives in Dallas, TX with his wife and son. His educational background and extensive experience in the dental industry have made him a respected and sought-after expert in the field. Samad’s passion for improving patient experience and helping dental practices grow has led him to write “The Art of Patient Re-engagement: How to Win Back Your Inactive Patients”. His hope is that the book will help dental practices achieve higher patient retention rates, increase revenue, and provide better patient care.

Things You’ll Learn:

  • Your existing patient database is the number one asset for your practice. 
  • Avoid focusing solely on acquiring new patients; reengage your current patients to maximize growth and retention.
  • From digital patient intake forms to HIPAA-compliant text messaging systems and patient reactivation campaigns, leveraging a comprehensive patient engagement platform like mConsent can streamline administrative tasks and improve patient satisfaction.
  • Consistent, personalized communication is crucial. Email, social media, direct mail, and text messages should be strategically used to maintain a connection with your patient base and remind them of their pending treatments and the value of regular dental visits.
  • Effective reactivation tactics can bring back former patients, filling your chairs without the high cost of acquiring new patients.

Resources:

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Podcast

Optimizing Cash Flow and Revenue Cycles in Dentistry

Summary:

Centralizing and scaling operations is crucial for the success of multi-practice dental groups.

In this episode, Adin Bradley, an Executive Consultant and Fractional COO at Polaris Healthcare Partners, discusses challenges and solutions for doctor-owned, debt-funded dental practices. Adin shares insights on reducing turnover and optimizing revenue cycles and highlights the importance of aligning owners’ goals, investing in management and team members. He addresses the significance of establishing stringent processes for cash flow. Adin also discusses the associate equity model, emphasizing its benefits for doctors with high student debt and the need for a fixed cost structure and good marketing plan for practice growth. Adin further explores the concept of duct tape integration for larger group practices, the significance of cloud-based systems, and the importance of vertical growth and team commitment. He stresses the need for a clear vision, strategic planning, and continuous assessment of team growth. Finally, Adin provides practical tips for practice owners to ensure alignment with goals and overall success.

Tune in and learn how to navigate the complexities of dental practice management and growth!

Secure Dental_Adin Bradley.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental_Adin Bradley.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental Podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hello and welcome to another episode of our Secure Dental podcast, where we bring in many different talents from and outside our dental industry. Today we have a very special guest, Adin Bradley from Polaris. But before we dive in, just want to give a shoutout to my sponsor, which I'm also a co-founder of, which is DentVia. It's a virtual dental administration company that helps with back-office tasks and also helps supercharge your managers as well as the front desk. They do a call confirmation, lead generation calls, and all the insurance eligibilities, plus any other back-end tasks that you have. So definitely visit them at www.DentVia.com. Again, it's www.DentVia.com. Now to the main show. Adin. So Adin is a consultant with Polaris. Polaris does group practices. We've been a client with them for a year and a half and he's been amazing. So I want to pass the mic off to you, Adin, and I want you to introduce and tell us exactly what your role is and what Polaris does.

Adin Bradley:
Yeah. Great intro, Noel, and as always, great to see you and hear about your success over at Secure Dental and the team. As you mentioned, I work with Polaris Healthcare Partners. We are a niche consulting group that works solely in the doctor-owned, debt-funded dental space. I work specifically, I work as a strategic consultant and also a fractional chief operating officer. And just to draw a line between the two of them, consulting is more of advisory to the ownership group and their vision, and fractional COO is a little more in-depth work where doctor's still in the chair, still producing, doesn't really have the time to commit. They're generally larger practices that need a lot more hands-on. I work with them and their team to lead operations. And some of the other main areas that we work with, which are really popular programs, are associate equity programs that we'll talk about in a little bit. We have two new verticals that one of our co-founders, Perrin DesPortes runs, called the Catalyst Project and Ascendant Executive. These are more geared for those looking to determine if they want to grow a group practice or build one. It's an interactive Zoom group that Perrin runs with specific subject matter each week with one-on-ones, and that sort of gives them a consulting light type of engagement. And then finally, we do growth capital solutions, which is a nice word for we help recap debt. We do a lot of sell-side advisory and M&A. So we run a full gamut of whatever services are needed in that group dental space.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's awesome. That's a lot of stuff to absorb there Adin. That's great. What do you guys do? A whole bunch of services. So tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get started?

Adin Bradley:
Coincidentally, I have an undergrad in HR, but I didn't care as much for the day-to-day minutia as I did the analytical part; staffing, retention, the cost of labor. And later got into labor negotiations. So that morphed into operations. I was a regional president for a national EMS Corp and a senior VP for a national urgent care group, and then was with American Dental Partners for a while, oversaw 30 clinics there. I stayed in dentistry, I loved it. I loved the fixed costs, provider-driven model. Very exciting to work with. About three years ago when Polaris was born, if you will, with Perrin and Diwakar, I joined them and just celebrated my three years and I got to tell you, it's gone by super, super quick and I enjoy working with groups like yourself and Dr. Jafri helping group practice owners realize their vision. So that's, I've come out of operations into more of an advisory role now.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So you have like extensive experience in group practices, right? And what is some of the trends that you've been seeing before and where is, where are the group practices are, where they're going now?

Adin Bradley:
It's a great question. While there are so many different group practices that have issues, there's a lot of common themes. Generally, they've been unable to centralize and scale operations while they own multiple practices. They really are siloed. A lot of times, the management team has grown with the group practice since they were incepted. Getting the right people into the right seats and assessing talent is very important. Not having a clear strategy, a vision. What do I want to do when I grow up? We just come to work every day and plug away and hope things get better. So we try to align what the owners really want to do. Do you want to build the scale? Do you want to build the exit? Do you just want to build a grow and see where that goes? And then from there, we start looking at every single department along the way and what can be optimized. So that's where we find a lot of leakage. I would say turnover and revenue cycle are the two biggest issues that, once corrected, have a considerable impact.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Got it, got it. So revenue cycle: how does that impact any organization? As we all cash is king.

Adin Bradley:
Cash is king. So we normally find the same types of issues where there's not a really stringent process from both at inception, from having all the right information, documentation, submitting claims, focusing on your days of sales outstanding, which is the time of service to the time the money hits the bank. And then how do we deal with insurance companies that say we didn't have enough information or denials in ensuring that all patient payments are paid up front? We look at the AR buckets quite a bit in the aging. What I have begun to see is that when you have a dedicated revenue cycle department with subject matter experts doing centralized services, that process runs much more smoothly. We found that collections of percentages have increased dramatically.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So if I were to ask you, like from team inception to revenue to patients to doctors, to everybody, right, the whole thing, what's the top of your list? Is it the management team or is it the doctors, or is it the actual, the front desk and the DA staff? Like who controls and where do you see group practices to become profitable? Would you say, let's invest in the management or the team members?

Adin Bradley:
I'm smiling because no one's ever asked me that question before. And it is an awesome question, Noel. And I will tell you that the answer is all of the above. And the reason is, if one single part of the groups that you mentioned, whether it be the front desk, the admin side, or clinical side, if anyone misses their cue, the whole process falls apart. So just real quick; if front desk does not get the appropriate information, the wrong insurance, the wrong treatment plan entered the codes, the bill, the submission can have a problem. If the Doc or the DA or whoever enters treatment knows does not have a robust summation, and have all the scans and everything that's required, that can cause a hiccup. And then finally, the claim submission part in the posting part; if someone forgets to submit a claim or a denial comes back for more information, how are we jumping on that? And sadly, we see a lot of groups that will have buckets and buckets of AR, and we find that a lot of the claims have either not been submitted or worse, they were submitted, denied, and just nobody captured them. They just, it's plug and play, right? I sent it out into the ethos. It never came back. It's not my problem anymore. Meanwhile, the owners like, why are we collecting 88, 89, 90%? And those dollars fall directly to the bottom line because as an owner, you've already paid all the expenses on it. That's really the difference, the key to groups like yourself that become profitable from both a cash and margin standpoint and those that are just barely treading water.

Dr. Noel Liu:
We've been there, and we know exactly what it feels like. There's no question there. Let's move on to Polaris's role. Like when you guys take on a client, what are some of those challenges that you guys see in terms from a strategic point as well as like an overall operation point?

Adin Bradley:
Again, while each one is a little bit different, there's a lot of core similarities. First, is the owner really committed to the process? It is the process can be arduous because it can get in the way of your clinical work. It can get in the way of your CE work. But normally what we do is we set the table for how the process is going to run, and we sit with the owners or owner and ask what their, how they define success, both personally and professionally, because they do intermingle. And from there we set forth to put what their vision is in about 3 to 5-year window and simultaneously are building out a financial model to see where they sit today. And then we'll meet for an initial strategic planning session put forth in the first quarter, about four initiatives that we think can gain immediate impact and results. We look at outcomes best and worst, what could happen, who's going to be responsible for them, and track them along the way. And then after the second quarterly meeting, we'll redo a financial model to see if we've moved the needle both in increasing revenue or decrease in expenses. We also look at other areas of care utilization. We look at your debt. Do you have the ability to fund growth if that's what your plan is? We look at turnover. So our model shows a lot of different areas within the business: doctor productivity, your payer mix. So once we get a good look at the baseline financial information in the health of the practice, it makes it much easier to devise a specific tailor-made strategy for your practice.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So it's not like one-size-fits-all, pretty much. The challenge is you guys, it's all over the place, right? Based on, and you just tailor it according to that practice or organization.

Adin Bradley:
Yeah, exactly. Like a three-group practice with a goal to just run a legacy business is much different than, say, Secure Dental, which is going on nearly a dozen, you continue to grow, and centralize. You're working with you, which was amazing, is that, and I continued to say this to other clients is I rarely see a team of two owners, especially two physicians that are married, you and Dr. Jafri that know their lane and have put together a really good team that has been deputized to manage the process. And you both know the numbers inside and out, what moves the needle. But most importantly, you've invested in your people and doctor education, clinical excellence. I think, like you said, we've all been there. When I look when we first met, where you were to now, it's been an incredible journey for you both. And it's not gone without a lot of hard work, but it just shows you when you stick to the plan, good things will happen.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And it's not been that long ago. It was just like what?

Adin Bradley:
I was going to say two and a half, three years.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Yeah, exactly. Adin, man, let's talk about some systems here. Some key takeaways, right? What are some of the metrics that you really would like to hone on for someone who wants to grow from, let's say, two locations to, they're like, Hey, I want to grow two, three, or 4, or 5. What would be some of the key metrics that you were really hone on to and they need to watch like a hawk?

Adin Bradley:
I'm going to throw a few out, but these are not in any order of importance because they're all equally important. First and foremost is profitability and cash flow. The only way to grow and scale is to be able to have enough capacity, leverage, if you will, to borrow money for growth. In order to do that operationally, we need to be producing more. And how we produce more is how much revenue, how much collections can we generate from every hour that we're opening the chair? One of the things that you've done, which I profess to a lot of partners of ours, is more expansive dentistry, especially in the GP world. We talk about doing more endo, full-arch cases, molar extractions, things that GP and the GP world, I don't know, maybe a dozen years ago would have ought have been, automatically been a referral out. So to generate that much more revenue helps in a fixed cost structure. Recruitment and retention of top talent is also very important; it creates stickiness with your, with the patients, which are number one referral source. A good marketing plan to continue to cycle through new patients. And then the rest is really locking up your associates under possibly either earned equity plan or some bonus-driven plan that makes them want to stay. One of the challenges, one of the biggest challenges that we see that probably has the most impact financially is if an associate leaves and there's not one there to replace kind of dead time, right? And as an owner, you don't want, you or Dr. Jafri does not want to have to keep jumping back into the chair. So an owner does not want to have to keep being relied upon once they've stepped out of the chair. So all equally important, but definitely to grow, is the ability to borrow dollars for future investment and then keeping the process going. Now within that, I would also say you would have had to scale and centralize services too to make sure that you are running truly as a group practice and not as individual sites, just doing their own thing with common ownership.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And that's really important because we see that all the time. And that's what they call the duct tape. That's how I think the term came about when a group of friends, they just collaborate and just go, Hey, we're all going to partner up together. Let's talk a little bit about PMS, right, practice management systems. When you see these practices and you're trying to scale these guys, and I know a lot of them, they do acquisitions and they all have different systems, what are your thoughts on different systems or running like a something centralized which has everything enclosed or would you like just prefer one system for every location?

Adin Bradley:
Man, I got to tell you, you know, you got some great questions this early in the morning. It's a little bit of art and a little bit of science. I think the larger the group practice and I would say getting above 10 to 12 practices within the group. I would highly recommend being on the same platform. If you are doing acquisitions and someone is on one practice management system and you're buying one on another, set aside with your implementation team enough time to both integrate the culture, the standards, the benefits, the pay scales, and then move to get all of their data extracted onto your platform that's cloud-based. It makes for extracting patient data much easier. Everybody's doing the same thing, your reports are pulling. So if you're using Jarvis or a practice-by-numbers dental Intel care stack, the dashboards will collate from being on one system. It may not be possible right away because there's a lot of work, a lot of things to be done. But I would say any practice over 10 to 12 within six months of an acquisition merge joint venture should all be on the same web, certainly, cloud-based system.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And I think that also drives up the valuation of the organization. They're all on one.

Adin Bradley:
Absolutely. And what is even better is that if the group that's looking to partner with you as a strategic partner is on the same platform, that makes it even easier, not only from a technical part, but also from an expertise part, and then integrating the data into that system. A lot of times when I see these one-off custom-built systems, I always think down the road you're going to end up, you're going to end up proverbially paying for that. I don't want to give plugs to certain ones, but most of our listeners know what the 3 or 4 main practice management systems that are cloud-based out there, and I would play in that sandbox.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's an excellent advice, by the way, because that's one of those things which we see all the time. And a lot of people have questions like if we run different systems. So that answers that. So now let's dive into your field. We were talking a little bit about associate equity model. And we were talking a little bit about how expansive or how small do you want to keep that role within the organization, or you want to put it at a practice level? Let's dive a little bit into that. Let's talk about it.

Adin Bradley:
Yeah. So this has been one of our more popular services that we offer. And you and I were were talking just before the call. The FTC came out a couple of months ago with the ruling that Non-competes might be not recognized under certain situations. Obviously, we got a flood of calls like, how does this impact us? I wouldn't let the FTC ruling really be the driver of that. I would let the strategy and the value, the intrinsic value of the product really sell it. So with associate equity, what that allows you to do is a couple of things. One is to grow and scale where you can't be the primary associate. So you can continue to build, whether through acquisition or de novo practices, that you have associates that you place in there that you build the practice around, and they earn a portion of the value of that particular office or of the group above your capital interest. So without digging too deep into the weeds, ownership never loses their capital investment in an associate equity. We always think, I'm going to dilute. I'm going to dilute. They only earn equity on productivity and EBITDA or profitability above a certain threshold that we set, and they have to keep growing year over year. What this does is it keeps it an associate engaged, they become a true owner. And more importantly, when you mentioned earlier about selling, we have found that groups that have associates locked up under associate equity plans with real vested ownership becomes more highly predictable to a buyer so there can be a premium on the price because the fear of losing an associate is gone. So for those docs that want to buy, but they're coming out of school with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, the cost of capital, as we all know right now, we feel it at the kitchen table every day is very high. This gives them an opportunity to have real ownership in a big group at really no risk or cost to themselves. They just have to perform. And for you, entrepreneurial docs that continue to grow, that system just continues to work as you build more practices outwardly and just say, I'm going, I've got a great recruitment stream through a school that I've got a great relationship with, I meet with their associates in one of the things that I sell them on, not only is our culture, our clinical direction, our doctor development, but hey, you're going to run an office on your own and you're going to earn equity in that. How does that sound? That sounds like a pretty good competitive advantage to me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's so true because nowadays a lot of these students coming out, their biggest thing is student debt, because as time is going by with inflation, everything is going up pretty significantly. So they don't want to practice; too much headache. They don't want to take the risk; there's way too much involved. What is the best route? And I think what you just laid out, that's like a win. 100%.

Adin Bradley:
Yeah. And it gives the owner some time too, because when they, when you enter, if I can back up for a second, once you have the actual associate equity program developed, it doesn't mean that every associate gets it. You should have a criteria about who you want to be a partner. And it's not just about production, it's about culture. It's about ethics. It's about their vision. Does it align with yours? And then once they enter into the program, there is still some time for you to assess their fit within the organization. Are they everything as described? And they generally, we have what we call an effective year; one year when they're in the program. And then it's at the end of the second year with their first allocations of shares would be given to them. So it's a five-year vesting schedule and it is based really like the market share. There's a total number of shares generally into what your market cap is. I'm using that in air quotes and each share has a dollar value, and they're allocated a fifth of the total amount over a five-year period that vest. And there's operating agreements. You're going to have clauses on clawbacks, buyouts. You're going to protect yourself 100% in the operating agreements with them. So they'll have to continue to perform. And you can also have accelerated vesting if you were to decide to sell. And they need to be part of that exit where they might vest a little sooner if they have not hit their five-year mark. So the worst that really can happen with them is that if they don't produce, they just don't earn a lot of equity. So the analogy I read one time, and I can't even give credit to you because I don't know who it was is, for those that are fearful of giving away a little bit of the company that they built, I always say, Do you want to own 100% of a grape or 10% of an apple? And it just allows you to continue to scale and grow. And while the percentage might go down a little bit of ownership, the actual value is going up exponentially.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Exactly. That's such a great nugget that you just dropped, because that is something where a lot of people, they are like, so caught up in their own little world that they want to own and control 100%. And what you just said, that makes perfect sense.

Adin Bradley:
So we've had some clients like that, unfortunately, and they are just very steadfast in their core beliefs, and there's not a lot of wiggle room to look at other solutions. And to me, no matter what industry it is, this expands way beyond dentistry, that is a recipe for failure. The inability to pivot. I think, I don't think, I watched it in real time with Secure the ability to pivot, make changes, implement new processes, invest in technology, invest in people, invest in your docs has shown marked improvement over the years on the success of the practice, the profitability of the practice, and now your new growth plan. And I can't wait to see, I have no doubt that in another couple of years, I'm going to see what you're doing and how it's worked, because you have perfected the model on how to scale and integrate every single practice into the secure model.

Dr. Noel Liu:
One thing we've done is now as we are growing, we have changed that instead of just opening up locations like crazy, like how we were before, it's more about how do you grow vertically and how do you invest in your people. And this is one of those things. So this, tomorrow we are going heading down to Brazil. And one of the reasons we're heading down there is so I'm taking a group, my doctor, and it's been part of the whole strongman group learning nothing but full arches. So when they come back, they are all prepared and they're ready to rock and roll and we practice the same system. So we are, so I'm heavily involved and integrated with my team, and I think that really helps and change what you just said: If you're not investing in your people, you're not investing in the company, and it's the people that makes the company, not the other way around. So I feel like any future expansion has to be dictated by two factors: by patients and by our team. Not, hey, you know what? I found this location, I love it. I want to open up another Secure. No, I think it's got to be dictated by where the demand goes. And I think that's how a lot of the big successful corporations have done it. So I'm just following that path, studying those guys and just doing it one at a time.

Adin Bradley:
Yeah. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. And when we do another one of these in chat, I'd love to to flip the script and interview you a little bit and talk about the pain points that you had along the way, because we see the successful part of it, how we centralized, how we've optimized, how we're building. But I'm sure you could spend a lot of time on the first number of years that you and Dr. Jafri had, where things were not so rosy, and whether being the chair all the time and doctor development came second. And staff, you might have not have had everybody that you wanted on the team just plugging holes here or there. And then when do you hit that precipice where you say, Okay, hold on, I'm going to stop and pump the brakes here. I'm going to start doing, every decision is going to be the right one. You mentioned just, I love this location; let me buy it. Do you have a real target acquisition profile? Demographics, geography. There's a cannibalize a current office. Is it in your footprint? What's the competition look like? Does it have the residential base, the density to support all the things that you talked about? And I think it's great going down to Brazil because you being knee to knee with your associates is no greater testament to the commitment to what you're doing than the owners there with you and highly skilled at doing it. If that doesn't jazz them up, I don't know what does.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And I think that's one of the reasons why we're so attractive, because I really like to be in the trenches with them. And one thing, Adιn, we grew this way before horizontal, and that caused us to go far and thin and we were stretched out. Now we are planning to go vertical and just maximizing every single opportunity we have within our practices rather than going out. And we did a lot of stuff that you told us, hey, how about addition with subtraction? But it never crossed my mind before. And when we started doing that, all of a sudden, the bottom line, the EBITDA just went up.

Adin Bradley:
Yeah, sometimes out-of-the-box thinking works. And for me, I'm humbled by the trust that you put in us to help along the way and in a myriad of issues, not just in running the business, but in the people part and certain day-to-day employee relations issues and marketing and growth. And it's amazing to see how in just a couple of years from when you came to visit us in that masterclass in Charlotte, to us engaging and all that you guys are doing right now. I think it's proof that if you have a vision, you are committed to it and you have the right people, it is achievable. But you have to do all those things every day. Φor the listeners out there that anyone who doesn't know Dr. Noel here, this is a man who's up at 3:00 every day taking an ice cold bath, working out, very disciplined. And you just do the same things every single day, not looking for a magic bullet.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Well, thank you very much.

Adin Bradley:
Hell, you've even inspired me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
It's been inspirational, because this is what exactly the grind that we go through every single day. And then you don't get scared to tackle problems. Now, let's pivot a little bit here. Now, for the people who does not want to grow, they are like 1 or 2 practice and they're like, how do I optimize and become really profitable? And I just want to stay in those 1 or 2 locations. How is that different from somebody who wants to grow?

Adin Bradley:
It's tough because I, it would depend on if they're doing it because they generally like their work-life balance. Right? There are some groups out there, they've got young families or hobbies that they like to do. In the business side of things, detracts from that. So the business is really just a driver of cash flow to fund their activities. And I'm making an assumption in an example of only one core group. The other one could be really just a fear of the unknown, so it's just easier to stay in your safe place. So for those one and two off practices or I'm sorry, one or 1 or 2 office practices owned by a single doc is ensure you've got a really good leadership team, particularly if you are still the driver of the practice, it's highly dependent on you to be in the chair. The problem with that is that when you do want to take a vacation or you get sick, not only are you out, but when you talked about growing vertically, the practice takes a significant hit financially because you have to pay the staff to be there and the biggest economic driver of cash is gone. My biggest recommendation would be is if you do really want to say stay smaller because it fits your lifestyle, at a minimum, I would try to work yourself out of the chair a couple, 2 to 3 days a week, not only to work on the admin side, but to make the business less dependent on you so when you want to engage in those activities outside of the office, that you've got a team in place that can continue to keep the trains running on time. The team around you has to be really good at what they do, because differences and inefficiencies don't show as much in one and two practices. In 12 practices, 10 practices, being 10% off in collections is much, much bigger than 1 or 2 practices. But I would still say to keep a heavy eye on the key metrics, which obviously is collections, your collections percentage. I would be looking at all of your expenses to make sure that as a percentage of revenue, they're within those guardrails. And what I mean by that is, outside of your fixed costs, labor and supplies should be moving with the amount of production that you're doing. If production tends to come down and your expenses continue to go up, someone's not managing the store. If you're collecting 85 or 90% of your adjusted production, we've got a hole in the bucket there. I mentioned earlier all the expenses have been paid. This is where the technical expertise makes the difference between being almost profitable, or just making it to having a little bit of buffer there. And when you do that, you might think, Oh my gosh, this is doable. I can scale this. Maybe I want to be three practices, maybe I want to be four. But it will open a doctor up to at least the opportunities to pivot if they want. Just running two offices, letting associates do what they want, not investing in that staff turnover all the time. Collections not being done is a recipe for a doc that's going to end up working merely for free, because you can't afford to pay himself salaries, going to pay for overhead and bills.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You know what I think, Adin, is? It's about efficiency and knowing the how and the what and the why. Once they understand that aspect, they can become better leaders. And once when they figure out how to run that 1 or 2 practice successfully, I think they usually start wanting to venture out a little bit. It's just because they are having to put out fires every single day in their own 1 or 2 locations, which is why they are like, you know what? I'm not even going to bother with anymore. I think that's probably the main driving factor that a lot of people, they don't want to expand. So what you just said, I think that hits it right nail right in the head. Because once you understand the process, you understand leadership, you understand the whole gamut of taking care of your people, I think that will really open up their opportunity door. So that's what's ...

Adin Bradley:
Listen, we're Gen Xers and Boomers, some of us. But for those Gen Y and Gen Z's out there that have not seen The Karate Kid, I highly recommend watching it because if you remember wax on, wax off. If we just learned those core movements and repeat them every single day, what you just said will ultimately happen. I call it being successful in spite of ourselves. Just do the right thing every day. But if you are managing chaos, who would want to grow? All you're going to do is extrapolate the chaos. I wouldn't want to grow. So yeah, great advice. And you've been there. So again, you can share nuggets of being one, two, three practices. And I can clearly state that your operation now in the double-digit practices runs way more smoothly than it did with 1 or 2 practices.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm less on a journey also, and more on the business and in the business. Right? That makes a whole of a world of a difference. And here's another thing too I would like to share. A lot of people think, oh yeah, you're off the chair. You're not working. No, it's actually the other way around. When you're not on the chair, you're actually working harder because now when you're working on the business, you're actually creating opportunities for the team and the members, because if we are in the business constantly, what's happening is we are not able to grow ourselves and then we're not able to let anybody else grow underneath us. So I think that's a huge nugget that I would like to share as well, because once you ..., you can see so much better from like 30-40,000ft² up in the air than if you are ...

Adin Bradley:
I was just thinking the same. No, I was going to say the only way you can really have a high level look at the entire landscape is to get yourself out of the rabbit hole. Once you're entrenched in that chair, you're not seeing what's blazing around you. So that gives you a bird's eye view of getting in there and identifying an issue and correcting it immediately. And it may not even be an issue. It just may be an opportunity to enhance an associate's skill set that they want to do. You might see a lot of promise in someone they may not see in themselves. So you become a coach and a cheerleader, working with the team to have them understand why the numbers work they are. We hear this, They're just worried about money. And I'm like, Well, this is the driver of how we get paid and turn the lights on and growth. But it also gives people opportunities to go into different positions as you grow. If you're training and mentoring your folks properly and leading them, as you open up new practices and they know your processes and your culture and they share your vision, it's plug and play from there.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Plug and play. And that's what I always say. Like, you got to do what ticks for your team so that the team can do what ticks for you and the organization and everything works and in alignment. Not growing is really an injustice to your team. That's what I always say. Yeah. So Adin, before the end, man, I would like you to share two tips that anybody can take away and start using right away. What are some of the, it doesn't have to be two. It can be like any number.

Adin Bradley:
I would first look at the team that I have around me and ask myself, How long have they been here, and can they take me to the next level? That would be number one. And I think how you assess that is: Have you grown? And if you have not grown, ask yourself why. The second tip I think for any group-practice owner or single-practice owner or two-practice owner, really define what your real vision is. And what I call it is utopia. I don't want to grow because I'm scared is not a reason to grow. If you weren't scared and you were profitable, would you grow? So having a real clear vision of what 3 to 5 years looks like. What are you building for? What's that hit-by-the-bus solution that you have? What if something happened to the main driver of the organization? So is there a plan to grow and scale, a plan to optimize? If not, I would say get one in place right away. Last I checked, Father Time is undefeated and for any callers out there that would, their listeners out there that would even like just a cursory chat with us, Adin@PolarisHealthcarePartners.com. We are PolarisHealthcarePartners.com online. We have a whole list of services and we often set up Zooms for young emerging groups that just want to chat and say, I don't even know where to begin. So I would say one of the nuggets is to give one of us an email or a call. And you've always been excellent at talking to other groups too, and sharing your vision, your strategy, your pain points. And I hear it all the time, and I love connecting folks with clients that we've worked with, that have seen the struggle that can give you all of the good, bad, and the ugly that's not coming really from an advisory person, but someone who owns practices and has been there, done that. So the two things. Look at your team and ask yourself, can they bring me to the next level and have a clear vision for at least the next 3 to 5 years? And every decision that you make is got to be congruent with that vision.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And with that being said, I'm going to add one more thing to it. You got to have a growth mindset. You got to have a learning mindset. One of those challenges that I always felt initially when I was starting off was, I know it all, and that is like the worst position to be in, because even at this point, we are always learning, always networking, always collaborating and always knowing what I don't know. So it's like pretty much you don't know what you don't know. And I always feel like I always have opportunities to learn more and do more. Always keep learning, always keep pushing because there's never an end to it. So Adin my friend, thank you so much, man. Thanks for being here. It was a great pleasure. You dropped so much good information.

Adin Bradley:
Yeah. Thanks, Noel. It's always great to connect with you and hear how things are going. Give my best to the team and Dr. Jafri as well. And enjoy your time in Brazil. I'm sure the associates are going to have a great time and I can't wait to hear when you get back of putting their new skills to work.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey, thank you very much.

Adin Bradley:
Will talk to you soon.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. We're going to land the plane now. Thanks, everyone for listening and tuning in. Make sure to like and subscribe. We will definitely see you on our next episode.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDS.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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About Adin Bradley:

Adin Bradley serves as an Executive Consultant and Fractional COO at Polaris Healthcare Partners, guiding clients through the development and implementation of comprehensive, multi-year strategic plans. He assists clients with associate equity, healthcare marketing advice, buy and sell side advisory, clinician development, growth strategies, business and legal structure development, including location growth and vertical expansion. Adin finds fulfillment in his clients’ success and the development of his Polaris colleagues. His extensive operational background includes roles at Fastmed Urgent Care, American Dental Partners, and Rural/Metro Corporation. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Niagara College in Ontario and an MBA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Adin is an avid Bills fan, sports enthusiast, and golfer, who enjoys quality time with his wife, two teenagers, and hosting family and friends.

Things You’ll Learn:

  • Centralizing and scaling operations is crucial for the success of multi-practice dental groups.
  • Aligning owners’ goals with every department’s optimization can help address common management issues.
  • Stringent processes for cash flow, from inception to money hitting the bank, are essential for practice growth.
  • Investing in management and team members ensures smooth patient payment processes and profitability.
  • The associate equity model allows doctors to build practices and earn equity without financial risk.

Resources:

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Podcast Uncategorized

Finding Purpose and Fulfillment in Your Dental Career

Summary:

Networking and building relationships are essential for success in the dental field.

 

In this episode, Dr. Glenn Vo, founder and CEO of Nifty Thrifty Dentists, discusses his journey in dentistry, the importance of honesty and helping others, and the value of work-life balance. Dr. Vo shares his transition from psychology to dentistry, influenced by his sister and his own realization of his potential. He highlights the significance of laying a strong career foundation, fostering a supportive environment, and not comparing oneself to others. Glenn stresses the challenges and sacrifices of starting a dental practice, underscoring hard work, determination, and the need for networking. He also touches on being resourceful, finding purpose, and the importance of giving back to one’s community. Finally, Dr. Vo emphasizes collaboration over competition and the need to adapt to different life seasons for work-life balance, and explains his unique definition of success every listener can benefit from. 

 

Tune in and learn from Dr. Vo’s remarkable journey about achieving success, building strong relationships, and finding purpose in your career and life!

Secure Dental_Dr Glenn Vo.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental_Dr Glenn Vo.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental Podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of our Live here. So this is Dr. Glenn Vo. So we are doing another episode of our Secure Dental podcast. This guy is such a treat. So before we get started, I just want to give a shout out to my sponsor: DentVia. DentVia is a virtual dental administration company, basically assisting our front desk in our dental offices to do all the back-end office tasks such as calls, eligibility, all the back, like lead generation calls and follow up. So definitely check them out. www.DentVia.com. That's DentVia.com. Now, without further ado, this gentleman needs no introduction. Glenn Vo, it's such an honor to have you here, man. He runs Nifty Thrifty. If most of you guys are not aware of Nifty Thrifty, I don't know where you've been living, but let's get down to it. I'll let you do the intro and let's dive right in.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
First of all, thank you so much. I've been a big fan of this podcast, a big fan of you. You're just not only just an amazing entrepreneur, but also what separates entrepreneurs is their generosity. And of course, I don't have to talk about what you've done recently in the dental community. Just so generous, willing to give back, but also not only give back from a monetary standpoint, but giving back with your knowledge and also uplifting other people and being an inspiration. So again, just want to let you know, especially as an Asian, just I always follow other Asian entrepreneurs and I'm like so amazing of what you've done. So thank you so much for having me on here. And I just want to let everyone know that essentially what I do is I'm just a connector of people, as at an early age, I've always been just like a resource, whether it's my friends, growing up, they're asking me like, Hey, what's a good place to buy these school supplies or something like that? And even in dental school, people ask me like, Hey, do you have a, hey, do you have some notes? Or you have some old test or something like that? I've always just been a resource. And literally that's just what I've done in Nifty Thrifty and speaking in podcasts. I just try to help others. I try to get as much knowledge as I can, make as many connections as I can, so I can be a resource to others. Now, how does that translate to the business world, right? If you are a dependable person, you are someone with integrity, and if you are someone who genuinely wants to help others, then people will come to you. I wish I could just share like some kind of, people always think, Do you have this secret like way to talk to people? Is there a negotiation, way to negotiate things? And I tell I don't. I truly I've read all those books. I followed the Grant Cardone's of the world, the Gary Vee's. Look, I've learned from all those guys. And all I can tell you is there's some good stuff there. But if you simply just are a good person, you're honest, and you genuinely want to help people, I promise you the opportunities will come. I wish I could give you something more complicated than that, but if you just do those three things, opportunities will come.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You said such a good point because that is exactly all these big boys have in common, right? You said Gary Vee's, the Grand Cardone's of the world. If you look at all the personal development space, there are all these guys, they all have one thing in common is to genuinely help somebody. The minute you do that, success follows, money follows, fame follows, everything follows. And you're like a proven legend right here, my man. You've taken your Nifty Thrifty such a long way. Let's get started from dental school. What, how did you get into dentistry, man? I would like to hear about that.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
So I want to share something that I think you will appreciate. There's something about growing up in an Asian household. When it comes to your siblings and sometimes your parents, they are very blunt and straight to the point and sometimes like it hurts your feelings. And I remember when I was in college, I just went through the whole college experience. My older sister was just like, she was a child prodigy. She got into dental school when she was like 20 years old. She became a dentist at 24. She didn't have any debt because she had the foresight to have the military pay for it. And so she was like the prodigy. I'm like the middle child. And they just say, just do it. Just try not to bring shame to the family. That's pretty much like my parents there. Yeah. Just don't bring shame to the family. Right? So what happened was, is that I was doing a master's program in health administration. I thought, Hey, that sounds like a good degree. Just slide by and whatnot. And I remember my sister reaching out to me. She said, Hey, come down and why don't you, my assistant is out sick. Can you come and just work for a week? I'll pay you really good. Can you assist me for a week? Little did I know that my parents and her, they had an ulterior motive. Wow. Because they were like, This guy has more potential. He's a smart guy. So I was there, and I remember assisting my sister. This was like near the end of the week. And she stopped.

Dr. Noel Liu:
How old were you?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
This was, I was, I want to say I was like early 20s. I already graduated with undergrad. I had a degree in psychology. I didn't even know what I wanted to do.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Kind of lost at that time.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah, it was a little lost. And I was doing this master's program because I thought you could probably make six figure income. That's all I cared about. So I was assisting my sister and I remember this like yesterday. I was suctioning. She was doing like, some composites. And she stopped what she was doing. And she looked at me. And she says, Glenn, do you want to be a loser the rest of your life? I was like, What? I was like offended. But only a sister can say that to her younger brother. She said that, she was like, Do you want to be a loser for the rest of your life? What's funny is that the patient that I was working on, she actually looked at me too. They all looked at me. The patient looked at me. My sister looked at me. And I was like shocked. And I said, No, I don't want to be a loser. On the spot. Even the patient looked at me because she wanted to know, do I still want to be a loser for the rest of my life? She looked at me too. And so my sister's, The reason why I brought you down here is because I wanted to see if this is something that you could do, because I feel like you have more potential than just getting some master's degree. And no offense to people who have a master's in health administration. No offense to them. But my sister saw that I had a little bit more in me, maybe the ability to be a doctor. And after that I was like, You know what? No, I don't want to be a loser. And so I actually went back to school, did a post-bacc program at UT, and started going to dental school. Now most people that get into dentistry because maybe they like to eat, maybe they like the science aspect. I actually joined and the reason why my sister brought me there is I watched her how she, I liked the business aspect and the relationship aspect. I liked the fact that as a dentist, you are a mentor not only to your team, but to your patients. You're educating them. And for me, I always had that in my heart. And so that's the reason why I wanted to become a dentist, because I wanted to be a professional that people went to for advice to learn from. And I liked the fact that you can mentor and you can uplift the team. So that's actually how I got into dentistry. Is my sister literally semi-insulting me and saying, You don't want to be a loser, but to this day I still tell her it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have been a Dentist. And honestly, that's what a good sibling is. They watch out for you. Especially the oldest sibling. You're, and I tell this to my daughter all the time. It's your job to lay the foundation, but you have the honor of being the oldest. God gifted you with that honor, so you have to live up to that honor. So that's how I got to industry.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I'm going to steal that from my daughter.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
I tell that all the time. Because like her younger brother, he's a true, my son's, I have a 14-year-old daughter, a 11-year-old son. And so my 14-year-old daughter, she's a competitive swimmer. Obviously, she's really into school as well. My son's a competitive wrestler. And so she, I tell her, You got to lay the foundation, like you going to practice two times a day. She had practice this morning. She had practice in the afternoon. Somewhere in between, she's doing some schoolwork too, and also relaxing because it is summer. And I told her I was like, You can't slack off because this guy is actually watching you. You have a. So anyways, you should put a little pressure on your daughter too.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So you play the psychological game. I love it.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
You got to ... And our parents did that too. Probably in a, maybe not in a, in their own way, but they played these things. But that's what good parents do.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Did your parents ever compare you to other people, like other, like your cousins or your? Man, I was sick and tired of that.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
To this day, I absolutely hate that. And actually, I refuse to do that with my own kids. But I have to say this though, and for those who are watching, who are dental professionals or health care professionals, I want you guys to think about this. And I got this from one of my mentors who I actually, I'm at this gym and these guys, these three, the three richest guys in the, in my community, they work out here. And I'm so lucky that they consider me as a friend. They always pass the advice. But what they always say is that what made you successful: don't rob your kids of that. And I say, What do you mean by that? Glenn, did you have all these things that you have right now growing up? I was like, No, I had to work two jobs. Like sometimes I remember, like, sometimes I had to walk home from school. Sometimes my parents can pick me up; all these things. And they're like, And was that a big reason for your success? I was like, Yeah, because I had to grind and stuff like that. They said, Don't rob your kids of that. I always remembered that and now it's up to us. I can't put my kids in my same situation. That might be like borderline child abuse. Like I can't put them in that same situation, but you can put them in situations that force them to dig down deep and work hard and grit. And so for me, that is putting them in athletics and putting them in like hard courses, because that's going to force them to look within themselves. And that's my way. So again, I know I've steered off a little bit, but I just feel like we.

Dr. Noel Liu:
No, man, that's a great advice because we as dental professionals, if we had a hard life, we always want to give it back to the kids in such a way that, oh yeah, you know what? Just have it easy, because I had it hard. And you know what? You're going to get it easy. But no, you're going to, like you said, you are robbing them off. And the thing is, you are taking away the glory, the glory that you get once you make it; you're taking that away. And I completely 110%, my friend, I agree with you.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah. And although there's a certain things that my parents did that, I'll be honest, to this day is still bothers me. You can't. And my sister told me this. She says, Can you complain about the results? I was like, Okay, I can't really complain about it. I don't like the means, but you can't complain about the results. And so what we've done, and I truly feel this as, and everyone who has kids can relate to this is our job is to be better versions of our parents, right? Like I want my kids to be a better version of me. And part of that is not just financial and not just scholastic and academic achievements. It's also helping them become a better person. So for me, it's I'm learning the lessons that my parents put to me. I'm just packaging it in a different way, so to speak.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love it. So, Glenn, tell me this here. You graduated from dental school. What was the first thing you did? Did you, like, open up your own practice? Did you work? How was that journey like for you?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah. So what I did, and everyone's situation is different. For me, I wanted to help my family out as much as possible. My parents worked really hard and they never asked for anything. So this was not their idea of, Hey, come get out and so that we can retire. No. I wanted to help out. And so for me, like I was focused on, I need to get a job that can make as much money as possible. Yes, could I be an associate at a private practice and learn things and take it easy? Yes, but I need to make money right away. And so I went into corporate dentistry because I wanted that. Number one also to make as much money as possible to help out my family, but also I want to get exposed to as much dentistry as possible. So this group and the founder of this corporate group, I'm friends, he is my mentor to this day. He actually, just to let you guys know, a good way to recruit like-minded people is you share your story and if they resonate with your story, then you know you got that same guy. So he actually came from the same background. His parents owned a fast food place. He was going there after. He told me stories of actually doing his homework and going there and flipping burgers and helping his family, and he built this from the ground up. And so I resonated with that story. So I was like, I'm going to work for this guy. This guy has the same thing. And so I worked for a couple of years, and then my wife and I, we opened our practice. But something that I did, which a lot of times people, they think, Okay, they're going to quit their job and go to their office and start working. Look, guys, when you start your practice, you're not going to get your patient flow, cash flow right away.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Let's be real.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
You got to have your other job. That's what I did. And if my son was going to ask me how to do it, I would recommend this way for him. For some people might not work, but I literally was working six days a week, six days a week: three at my associate job, three at my practice. My wife, she worked a little bit more in the practice, but she was still working part time because we didn't want to take any money from the practice. We reinvested it into the practice, pay down the debt, expand, put money towards expansion. I didn't take any money while I had this other job. It wasn't until, it got to the point where he could support me, that's when I left. So that's what we did. It's I literally, when you talk about Nifty Thrifty is not a term I throw around. I lived it.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Because you lived it.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
I lived it.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Yeah. So when you were starting off, man. So I know what do you think about work? So for somebody starting off, you went through the grind. I went through the grind. Tell me, what does work life balance look like at that time?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah. So I'll tell you what, guys. I'm learning every day. And even back then I learned so much. But I truly feel that work-life balance is going to be different from everybody, again, for everybody. For me, I'm very involved with my kids. I'm very involved with my family at this season of my life. But I truly feel like work-life balance, you should look at it in the lens of seasons. Okay? Everyone has a different season in their life. In the beginning, if you don't have any kids and it's just you and your wife, or maybe you're not even married yet. You're in a certain season. If you're in a certain season where you don't have a lot of obligations to your family, then you shift your resources and your time maybe more to your business, right? If you're in a season where your kids are getting into the impressionable age, let's say their middle school, high school, you might want to shift things there because they really need you there. So when it comes to work-life balance, I tell people to look at the season you are in your life. So if you have the flexibility of you don't have kids yet and you have the ability to maybe be more, being able to plan it better, then maybe in a certain season you're like, Okay, hey, you tell your wife, Hey, you know what? Or tell your husband, Hey, let's just hold off on kids just for a little bit. Let's just get to this point and then let's get there. Now, of course, life happens. If you already have kids, then that's fine. Then you have to move things around. But work-life balance should be based on the seasons of your life. So look where you are, be, and if you're lucky enough, try to plan it so that when, because again, you can be a awesome father or mother if you're already past that grind of trying to build your practice. If your practice's a certain level, then you're going to be a better father. Now, can you juggle everything? Sure. Our parents did that, but I think we all can admit that you probably could have had your parents a little bit more in your life like they did. I know with my own family, as I've gotten older and I've become a father myself, like I'm a little bit more, have a little bit more empathy for my parents. I was like, Oh man, they did the best that they could. Maybe I complained. Can't pick me up? I gotta walk home? These guys are getting picked up or these parents are here. Maybe when I was younger I would complain. But as an adult now, I can see that. And so we understand. So just plan around the season. That's what I, that's my big advice for work-life balance.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Nice, nice, I completely agree. So when you got started, you opened up a practice. You got to settle. So how long did it take you? Because a lot of times people have this question that, Hey, if I open up my practice, what am I looking at? Two years, five years, one year? I know, again, everyone's different. But in your case, when you said to shift all the resources. And somebody goes, I opened up my practice, but I still want to play golf, I still want to enjoy life, and I'm single. And how long does it take to get that practice profitable.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Man, so that question, it's going to be different for everyone. But I'm going to tell everybody this is that people who are successful like yourself, like other, these other amazing doctors out there, it wasn't an overnight thing. There's a lot of sacrifice involved. And when I'm talking about sacrifice, I'm not even talking about sacrificing, not buying that Benz or not buying that million dollar house. There's real sacrifices when it comes to also relationships, too. And I'm not even talking about relationships with your spouse. I'm not even talking about relationship with your family. There's relationships with your friends, right? Like you're going to have to go away for a little bit. Or maybe you realize that you only have so much time, so now you prioritize your actual relationship with some friends and whatnot. So for me, I knew that I didn't. I wanted to get rid of my debt as quickly as possible. Obviously, as I've matured now in my financial intelligence and whatnot, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But it took me a while to get that. But I came from the old school where you didn't want to owe anything. So for me, my practice was actually profitable, probably within six months. And then from there shortly thereafter, I wouldn't make sure that my wife. So my wife's a dentist as well. We met in dental school. But I wanted to make sure that she got out of that grind of corporate dentistry and into our practice. So she got into our practice full-time within that six months, and slowly I came over. But again, being Nifty Thrifty, meaning, Hey, I mean.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I save every penny.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
I want to have that nice car. Once you're a doctor, you should have this nice car. And I still drove my like, Honda, and my wife still drove her Toyota. That was working really good. We did buy a house in a few years later, you know, but we try to resist that because we wanted to build that foundation. We wanted to get build up like that nest egg so just in case we have some slow months and whatnot. And that's how we did it. And when I say Nifty Thrifty, I'm talking about if I had to go there and had to change out the filters and do the stuff, I'd do it myself. If I had to go out there, people always talk about marketing. Okay, I want to, let me put all this money in marketing. You know what my marketing was in the beginning? I literally went to every business and met them and shook their hand and offered them like a amazing deal. Like, I'm free exam and cleaning for you? And I'll give you like the discount plan for free for your team. I asked them, I was like, Do you have health insurance, dental insurance for your team? And other small businesses, they have the same problems. No, we don't do that. I was like, How about I help you out? How about I give you this discount for you and your team to come to my practice? That's literally how I got my first patient. And to this day, this guy who owns, like, the most popular burger place in the town that my practice is in; he's still a patient today. And guess what he does? When people talk about this, Go to my dentist; he's the best. Right? And again, think about it. What better way to get patients when other businesses say, Hey, my dentist is Dr. Vo. He's the best. You got to see him. Now, of course, as I'm not in the practice as much, people only want to see me. So they're like, Dr. Vo is only here for a couple of days. You can see his associate. And so that kind of can get troublesome. But again, that's how I built my practice the old-fashioned way.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That is such a great tool. Because here's the thing, man. If we are starting off our practice, we are broke. We got all the student loans, we got all this expenses, payroll, you name it. Right? Why would somebody have this arrogance and this feeling about, No, I'm a doctor; i'm not going to do that? I don't understand that. And like you, I did the same thing. I got thrown out of the parking lots. I was putting those flyers in my, on those parking lot cars. I got thrown out, security came in. Hey, you cannot do that. You got to leave right away. So I feel like, hey, listen, man, if you have to clean up your own crap on the floor, you have to do all this stuff yourself, there's no shame in it when you're starting off. And I think as a learning lesson from you, what you just said, you shared, it really resonates with me because we have to put our ego aside at that time and just go for it.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah. No, absolutely. Again, it's, I won't, I wouldn't change anything. Obviously, there's certain investments I wish I got in early, right? Like I'm sure all of us. But as far as.

Dr. Noel Liu:
It's never too late.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah, it's never too late. But as far as just working really hard in the corporate side and doing all that, I wouldn't change anything. No, it's not for everybody. But I had to go through that because then it gave me the kind of like conditioning. Like I went through that, I worked my butt off. I can do the same thing for my office and work my butt off as well. And so again, it's just like doctors, everyone wants to look for a shortcut. And there are shortcuts. There are shortcuts, but there is no shortcut to hard work. The faster you get that through your head, and this is anybody, if you're an associate right now and you feel like there's more, something more for you, you want to open your practice, there is something more. But don't trick yourself into thinking that when you open a practice, you're doing less work. You think like the owner. We're sitting here twiddling our thumbs. We paid our dues. That's the thing. We paid our dues and we took the risks. So I'm telling all these young doctors and even like associates that moved on from my practice, I say, I wish you the best of luck and I want you to do well. I want you to actually use the things that you learned here, because then I did my job. But make no mistake, you're going to work your butt off, and you are going to wonder if you made the right decision, because we all did at one point in time when we opened our practice.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I don't know about you, but I had always had a mind where I was like, Hey, do I want to quit? Always passes your mind. So let's dive into Nifty Thrifty. When did you get this launched and how was it? Like, how long ago? What is it? What is the scenes? You know, the whole thing behind.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah. Since 2017. And I'm going to share something that I know that you feel very passionate about. And that is: Sometimes you have to be in different rooms. You have to be around people who are doing more because they show you what's possible in your life. So sometimes you happen to be in that room. Sometimes you have to pay to be in that room. But again, like if you get in these different rooms, these mentors or these people around you, they will show you what is possible. And for me, I share a story of one of the coaches that I had. She was really instrumental in helping me change the culture of my practice, just teaching that part. Like I knew the dentistry, like I knew how to work hard. I wanted to learn more about the culture of practice so I can better motivate my team because everyone has a different, let's be honest, everyone has different motivations and different levels of ambition, and you have to be able to work with people who are at different levels, whether it's intelligence or motivation or work ethic. You have to work with all these different people. That's what make up your practice. And so she was a coach who helped me deal with that. And remember when we were done, she looked at me and she says, What's next? So what do you mean what's next? I'm going to grow my practice, get it to a certain level, and either sell it and retire and drink pina coladas on the beach. That was just like my goal, everyone's goal, right? Starting out. And she says, No, no, I see that you have more potential than just this. I feel like you have more potential to impact people beyond the four walls of your dental practice. And she planted the seed. And I started thinking. And I was like, maybe there is something to it. And from there, I've always been a person who was really resourceful. I had to be resourceful because that was my upbringing. When you don't have a lot, you have to figure out a way to get more, whether it's like working an extra job, maybe doing some side hustles, figuring out a way, I grew up with four other siblings, being able, getting some attention for your parents, try to. You have to be resourceful. So I've always been a resourceful person and that's how I grew my practice. Right? I've used dental equipment, bartering with other businesses to help me, bartering with the contractor so he can help build out some extra ops for me for dental work, bartering with the local Maelor place so that, doing dental work for her kids so I can get an ad in the local mailer. Like I was always very resourceful and so I was always giving advice to other dentists about sourcing different money and stuff. And so that's literally how Nifty Thrifty got started. People were asking me questions. They were asking me questions. Another Facebook group I had, which is called Dental Garage Sale, they were asking me questions about saving money, and I was like, Let me start this other group. And slowly what happening was vendors started coming to me. They're like, Hey, how do we get some exposure? I was like, maybe we can work out a deal where you win, I win, and the group wins. And literally, I was just doing something. People were like, they get blown away about what I did in the group. But I will tell you guys very simply. Everything that anyone does in business is pretty much a time-tested technique, right? Marketing in the Facebook group is the same if you were joining a Rotary Club and you were networking. It's basically networking. So what I want people to know is that the answers to growing your business has already been established. Someone who wrote a book, Think and Grow Rich, long time ago, okay, long time ago, it still applies. What you have to understand is that you just have to change the environment. The concepts are the same, the environments are different, right? The environments that you do, being just smart in real estate, you also can bring it into cryptocurrency, right? Like the concepts are still there. And if you break the rules, doc this, if you break the rules, that's what you get in trouble. You pay the price, okay? You pay the price for being arrogant, okay? You follow the rules of business, whatever it is, and you're okay. And so literally, that's how Nifty Thrifty. And so from there, I'm a big believer of not being complacent, doing deals and discounts. Okay. Then we move up to let's get some advice in there. Let's move on. I try to level up more. Okay, let me get the message outside of my group. Let's do podcasts. Right? Let's do events. Let's do speaking. And so that's how it happened. Again, like I, one of my books that I wrote, Industry Influencer, because so many people, they asked me like, how do you do what I do? I'm like, it all boils down to figuring out what your genius ability is. So a genius ability is basically a skill that you have that no one else has; other people might have it, but you're really good at; and you just got to figure out: Does your industry need it? Can you make, and you can make money off of it? And that's your genius.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And that's in your book, right?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
That's in my book. Yeah. So for me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
What's it called again?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
I don't have it right here. I actually have my other book, my Nifty Thrifty book right here. But again, like I tell people just I literally lay out the blueprint because everyone has like a special skill. Like, Doc, you have a special skill, you have this special skill, just knowing, just being really, you're very good at all the details and whatnot. You grew this group practice and you've done these investments because you can see that those things, you have this special ability. Everyone has a special. For me, it's being able to network. Right? That's my, I do that naturally. I don't even, and that's why if you figure out what your genius ability is and you figure out a way to build your business around it, you will never feel like you're working. Doc, I'll tell you right now, I probably work more now than I ever did chairside. But it doesn't feel like work to me. It's easy. Like I'll do this all day. I have to sometimes make sure I don't do this around my kids. Like, sometimes I'll get on a call and we'll work out some deal. And my kids are in the car and I'm like, Oh my gosh. And it's so funny because now my son, he now will say, Hey dad, dad was talking about just getting equity in something, like he's using those words because he hears me bring it up so much. I have to, I need to stop. I need to stop doing that. But if you figure out what your genius ability is, you will never feel like you're working. You will feel like you're just having fun. And I'm just blessed to be in that position.

Dr. Noel Liu:
No, that's great man. I think on that note, I think that's a good thing. I personally feel it's a good thing for our kids because now they know what daddy is doing, and I think that's going to give them a really good head start on what they need to do. I feel that's a good thing.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I, my, it's funny as we go through different seasons of life and I don't want to share this with everyone because everyone's always looking for purpose. I think if you find purpose in your life, and not to go down a spiritual path or anything, I can relate this to anything, if you find purpose in your life, then you will always have somewhere to go. And I think like a lot of times when doctors, they get the practice, they're doing good and then they're like looking around, what else? Like, I can go vacation, I can retire, I could do that. But if you have purpose in your life, and for me, purpose has shifted from the what I want to who I want to serve, right? And at the most basic way of putting this. For me, it's I want to keep pushing because I see my kids are watching. And I want them, I want to show them what's possible because I feel like they can do so much more. And so a lot of times when people are searching for purpose, maybe you should shift it from the I want to attain this, I want to achieve this, to the who, which is maybe it's your, maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your wife, maybe it's your community. If you shift it to the who, how are you going to serve these other people, you're always going to have purpose. So anyways, that's something that I'm always.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's a great point to drive home, by the way. It's all about the why and the purpose. And here's my thing on the take on the same note. I always believe that no one is better than anyone, right? We all have different powers. We all have different skill set. And at the end of the day, man, all we got to understand is we are human social creatures. We need to collaborate. Once we collaborate with network, we can tap into the mastermind and create our own mastermind. And that's how I feel we should be going in dentistry rather than competing and beating each other up. You know how it is, right? But collaboration is the key. And that's the new net worth, in my opinion.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah. No, I 100% agree there. I feel like if you have a scarcity mindset, you are missing out so much. You are missing out so much because there's going to be someone, even if they're in the same space, even if they have a practice in their same area. Right? Maybe they're doing the exact same thing. There is so much opportunity out there. There are so many people that need help. And if you just cut yourself off from that relationship, maybe that relationship, and I'll tell you, doc, a lot of times the things that I've gotten fortune that have been really successful for me is just because I just happen to be introduced to somebody. I just happened to meet someone. Someone met again, like a really big, I was a part owner in a dental lab that we just exited, and I happened to make that, I got that introduction through a friend who, he made the introduction and he couldn't do business with this person. But I got introduced to this person. And lo and behold, we got into this business venture. Right? So again, you never know who you're going to meet. You never know. The guy that's picking you up, the Uber guy could just mention something and give you an idea. Like everyone, and that's why I believe what you just said there that everyone has, if you go through life realizing that everyone has a purpose and a value, you're going to get so much opportunity. The second that you feel like, just like what you said earlier, the second you feel like you're better than people, that's where the opportunities dry up. That's where the learning stops. Anybody, any from the guy that is bringing you your food, the person who's checking out, everyone, you can learn something from everyone. I truly believe that. In fact, I learn all the time from people; listening to them, interacting with them. You have that mindset, you're going to get so much info.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And that's what it is, because you are so aware of the opportunities, because you're aware of it. A lot of people say you got to be at the right place at the right time, but I believe that you got to be at the right place at the right time and also be aware. Because if you're not aware, you could be at the right place at the right time all day long. But you're never going to take action.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Oh, yeah. No, I mean absolutely. Absolutely. Again like you can find lessons in everything. I'm a big sports person. So I always look at lessons when it comes to sports and how things happen. And again, yeah, being at the right place at the right time. But also sometimes you're not at the right place unless you're working hard.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Exactly.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
And sometimes people don't want to, I wouldn't say not talk to you because I think for the longest time I was I grew up with very little. So I always had a chip on my shoulder. I was like, I always had to prove things. But I think what I changed my mindset is, no, it's not because people don't see your worth, right? They just don't notice you yet. And it's up to you to try to get to another level for them to say, Oh my gosh. And so for me, for the longest time, Oh, this guy blew me off or whatever. And it's not that. They're so busy. They're so busy. There's so many things going their way. But if you're working really hard and you build something, then all of a sudden people will notice you, right? So it goes back to all those things come into play. But there's no shortcuts. Tom Brady just actually just had his retirement ceremony. And his, one thing that he kept on, that he got his jersey retired by the Patriots. And in his speech he says: No shortcuts. He kept on saying that: No shortcuts. And you got to put hard work in there. And yes, there is some shortcuts, but there's no shortcut to hard work, no matter what.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Don't you agree with all the sport greats and all like guys like Kobe, Jordan, Brady? Everybody has the same work ethic. You got to put in the reps, you got to put in the reps.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Again, those guys are like all-time greats and amazing people. And even when they say that, right, these guys are just God-gifted. They have everything. You probably thinking like, Oh, Brady's, he's a tall guy and he has a good arm and everything, but I like using him and Kobe. In fact, I actually have, they're like, in my office here, I actually have a painting, a picture of Kobe, of Brady, and Jordan up there as well with some sayings, because yes, they're amazing people, but they had to work so hard. If you guys, again, like I already mentioned, if you're like a good person, you have an abundance mindset, you're willing to help people, you're willing to work hard, you do those three things, you do those four things, success is going to come. You don't have to, of course, it's helpful if you get more knowledge, read more books, but if you just do that, success will come.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love it. So what's next step for you?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Next step is something exciting about is again, I'm trying to surround myself by people who, you know, such as yourself, such as Dr. Gianni Montanucci, all these different people who are just amazing investors, who are just, who surround themselves with a great network. So for me, honestly, what started, I'm actually co-hosting a conference that actually you're going to be at, that you're going to be at; that passive investing for dentist conference. And actually, what happened, i'll tell you the story behind that. The story behind that was I reached out to Dr. Gianni. I was like, Hey, I just, can you like give me some resources? I just want to learn more. I just want to learn more. I don't want to become like a real estate professional. Like I don't have time for it right now. I just want to learn more. Can you just connect me? And he mentioned you and a few other Facebook groups, and I was like, I just want to be around good people who are like, they just want to share and they want to share in like the deals that they're doing. Like, I'm not looking for someone who just wants to sign me up for their mastermind or whatnot. I want to see if they want to share that. So he was like, Let's do a meetup. Let's get like ten people. I'll bring some people in my network and you bring some dentists, and let's just have them meet up in Dallas. That's what it started off with. Then what happened was people are like, Can I come to this meetup? Can I come? And we're like, Okay, fine, we're gonna have to do like a little event. 50 people. So then more people start to get invited. And now he was, Gianni was like, Glenn, more people want to show up.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You guys are sold out.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah, so we sold out. So then basically what we did was we, I had to scramble around, find another venue last minute.

Dr. Noel Liu:
No way. You guys are actually finding another venue, like a bigger size?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
And so now, so now we're going to do 100. And I told Gianni I was like, There's no way I'm going to get anything bigger than this. So right now we have 30 seats available and that's it. Like I can't do anything about it. But what started was we were just going to meet up and I just want to learn more. And now a bunch of people want to come together and learn more, and I'm excited. You're going to be there with a panel with a few other amazing.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I'm excited, I'm excited. When is this? August 16th, right?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
August 16th. It's in Dallas. It's in the town outside of Dallas called The Colony, which is an amazing area. And again, like we literally, we had to find another venue, we found it here, to get more people. But for me, it's all about just learning more and leveling up and just getting surrounded by other people like yourself who have an abundance mindset. Because I just want to get better. I just want to learn more. And what I'm hoping is.

Dr. Noel Liu:
There's very few of us out there. I'm not joking. You know how it is. When you look around. It's hard to find like-minded people.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
And that's the thing, and that's the thing. And we're so excited about this because I want to learn more when it comes to this. Because if you look at, I'll be honest with you guys, if you look at the amazing entrepreneurs out there, even some of the athletes I just brought up. Learning never stopped for them. They were good at making money in a certain way, but they wouldn't have learned other things. And that's really the, I'm not saying that I'm going to become a real estate professional, but I do want to know what's out there because I see all these other high-level people benefiting from these things. And again, you have to work with the people that have been there, like yourself and Dr. ... and all these other guys who are willing to share that knowledge. Because look, at the end of the day, you start as a dental professional too. You are giving back to your alma mater and helping all these people out. Again, guys, for me, I'm looking at you. And I'm like, I want to get, how did he do that? But at some point, you started where I was and that's what it's all about, right?

Dr. Noel Liu:
I learned this from Tony Robbins. The secret in living is giving. And that's one thing I've noticed. Like, ever since we pledged that amount and ever since we did a lot of the other stuff that we do on the side, the business automatically just gets better. It's crazy karma. Like people just say, Hey, how are you doing it? You don't have to do it. It's just, it just happens without getting too spiritual, right?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
No, I love it. It's just. And I will tell you, as someone who has saw what you did, it's inspiring to me. It's inspiring to me because it's when you give like that and when you're willing to help others, you don't know who it touches. And for me, I was like, Wow, that's amazing. Like I, and when you give like that, it ends up helping more people.

Dr. Noel Liu:
More impact, more people. And I wish everybody did at a grassroot level. And this way then, you know what the school doesn't need to borrow money from Delta Dental.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So yeah. Glenn, hey, it was amazing conversation. So two things here. I just want to ask you, what does success mean to you and how would you define family?

Dr. Glenn Vo:
What's funny is that defining success, I want to say, the majority of my adult life I've tried to search for that definition, right? And early in my career, I thought it was a dollar amount. I thought it was a maybe amount of material things. Maybe I thought it was also the ability to do stuff for other people in my family, what I could give them. But what I realized as I've gotten older and gotten mature and lived life a little bit more is success to me, is the ability to spend time with the people I love without restriction. And what I mean by that is that's my family, the people that I love working with, without restriction. And literally that goes to freedom. That goes to freedom. I think at the end of the day, when people are searching for the things that they think they want, like I want X amount in my bank account, I want this, I want that, what they're really asking for is the freedom of it. And so for me, it's the, but not just, freedom for me is the ability to spend time with the people I love. I've gotten there. I'm looking for deeper levels of that. I'm lucky enough to be able to pick up my kids every day from school, take them to their activities, have a schedule that's flexible enough for that, and also do good and fulfill myself as well. Spending time with the people I love without restriction. And there's different levels of that. I'm just trying to get to the deeper, that's like the Zen state to get to the deepest level of that. Again, people I love is is not just my family, but people that I like to work with, I like to mentor, that are like family to me. That's what success. And of course, family is something that's more, that's goes beyond just your blood family. I think we all can agree that sometimes our blood family probably doesn't treat us the best sometimes. So family for me is the people that touch you on a deeper emotional and spiritual level. I have people who are not my blood family, but I consider family members, mentors who I feel like consider they're my, big brothers, big sisters. And so that's what it is. So again, like family is not limited to just blood, but it is the people who affect you on a positive way, spiritually.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love it. Great. All right, my man. I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us here. It was great insight.

Dr. Glenn Vo:
Thank you so much for having me on. And for those who reach out to me anytime, I'm easy to find on social media, LinkedIn, Facebook's best way. Happy to talk to everyone. Again, that's how I run my business, run my life by connecting with more people. So if you have any questions or anything, let me be of service to you. Reach out to me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love it. This is Dr. Glenn Vo. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to land a plane. And if you guys have any questions, we're going to put a link below. He is not hard to find. He is everywhere and definitely Nifty Thrifty. If you guys have not heard of it, I don't know where you've been living, but definitely look it up and be a member. Join. He is a great resource. So with that being said, make sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you guys on the other episode, and for now, have a good one.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDs.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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About Dr. Glenn Vo:

Dr. Glenn Vo is a practicing dentist, best-selling author, dental entrepreneur, and karaoke enthusiast. He is the creator of Nifty Thrifty Dentists, a social media platform that reaches over 54k dental professionals on Facebook and 23k subscribers on YouTube. Additionally, he founded Dental Lifestyles Magazine, a quarterly publication for dental professionals across the US. Dr. Vo is a USA Today Best Selling Author with his debut novel “2612 Cherryhill Lane” and a Wall Street Journal Best Selling Author with his business book “Industry Influencer.”

Dr. Vo coaches professionals nationwide, helping them become thought leaders in their industry. He is also the owner of Denton Smiles Dentistry, a large group practice serving the Greater Denton Area since 2009. Through Nifty Thrifty Dentists and Dental Lifestyles Magazine, he supports dental professionals in advancing their careers and helps dental companies grow by increasing brand awareness within their networks.

Dr. Glenn Vo lectures across the country on dental overhead management and social media strategies for dental corporations. In his personal life, he continues to combat tooth decay and gingivitis in his practice while serving as an Uber driver for his kids and a trophy husband to his wife, Susan.

Things You’ll Learn:

  • Resourcefulness can help grow a successful practice and achieve financial freedom.
  • Finding purpose in life and career shifts focus from personal achievements to serving others.
  • Collaboration and an abundance mindset open up more opportunities than competition.
  • Challenging situations help develop skills and qualities necessary for professional success.
  • Giving back to one’s community and alma mater fosters personal growth and success.
  • Success goes beyond material possessions and includes spending time with loved ones and mentors.

Resources:

  • Connect with and follow Dr. Glenn on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
  • Learn more about Nifty Thrifty on LinkedIn and their website.
  • Discover more about Dr. Glenn Vo on his personal website.
  • Buy the Nifty Thrifty Dentists book by Dr. Glenn Vo here.
  • Get a copy of Industry Influencer by Dr. Glenn Vo here.
Categories
Podcast Uncategorized

Exploring Cutting-Edge Digital Techniques in Dentistry

XCell Dental Implants

Summary:

Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast!

This new show will bring you conversations with the brightest minds in the Dental and Business Communities. Hosted by Dr. Noel Liu, this show will dive deep into practical tips to grow your business. Many entrepreneurs wished they had a guidebook or someone to help them understand how to grow their businesses, Well you’re in luck because this show will be exactly that!

Tune in twice a month and unleash your full potential!

Secure Dental -Jonathan Abenaim: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental -Jonathan Abenaim: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of our Secure Dental podcast, where we bring in many bright talents from our dental industry. Today, we have a very, very special treat. I got this gentleman here, this guy has been like my lifesaver in full-arch so, but before we get started, I would like to shout out to our sponsor. DentVia is a dental virtual administration company that helps our front desk staff supercharge them with back-end calls and back-end tasks, so definitely visit them at DentVia.com again. That's D E N T V I A .com. Now without further ado, I got Dr. Jonathan here. He's a world-renowned double-board certified implantologist and has revolutionized the dental implant experience with the XCell Implant Process. With over a decade of experience in full mouth rehab, Dr. Jonathan has harnessed the latest digital dental technology to offer faster, more predictable, and superior quality service. From his state-of-the-art office, Dr. Jonathan, the brains behind the XCell Implant Process. Welcome.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So, doc, how did you get started with dentistry? Let's go back in dental school.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
So it's actually quite interesting. You know, a lot of people, they go into these fields because they have some sort of experience when they were young, you know, say, they say maybe you go to the army, you go to the police, you become a police officer, maybe because you were bullied or something. I would think maybe you become an MD because, you know, you had somebody in your family maybe was sick, or you had some experience at the doctor that decided that you wanted to do something about medicine. And if you were a dentist, maybe you got hit by a car, or you had some crazy dental experience that made you love it. But to be honest with you, I've never had a cavity in my life. I went to pediatric dentist my whole life and just had cleanings. Never really had the only. My biggest dental experience was at the oral surgeon to have my wisdom teeth taken out like every other 17 to 18-year-old kid. And I decided I'm going to go to do dentistry because I like people. But before dentistry, I thought I was going to be a computer science major. And then I realized, I really like people. I like technology, but I really like people also. And there was nothing in technology 20 years ago when I became a dentist. I mean, the biggest thing was a ... Dent, you know, like that was like, wow, that was huge. And maybe Dentrix had come out and we can actually not have to write our full charts, like you said, like hybrid charts, right? But I said, I'm going to be a pediatric dentist because that's what I know about dentistry and an externship of pediatric dentistry in dental school. And I swore to myself that I don't want to sing the wheels on the bus go round and round for the rest of my life every single day. So, I really looked into more things in dentistry, and I couldn't find anything that I loved more than the other because I just loved everything, and that led me to where I am. And people ask me, like, how did you do this? And I said, you know, I went back 20 years ago. We had this class in dental school that said to us, write down your mission statement. Write your mission statement about why you want to become a dentist and what is your business going to look like, and what's your practice going to look like. And I read it till today, I found it, and I read it till today, and the major topic was, or the major theme was change the brand of dentistry. Because I was so tired of hearing, no offense doc, we really don't like you. And that's like the most offensive thing because if you're a dentist, right? And you really care about your profession? You know how much we think about it, how much we dedicate our life to make the patient experience the best? I mean, listen, I'm not the one that makes the Septocaine taste really bad. I just buy it. I mean, I'm sorry, anesthesia tastes bad, and I wish somebody I'm not smart enough to make it taste good. So, like I really said, you know what? When I started doing full arches, I said, there is no way I'm going to be taking these Oprah tray impressions, cutting up these Invisalign trays, ordering a custom tray, hoping that I find those holes before the PVS or the Polyether sets, and do this again. And then when I take it out and send it to the lab, the lab either loses my impression or they mess up on the pour, and then I got to redo the whole thing again. And I was so tired of apologizing to my patients for things I didn't do, and that drove me nuts. On the other side, I felt kind of a hypocrite when I put in a beautiful restoration and I didn't make it. It was only my lab technician, and I'm like, yeah, I'm great, take a look. It's like when doctors show their case, and they show the before and the after. I'm like the before, your staff probably took the picture, and the after, your lab technician did. So what did you really do? You cut the tooth a bit. You took an impression. I mean, it's kind of hypocritical, and I was like, wow. And I don't have a problem with those before and afters, but like, if you didn't do it, tag your lab. The guy or the gal worked really, really hard, tag them. You know, give them the give them the credit. Don't take it off.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love the statement.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
It's like, it's crazy. So, as you guys know, like I'm the surgeon, I'm the restorative dentist, and I'm the lab technician. I'm the guy that runs the mill. I'm the guy that centers it. I'm the guy that does a lot of it, and if not all of it, and I don't know, I guess I sleep better at night.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, that's an excellent statement because, you know, a lot of these before and after, and I think you're the only person who called out that shot. So I love it, man, I love it. So after graduation, did you guys go right to, you know, your own practice? Did you work in an associate? What was the process like for you?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
So, like I told you, I had nothing that I wanted to only do. So, my dream was always be to be a periodontist and a prosthodontist. And I applied to Perio Pros at Penn, where I went to undergrad, and they accepted two people, and I was one of them that they accepted. And they had changed the dean, and I was the year that all graduate funding was gone. So I went to Penn, I wouldn't have a scholarship, I paid for four years of dental school and Perio Pros is another four years. And I said to myself, oh my God, if I go for another four years of Perio Pros, even though I was recruited from the day that I started to do this, I said, My God, I'm going to finish with half-a-million dollars in debt then, which is almost a million today, probably.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Easy.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
And I said, I can't do that. I tried to speak to the dean. It was a new dean from Harvard. She said to me, oh, you want a scholarship? No problem. Just dedicate seven more years of your life after school here. I'm like four years of dental school, four years a Perio Pros, and seven years of academic teaching. I'm not going to do this. So I started looking for other programs, and Florida was the first and only Pros program in the country that allowed Prosthodontists to place implants. Now, they have to place implants, all pros residencies, to be able to graduate, but it was the first one, and they offered me a full scholarship. I got to school, and the implant director was fired. The director was fired, and my scholarship vanished. So I said, well, I'm not gonna leave Penn to come to this school. I'm going to say, what? Not even. And I stayed there for six months. I was married, I had a kid, and I said, I'm out of here. I went, and I did a part-time implant residency with Dr. Miller at the Atlantic Coast Dental Research Clinic. I did that for about a year, and that was really like it was so little. You know, people think they take maxi courses, and they're going to be implantologists. I mean, you got to practice. So, once I left there, I was working in Florida. I worked for 7 or 8, what you guys call DSOs today or DMOs. And I got fired seven times, and I got fired seven times because my dentistry was bad, was because I didn't want to do bad dentistry. And I'll never forget, on the last day of my job, the head of the DSO said to me, Jonathan, just shut the f up and do what I tell you to do. And I said to him, I'm really sorry, but I worked really hard for my license, and I'm not going to use some lab technician who does this in his garage, and I don't know what the hell they're doing or how they're coming. And it's, I'm not proud to put this in people's mouth. And a high-end lab for a DSO, then was Glidewell like, they're like, you cannot use Glidewell, it's too expensive. And that was $99 then. And I said, this is enough. And it was two years after dental school. I probably had like $30 to my name, maybe, plus my dental school debt and everything. And I was like, I told my wife, I said, I don't understand. I went to the best school in the world, I have nothing, I have all of this skill that I learned and I can't do it. And we decided to one day I decided to open The New York Times, which is that's how you found a job. And I found a practice in New York, New Jersey, actually, and I said, let's go. I bought it sight unseen. I lost 40% of the practice within the first three months.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Why was that?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Nobody likes to do nice dentistry. They like when you buy a practice from a dentist who just patched everything or just watched everything, and then you come in and do digital X-rays, redo the office, redo everything, and start telling, diagnosing novice dentistry people that just want you to diagnose what their insurance covers, they don't like it. And when you don't have the communication skills, especially when you come out as a dentist, you think that you're talking to teeth. You need to talk to people.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Wow, that's huge, man. That's huge. This thing, what you just said, I think that's going to help so many people.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah, like when you come out, you're trained by people that can't do most of the time most of the dental professors, unless they're passing through or doing this for fun because they're already been successful. Most of them are just there because they're stuck there, and they don't teach you how to talk to people, or you're just so busy in dental school, you don't learn how to talk to people, and you talk to teeth, and you start saying, well, you know, the occlusion and the curve of Spee and the curve of Wilson and the non-balancing occlusion and the non-balancing contacts and the protrusive movement. And patients are saying, well, what do you even say? And you know my big thing is when I talk to other people and other professions they start to talk to me about this. And I say, listen, man, I'm a dentist. I don't know anything else. Explain it to me again, because if you want my money, I better understand it. And if I don't understand it, you're not getting it. And they get very frustrated. People get very frustrated in other industries because, like, what do you mean you're so difficult? I'm like, you tell me, why does my HVAC need to be replaced? If it's working, tell me why, and I'm having my HVAC replaced right now in my office. Why? And people think that, you know, they start saying heat transducer and the blower and the and I'm like, I don't know what any of that means. Like, explain it to me. And we do this same thing every single day. Like, you do not have to read your consent form to the patient. You need to talk to them as if they were your brother, they or your sister. They were your mother; they were your father. And talk to them like a human being, that's all people want. It's the most vulnerable thing to sit in a chair. You know, they're not sitting in a chair like this. They're sitting in a chair like this, and it's so vulnerable, and you're just like you expect them to say yes to you. And getting back to I lost 30% to 40% of my practice that I purchased, and the history was from there. Like they say, you know, before something great happens, everything has to fall apart.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Would you say that was like your bottom part of your life? Like, you know, you lost everything you married?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Not the part I didn't care about the patients. Really, the biggest thing of my life was my dream was to be a Florida dentist. I came from Canada. It was freezing. I want to live in the sun, right? And that was my dream to do cosmetic dentistry in Miami, Florida. And I had all of this skill and I worked so hard to be the best at what I thought I was, and nobody gave me the opportunity. I was just another associate. What was nice about being associate is that I used to come in with my coffee, my newspaper, and my bag, and everybody was happy to see me as opposed to today, not my staff, but I'm assuming a lot of people, they come in, everybody runs away, oh shit, the boss is here. It's a different mindset, and associates, they don't get it. You know, when you're an associate, you're living by today, and that's one of the problems that associates have. They say like, well, how much am I going to make today? And dentistry is not a sprint; it's a marathon. And there's going to be days where you're not going to make any money, and there's going to be days that you're going to lose money. You may have to write a refund check. You may have to redo something at your own cost. That's just the business that you're in. But if you understand that you build relationships with people, it's like, you know, when I first started, I wrote a book. It's called The Trust Factor about building trust with people. And I used to teach about all of these ways to talk to people in the hygiene room, how to build trust with your treatment plan. And, you know, today, like almost 20 years into this, I really don't have to do that as much because my patients know me. I did that 15 years ago. So, if you're a young dentist and you're an associate, use that opportunity not to make as much money as possible. Use that opportunity to hone your skills. And when I talk about hone your skills is not only your skills, just like communication-wise, try what works, learn about what works. Learn about nonverbal communication with people. But more importantly, like how do you become a full-arch dentist? If that's what you want to do, take out a shit ton of teeth. Give out bone grafts for really cheap, so you'll learn how to pack bone. You learn how to manipulate flaps. You learn how to do multiple different types of sutures. Because I can tell you when you see full-arch dentists and they show you their flap wide open and they have all of those implants put in, that is the easiest part of the procedure. The hardest part is how are you going to put it back together so that it looks good and it stays good. And I always tell my team, I'm like, this is the most important part, how we put everything back together. It's doing a screw, dude. Anybody could do that. It's it's a bit like one of the guys I used to go to dental school said, it's a post and core. It's a huge post and core; it's not that hard. But to put everything back together, to manipulate the tissue so that it has tension in certain areas and no tension in other areas, and it stays where you want it to stay, and it thickens where you want it to thicken, that is everything about full-arch dentistry. Because you can see people that are doing full-arch dentistry, you look at their cases, the tissue is gone, completely gone like six months, eight years. And that's why when I show my post-ops, I don't care about the X-ray. The X-ray is for dentists that treat teeth when I post ..., like look at my tissue. That is everything. If the tissues stay, that means I designed my prosthesis correctly. I educated my patient correctly on hygiene. I maintained them correctly. My occlusion is correct. All of this stuff that everything comes into it. And really, I would say that probably like real implant dentistry. And when I say, by real implant dentistry is not oral surgery, implant dentistry, periodontics, implant dentistry, general dentistry, implant dentistry, but a real implantologist, implant dentistry that involves surgery, restorative dentistry, and lab, that is probably the hardest thing in all of dentistry. So yes, the money is fun. Like I want to do what you do. Hell yeah. I also want to go to the marathon, to the Ironman and wait at the finish line and cross with you, but that's not the way it works, man. You got to really, really study your craft. And if you don't study your craft, you're never going to be great. You're going to get burned. And that's what happens, people get burned. And it's not fair because there's a lot of money involved.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You know, you're so true about the money involved because people actually putting their house, they like taking out like HELOCs from their houses, right, and their homes where they live, and they're trying to get this procedure done. If you are like one of those weekend warriors, I mean, you got to understand there are limitations. And I love the fact that you are like, hone onto your skills.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah, you know, we talk so poorly about our dentist friends that go and take a course on the weekend. I mean, when else do you want them to take it? The weekend is when they're not treating their patients. It's when they're able to like, breathe. But I think we can worry, or is probably, we're referring to somebody who went Friday and Saturday and then decided he's an expert.

Dr. Noel Liu:
No, that's exactly what I meant, you know?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
And it's important for us to say that because, like, what else do you want me to take a course? MDs also take courses on weekends, you know.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey, I did all the weekends. You know, I did, like, several weekends, right? And nothing wrong with that, but I never called myself an expert till I did not put in the hours and the years.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Amen.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I love into getting that craft like, you know, like perfected. So you went from your office. So, let's dive into your XCell process, man. I mean, I love this stuff here. Yeah, I've been using it for about a year. I'm sold. I mean, I try so many different systems out there. I mean, this is, like, no joke. I even had, like, my lab guy coming out do photogrammetry for me. But ever since I started using your product, photogrammetry is out of the window. So let's talk a little bit about that. So, how did you get started with this?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Oh, man, like I mentioned before, when I was doing full-arch dentistry, I was doing it like everybody else. Take the teeth out, place the implants, do a denture conversion, grind the shit out of the denture, trying to make it fit. Patient always ended up like this, then patient goes home. After that grueling 16-hour surgery, comes back, you got to take everything off. Hopefully, it didn't fail and then start all over again. Start taking all the records and the bite rims and the wax and the this. And I said to myself, If I'm going to scale this, this process is not scalable. It's impossible. Like imagine I did I, you know, I, 20, 30 arches a month like that, like okay, the surgery you can do, but how are you going to restore it? You know, and I think that implant dentistry hasn't changed. Before I started pushing this whole digital thing, which I believe I was really the first one that ever did this. And I'll tell you about this in a second, but implant dentistry didn't change because it was controlled by surgeons, and surgeons just placed the implants, gave them the immediate denture, and it was someone else's problem. All of the funds were usually eaten up by the surgery, and the restorative dentist, which was usually the general dentist or the prosthodontist, had to, like, deal with whatever money small money was left for the patient to restore them, and it was a loss leader. The lab bills were good. Hybrid was anywhere between $7500 to $12,000. That's what it cost. And I would say 2008, 2009, that's what you had to pay. The components were crazy. Gold was crazy, zirconia wasn't as nice, and if you did use zirconia, you had to use it as a substructure. And then the guy had to layer the whole thing. And then everything broke two years later, and it was just like, this is not fun. Like, I'm just going to do scaling and root planing a single crown with my CEREC, and I'm going to call it a day. I don't need the stress in my life, but I loved it. I loved doing it. So I said to myself, enough; I need to figure this out. And I literally deep-dove into digital dentistry. And I think that when the trios came out, trios three, and when the Roland machine started to become actually affordable, not 50, but Roland 51 became available, it was actually financially feasible for us to actually do something like this. The problem is in 2015, 2016, when I started inquiring about this stuff, everybody said to me, no, it doesn't work. And I said to myself, we do full arch of teeth with a scanner. Why doesn't it work with implants? And the literature continuously, even to today, or even the people that have photogrammetry, will say it is not possible. And I just take out the thousands of X-rays that I have, and I show it to them, and I show them the post-ops, and it is possible. And in 2024, like, I don't need to do that anymore. But in 2016, 2015, when I started to teach this, everybody said, I've doctored my X-rays. I lied about the cases. It wasn't true, and it was just like as I started amassing the cases, people started saying, whoa. So the first thing I started doing was, how am I going to acquire the data correctly? It wasn't even about manufacturing or designing yet, so I needed to master how do I acquire it, and I started studying what was wrong with the internal scanner and to today, what's wrong with the neuro scanner? So I solve that problem. Then I went into the manufacturing because I wasn't really interested in design, and design was like just I felt like it was root canals. If you don't do it every single day, you don't spend the time. And it was too cheap to outsource even to today. It's just so cheap to outsource it. So, I started doing manufacturing because manufacturing was the bottleneck that stopped me. When you send it to the lab, they used to say to you, it's going to be ready in two weeks. And when I started visiting labs, I'd never been inside a lab. And what you realize that happens in the lab is they have these little bins and they're stacked up one next to each other and say one, today is Friday, and the due date is Sunday. It's been sitting there for about 12 days, and they work on it on the last two days. And I said, well, why are you making me wait two weeks? Why can't I just schedule it correctly? Because it really only takes you two days to do it, because I used to think that they worked on my case for two weeks straight and I'm like, how are they making any money? Two weeks of charging me $100 a crown doesn't make any sense. And then I started realizing how labs are. They don't have a good management system. That's why it takes them two weeks to do it, especially smaller labs. So, I started looking into manufacturing. I said, well, if I can buy a mill, because when I started, the mills used to cost half $1 million, and they were massive, probably the size of this office that I'm sitting in today. Most dental offices don't have room. Most dental offices, I would assume, are I haven't been in a lot of dental offices, but probably 1000 to 1200 square feet. I would say an average dental office, right? If you're like in middle of nowhere, real estate is free. You can have a million. You know, if you're in Manhattan, you like you work like this, right, right? Anyhow, so I started getting into manufacturing. That was pretty eye opening because I thought I had a CEREC and I knew how to manufacture, which is not true. So, I really started studying this. And manufacturing and milling is really something that it's a craft. It's an art. Just last night, we figured something else out to make the workflow even easier for people. And this is, like I told you before, we got on air yesterday was like massive eye-opening, like so many breakthroughs that came through in milling, design, acquisition, like crazy stuff that I'm going to be showing in August at Full Arch Raw, that it was like, wow, I can't believe I'm doing it the other way this whole time. And I know if I didn't figure out, nobody's figuring it out because I work with people all the time and they have no idea to this day, everybody's just like taking little pieces, and they're not weekend warriors. You know what? They are social media warriors. They look on the internet, they see a picture, they see a video, and they think they know it. I told somebody, you need to come to my course in August. He said, oh, I'm really busy. I have this, I have that, and meantime does not a mill does not acquire, does nothing. He goes, well, in the meantime, I'll just be looking at the stuff you pump out on social media. I'm like, dude, this stuff I show on social media is not even less than 1% of what I'm doing, and it's done for a reason. Why would I show you everything? It's bad for business anyhow. So I started doing manufacturing, and we cracked that code, and just lately, I started doing designing to crack that code. And when I say when I crack that code, it's not about learning how to do it. It's learning about how to do it efficiently. Because, you know, at the end of the day, I'd rather be doing podcasts with you. I'd rather be on Google. I'd rather be on playing basketball with my son. I'd rather be swimming. I'd rather be doing something else other than standing in front of a computer doing this. But if I can do it really, really quickly and really, really efficiently and really, really well, why wouldn't I take that on?

Dr. Noel Liu:
Exactly. So your manufacturing, what made you start with that, man? I mean, like a lot of dentists, they'll be like, hey, I can just give it to my lab, or I can just order it from here. What was the thought process behind you with saying, hey, I want to manufacture this thing here, and I don't want a third party doing it?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
I would say that I don't know if the word paranoid is, but I always I have this fear that one day everything's going to be taken away. And I feel that if I'm not prepared for disaster, disaster will eat me alive. In my career, I've had a lot of disasters to the point where I almost lost my whole career, when I injured my arm, where I defied all odds, and I wasn't supposed to operate for six months to a year. I was operating in three weeks because I took my health and my own hands. And in terms of manufacturing, specifically, when COVID hit, and I had 90 days where I could not produce a dollar in my practice, yet I had all of these full arches that I had started that were time to be restored. Now, okay, if I have 20 arches that need to be restored, okay, 20 arches that say $5,000 an arch, do the math. It's 100K, right? Yeah, it's 100K, and that's each month. That's $300,000 that I would have had to come up with out of my operating account when the practice is not making any money to restore these patients. And if I hadn't set up myself to be able to manufacture this on my own with my own time, which all I had was time during COVID, who knows if I would still be open? Who knows if I would have the savings that I have? Who knows if I would have had what I had? Who knows? Because dentistry is almost like a restaurant business. If you don't plan correctly, you could be done in a month if you don't have the reserves to be able to be there. And in full-arch dentistry, it's not like general dentistry where you okay, you'll just keep cranking the single crowns. You could have a CEREC; you could outsource the crown to China for like, I don't know, 20 bucks, 10 bucks and still survive. But when you're in full-arch game, there's no laboratory that's not going to do this for like less than $3,000 that you would be proud of putting this in the mouth, right? An average $5000, a good one, $10,000. Like that's just what it costs now, you have no income, and you owe these people these restorations, and that money is gone. What are you doing? So I felt that that was the first thing. And the other thing is that I really enjoy it. Like I told you in the beginning, I was like, I felt like a hypocrite when I put it into people's mouths, and it wasn't me that did it, because the patients don't know that there's a lab technician behind it. They're like when they think the lab, they think it's a room in your office. They don't, they think it's all you. And when they said, oh my God, Dr. John, you did such a good job. They never say that when they look at the X-rays of my implants, where they look at the margins of my crowns, because that's really what means we did a good job. Our impression was right, our placement was correct, but then we'll look at the thickness of our tissue. They don't look at the occlusion. They don't know any of this stuff. They just look at the aesthetics of the teeth. And I never did that; it's hypocritical on a daily basis. So again, my dream was always to work with the lab technician in my office, but we just don't speak the same language. Dentists and lab technicians don't speak the same language on a general basis. They just don't. There's like this massive animosity, the technicians taking too much from the dentist. The dentist is making too much compared to the lab. And it's this constant battle. And I tried, man. I tried for years to get people to work. I've had in-house lab technicians. I've had conversations with labs. They're not bad people. We just speak two completely different languages, and we're doing the exact same thing. So, for me, I just felt like it wasn't going to be successful. So I needed to figure out to do that. And I'm also very impatient. Like if I put in a prototype on Monday, I want to finish the case on Thursday. I don't want to think about it anymore. I finish the case. On to the next one, on to the next one, on to the next one. And that's the freedom that this gives me. I like, I love freedom, I hate owing anybody money. I hate having to rely on somebody else. And there's so many things we have to rely on as it is in a dental office. The less I have to rely, the better it is for me. That's awesome.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So what's next for you and your XCell products? I'm always looking forward, like, what's coming up.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
The two latest things that we came out with is I redesigned the scan body. You know, I was the first one to ever invent and patent a cup specific scan body. You know, scan body is one of the biggest errors that Intraoral scans has is that the scan body isn't picked up correctly. So with my teeth's caps, they will always be picked up, and the triangles will always be perfect. So we came up with the scan body. When I originally made it, I put a really small head on top to be able to temporize very easily, but we found in some cases that if you scan too fast because it's so small, the scanner doesn't pick it up as sharp. So what we did was we changed the head to be our beloved scan body, which was my original scan body. It still has a different cuff heights. It has different colors. I've also invented something called the Power Tax screw that allows you to I love those reference your bite reference your pre-op and post-op. We made it in two pieces. You can even use the power screw if you buy the one piece. As a bone generation guide to be able to let you to take a bone out, it's the only bone tacking screw that is multidirectional that you don't have to screw it in, like with a Phillips head, and go straight through. It has my Powerball head on top, so you can change the angle to 30 degrees. So if the patient is back there and you can't get your instrument back, you can still angle it and be able to get it in. So imagine going like this to the side of the head. And not having to put the screw through the patient's cheek. And that's really it. We have Powerwall 2.0, which, surprisingly, a lot of people haven't jumped on. I think it's just a really better screw. I have no, 1.0 is amazing.

Dr. Noel Liu:
What's the difference with a 1.0 and 2.0?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah. So the difference between 1.0 and 2.0 is that the screw is exactly the same. The difference is the shaft on the inside has one extra feature. You know, as our world is going to hell is on fire, as I call it, money is getting very, very tight. And you know that it's getting tight and in full-arch dentistry, because what's happening is the companies are investing so much money in what we call these resin materials to be able to print in-house, be able to generate this in-house. And really, that's really led by people not having enough money to pay for full arches. And dentists, I need to figure because they don't know how to mill, because they don't know how to layer porcelain, they know how to do composite. So if they can buy a printer for $10,000 and they can use a resin that's as strong as enamel, if not stronger, then it should make sense, and I should start to use it. The problem is, is that how do they hold these things in? And if you use a tie based on any printed or PMMa material, it just doesn't work. It will dibond it will break less on resin wear more on PMMa, but when it does dibond, the restoration is cooked. So what we found was these restorations innately resin more than PMMa, because again, PMMa you still got a mill, but more people are using resins innately. These resins, they're flexible. It's just the way they are. They're very, very, very flexible. And what happens is when the patient actually occludes on these, the restoration microscopically goes like this. And when the restoration microscopically goes like this, your screw goes like that. And then you're more likely to have screw loosening with any screw. Now you'll have the least amount of screw loosening with my screw. So what we've done is we've created this extra screw-loosening feature that you can use if you want. And the way that you would want to use it is if you actually talk Powerball 2.0 to 20 Newton centimeters, it acts exactly like Powerball 1.0. It uses the Powerball head to clamp down the restoration and hold everything down. Now, if you have a restoration that you're like, I know this guy isn't going to be in a long-term temp, or I know this guy's in zirconia, and he's really grinding, and he's more likely to screw loosening. The second you go to 25, the screw just goes just slightly deeper into the seat. It engages a very, very small five-degree cone to allow it to have that extra screw-loosening feature, and that's really the difference.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So it could go up to 25.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yes. These are the Powerball 2.0. I talked to 25 all the time because I want that extra feature.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And that's not available in 1.0.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
No, because it's not part of the 1.0 body. The 1.0 body is just, is a parallel shaft. And the reason it's a parallel shaft is because all of the forces, instead of going to the thread, it will go to the thicker part of the Powerball, which is right under the head of the Powerball. And you'll see when Powerball screw breaks, it never breaks deep down, like all other abutment screws which can never get out, it will break right at the top so that you can actually use an explorer and just turn it out. You can see it. It's designed that way. A lot of people don't know. They're like, oh, I buy the Powerball screw. It's good screw. It's bigger, it looks great. But there's so many things that I built into this. Why? Because I have problems. I'm a practicing dentist. And you said in the past, you know, you tried so many different systems. All the other systems are not invented by dentists. And if they are quote-unquote invented by dentists, they either copied me, or they're just regurgitating corporate words. That's just the truth, and they know it, and I know it. And my system was developed from the ground up, from my years of experience and my years of messing up and my years of learning what's right and what's wrong, and really building all that in. And for us, as dentists, to rely on some engineer at Nobel, at Straumann, at Three-i, at Zimmer, at all of these implant companies, to actually create anything is ridiculous because they don't live what we live, you know, they don't live. That's why I would say the best practice management software is the one created by dentists. The best impression material is probably the one created by dentists. All of these things that dentists create is because we know the problem and nobody can understand. I can tell you my problem, right, doc? But if you don't live my problem, your head's not going to be like this. You're going to be like, what is he talking about? But the whole podcast, you're going like this because you live my life and I live your life. We live together. We have the same issues. I don't care where in the world you are. It's the same thing.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You know, it reminds me of that part when one day when I was ordering those VHS scan bodies, remember that tax crew? And then I can't remember if you remember or not, but I was, like, using breadcrumbs. And, you know, those little breadcrumbs are, like, all over the place. And when I saw that VHS, and I'm like, all right, what do I do with this VHS? Is it a scan body, or is it, you know, I use it for reference? And you were like, hey, you can use it for both. And I was like, man, this is awesome. I mean, you know, these are the kind of things that I was like, you know, just wowed by when I saw your product, seriously.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
And true or false? Are you wowed about it because you think it's cool? Or are you wowed by it because it solved the problem that you had?

Dr. Noel Liu:
It solved every single issues I had with full-arch. So my photogrammetry, that's the first thing I was telling him, my photogrammetry went out the window. I mean, what's the point? I mean, literally, I can say this factually that you saved me 40 grand from investing into one, right? I was having my lab guy come in, and he kept telling me, hey, why don't you go buy one? You know, you go buy one. And I have, like, you know, multiple locations. I cannot buy a photogrammetry for every single location. It doesn't make sense. And your system helped me scale. My man, I mean, I can say that wholeheartedly. Your system helped me scale every single location, so thank you, man.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
I'm so happy to hear that because, you know, I told you in the beginning about changing the brand of dentistry. Dentists, they practice by themselves, at least for me. I'm a solo practitioner. I have a small team. I have one office. I'm busy enough; thank God I used to have three offices. It was too much for me. It doesn't work for my brain, but one of the goals that I created for this was like, there's just so many patients I can treat. There's just so many lives that I can change. But if I can create something that other dentists can use, not only will I make the dentists' life easier, but they will change other people's lives. So whenever I see a restoration with my Powerball screw, that use my system, you do not understand how happy it makes me. Not because you send me 200 bucks to buy these parts. I don't give a shit about that. That's not what I'm in it for.

Dr. Noel Liu:
... Value.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Is because I can change your life. Like when I die, you'll remember that I had an impact on you, and I never met you in person. And your patient that's walking around with a restoration with my screw or my process, I made an impact on them through you. And to me, that's everything. That's my reason. Other than my family, that's my reason for being. If I can make an impact on people and make the world a better place with what I thought of that God gave me, I'm good. I'm happy. That's all I want.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's preach, man. Hey, so I want to end with this one thing here. You got a course coming up in August. What's that about? And who's it for?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yes, so it's FullArchRaw.com. It's going to be in Miami Florida on August 8th and ninth. I am going to be partnering with one of my students, Dr. Ryan Dunlop, who has really taken digital dentistry to another level, to a point where him and I get the same results. Mine's better, but him and I try to find the same result, but he does it in a completely different manner. And when I talk about a different manner, that means that the way that he acquires data, the way that he manufactures, you know, the size of the people that he uses, meaning how big is his office, right? He's taken his methods and created massive institute to be able to do that and gives courses all the time, and that's what he loves to do. He has multiple associates, and it teaches. And what you'll learn is you'll be able to learn full-arch digital dentistry from marketing, from acquisition, from milling. I have a section on how to close. If a patient says to you, I need to talk to my wife, what do you say to them? You say, okay, fine, call me back. Patient says, oh, let me think about it. What do you say? And in full-arch dentistry, it's different than a single crown. And I'll have a whole section on how to close. I'll have a whole section. Um, Ryan's going to do a whole section on marketing. I'm going to be doing a section on Intraoral scans. I can say to you, I'm gonna say this. If you're brand new in this game, it's gonna be way over your head.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Got it.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
If you want to be like, wow, come. If you're in this game and you're like, I've done a couple arches, I want to scale these arches. I don't know what to buy, how to do it, where I should go, intraoral photogrammetry. If I should even go into this, which is probably everybody in this world, come to this. If you're just a general dentist that doesn't even want to have anything to do with full-arch, it's not for you. If you're a general dentist that doesn't know what an intraoral scanner is, this is not for you. If you're a general dentist that doesn't understand what a multi-unit abutment is, this is not for you. If you're a general dentist that does implant dentistry, that does full-arch dentistry, not at a crazy level. Even if you do one arch a month or one arch a year, and you understand that you would love to do more of it because you enjoy it, this is where you want to go to, because it's going to be like a fire hose. Because usually, I give my course two days by myself. I now have to share the stage with somebody else and give the same amount of information.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So someone attending better be prepared.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
You got to sleep a week before you come for this, but this is going to be, you know, it's going to be the truth. There's no corporate sponsors at all. There's nothing wrong with sponsors, but we want it to be able to just disseminate 100% the truth. That's it. Like, this is what it is. This is what we're going to do. This is what we do. And you can ask any question. The location is unbelievable. We rented out a movie theater. Super high-end movie theater with reclining seats. You're going to have your private waiter come and bring you food. Unlimited popcorn, unlimited drinks. It's not going to be like sloppy food. You're going to order from a menu. They're going to bring it to your seat. It's going to be like super high-end.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So wait a minute, you're going to have this course in a movie theater.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
This is a show, and it's not just random movie theater with shitty seats. Imagine like Emirates first-class seats and stuff. Full reclining couch, full table, full food, unlimited popcorn. Because this is really going to be a show, and it's going to be something in dentistry that nobody's ever done. And mark my words, after I do this course, everyone's going to rent a movie theater because it's genius. The screen is huge, the seats are amazing, the seats are amazing. Everything is just going to be great. The food is there. The location is in Miami, Florida. I mean, why not? We have a couple spots left. I think there's like 7 or 8 spots left, and then it's over. I can add your chair anymore, but you legit, if you're not going to come for the education, come for the entertainment, because you're gonna love this.

Dr. Noel Liu:
You said August 7th and 8th, right?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
August 8th and 9th. Thursday, Friday.

Dr. Noel Liu:
8th and 9th. Okay.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
8th and 9th. It's not a weekend. 8th and 9th. You get the weekend to chill with your family.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Got it, August 8th and 9th. Let me see. That's a Thursday and Friday.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, man. You enticing me on this here.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
You, your friends, anybody who's gonna come. I'm telling you, this is gonna be. It's even a time to just relax with like-minded people, with like-minded people. Because the people I can tell you, the people that registered, they are amazing. It's like a mastermind of the best of the best that come to these courses, because they know. And to be the best, you want to be with the best so that you can be better and better and better.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Alrighty, I'm definitely gonna try my best to block that calendar, man. I mean, this sounds amazing. Who else? And then the guy who's actually, I'm using his system, right?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
You have all the answers in front of you. The only one that can stop you is yourself.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Exactly 1,000%. Hey, Jonathan. Thank you so much. I mean, this was an honor and a pleasure to hear your story and the whole process. This is such a great, great thing.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate that.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I'm definitely going to put your link up and also the link to the course as well. So, any last tips before you go?

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
All I can say is we live in a world of social media where what you think you see is real, and it may or may not give you anxiety about it. All I can say to you is love what you do, have passion, and I promise you everything will work out. Don't worry about all the noise. Don't worry about everything else. There's going to be challenges, but you can barrel right through them, as long as you love what you do, you are passionate, and you have the right people around you. So check those three boxes and I promise you you'll be successful.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Man, that's preach right there. I appreciate you.

Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Thank you so much.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey everyone, we're going to land the plane. This was an amazing, amazing episode. Definitely check us out on our next one and make sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you next time.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For Show Notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDs.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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About Noel Liu:

Noel Liu, a graduate of NYU College of Dentistry, is a highly skilled and compassionate general dentist and co-founder of Secure Dental with multiple locations. With years of experience in the field, Dr. Liu has established a reputation as a trusted and knowledgeable dental professional.

 

In addition to his dental practices, Dr. Liu is also very passionate about mentoring and guiding his associate doctors in their transition from students to clinicians.  He has built a successful framework for model, mimic, and mastery flow to help them achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals and efficiencies.

Things You’ll Learn:

  • This podcast is for dental professionals looking to make the most out of their dental career, their wealth, and freedom.
  • Entrepreneurs usually learn how to grow their business the hard way. 
  • The Secure Dental Podcast is available everywhere you find your favorite podcast shows. 
  • Secure Dental will publish two episodes per month. 

Resources:

  • Connect with and follow Dr. Noel Liu on LinkedIn.
  • Check out Dr. Noel’s website.
  • Visit Secure Dental’s website and learn more about them!  
Categories
Podcast

The Importance of Mentorship in Real Estate and Dental Practice Success

Summary:

Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast!

This new show will bring you conversations with the brightest minds in the Dental and Business Communities. Hosted by Dr. Noel Liu, this show will dive deep into practical tips to grow your business. Many entrepreneurs wished they had a guidebook or someone to help them understand how to grow their businesses, Well you’re in luck because this show will be exactly that!

Tune in twice a month and unleash your full potential!

Secure Dental_Simon Beylin.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental_Simon Beylin.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome back to another episode of our Secure Dental podcast. Like my intro, I am Dr. Noel Liu. I'm a general dentist. And today we have a very special guest, Dr. Simon Beylin. He's an endodontist, and now he's not seeing patients anymore. And now he owns Beylin Developments. But before we get started and pass the mic off to him, I would like to mention our sponsor, which is DentVia. It's a virtual dental assistant administration company that assists with back-end office tasks. Definitely visit them at DentVia.com. It's www.DentVia.com. Let's get right on to it. Simon, I'll let you do the intro. Tell us a little bit about how you got started, your dental world, and then what you're doing these days.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
So I started my path of dentistry. I first became a general dentist. I did a year of GPR, and then practiced for a few years, and went back, and became an endodontist. From there, my wife saw a pediatric dentist, so we started building our own offices and through the process of just doing our start-ups. I got my construction license and started building dental offices. So that's what got me into the world of building on my own. I grew up around construction. My father had a construction company, so I knew a little bit of the back-end of running a construction company, but we started building dental offices and just snowballed from there and started developing ground up real estate. And that's what we're doing now. We focus a lot of our efforts on our investment side on ground up development. So we still own our dental offices, but neither one, neither my wife or I are clinical at this point.

Dr. Noel Liu:
How many offices do you have now?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
We have two ... offices. So there, at this point, there are associate-driven, and we do in-house GA. They're very busy ... offices. So it keeps us busy from the ... side. And then we're not in our practices. We're on the investment side and in real estate.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Nice. Tell me a little bit about you. You were an endodontist, right?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Yeah.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Do you still maintain your license or you give that up?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Still have a dental license. If I had to, I could still go in there and do root canals. We all get old. It's like an hourglass eventually runs out of sand. So I had some issues with, a little bit of arthritis. And luckily I had enough going with development. So I just focused more of my efforts and more of my energy on that.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So you were a endodontist. You were also developing real estate at that time, is that correct? You were doing both at one time.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Yeah. So since 2015 we started building commercial. 2019, we started going a little bit more towards the residential side. Now most of what we're doing is ground up multifamily. I still have a little bit of commercial here and there. I shy away from commercial. It's just not my bread and butter. But I purchased land that has commercial aspects to it. It has a commercial aspect to it. Commercial tenants are great if you can have a medical practice or a dental practice, and you can have a triple net lease and a long-term 15-year lease and not have to worry about tenants and toilets. It has its benefits. But the vacancy periods are also much longer. So if you're building a residential ground up development and you do all of your homework correctly, your demographics are well, there's a need for housing in that area. You'll build it. You shouldn't have any issues leasing out your units. But you can build, you build commercial and you get stuck with an empty building for a while. So if I am building any ground up commercial and I have a few projects that way right now is I want to lease 60% of the building leased out before I put a shovel in the ground or. Yeah, I have another building which is multi use. So we have three commercial units on the lower level, 16 units of residential on top. So on that one we have all the units leased out even before we start construction. But I'd be more willing to build something like that because the residential can support the commercial if it's empty for a while.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So you are building basically like a mixed use real estate where there's, and then there's residential also. Is that correct?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
One of our projects is in a downtown district, and that's what they wanted to see. That's the New York style, where you have commercial the lower levels and residential atop; the three story building. In that town, there is no availability for commercials. We had no issues leasing it out. And the residential is also, most of it's going to be pre-leased before it becomes.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So let me ask you here, Simon. You are the expert here, right, with building. So when you are talking about like 60%, like somebody starting out who is looking into, Hey, I want to develop this commercial space; how are you finding these tenants? Is it broker? Is it like you just put a sign up there? What's going on there?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
I hate to sound like a poacher, but first things first, you got to try to poach some clients that are nearby. One of the buildings I have, there's a med spa in town. My wife and I are both patients of the med spa. They mentioned that they want to move. They outgrowned their space. And here I am with a commercial space that's going to be going right down the street. So I just approached them. And if you could do it on your own without realtors, they take 6% of the entire lease period. So if you're talking about a 15-year lease, 6% is a decent amount. So if you could sign some of those leases first on your own, I always say just look around town; maybe some businesses that look like they're busting at the seams and knock on some doors. And beyond that, then you have to start looking at commercial brokers or I make posts on Facebook. So here's this building, here's a rendering of it. Have a very nice rendering of what you want there. I kind of have an idea of what the town wants to see in that area, and then bring that to the different Facebook groups of that town and maybe 3 or 4 towns around it. And that, for me, has filled up all of our buildings. We've never, to this day, have used a commercial broker, even though I did have phone calls with two of them this morning.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So let me go back again. So commercial brokers are taking 6% of the entire length of the lease? Is that what you said?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
In this area, that's what they're looking for.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Wow. Is that area dependent or is that like just?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
It's area dependent and it is negotiable. But at the same time, if you have a commercial real estate agent who's going to get you $5 more per square foot, and that already takes care of their 6%, I'm fine with that. People, if you're going to, if I've got issues filling it and you could fill it at a higher rate than I can fill it out, by all means, go ahead. But if I can put up a couple Facebook posts and knock on a couple doors on my own and I don't need a commercial agent to do it, I'll definitely try that on my own first. I definitely knock on doors first. Economic Commission for specific towns will absolutely be your best friend here. They will know businesses that want to move. They'll know businesses that want to come to the town, and they'll give you a list. For our mixed use, they reach out to us first, saying they have people that want to take over the entire first floor, and they gave us a list. These are people looking for commercial space in this town. I mean, I'm building in New Hampshire and in Maine, so we have much smaller towns than different parts of the US. So a lot of these smaller economic boards, they'll know who's looking for space in those towns.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So who do you go to for a source, to tap into this source?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
We have, it's called the Economic Affairs Commission. It's a separate board in the towns of these small towns in this area, in New England. ...go to the town planning Board and ask who's on your economics board, and they'll give you the person's information. And they're always willing to help. And that doesn't cost you a dime.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Wow, wow. Simon, you're dropping some serious nuggets over here, man, for a lot of people, actually, who are looking into this strategy. So for dental space, the space that you currently have with the two pediatrics; is that something which you currently own?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
I do, I own them. So if you're doing it for owner occupied, you have many different avenues to go out that. If you're looking for SBA loans, which if that's your last resource, is a great resource because you could come in with 0% down. And if you're going to occupy 50% or more, they'll give you a loan 0% down. So that's a very easy way to get into commercial without any outlay, because they'll run the numbers and your 50% from your dental practice should more than cover the note for the entire building. Then anything that comes in from the other 50% is just gravy. So that is how we actually enter into the commercial side was we purchased the condos in which we have our offices. So I purchased three condos for one of my offices and one condo for the other one; built them out. I just, I couldn't imagine, we had a pretty nice build outs to not be in full control of the lease ownership. So that is a nice way in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So it's all about the control. So let me ask you this here. So when you do buy this land and you do a ground up, how do you differentiate which lender and how hard is it to get those construction loans; number one. Number two is: Would you want to put your one of those favorite questions a lot of people ask is, would you want to put the dental office on the same note as your real estate? Or would you want to have them separate? But if you go with the SBA route, then it's got to be the same, correct? And then if you go different routes then you could put them separate. So what's your expertise? You pretty much know this inside out.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Well, we built our first office; that was 2015. That was just as we're coming out of 2008. So real estate was still get all the regulations that were following. And you had to, actually, at that time, you had to separate it. So the real estate loan was, we used live oak for the real estate and part of the construction loan and Bank of America for the practice loan, and that was very common at that time. Bank of America was not an SBA loan. It was a better product. But they couldn't give you 25 years if you wanted it. So it's a much shorter loan. But it was an SBA. So it would have been nice to have done everything with a lender like B of A, but at that time it was just an absolute requirement. There wasn't a way around it in this area. So we went that path, where you had SBA lender or a different lender for your real estate and a portion of the construction and then practice loan for the other part.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Is that what's preferred?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
I don't know. If it's up to me, they may have a little bit better percentage. You have to bring less to the table. But if you're talking about a loan like B of A, they fund you, they ask for your documents at the end of one year. They see that you're doing well. We do well as dental professionals and they move on, where if it's an SBA loan, it's every quarter, you have to reach out to your account. They need reports. It's, there's no way around it. It's a federal loan. So it's just, it's a lot more of a headache. So I always say if you can avoid SBA loans, you absolutely want to avoid.

Dr. Noel Liu:
At all costs, right? The only reason I'm asking you, Simon, is because one of those questions a lot of people ask is that if I'm going to do a practice loan and I do a real estate loan, I want them separate so that if ever I wanted to sell the real estate by itself, I want to refi it, it's always a separate deal. What's your experience like? Would you recommend separate or would you recommend the same entity or even the same bank? What's your recommendation?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
If you can't split them because you think that, so you're on the residential side. So it's think of a value add when you get a client in there. But just think about it the same way. But if you're doing this with commercial, we go in there, we increase the value of it. We have a lease that we get signed. Once that lease is signed and you've shown that you're a good client, a good tenant for several years, there are companies now like DSOs, but just for real estate, that only purchase real estate that has a dentist or a medical doctor in that real estate. We, actually, spoke with a gentleman who runs something like that, Johnny and I, when we were in Florida for that podcast. That's all we look at. They only want to buy real estate where it's a dentist occupying it. That's their niche. So if you're doing it correctly and you're paying the, your proper amount of rent, which let's just say if you should be paying $35 a month for that rent, because that's what it would be if you didn't own the property next door. You added a lot of value to that commercial real estate, so now you can't sell it to one of those groups and take out quite a bit of equity and then go put it somewhere else. If your loans are tied together, it makes it a little bit messier, because now you have to close out the entire loan. So in that aspect, yeah, it works out very well.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So what would you say? Like some of these banks, they really want to put collateral on their real estate as well as a practice. And a lot of those times where it's a new dentist, right? They're looking into a practice first time. And the banks want to be like, Hey, I want to put that real estate and everything into one note. Is that something you would say it's okay to start off with, or would you still recommend, Okay, you got to have them separate?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
To me, honestly, I don't think it would matter because if you wanted to get some way out of it, I think there's ways to work around it either way. If I had to do it all over again, I would go for a shorter term notes with a non SBA lender. We have a great relationship with Bank of America. I would just do everything with Bank of America. But at the time, first practice, you're nervous. So it's, Oh, they're going to give me 25 years on the SBA note, and I don't have to put anything down. So let me just take that weight off my shoulders. But you get through the first year, Okay, I never had a day in the red. I should have just taken a shorter note, dealt with less headaches for the next ten years. You know what I mean? That would be my personal recommendation. Not that it helps you sleep at night when you don't have to put 10% down or 20% down and puts a lot longer. So just, I guess it goes to your comfort level.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's especially for the real estate side, right? Putting those down. Okay. Well, let's switch gears. Let's talk about what's going on currently with you. So currently, you're doing like big developments with multifamily. I've noticed, I've seen that some of those posts on our Facebook group. So let's talk a little bit about that. How did you get started in this from commercial?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
My father's company was, they did residential, commercial, and most of it was all new construction. It was a electrical subcontractors. So pretty large company in California. So I grew up on job sites. And what we build on the commercial side for dentistry, they say in terms of construction, it's the most difficult construction you can have because our outlets need to be in a specific spot for a piece of equipment that's going to go into that little cubby. Chair needs to be set exactly where it needs to go. It's very detailed, like 3500 square foot dental office. I could have a 70-page plant set. Residential is much easier to build, and I always knew I wanted to go that way, but I thought I would own apartment buildings and do value add. But it's just so difficult in this area. Like a 15-year-old building in the New England area. It's taken a beating. It's just, the weather cycles that we have. It's already an old building. They require a lot of maintenance. And people, the competition is fierce for a good building that you want to do; value add being 3 to 7 years and just do the typical cycle that you see. It's very difficult with the assets that we have here. I wanted to start in my backyard. I know plenty of people who invest out of state and they do very well with that. But I thought for the first ones I want it to be, whatever I did, I wanted to be a little bit more control in my own backyard. So I couldn't find anything that was decent for value add. So I reached out to somebody who his name is Greg Dickerson. He's my mentor and friend at this point. But I told him, I have this background. I can build, give me a set of blueprints, and I can build you whatever you want. I don't have a problem doing that, but I don't know how to take a piece of dirt. I don't know how to go through the entitlement process, which is a different beast on its own. Get it approved, which is where most of the profit and development is made; is that approval. You can flip the dirt once you have approvals and have a nice exit and never build it. Yeah. So that's a portion I didn't know. Give me the dirt with the blueprints and the approvals. I can build you whatever you want, but how do I get from the steps I haven't done? So I signed up with him for mentorship for a year, and he held my hand through the first project. But even after the first year, we're still, I don't have a single project that I don't run by him at this point. We just go through it, make sure I have somebody else's eyes who's been doing this for over 35 years, have his eyes on it, and make sure I'm not getting into any deals that aren't going to make.

Dr. Noel Liu:
How did you find him?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
I was on a beach in Florida, and I'm like, I'm ready to take this to the next level, but I have no idea. Let me look for textbooks or podcasts or online courses. And I found he had an online course. It was like 100 bucks. So I downloaded everything and I listened to every last one of his videos on the flight back up. And then as soon as I landed, I'm like, I got to see if I can hire this guy to coach me. And sure enough, he had a coaching program, a mentorship program. I landed, sent him an email. A week later, we were on like a dating phone call because he has a phone call with you first to make sure it's going to work. He doesn't just take any client. We had that phone call. I gave him my background. I was amazed about how much he knew about dentistry. He has a lot of dental and medical clients and probably know of quite a few of his clients. Joe Fairless, who writes the best book on syndication and is one of his clients. Viking Capital is one of his clients. So a lot of people that I followed for a while have been his coaching and mentorship clients. So we had a nice conversation. He knew a tremendous amount about dentistry and medicine and selling practices, and it just rubbed me the right way. And I signed up for a year and took a project through completion. And here we are now. Just, at this point, I don't think there's any development that I can't do without him, but we still just, we chat on a weekly basis.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Do you guys work together on a deal or is it just, he's just a mentor?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Oh, he's just a mentor at this point. He's, he did, I think 350 million of his own development. But we're talking about 80s and 90s. So in today's money, that's a few billion. It's a lot in today's money. So at this point, his life, he's strictly focused on coaching and mentorship. We do have a mastermind that we get on once a week, but he doesn't do any of his own deals at this point.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh that's awesome. So how difficult is it to get it from dirt to approval?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
I'll give you a couple examples.

Dr. Noel Liu:
A time frame. What are you looking at? A year? A few months?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
So it's funny. I have a project you've probably seen. I posted, it's 33 units in Windham, Maine. Windham, Maine is a small town, about 15,000 people, about ten miles outside of Portland, Maine. So we picked it because Portland's now has rent control and it's pushing all the developers out. No longer makes sense to, you can't make the deals pencil in Portland. So everybody's pushing out. And because of that the population is pushing out as well. So numbers made sense. My partner on that project brought me the project. I saw it the end of February. The end of May, I had four approvals, and July we had a shovel in the ground. So that's crazy fast. You have a town that has a major housing crisis. They want housing and they do something about it. I have another project in Windham, New Hampshire. Same town name, but different state. It's a town I live in. Where I bought the project. I've had it for almost three years. October will be three years. The person before me gave up ten years into it, and the person before him gave up 20 years into it. So 33 years to get 45 units approved. So those are your opposite ends of the spectrum. You have a completely we hate development town to we will do whatever it takes to get this housing crisis under control. And you just, you need to know which one you're going into. And I knew.

Dr. Noel Liu:
How do you find omething like that?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
You'll know from the beginning. You can go on to any planning board in the US, and you can watch. They all record their, almost any town that I've dealt with, they all have video cameras recording. And you go back years and watch all the recordings. And you can see if they're approving projects in one meeting or they're approving projects over many years. And you can also see the amount of what's being built in a specific town. If you see a town's only giving, there are towns in Maine, right now, we're looking at another project that's 333 units, which, we're at the finish line of getting that under contract. I think we will get it. But the town is limited development there. Even though it's approved for 333 units, they're only letting you build 45 units a year. So the town, just their sewer systems are water. They haven't built up the infrastructure enough to allow more, a developer to do more than 45 units per year. So you have to find this stuff out before you start exchanging funds. And we always go under contract with minimal outlay of funds. So you always write your contracts that we don't exchange our funds until we have all of our building approvals. So the debt going's to shovel in the ground, that's the day that you're going to get your money. But we don't close until that happens.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, that's awesome. That's a great tip. So are you guys like trying to get those areas already pre leased out or is it just different story with multifamily?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Yeah. So we, about 3 or 4 months before you get your completions, you start leasing them out so we can start taking small deposits. $50 a unit just on reservations. And a lot of our three bedrooms on that project, we have six, three bedrooms. They're already all spoken for. They won't be available until October and they're already all spoken for. So we definitely pre-lease while we're still in construction.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So, Simon, what does your team look like? That's a lot to undertake, right?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
There is. So you can do a lot of development from your home office. You don't make a huge team. Most of them can be outsourced. We're vertically integrated. So I not only do the development side, but I also have a construction company. So we do have people on my team. But Peter on my team, mainly his days are spent just looking for land. So he gets 1 or 2 deals across my desk a week. We'll put out offers on 1 or 2 a month and maybe 1 or 2 every quarter stick. So it's a numbers game. We try to fill the pipeline several years in advance, but that's all that Peter does. On the development side, all the people on my team are people I sell things out to. So we have a great civil engineers in New Hampshire. We deal with a group called the Dubay Group. It's a neighbor of mine, but they have one of the largest civil engineering firms. That's your best friend. Civil engineers know what land, oh, yeah, they know what land is available. They know who owns the land. They know what could be built on the land. They know more about dirt than I'll ever know. When I'm looking for deals, I'll always knock on my civil engineers doors first, because none of the stuff that I've purchased, not a single property, has ever hit the market. Ever. They've all either come from my civil engineers or land brokers that have just known of a piece of land and reached out to an owner for us. So you drive by, who owns that piece of dirt? You look it up on the town's website, then you send it to your land broker. Hey, find that, find this information. Let's give him an offer on that land. But we've never once put an offer on something that was listed. So it's.

Dr. Noel Liu:
What are some of the criterias for you and Peter that goes, Okay, out of the ten deals, this is the one I would have put an offer on?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
We just run the numbers. I try to say, Okay, we want to be 45 units and above, but sometimes the numbers on a 30 unit are amazing compared to a 300 unit. We just look at the numbers, we do our underwriting, we get quite detailed with the underwriting.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Is it location dependent?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
It's location dependent. Yeah, because if you want to build in certain towns, you're not going to build 300 units in the town that I live in. There's, we don't have water, we have sewers. So everything's all well and septic. So 45 unit development in town, like the one I live in, is a large development for this town. But then, two towns over, we have 170 units that we're building. That's part of a 360-unit development. So we purchased two buildings, and the gentleman that we purchased from is keeping one building on the property. But in that town, they allow 3, 4, or 500 unit apartment buildings. So we just look for the deals and start our underwriting. And if it makes sense, we move on to the next phase. But it's like anything else. With development, people think, Oh, I can overpay a little bit for the land. I'll make it up in the construction, I'll make it up in the engineering. And then the engineer comes in and that was over budget. It needs to make sense from the onset. So if land purchase doesn't make sense, don't move on to the next step. And architecture doesn't make sense because you're on the side of a hill and it's going to cost you tremendous amount more to design this because it's difficult, don't go to the next step. So every step needs to make sense before we move on to the next step because overruns always come up; construction overruns, engineering overruns, architectural overruns, time overruns. So if you're allowing it from the beginning, you're not leaving any cushion to have a little bit of contingency to get you through the finish line.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And how difficult are these lenders to deal with?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Lenders just because of our backgrounds as doctors, if you've been practicing for a while, they know that we're good for our money, we don't fail, and they think you're going to take that into anything else that you do. In my area, they're very conservative. So 2008 didn't hit hard here because builders are conservative here and lenders are conservative here. But where you have certain parts of the US where they'll lend you at a 1.1 DSER, they won't do that here. They want to see 1.3. So it's, Oh, we show them 1.3, they'll give you whatever you want. But if you want to show 1.1, they're gonna say, Oh, even with low rates, we wouldn't have given you that. And in today's market, we definitely don't want to give you that. We don't know what's going to happen. So they're a little bit just more conservative on their criteria. But if you meet the criteria, they want to lend; that's how they make money. So they've, we've dealt mainly with local banks and they've been very favorable with that.

Dr. Noel Liu:
What are they basing the 1.3 on? Projections, pretty much?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Yeah. So you'll give them projections of existing properties, newer properties that are built similar square footage. And they'll have a very, when it's ground up, the appraisals that we get, the guy spends a month and gives you a 70-page report on the appraisal. And it shows each and every single way. So the bank really relies a lot on the appraisal and the performance. And we're very conservative. Even though, I know I can get much higher rents than what I expect, I'd rather show more conservative rent and still show that high DESR if it makes sense. And the bank always comes back to us with the deals that Peter and I have done and say, Hey, you guys have this listed as $2,100 a month, but that development down the street that's ten years old is getting $2,300 a month. So that's the conversation you want coming from the bank, not the other way around. If you're trying to present them, Oh, I got a 1.8 DESR, but you put your rent at 3000 when they know that the area is only gonna support 2100. So you always want them to realize that you're being very conservative. So we do that in terms of the rent and also on the construction side. So we tell them that it's going to cost us more than what we think it's going to cost to build it, just doing the underwriting. And then we just take less funds if we have to during construction. So you're never going back and asking them for more. And so far, most of our banks that we've dealt with are excited to do more and more projects. You start inching towards their limit because all of these regional banks, they're typically 100 million limit. And if you have developments above that, they're going to partner with other smaller banks. But as long as you're under that limit, they'll continue to lend to you. That's how they make their bread and butter.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And you're still putting equity down, right?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
We are. I haven't raised for any of my deals thus far. Any deal that we have, it's been my money, my wife's money, or Peter's involved in a few of our deals. We just haven't had to raise. Eventually, we're going to start raising for our deals. It's just, haven't needed it at this point yet.

Dr. Noel Liu:
I feel what you're doing right here, Simon. It's, you have a really good delta when do it ground up versus buying an existing cash flow property. Because it's like everything that you're doing is brand new. And it's also the way you can actually project the ROI down the road. It's pretty significant. Like, do you agree with that statement?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
100%. We did a webinar with our HUD lender, and I'll go through that a little bit separately. But the premise of the entire podcast was we're getting into class A assets and a areas at a ten count. And even though everything that's happening today and they say it's going to have cap rates are going to continue going up and up, we're not seeing class A assets trading at a ten cap. You're not going to see that. I can sell that. We've got some ridiculous offers on the 33-unit that's not even completed yet. Just a gentleman older gentleman coming out of a 1031 who wants to purchase it and leave it for his kids. But we're getting into class A assets at a ten cap. That Delta is massive. And then if you want to, just you want to recycle your cash, we deal with HUD lenders that as soon as you're 90% occupied, they will rewrite the loan as if it's 100% occupied, and they'll go for a 35-year loan. And the interest rates are extremely low with HUD right now. 5, 5.5% today on HUD loan at 35 years. So you can't get out of them. So it's very difficult. So it is an assumable loan. So if you're going to sell a property for the first 15 years, there's massive prepayment penalties for 15 years. But typically it's going to be something that assumes that HUD loan if you do decide to sell it. But that's, you just recycle your cash out so you don't go down to 1.1 on the DSER, and they'll go 35 years. So the amount because of that delta that you get in a ten cap, and the amount of value that you have there, and they're going to value it at a five and a half cap because they're lending ar a 5.5%. So that's a huge delta that you take out tax free as long as you do the next real estate project. So that's how we've recycled our cash flow.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's amazing. Because if it's one of those trophy assets that you guys are building, you probably just want to keep it. If you're going to convert to a HUD, you might as well just keep it.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Yeah. So that's, Peter and I know that if we're going down this road, we're keeping it for 15 years.

Dr. Noel Liu:
At least.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
At least 15 years. So I'm not going to pay that massive prepayment penalty. And they're a great lender. He lends in all 50 states, the gentleman that we work with. We just, we give him a heads up. So we're 3, 4, or 5 months away from leasing this asset. We expect to hit 90% at this time. So we start the paperwork, and then as soon as he's ready, he submits and look at that process.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Cool deal. Simon, for somebody who wants to get started, man, how do they get started?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
So development: you can do it two ways. You can either do it just as a developer. And if you speak to Greg, that's, if you don't own a construction company, he's going to tell you that's the way to do it, because a lot of developers, that's all they do. You're not going to get out there and start a construction company just to build your own stuff. It's not necessary. I had the construction company, so it just made sense. But you can definitely start looking for land. Look in an area that you want to build. Just reach out to some civil engineers, see if you can make something work. And then you have to find a GC. So with us being vertically integrated, I have a lot of control over the costs. So that is how we get our spread a little bit better. But even if I was going to sub it out to GC, you can find GCS that will manage the entire project for you from anywhere from 3 to 8%. So 3 to 8%, you still have a massive delta, and you have somebody managing the entire headache portion of construction for you. Just put together a team and it helps, if it's your first deal, you're trying to develop something from the ground up. If you've never built anything, banks aren't going to give you a loan. But if you work with a GC that's built plenty of multifamily or whatever asset class you're trying to build, if they built plenty of that, the banks are going to be very open to lending to them. What they'll look at you is: Can you support this asset? If it's only 50% occupied, they'll just look at your financials and can you can you not. It doesn't matter to them as much in regards to can the developer bring this to the finish line as much as can the GC bring this to the finish line. So we do both. So they look at us from both aspects. We pull bonds when we have to. But if you're just starting out, I would just work with the local GC that's building what you want to build. So I don't know that I would jump into a 500 unit on your first one. So find the GC that's building like 15 to 30-unit buildings and take them out to lunch. See about can we build some projects together.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And it's a partnership, right? Like the other day I mean. So how important is partnership in real estate?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Well, it's, your team, they say your network is your net worth. It's extremely important on the development side. I couldn't do what we do without our civil engineers, traffic engineers. You have to do traffic studies for approvals. The amount of different team members you have, you can't do it without them. So sometimes it makes sense. If you don't own the construction company, don't pay the GC 100% as his percentage, give up percentage equity in your deal. If he has some cash flow from your deal afterwards, he's going to be more incentivized to go into the next deal with you, build more and more multifamily because as you grow, he grows. I love it. Yeah, it might make a lot more sense to him than having a couple hundred thousand dollars more on one single project.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Love it, Simon. Love it. So just to recap, first thing you need is go find a land, get a civil engineer, partner up with the GC, get your lending in line, get your financials in line, right? And then how, and then you still need to work with an architect or a designer, right?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Yeah. So specifically look for multifamily architects. You want somebody who's designed multifamily, but now you built it. So you've gone through the, you've gone through finding land, civil engineer, architects, got your GC that built for you. And now what do you want to do with the asset now? A lot of developers will stabilize the asset and now just sell it. That delta is large enough to, I don't want to ever deal with tenant or toilet. I'm just going to occupy it and I'm not going to do the HUD thing. I'm just going to sell this thing and move on to the next. That was 100% Greg's play. He never kept a single one of his assets. As soon as he leased them up, sold them. And a lot of developers do very well with that. Or now do you find the management company, which is what we do. We own our own management company as well. But now you have to manage your asset. So with that being in-house, again, we control some of those costs. We have enough units in localized areas. So it makes sense to have your own management company. But there are plenty of management companies that for anywhere from 3 to 8%, will manage your asset, and you'll meet with them maybe four times a year. So if you want to be very hands-off, I hand it off to a good management company afterwards.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Amd you're only local in Maine, correct?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
So I live in New Hampshire and actually.

Dr. Noel Liu:
New Hampshire. Sorry.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
No. That's okay. Most of our stuff is in New Hampshire, but we do have three projects right now in Maine. So the 33 unit, we have another one contract for 222 units, and a 19 unit in Maine. The rest of them are New Hampshire.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Last question for you. If somebody wanted to partner up with you, what's your feedback?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
I met Peter through the mastermind with Greg. And I made this offer a million times. And Peter so far is the only one that's ever actually showed up. Peter was in Maine, and that's why we're building Maine. So all those projects he brought me in Maine. He's ten years, about ten years younger than me, and he saw a bunch of my posts online. He saw my interviews with Greg, and he said the same thing. Hey, I want to learn from somebody who's a few steps ahead. Can I come and get in on some of your deals? I want to part? So I said, Peter, you know what? You bring me a deal. Not only will I hold your hand through it, but I'll bring half the money to it and we'll do one of them together. It'll be 50-50. And if you like it, we move on after that. We met, I think it was like a Thursday or Friday. And the following week he found that 33 unit for me. So we partnered on it. It's a team effort. So there's always room. Yeah, there's always room in real estate for other people on the team. And I make that same deal with anybody. If you find me a good deal and you want to do it together, ... I'll bring you half cash to the table, too. So I put my money where my mouth is. Yeah, but yeah, that's, that is a great way to get into it. I always, it's difficult because we always want to be in control. We all have our own dental offices, right? We want to run our own practice. It's difficult to get people in our field, I think, to partner up because we still se, I think solo is a lot more popular than the group practice that. And people say, Oh, well, if Simon could do it, I could do 100% on my own. But they don't realize if you did the first one with somebody like a Greg or like a Simon or like a Peter, you get through the first one, learn from somebody who's done a few of them, or many of them, see what mistakes you would save money on by not doing it for someone on your own. And then if you wanted to, you'll do the next one on your own. And that's what I told Peter. But he's not doing the next ones on his own. We're still 50-50 on everything we're doing in Maine, because it makes more sense for both of us.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Makes more sense. Yeah, precisely.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
So why would you take the headache on your own? We're just growing together.

Dr. Noel Liu:
And so, and that's another thing too. Like somebody will say, Hey, I want to do it alone. Yeah, eventually he or she will get there. Eventually, they'll get there. But how much, at what, at whose expense and how long? How much money spent?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
So lesson that learning curve just piggyback and it helps with the bank. So the first one if you really think you're going to do the first development on your own, yeah, you're going to do it. It's going to take a while. You'll maneuver your way through the bank, you'll get your funding. But if, this is going to take you five years where you could have been six months on somebody else's development. And then now you have five, ten, $15 million under your belt on the size of what you built, now you go back to the bank and say, Look, I just finished this three months ago and it's fully occupied. Now, I want to go to the next one. It's much easier on that second one than it is on the first one.

Dr. Noel Liu:
100%. Well, Simon, thanks for the time, buddy.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Of course. Any time.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So how can somebody find you?

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Visit our website BeylinDevelopment.com. My contact info is on there. And actually, the phone number that's on there is my cell phone. So if you ever have a question, shoot me a text. I always reply.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Great, we're definitely going to put the link down there as well in this pod. Other than that, I think we are pretty good and I appreciate you coming on.

Dr. Simon Beylin:
Of course. Anytime. I appreciate you having me.

Dr. Noel Liu:
All right. Great. Well everybody, we're going to land the plane here. Well, make sure to like and subscribe. We can definitely find SimonDevelopments.com. And that's his email address as well. So definitely reach out if you have any questions regarding ground-up construction. Alrighty. Have a good one, everybody.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDS.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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About Noel Liu:

Noel Liu, a graduate of NYU College of Dentistry, is a highly skilled and compassionate general dentist and co-founder of Secure Dental with multiple locations. With years of experience in the field, Dr. Liu has established a reputation as a trusted and knowledgeable dental professional.

 

In addition to his dental practices, Dr. Liu is also very passionate about mentoring and guiding his associate doctors in their transition from students to clinicians.  He has built a successful framework for model, mimic, and mastery flow to help them achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals and efficiencies.

Things You’ll Learn:

  • This podcast is for dental professionals looking to make the most out of their dental career, their wealth, and freedom.
  • Entrepreneurs usually learn how to grow their business the hard way. 
  • The Secure Dental Podcast is available everywhere you find your favorite podcast shows. 
  • Secure Dental will publish two episodes per month. 

Resources:

  • Connect with and follow Dr. Noel Liu on LinkedIn.
  • Check out Dr. Noel’s website.
  • Visit Secure Dental’s website and learn more about them!  
Categories
Podcast

The Role of Collaboration and Networking in Dentistry

Summary:

Equity models offer dentists opportunities for profit sharing and long-term financial stability within group practices.

In this episode, Mark Greenstein, the EVP and Chief Growth Officer at Heartland Dental Group, delves into the future of dentistry and the role of group practices like Heartland in revolutionizing the dental field. Heartland, Mark explains, focuses on supporting dentists and their teams, adding practices annually, and leading in dental supply procurement. He emphasizes the company’s mission to empower doctors and provide top-notch non-clinical support, education, and community. Mark discusses equity models, acquisition strategies, and the company’s vision for the future, stressing that Heartland aims to be a leader in dentistry, leveraging technology and collaboration to enhance patient care and community engagement. He also believes that dentists should prioritize networking and collaboration to stay abreast of industry trends and opportunities. Finally, Mark underscores the importance of acquisition strategies, which play a significant role in the growth and success of dental group practices like Heartland.

 

Tune in and learn about the future of dentistry, the benefits of group practices, and how Heartland Dental Group is shaping the landscape of dental care in America and beyond!

Secure Dental_Mark Greenstein.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental_Mark Greenstein.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental, and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Noel Liu:
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of our Secure Dental pod. And today we have a very special guest. This guy is from the Heartland Dental Group, and he has some severe experience. I would call it severe because he is one hell of a guy. And I'm going to introduce him real quick. But before we dive in, I just wanted to give a shout out to our sponsor. DentVia is a local company where they have virtual dental administration staff that helps the front desk and the office managers. So definitely visit them at DentVia.com; www.DentVia.com. And without further ado, let's pass the mic. And I have Mark Greenstein. So Mark joined Dental Heartland in October 2015. And he serves as a company executive Vice President and Chief Growth officer. He leads the Heartland's affiliation and de novo footprint, growth and management, corporate development, payor relationships, strategic sourcing, and Mark brings over 25 years of experience in business growth through strategy, operations, procurement, mergers, integration, leadership. Now, Mark, I would like you to continue with your intro and tell us a little bit what exactly do you do at Heartland in layman's terms?

Mark Greenstein:
Sure. First, Dr. Liu, thanks for inviting me on your podcast. It's a real pleasure to be here and talk a little bit about Heartland and hopefully answer some, some questions that are out there. My experience before Heartland had very little to do with health care or dentistry. I was a strategist in a variety of corporate settings, from financial services to wealth management to manufacturing and distribution. I just had a wide variety, and I was introduced to Heartland in the summer of 2015, and I fell in love. I went down to Effingham, Illinois. And for your listeners who do not know where Effingham, Illinois is, we often say, take the effing highway, but it's in the southern part of Illinois. It's about 240 miles south of the Chicago area where I live. And I keep an apartment down there. I spend about half of my time down there. The company was founded by Doctor Rick Workman. He had a dental practice there almost 40 years ago. He is essentially is the pioneer of the large group dentistry space. Back when he started with one practice became two, became three, and then so on and so forth to where it is today. He's still our executive chairman and 100% involved in the business. So he is the grand, we think of him as the granddaddy of the DSO space. Companies, also led by rest of my colleagues on the senior team are long, long-time folks at Hartwood. Our CEO Pat's been with us 27 years, our CEO DeAnn 28 years, our CFO Travis 21 years, our chief dental officer, Doctor Singh, clinical officer has been with, leads also Heartland Dental University has been with us 23 years. So a very strong group of leaders who this is their passion is supporting doctors and their teams and trying to create a better life for dentists and a better way of doing dentistry in America. So that's a little bit about my background management consulting. And I've just been blessed to be trained up and taught by these great folks who have really helped me lean into the business. To answer your question about what I exactly do, Heartland adds about 150-170 practices per year to its footprint. That consists of our de novo program, which are scratch start builds, starting from a piece of dirt, usually in front of a nice supermarket. If you're in Florida, it could be a Publix. In Texas, it could be an H-e-b, but a nice supermarket, maybe in Illinois and Mariano's. And it's that beautiful outparcel right in front that people get a lot of visibility when they drive by. So we do about 100 of those per year, and then we add somewhere between 50 and 70 solo practices, which are typically doctors who are looking we call that affiliation; they're looking to affiliate with Heartland. And we try to find top 20% of doctors across the country, those who are certainly seasoned and have built their practices and their communities, but also looking for something more, more community, more leadership, more growth, more patient care. So folks who are looking for the kinds of support that we provide to them. I also lead our relationships with payers, being the largest DSO or typically also the largest check that most or a set of checks that any of the major players in the United States write each year. So we have a dedicated team focused there. And then, Heartland as a community, is the largest procurer of dental supplies and equipment in the United States so outside of the government. So we are very active in the dental supply and equipment markets, obviously for labs as well. And so I have the privilege of leading that team also, and then as an umbrella of corporate strategy. So those are the hats that I wear. And it's been a great ride. I've been here just about nine years. And it's just a wonderful way to be involved at this point in my career in such a wonderful endeavor, with such a great group of people and a company that has just a strong set of values.

Noel Liu:
That's remarkable. It's so impressive. Like, all these guys have been over, like two decades. And it seems like, yeah, exactly, over two, three getting there. So that kind of speaks a lot about the leadership and the culture in this organization. So do you want to share a little bit about what's it like on a day-to-day with executives and the doctors and the team?

Mark Greenstein:
Yeah. First, we all wake up. Every one of us at Heartland, our job is to support doctors so that, and their teams, so that they can take care of their patients. And that's an important distinction between how Heartland looks at dentistry versus maybe some others. A lot of other organizations that at least I've had the experience with, they tend to, they don't think of the patients; they think of, that they they're responsible for the patients or that the patients are part of the DSO. That's not the case in the Heartland model. Our job is to just enable and support doctors as best as we possibly can. They're in their communities. They can take care of their patients. We want to provide a full range of non-clinical services, and we want to provide the very best education, on clinical leadership and operational skills. And we do that for not only doctors and hygienists, but the dental assistants, the business assistants in the office, as well as the entire field infrastructure. In fact, Heartland Dental University, which Doctor Singh leads for us, is the largest educator of dentists and their teams in the United States. So we provide over 250,000 CE hours per year. We have our own facilities. We have our own faculty and relationships both internally and externally. We run the largest aesthetic continuum in the United States. We teach oral surgery. We teach endodontics, we teach orthodontics with Invisalign, and we also teach leadership skills. And the Heartland model, the doctor is the leader of their practice and, or the doctors. And so we spend a lot of time with our doctors is how do you lead a large practice? What are the skill sets that you need to inspire and empower your team to achieve whatever your goals are? And so we're focused very much on taking care of the doctors and supporting them. And that's always been Doctor Workman's vision. That's something we all carry with us as we wake up every day. So we start every day thinking about what do our doctors need, where are their pain points? And where can we add value? Where can we take the external environment and bring it inside? A good example is we just deployed the largest installation of clinical AI in dentistry anywhere in the world. We have now, have a clinical AI in over 1500 dental practices in 40 states. So we're super excited by that. And that's really taking hold. ... which is a preventative treatment; we started rolling that out in January, and that's just doing great things for our doctors and the care of their patients. So our job is to bring to them opportunities that help them advance dentistry and give them community, which we do quite a bit to help grow themselves and grow their practice.

Noel Liu:
That's awesome. You guys are hitting it all fronts of dentistry. So I can see like a group size, like Heartland having so much firepower. Right? So let's switch gears a little bit like a solo practitioner who's actually running bread and butter dentistry day-to-day. I know, like they are trying to run the practice and Heartland is on the other side of the spectrum. How do you see yourself or see Heartland, or maybe like other DSOs? How do you see, what's the future going to hold? Is there going to be a merge? Is there going to be a collaboration? Is there going to be a competition? What's the landscape like?

Mark Greenstein:
Well, even at Heartland's vast size, I think we're roughly maybe 2, 2.5% of dentistry, general dentistry in the United States. So there's still 97% that we're not. There's a lot.

Noel Liu:
That's a lot.

Mark Greenstein:
There's a lot, I think there's always going to be room for the sole practitioner. Just like in medicine, there's still plenty of room for solo practitioners. But I would say just like in medicine, there's a set of natural forces that are creating opportunities to perhaps consider a group practice. And there are benefits that a group practice can provide. Certainly, community and knowledge exchange is one of the key ones. If I, when I talk to doctors who affiliate with us and they say, Oh geez, I wish I did this ten years earlier, I'd say to them why? They said, Because I know so much more now than I did then, and I would never have had a path to learn it if it wasn't for Heartland. So I think, first and foremost, what we end up doing is bringing education to doctors and their teams on all parts of just clinical and operational and leadership dimensions, and I think they value that the most. And that's of course, we're taking care of, helping them take care of HR topics and accounting topics and IT topics and legal topics, should they have them. We have an entire set of armies that are there to support doctors in their practices. But if you ask doctors what is it that they makes them wish they did it for ten years earlier? I think it's the peace of mind of having all of those non-clinical functions performed at a world-class level, and then a series of educational capabilities and community for knowledge exchange. All the programs we run on weekends where they can learn how to do full-arch implants if they want, or go shadow someone who they see is doing really nice Invisalign cases; how do you do it? You go, Well, you don't have to talk to me; just come to my office and watch. And I think that community and knowledge sharing, both from a formal setting with Heartland Dental University and then informally in the doctors working side by side with each other, I don't even get involved in that. But we do bring them together for dinners every quarter, and that forms those relationships. I think that speaks a lot to where they get value from their relationship with Heartland.

Noel Liu:
So one thing I just wanted to clarify was, so the doctor in your group with Heartland, basically they are in control, right, I mean of clinical. So they can do let's say full-arch implant, they want to do Invisalign, they can do any of that stuff. Because that was one of the misconceptions that was passed on, like it's Heartland telling them what to do and what they cannot do. I'm glad that you brought that up and you clarified this.

Mark Greenstein:
I would, I'd also say, Dr. Liu, I think we have 18 or 19 doctors and hygienists on state dental boards. If we, for a minute, for a minute, were to actually do that, we wouldn't have been here for ... almost 30 years.

Noel Liu:
Wow, wow. I was telling you before this, before we started this recording, this is, Heartland is one of those companies that I really, I'm really proud seeing you guys as so, like, vigilant and so compliant, let's put it this way, with the state laws and everything else that goes along hand-in-hand with dentistry.

Mark Greenstein:
Yes, I would agree with that. We, Doctor Singh leads our clinical audit functions. We're very much in touch with our doctors who are on state dental boards, and we have some hygienists on state dental boards. And this is not a financial enterprise. Of course, it's a business, don't make no mistake, but this is simply the outgrowth of Dr. Workman's vision that there's a better way for dentists to be happier, to be more productive, to take better care of their patients, provide more for their patients. And so we just have created a set of services to enable them to do just that.

Noel Liu:
And it shows, right, it shows that you guys are growing exponentially. And one of those things where I always say that if there are doctors who's out there who cannot stand Heartland, they are always going to be that those group of people, I mean, regardless.

Mark Greenstein:
We don't always get it right either, Dr. Liu. We're far from perfect. We're human. We have a saying, though, Do the right thing for the right reason. So if we make a mistake, we try to own up to it, and we try to fix it. And that you can hold us, we're pretty good. We try to fix it almost 100% of the time. If we know that we're making a mistake, we'll try to fix it. So do the right thing for the right reason is a core value of ours, and we empower our people to do just that. So they won't always get it right, it's complicated. Every practice is different. Every doctor is different. Their needs are different. We're trying to serve the needs of doctors and their teams in 40 different states. So regulations are different. So we're not going to be perfect, but we are going to try to be and we're going to try to definitely, we're absolutely going to.

Noel Liu:
Absolutely, absolutely. So we spoke about one aspect where there is a lot of solo practitioners. And now the other aspect is sooner or later, we all know dentistry is going to be like pharmacy or medicine, right? There are going to be roll ups. Where do you see like we are currently and where do you see like us in ten years or maybe even 20 years in the future? And how has Heartland positioned itself?

Mark Greenstein:
Yeah, we're in what I call the messy middle. So I think there's a couple of DSOs that are very strong, of which Heartland is one of them. They tend to be the larger ones with the most duration in the marketplace. You learn something. If you do something long enough, you learn all the things not to do, and you develop all the things you should do. And I think those models, Pacific Dental is another one that comes to mind, high-quality businesses that are focused on their doctors. And I think they have a long, prosperous road ahead of them. Just like in medicine, I think they will continue to grow because they create real value. I think that's a, it's a concept that I think cuts through a lot of the noise that you have out there is: Does the group create value? Does one and one equals three? Are you bringing people together and doing support, or enabling them to do things that they otherwise would not do for the benefit of their patients and their communities? If you can do that and do that repeatedly and demonstrably, you're creating value. I think there are some DSOs that are very good at that. There's also a group of DSOs that, and it's a large group that are still trying to figure out how to do that. And they're often caught between a rock and a hard place because they have financial constraints, often a sponsor or time window that sometimes gets in the way of the longer-term decisions that you have to make or investments that you have to make in order to build that true value creation engine. And so you have a lot of enterprises out there that are I would call aggregations and that are selling more around what we won't tell you at all what to do. In fact, we won't even support, give you much support. We're just going to let you be. But in 12 months we're going to do an IPO and you can sell your part of the, you can keep a part of your practice and you can sell. It's more, if you actually strip it down, it's more of a financial play than a play around the creation of value for the doctor and their team in order to enable them to improve care to their community, which at any, any way you slice it, if you're not delivering that set of value, it's not a sustainable model for the long term. And we do have organizations that are in that middle, and there are some that are trying to figure out how they're going to play, because so many have grown up in the last decade or so, and I think there will be a shakeout of those. I think we've seen it. Great Expressions is a good example of one several years ago. Elite dentistry is another example. Many of these groups are going to, they'll find their way, or they will struggle and be either absorbed or just fail. And I think that's an unfortunate reality. But it's also not unlike what's happened in medicine over the decades. And medicine is still, is now probably 80% consolidated. So it's hit a pretty consolidated. Look at Optum. Optum is the largest employer of doctors in the United States. They have 90,000 MDs. A full 10% of the doctors in the US work for Optum. So does dentistry eventually get there? I would argue, since there is a path and companies are doing it that actually create value, then you'd suggest, why wouldn't it? Why wouldn't if there is a different, better way, why wouldn't that take place? And if I'm a solo doctor, you can absolutely be wildly successful now and in the future. But you might want to look at what these DSOs offer and see if it's a value to you in helping you grow and create what you want to achieve and serve your patients.

Noel Liu:
One of the things that I see Mark these days is it's all about control. And I think that's where most of the solo practitioners, they're wary because they're like, Hey, if I join a DSO, I'm going to get ripped off and I will have no control. So that's one of those, I guess we call it misconception or whatever you want to call it. And one of the biggest things that I always see is equity, right? So let's say practices that are affiliated with Heartland, you don't have to give Heartland example, but let's say any other DSO. What are some of the equity models out there for some of these solo practitioners where they can feel a little bit, let's say safe?

Mark Greenstein:
So two dots, one on the notion of control. I get that a lot. They're going to tell me what to do. Now, the question I would ask folks just to consider. There's 2800 and change doctors at Heartland Dental, many of whom have got 20 and 30 years of experience, many of whom hundreds had wildly successful solo practices. And yet they're still at Hartland. Now, do you think they'd be at Hartland if they actually thought they didn't have any control? I mean, at the end of the day, the notion that some corporation is going to tell somebody what, a professional doctor what to do, and would, in a highly competitive marketplace where there's so much more demand for dentistry than there are doctors to do it, we wouldn't have the high retention rates, we wouldn't have these doctors staying with us five, ten, fifteen years. It wouldn't happen. So that alone, I think, is the biggest kind of data point that I share with doctors. And then I give them a list of 100 doctors and say, You randomly call these 100, find 100 of your own. I don't really care. And what you'll find, and ask them their why. Find out, are they being told what to do? Most of them will say, Νo. In fact, I get to do more of what I want to do because I don't have to worry about hiring and all the labor challenges. People get sick. Somebody else takes care of replacements. There's a water leak in the office. I don't have to worry about that. I'm actually doing more of what I want to do. I have more control, especially over my patient care and my life than I ever did before. And you'll hear that by the hundreds. I don't think a business could be successful at our size, or be successful for as long as we've been doing this. If in fact, that notion of control was actually true. This doesn't pan out. In terms of equity models, there are a couple of different models out there. There are models like Heartland where you get which I think is the, let me start with some of the other ones. Some models allow you to retain a portion of your practice, and that really feeds into the notion of, I still have 20% equity in my practice and I'm in control. But what are you in control of? You're in control, I guess, of your practice. But what, how are you benefiting from the collective growth of the entire enterprise? You're part of something much bigger. That's typically the reason why you want to join a group organization to be part of the group. So if you're incentive and you're, everything is revolving around your four walls, did you, did much really change or are you growing or benefiting as much as you possibly can? That's a question. So that's one model. Another question is where do you, how do you get rid of that 20%? Who buys it from you, and at what price? How do you know it's actually going to transact when you need it to transact? And by the way, if you still have that 20%, that means you only got 80% of the value for your practice. So what was the best? If you would have gotten 100%, you could have taken 20%, could have invested it in Treasury bills and watched it grow, and perhaps had more liquidity in Treasury bills than you're going to get under 20% that you might have to hold for 15 years. And at what value, again? So there's a lot of questions about that 20%. People latch on to it because they think they are going to get control. But that 20% is, and I would submit and I would encourage folks to talk to Heartland doctors or others with our model, that you can have control a lot of different ways. One is just work for a company that just gives you control. That's its ethos. Doctors are the leaders of our practice. They have control. They have autonomy. It's been that way since the day we started. The other model is they, you also can get what's called topco equity. So topco equity is you can get equity at the overall enterprise. And that's a very interesting model because now you're participating in the growth of the whole. And that feels very right to me because you're joining a group, you're partnering with the rest of the doctors in the group to grow the entire enterprise. That gives you incentive to help the next generation of doctors get ramped up. It gives you incentive to advise the company on ways to solve problems. It's got a lot of real community and teamwork embedded in it, and a model that has both of those is pretty good, except when that model doesn't really have the ability for you to get liquidity. And that's where I think having that equity is fine. But can you get cash for it at some point because it costs you money to get that equity? You bought it with your practice or you bought it with cash after you had your practice. So those are the two different kinds of equity, local equity, I call it in your practice, and then global equity in the DSO. In the Heartland model, what we have is we give all of our doctors virtual profit sharing at the practice level. They don't have to put a penny in to get that. All Heartland doctors are paid the same way. And I'm talking about our general dentists, which are, and general dentistry is 97% of our business, so it's the vast majority. They're all paid the same way, and they get a virtual profit sharing in their practice. They don't have to put any cash up to do that. So unlike some other models where you actually have to, you have an opportunity cost with whatever that 20% might have been. At Heartland, you can you get an equity interest or it's a virtual profit sharing, so that's what you get with equity is profit sharing, without putting up any cash. And that ties you locally to the practice, the better the practice does, just as if you all did, the more you're going to make. And in a multi doctor practice you both can share. And that's proportional to how you contribute to the profits of the practice. Then we do allow Heartland-supported doctors to buy equity in Heartland and every five years, and we've done this I think 6 or 7 times now, so we've done it more than every five years, we've provided a liquidity event. And so we have a really strong track record of providing liquidity to doctors when they, every period of time, and they can buy in that equity and they can grow with, alongside the company. And if they retire or they get sick, their spouse gets sick, well, let's just call it life happens, then we have paths for them to also get liquidity if they need to for life. And we have a long track record of taking care of our doctors in that way. So it's a, I would say the equity models have some similarities, they have some differences, but it's really about what's the track record on executing the model? And that's what I encourage all of your listeners to pay attention to. You can, anybody can tell you, We're going to go public in a year, and you're going to make a lot of money on that piece. Every dental group I've ever seen go public has done quite poorly. One current big public one is Dental Corp of Canada. I think it's down 40% or 50% since it went public. Years ago, there were public dental companies they did not do. So I really be careful about promises that say, We're going to go public, and that's how you're going to get your liquidity. It's a, there's not a lot of track record around that.

Noel Liu:
Let's talk a little bit about that profit sharing. So you are like they can, they get up without buying in. They get a little piece of the profit sharing and that local office. Right? So are now, are these like the affiliates or are these like?

Mark Greenstein:
All doctors.

Noel Liu:
All doctors?

Mark Greenstein:
100% of our general practitioners, 97% of our doctors.

Noel Liu:
So how does an affiliate doctor work? So let's say you guys acquire a practice. So now are you doing like a capital event with a doctor, let's say if they have a single practice?

Mark Greenstein:
Affiliation, what we typically will do is we're buying 100% of it. We're not buying ... not paying 80. We're buying 100%. So you can, now you've got a full 100%. Now you can do with that 100. You've got more cash. So with that cash you can buy treasury bills, you can buy CDs, you can invest it in the stock market, but you don't have to sit on the sidelines and have to wait for a trickle of dividends from the practice; you're getting it day one. So you're getting a higher value for your practice in cash. And now that interest rates are between 5% and 6%, you can get a very nice return on that cash from day one. And that's, we're finding that's a real advantage for especially those doctors that invested in their practices. Maybe they have some debt, a post-pandemic, and now the interest rates are causing them to service that debt at a higher level. So we're giving them more cash at closing. And then if they want, they can at any time, the closing, or every year, we provide an event where doctors can take some of their cash they want and they can buy Heartland stock. It's 100% optional for them. If they do.

Noel Liu:
It's not like a require?

Mark Greenstein:
No. 100% optional, but you.

Noel Liu:
And any, and is there any like staggered, like they got to be like with Heartland for a while to get the other percent? No? Okay.

Mark Greenstein:
No. They got to buy it every year, every, typically in the summertime. We offer an event and they can buy. So they get, every doctor who joins by affiliation. Remember we're doing, we also have our de novo models and we also hire associates everywhere. So the affiliation selling doctors can buy stock at the time of affiliation, or they can wait for the next annual event. Every other doctor can just wait for the annual event. So it's no less than once per year that they can buy in and they can buy, that's topco. The local profit sharing is free from day one for everybody.

Noel Liu:
Wow. Okay. ...

Mark Greenstein:
Can we call it an aligned model? Because without, so let me give you a good example. Let's assume you're a doctor, and you're affiliated in a model that gives you 20% equity, they let you keep 20% or 25% equity in your practice. You have that. Now, let's assume it's a large practice. It grows. It works. The DSO adds value. You add a second or third doctor. You've got. It's beautiful. But the problem is, you're the only one who's profit sharing. So now you have a hierarchy or a caste system inside the practice, and those second and third doctors who don't have that equity, they're not waking up with the same energy level that you are. They don't have it. In fact, many cases, two-thirds of the capacity of the practice doesn't have the energy level that the owner doctor does. And so you typically see in those models higher turnover and less commitment. And that makes complete sense to me because two-thirds of the doctors don't have equity in the practice. In the Heartland model, everybody has virtual profit sharing, which is the purpose of the equity, is to give you profit sharing. We take the hierarchy out whether you're 72-years-old or you're 29-years-old; you have the same compensation model in the practice. So now, not only are you aligned with Heartland, but you're aligned with each other. One grows, you both grow. And now we have a team that's trying to be of most service to their communities. And that's the power of our particular model is it takes away hierarchy. Hierarchy, I believe in most organizations, kills. And once you give a doctor a special status in that practice, they, the next generation isn't as motivated. It's harder to find them. The very best doctors out there in the country who may be chose, and many of them are coming out of dental school, the last thing I want is to own my own practice. I don't want the headache. I grew up in organized medicine. I want somebody else to hire all the people. I want somebody else to manage. I just want to practice dentistry. Many of those doctors come chasing us down now, especially many of them are women; over 50% of the dental students are female today. So they're looking for a higher level of support. They're looking for higher level of flexibility. For them, they don't want to be owners, so they're immediately going into a practice and they're at a disadvantage to the owner doctor of the practice. It would much rather, much, they prefer our model where they're all equal, they're an equal partner, and they also have the support network that if they need to take time off for their family or raise a family, they can do that, they can drop the part time. Many of them shift offices if their spouse needs to move for work, and they get a whole set of services they otherwise wouldn't. That's, and by the way, if you are the owner doctor, one of the biggest opportunities we provide our more senior doctors is they get their grandchildren come along, they want to move to warmer climates, right? If you have 20%, you're stuck to your practice if you're the seller. Can't move. In our model, and we do this all the time, doctors move all the time. They move from one practice to another. We love it. We have doctors that moved from Illinois to Florida to South Carolina. Sometimes we build them their own practice because they've got so much energy at age 55, they want to start again. Other times they move into existing practices. This is a much, this model also supports mobility because it doesn't tie you to your physical box. And everybody now is also equal. It takes out hierarchy and it promotes mobility for those that want it.

Noel Liu:
And that is for your associate doctors as well, right, from day one?

Mark Greenstein:
Happens all the time. A lot of doctors, especially the younger ones, are married to doctors, and so, or MDS, and they go through residencies, they go through fellowships, and they need to move around. And Heartland provides a, especially with the size of our footprint and the number of states we're in, provides a very convenient opportunity for them to be mobile.

Noel Liu:
Oh, that's great. So the de novos, let's talk a little bit about that. So de novos, you guys like to know what's as well. Right? What are some of the pros and cons that you guys see like with existing and de novos? And let's talk a little bit about that because there's a whole, you can write a whole book on that.

Mark Greenstein:
Yeah. Well, we do have a book on it/. And say the pros are the biggest pro is the opportunity is just massive at de novo. But like any new business, it comes with a risk and it comes with a lot of hard work to start a business. And I think that's doesn't have, the door opens, doesn't have a patient base. Now our de novo is typically open with 150 to 200 patients on the schedule when we open it because of where we situate them. Start with the pros first. The pros are, it's a state of the art practice. Our de novos are 10 to 12 operatories with the very latest of all technology, from intraoral scanning to AI to the displays in the office, the way the office is designed, the lab in the office, it's all perfected, to be honest with you. And we know what works, right? We built 100 a year. So we know how to lay them out. We know how, what are the right chairs to buy? What are the right waiting room chairs to buy? What's the right things to put in the wall? What's the right color schemes to use? All of the decisions doctors typically fret over when they're designing their dental offic, we've invested and I've learned over the years what actually works; how wide to make the hallways, how many surgical suites to put in, how, what should be in the surgical suite versus regular laboratory, all of that stuff. But it's a true state of the art. They're absolutely stunning. They're built to be 30, 40-year assets in their community. When people drive by them, they go, Wow. And that's, and we've been doing that at scale. Probably have 8 or 900 of those at this point. Or for, that's the probably the biggest pro. And because of where they're situated, they're at the center of their community. So for patient volume, patient visibility, when you're going into the high schools or you're sponsoring the high school games, right? People will remember your practice because of where it's located. Yes, I'm right in front of the Publix or in front of Mariano's or the Wegmans or whatever.

Noel Liu:
So location.

Mark Greenstein:
Location matters. We've done so many.

Noel Liu:
So you mentioned something about opportunity. What did you mean by that?

Mark Greenstein:
The opportunity is to be so visible in your community. You're trying strengthen your community. And that opportunity and the size of the practice as well is you haven't put up the capital for that. So you can, so we have. We put up the capital. No capital investment required, not a dime. And now you are the leader, of a 10 or 12 operatory dental practice that.

Noel Liu:
Who goes in there? Which doctor goes in there?

Mark Greenstein:
What do you mean, which doctor?

Noel Liu:
So who would be your ideal, like, let's say avatar to go in there?

Mark Greenstein:
I wish I knew because we've seen every size and shape be wildly successful. When we started new de novo, they do best when we have a senior doctor, an experienced doctor, and a junior doctor. The senior doctor typically comes in. They're very productive, and they train up the junior doctor. And junior, I only mean junior in terms of tenure, not in terms of, they're still all, they're both paying the same. But that's the ideal model when we can do it. But I was just in Florida last week, and I had two practices where I had male-female doctor teams, both started within months of graduation from dental school. And they're both just, they've been together now seven years in each of their practices. They're just crushing it. We've seen it all work. I would say, though, the senior and junior doctor model work is the one that you try to get if you can, but there's, even two junior doctors, we have so much mentorship surrounding our practices that they have plenty of resources available to them both to go see and also come into their practice to help them grow that business. It does on the downside, it's a little scary. Are the patients going to come? Many doctors aren't used to going and talking to the physical therapy location next door and telling them about what you provide, and maybe giving some cleanings to their employees so that they can experience your care, building that relationship with the community. So we have to teach them that. It's scarier because the patients are just not coming in the door. In an affiliation, these are often practices that have been in their communities 20 to 30 years. Sometimes more. Sometimes they're second, third generation before they transition. It's, we like to say we have something for everyone, and we have enough practices everywhere that we have something for someone, everybody, something for everyone, in whatever flavor that they want. And that's what we try to provide. It's really a spectrum to meet the personality and the interests of the doctors. But those are the pros and cons of the de novos is, the biggest con is just you're starting a business and it may be a few months going slow.

Noel Liu:
Exactly, exactly. Now let's dive into the other bucket.

Mark Greenstein:
Which, by the way, just to mention, because of their size, they typically grow to be larger. And they typically grow longer because they're newer, so they'll keep growing seven, ten years after they opened. Whereas an affiliation and may only be six chairs is probably going to start to cap out. So it's both are great. Both, we have, we have junior and we have younger doctors who love the affiliations. They love that idea of continuing somebody's legacy. They just love it. And others, sometimes even in the communities they grew up in. So it's like, Oh my God, I always wanted to be a dentist in that practice. Sometimes they take over for the dentist that inspired them to be a dentist when they were a kid. We've seen all of this, and I think that's the key point, is that there's something for everybody.

Noel Liu:
So with de novo, why 12-14 chairs if it's only going to be two doctors, right? What's your game plan? Is it like, just continuous growth like down the road? Is it just future-proofing it?

Mark Greenstein:
No. They get to three doctors eventually. So they go to three doctors and they try to go to 50 to 60 hours a week. Because convenience is important as well. You just want to, it's a capacity, and it's a capacity for having enough to be able to have two doctors and 2 to 3 hygienists per doctor at the same time. And most of our de novos do just that. So they, because the demand is there, the community wants the, it's not a lack of demand for dentistry. There's a lack of dentists and hygienists to meet the demand.

Noel Liu:
All right. Let's dive straight into the acquisition bucket. And what's the pros and cons that you've encountered?

Mark Greenstein:
We've done acquisitions of, we've done, the largest acquisition in dentistry was done in June of '21. So it'll be three years ago and two months June 15th.

Noel Liu:
Wow. After Covid.

Mark Greenstein:
Yeah, we did that, we bought American Dental Partners, another wonderful practice that had been in their communities 30 years, Metro Dental up in Wisconsin. Excuse me, Minnesota. Sorry. Metro is up in Minnesota in western New York, Buffalo Market, the Western New York Dental Group, UDA, University Dental Associates in North Carolina. We had a bunch of regional brands, Forward Dental. And we, that was not easy, but boy was it the right thing to do. And we just introduced into Heartland a group of so such high quality clinicians and team members in just fantastic practices that have been deeply rooted in their communities. So it's been a real boon for us. So that's probably the biggest, that was 275 offices, and we've done smaller ones at ten offices. We've done 20 office groups. About 11 years ago we did nine-hour group, which has been also another great one. We bought MyDentist, which is in Oklahoma and the southwest many years ago. Every couple of years we try to find the very best dental groups out there. And if they're interested and they're willing to be open to our model around how we like to empower the dentist, that the doctor is the leader of the practice. If they're interested in that and the services that we offer, then it can be a great match. And so far we've had pretty good luck. They don't all work out what's a portfolio like anything else, but for the most part it's been something we've been very successful with and we're continuing to be quite active.

Noel Liu:
So for the most part, do you guys just replace the entire executive team or do you like keep some of them who's good?

Mark Greenstein:
So it really, it becomes, very rarely just the CEO ... be A CEO somewhere else. Not really us. It's what do they want to do, right, at the operational level? So it's, but we're, I mean, even if, there's what they call the magic word of synergies. Once you get, we have so many team members from American Dental Partners that are still with us because we're constantly growing. So we need great operations talent, we need great data scientists. We need great folks who can handle legal and accounting and finance and payroll and everything else that we do, HR. In fact, we have HR members during our HR team from American Dental Partners. So it's, I think when you net out those who actually want to stay, it works out pretty well. The Neibauer, our chief of staff, or our COO, Kim Urso, came from Neibauer; that was 11 years ago. We had many doctors still with us from MyDentist. Many of their ... Tom McKnight and our, one of our vice presidents of operations came from MyDentist, and that was over a decade ago. So I think we've got a really good track record of creating long careers for those who are interested in growing.

Noel Liu:
Hey, Mark, all I can say is if they're staying, there is definitely something going on, which is, which you guys are doing right. Otherwise, we know how they are, right? They will come and go.

Mark Greenstein:
Dr. Liu, that is the easiest way. People say, I often get asked, How do you evaluate? Because we evaluate 300 dental practices a year, probably a dozen groups. And they say, How do you do all that? How big is your team? It's like, you know, it's not that big. How do you do it so fast? It's really easy; you prioritize what you look at. What do you, what's the first thing you look at? How long are the doctors and team members there? All right. I can learn more about any asset from that. And so you're spot on, Dr. Liu, if the doctors have been there for a long time, if the turnover is low, hygienist turnover is low, team members are there, then that's the entry point to then say, Okay, now please send me the financials.

Noel Liu:
Precisely, precisely. And I think that's a huge point to take away, because that's where it drives the value of an organization. Like, how long has the team members been in that place? Last question for you is: What is Heartland's vision moving forward?

Mark Greenstein:
Our vision is to be a world-class company and the leader in dentistry. That is our stated vision. And I think our vision is to keep doing that. We think we are the leader in dentistry and that gives us responsibilities. So AI, for us, is as much about helping the sector move forward with AI. So a lot, if you look at the company, we're working with and how they're advancing their AI in a real, right now, at a record rate, it's going to benefit the entire industry because we're just pushing the limits of that technology. We partnered with Align Technology. Oh, geez, for well over a decade now, a truly world-class company, pure R&D that has created the entire digital ortho. And we've been partnered with them for a long time, and we helped them get better. And they help us obviously every day with their products and services. But we, so being the leader in dentistry requires us to give back. And we do that through helping other companies serve dentistry better. That's one of our key planks. And then of course, we do many mission trips and give back to communities in need and help dentists grow. We help dentists from other countries come to the United States if they want and get their license. We have a lot of programs designed to help, basically, Americans get the dental care that they need, want and, desire. I think that's essentially what we're all about. If you focus on the doctors and you focus on eating dentistry and helping them lead dentistry, the rest of it, the PNL, the metrics, everything else takes care of itself. It really does. Just stay focused on helping doctors take care of their patients, helping them get the skills that they need to do as much as they'd like to do, practice where they want to practice, do the procedures that they want to do, and help them engage with their communities. The rest just takes care of itself. Heartland Dental University is the largest education, as I said earlier in the country, and we're super proud of it. Our founder, Dr. Workman, invested in High Point University. The Workman School of Dental Medicine takes its first class in August. So that's the newest dental school in the United States. And it's, so this August, it starts its first class. We're working actively on creation of hygiene schools. We're, that's how we interpret our vision to be the leader in dentistry.

Noel Liu:
You mentioned international. What about growing international? Global?

Mark Greenstein:
Two years ago we made an investment in Canada and that is international. Coast international, but within a second largest group up in Canada, it's called 1-2-3 Dentist. And we're getting smarter. And it's very different. We often say when we look at our opportunity strategically, we still think there's far more opportunity in the United States. The runway here is far longer than it is in any other opportunity globally. So I think you'll, I think our investment in Canada is a very important one, and we're continuing to invest in it. And they're doing just fine. We support them. We provide our systems. When we say systems, I mean how we help doctors and teams with workflow and verbiage and whatever services they want. And, but, you know, Canada in total is only dental is only 10%. It's only 10% of the US population. It's only, dentistry is only 10% of the size of it is in the United States. And so there's still so much more opportunity. We just opened our first office in Salt Lake City, Utah. We could do a lot more there. That community is just booming. Nashville is booming. The Carolinas are booming. There's so much in the United States still to go that I still think that's our greatest opportunity.

Noel Liu:
I think that's a great strategy because you can do so much more here. That's so much more land to fill. So love it.

Mark Greenstein:
And I don't see a lot of synergies cross border. It's hard enough to navigate the regulatory environment in the United States and do it at our quality level, which is exceptionally high. It's very different elsewhere. So we love the United States. We'll continue to support our partners in Canada. They're doing great. They have all, they need to continue to grow and expand across that country. But I think our focus is primarily on growing here in the US.

Noel Liu:
Got it. That was great, Mark, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for sharing so much knowledge. This is something which I think I took away a lot of keynotes. Well, I'm not sure if you know or not, I was taking a lot of notes.

Mark Greenstein:
Okay, Dr. Liu. Listen, I really appreciate the opportunity. If you or any of your listeners have any questions, they can reach out at Greenstein@Heartland.com, and I'm on LinkedIn, they can connect with me. We spend quite, part of our vision to be a world-class company, and the leader in dentistry means we help doctors and other groups all the time. It's not a competition. How could it be a competition when we're not 97%?

Noel Liu:
And that's one of those key takeaways I would like everybody to know. It's more about collaboration and networking, and that's what I feel it is. And that's where the future is.

Mark Greenstein:
I think that's exactly right. It is about collaboration. In fact, we call our quarterly meetings collaborate to connect, c2c's, and, or connect to collaborate, sorry, I had it backwards; connect to collaborate. I think the essence of Heartland is collaboration. The model, we talked about equity and how we should profit, share, and all that. Those are really just aligned to get people to work together.

Noel Liu:
Whatever it takes, right?

Mark Greenstein:
Whatever it takes. Because one and one definitely can equal three or more.

Noel Liu:
Mark, thanks again for your time, and we appreciate the opportunity. Mark Greenstein, you guys know where to reach him at. Once again, make sure to like and subscribe, and we will catch you on the next episode.

Mark Greenstein:
Have a great evening.

Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDs.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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About Mark Greenstein:

Mark Greenstein brings a wealth of experience to Heartland Dental as their EVP & Chief Growth Officer, having had a distinguished career in consulting and asset management, including a role as an associate partner at McKinsey & Co. At Heartland, Mark spearheads our expansion efforts, manages payer relations, and devises intricate cross-functional strategies. He also ensures that our supported dentists access top-quality products at competitive prices. In his capacity as an opportunity creator, Mark fosters strategic partnerships to drive growth for Heartland Dental and its affiliated offices. Hailing from New York City, Mark infuses his work with his lively personality. Outside of the office, he cherishes moments with his wife, two children, two dogs, and a fluctuating number of goldfish. Mark draws inspiration from Bruce Springsteen, and his favorite quote from The Shawshank Redemption encapsulates his outlook on life: “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

Things You’ll Learn:

  • Group practices like Heartland aim to empower dentists through support, education, and community engagement.
  • Dentists can benefit from joining group practices for non-clinical support, education, and opportunities for growth.
  • Equity models offer dentists opportunities for profit sharing and long-term financial stability within group practices.
  • Dentists should prioritize networking and collaboration to stay abreast of industry trends and opportunities.
  • Acquisition strategies play a significant role in the growth and success of dental group practices like Heartland.

Resources: