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This Dental Specific Podcast is dedicated to the Dental "Entrepreneur" Michael Dinsio, Founder of Next Level Consultants, delivers #TRUTH when starting up a dental practice. From the very first step to getting the keys of a dental practice, Michael shares his raw & unscripted playbook with you. Not only does this podcast provide you with "What To Do" but more importantly "What Not To Do". With over over 15 years of experience & over 150 past clients, Michael delivers an educational and informative program in a real and genuine way. Start w/ Episode 01 - as we go through a STEP by STEP process.
00:04
question is so low to John, I don't even know where to start with that. I guess the problem is, and by the way, I love that question. Interesting, interesting. This is an interesting topic. What's the solution here? Show up, understand your part, and just crush it. Pay per click, social media, we can talk about all this stuff, but what really matters is patient experience, that wow factor.
00:34
Please are you listening to yourself? Come on! What are you talking about? Yeah exactly, so sit back, take notes and listen. Oh, oh, I love this. This is gonna be...
00:49
Startup Unscripted. The questions you have with the truth you need to hear. And now your hosts, Michael D'Incio and John Bertagni.
01:11
All right, welcome, welcome, welcome. John, my friend, thanks for joining us. episode one, this kicks the entire thing off. I am so jacked about today's interview. Dr. Joanna Valentine, owner of Icon Dental Center. She owns two practices. I'm super jacked about this program. Yeah, you know what? I was thinking about it in prepping for this and really what it came down to is
01:41
This is going to give a great mindset to our listeners and viewers because this is someone that bought a practice. It wasn't it was her practice, obviously, after she bought it, but it wasn't her. So then guess what she does? She gets a partner together and says, hey, let's build a practice or she had the partner. and then they built that vision of what they wanted. She did the acquisition.
02:10
and said, this isn't us. Let's go build us. And yeah, it's perfect. Where she wanted to do it, did it how she wanted to do it. And by the way, stumbles along the way for sure. She's going to tell us, know, I mean, but I hope she's going to tell us these little pieces and nuances. But man, this is a great one. And she's such a sweetheart. And she's a dear friend of yours. And she's going to become a dear friend of all of our listeners, too. This is she's the best.
02:40
It's gonna be great. Hey, just a reminder, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channel. We're on everything. We're on all the channels. Subscribe. MySpace. We're huge at MySpace. MySpace? Justin Timberlake. But yeah, just get on board because this is gonna be such a fun program. Let's get this party started. You in? I'm in. Let's do it.
03:09
today. So Dr. Valentine, owner of Icon Dental, this is this is personal for me because you were a client of mine at one time, I have to say that. So I know of this huge background, but I'll leave it to you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your story and how you got to where you're at today? Oh, well, it's a really long story. might go. We that. We don't have time.
03:37
No, we don't. Okay, well, um, well, how did you get into ownership? Let's just let's just start with that. It was actually you want the real story? This is uncensored. Yeah. Yeah, no. We never want to we never want you to tell the truth. And we never want the real story. Okay, I feel like a lot of times people have all these plans, right? They like plan to do all these things plan like once and once like, what are they going to do when they have their practice? I was working at a community health
04:07
and another gal and I who happens to be my business partner now. We were just working and literally she was like, know, I've been here for a long time. I think it's just time for me to move on. like, oh my God, like I was literally just Googling that about buying a practice and you wanna do this together? Like literally that's how it started. We had no intention. I didn't think like, okay, I need to go find a partner.
04:35
she needs to this, this, this. Literally, she was the first person that just turned around and opened the doors and like, But you got along with her? You got along with her? Oh yeah, oh yeah. mean, we would, I mean, we got along great, but it wasn't, it was almost like, imagine going on like a few dates and then deciding we're gonna get married with them. I honestly didn't know if it was gonna be like a marriage material.
05:01
That's ballsy. That's ballsy, right? Because partnerships don't work. I think a little bit of it was like, you know, it was by luck a little bit. And I think that was huge because once we started getting into it, we're like, okay, let's figure out how we can make a partnership looking at agreements and contracts. And everywhere we turned everybody was like, all right, but man, 50 % of these are gonna fail. Yeah.
05:30
It's hard to be in partnerships. Why are you doing it? Well, here's question. Who was giving you that information? Like, how did you how did you find the person that said, you know, was it a contractor? Was it a lawyer? Was it a rep? Like, how did you who was giving you the information? This thing's going to fail right out of the gate. I attorney, first of all, attorney for sure. He is writing our agreement.
05:59
those disclaimers. And then our CPA brought it up as well. Banker. Everybody. It was everybody. Contractor didn't really come involved. Our first practice was acquired. bought that one. Oh, that's right. Yeah, so that was in Everett. And we bought it from two retiring doctors. And that was also another thing that we kind of just stumbled upon. I was just looking through different listings.
06:28
They're like, hey, you guys are retiring and an eight-operatory clinic, was the perfect setup for us. So it kind of just fell into place a little bit, but that's kind of where it all began. Okay, so here's my question. You guys are still together as partners though, so you're proving these people wrong, which is great. Send them holiday cards every year saying, we did it together. did it. And don't let...
06:58
Don't give everybody advice that it works, okay? Because you two are special. Everybody does say don't do it for a reason. you two are special. Yes, but I also tell patients, mean, like colleagues of mine who have asked about it, and I think a lot of them, they have fears and like, can't do this alone. And I'm like, well, you know, it's possible. But however, it's a lot of take and give. And I keep referring it back to America.
07:27
I feel like I spend more time with her most of the time, you know, than even my own husband. And a lot of it is like, what makes, what powers us, what drives us is the fact that our ego is like way down here. Beautiful. And that's actually something that we talk about all the time, that you have to check your ego. You have to have humility. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have humility, especially when they start a business or when they actually, their business starts to thrive.
07:57
And that humility is one of the biggest pieces that actually makes businesses grow quicker and actually have more patient interaction and customer experience in my life in my mind. that's actually a great point. Let's transition to the startup, because although we are going to have a season two, maybe we'll have you on the second season, Joanna, about the acquisition. That being said, the startup, like I'm really interested in
08:26
why you bought a practice and it's a thriving practice did really well. I've personally seen it. You guys are crushing it up and ever. But why'd you go from acquisition to startup? Because a lot of people, when they do the first acquisition, then they kind of go down the acquisition path versus and then a lot of people do a startup and they're like, oh, we have all the systems, we know what we're doing. And they just keep doing de novo. So you guys kind of broke the mold. And I love that about you. So
08:53
Why acquisition then startup? Great question. Yeah, it's a really good question. feel like acquisitions had a lot of benefits for us, especially because we didn't really have that business background. I in dental school, they give you like literally zero. And so it was great because from the get go, you had the cash flow, we could quit our jobs and next day just start working. We didn't have that fear of like, okay, well, I still got to go work, you know.
09:23
three days a week somewhere else and then try to get this thing off the ground. And so it worked out really well, but I think deep down it wasn't us. I felt like we needed that like just fresh start. Like I feel like you can totally tell. mean, Everett, we're gonna get to that. We keep telling the staff, we're gonna come back. It was supposed to happen like this year we were gonna do a remodel, but it hasn't yet. And so when you walk into Seattle, it's just,
09:52
It just imbibes who we are. Does it start with a V, the vision? Oh, oh, oh. It's like living, breathing vision of us. It's your vision. The startup is your vision practice. The acquisition was kind of like a cash flow. A business decision, maybe. It was. Yes. It was exactly that. I mean, we've kind of created, right? We put the culture in there and everything. Let me ask you a question there. I want to keep on this, but
10:22
When you bought that Everett Pet practice, did those two cats that were selling it, did they stay on for a little bit? Did they give you some intuition or look behind the curtain on how to run this thing or you still just figured it out on your own? Oh yeah, was like, literally they're like, drop the keys and they're like, yeah.
10:46
That's exactly how it went down. See ya! They changed the keys like in a parking lot, like right after we signed the papers. And yeah, so it was very, I mean, we went in here like, we had no idea what we were getting into. was... That's hard. That's hard because a startup, you have a little ramp up period. Yes. Where this thing, it's like, you need to be an op two, three and seven right now, Joanne. That's a...
11:16
That's a whole different game. always, I always say that the biggest risk of an acquisition is letting it go down and you have to keep it going. Otherwise you're in trouble. Whereas a startup you're, you're supposed to gradually grow. an acquisition in a lot of ways, it's more pressure because you have to continue to do what they did. Otherwise the financials look completely different. And so from a banking perspective,
11:45
correct me if I'm wrong, they're looking at those numbers saying what's going on, right? Month over month, year over year on that acquisition. Am I correct with that? Oh, absolutely. The whole underwriting platform is based on what the previous, in your case, owners guys did, and they're judging then the new owners if they can continue that. And so,
12:12
That's what the approval is all about. if they say no, they just don't believe it. And if they say yes, you better do it. So I can see that there'd be a lot of pressure for you guys for sure. Yeah. So Joanna, you're being judged every day. Yeah. was very... I mean, we didn't... And looking back, little tidbits like golden nuggets I would tell people is like, really look at everything that you're walking into. Because we didn't think about...
12:42
Oh, great, the financials look good. It's a big enough practice for us. But we were walking into an office with two white men, you know? Yep. One of was Mormon. And so we didn't really think about like the things, last fact that patients would have walking in. mean, I'm Chinese, nuttiest, like, you know, Brazilian slash Lebanese. And so, I mean, it was a complete 180 to what that practice was used to. Yeah. And so,
13:12
You know, we were definitely having some struggles from the staff, from patients. They're like, well, my doctor used to, my doctor and I was like, oh, Yeah. That kind of leads into, so you're talking about nuggets, right? And you're saying it's not only about the numbers, it's also about that demographic, you know, marriage of you guys to the actual patients. So did that then let's get back into this. Did that lead you to say, okay, this was great, but
13:42
Nadia, you and I, we need to do it on our own and we need to do it in the location where we want to, you our true vision. You know, Maladon Kral talked about his vision and when he worked at a DSO, he knew his vision from day one, what he wanted to do in the city of Chicago. knew it. So it sounds like that was what you guys were thinking too, even after you bought a practice, stabilize the numbers, but you still said to yourself, you know what? I still want something else. Yeah. Right.
14:12
Yes, I think that's exactly what it was. But we couldn't quite make that transformation in Africa. I mean, it's there until we did a full like remodel and everything. We could get the culture, we could get the patient experience in, but it wasn't complete. And so we keep referring to Seattle as our flagship. No, do you? Yeah, yeah, we can say that's our flagship office. know, we, you when we opened it, was like, okay,
14:42
We started before we even bought it, Let's back up a little bit. We knew we wanted a group practice. We knew that, you know, within our lifetimes, dental practice is not going to continue the way it is. Yeah. That more and more, you know, mergers and bigger practice would, you know, happen. And so we wanted to get on that, but provide patients a different type of experience than what they might
15:12
referred to as a corporate office. So we wanted to bring that mom and pop feel, that personal feel, without having to stick to one location. We wanted to bring that convenience to them and still be able to offer that. Because I think that's what patients need. We're about creating a long-term relationship with them. It's not about making that quick buck.
15:40
So for Seattle, we wanted to try that from scratch. Nothing. We didn't want any influences. We didn't want anybody else's vision in there. You know, we created, um, where other doctors could come in and, you know, work. Although there's still things in work in progress, so we didn't know it. And you know what's interesting, Mike, like, isn't this, you know, this amalgamation of this special edition.
16:10
Right. And then, you know, the vision episode. Isn't it amazing how these two are so paralleled? I get so exhausted when I was a banker and even today as a a startup coach. When when someone talks to me about going into business, they don't it. Sorry, Joanna, but you kind of described it when you when you and Nadia were like, let's let's get a practice.
16:38
there's no vision. And I guess that's why I have a job which is which I love like let's create together. Like let's create that together. But still though, like it you you you do figure that out over time. You guys absolutely figured that out that it does start with your vision and and and at that point then you create what you want.
17:03
and then your patients can experience it and then it becomes a thing, right? And I think it evolves over time too. I love that you guys did that and that's what we're trying to do here, Joanna. Let people know it's very important to be able to convey who you are through your practice and your environment in addition to the dentistry, in addition to the staff. And because it's not only about your hands, unfortunately.
17:31
And it's very interesting that you brought that up, you know, like filling the void and, you know, something that patients need. I mean, you can go to many places and get dentistry. I feel like that's... You can get further anywhere. Yeah, it's just what we do. It's not why we do it. you know, Mike's been in the office since Seattle and, you know, a big part of who we are is to empower and inspire other people.
17:58
to live their lives, to do what they want to do. If you have, you know, a vision, if you have an idea, you should go do it. And I think that's, that's what we really do. That's why we do it. It's not, it's not the filling in the crowd. I mean, it's fun. We do that for fun, but, if we can really like impact and really change people's lives and not just our patients, I think, you know, we try to rally the team behind it. You know, Hey,
18:27
This is not just a job. Like, you you got, you have to have goals. And we always talk about like for us, our vision and our goals have to be so big that all of our employees goals and wants will fall into that. Well, because you're leading by example, right? Like people follow, they want to be like you, right? And that's what a lot of leaders, a lot of dentists don't, they don't have that skillset of actually, you know,
18:55
going back and actually doing some sterilization if you're behind, know, cleaning up a room, that sort of stuff makes people do it on their own accord. It's kind of crazy. I think it's huge. I mean, you know, we don't routinely go clean a room, but every now and again, I'll go in there and clean a room and they're just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, you have to. Yeah. At the very least, you know. All right. So I have a question. All right. So you had that practice. We're going back.
19:25
And this is how these episodes go. You're doing great. Then you said, we want to build this thing. Who did you go to? How did that start? Because sometimes you want to be quiet that you don't want to open up another practice. Like, who did you go to? How did that work? would you change anything? Are you going to do the same thing again when you do your next practice? What's that going to look like? Yeah. Why about the first steps?
19:54
Doc, because you guys had some bumps in the road on the front end. Now we're leading the witness. A little bit. I'm leading it. I'm leading it. I'm not going to give it. I'm not going to give it away. You want me to read a script for Crying Out Loud? We had a coach at the time. OK. And he was great.
20:23
I think if when we do this again, we'll have a better roadmap. And I think that's very much necessary. You know, we don't like to have everything mapped out, but having a general outline is key for the success. And I think our coach had some ideas and some things that needed to happen, but it wasn't very presented in a linear fashion. And so we...
20:51
We did a lot of things. jumped a lot of steps and I don't know exactly what the conversation was like that was like, we need help. That's kind of where it came to. And, and coach is one thing, but you started getting into the industry with contractors and equipment people. Oh yeah. And they kind of led you down a path as well. Correct. Well, before even that,
21:19
I don't know if you guys would even recommend this. This is what happened. And I wouldn't say that I would do it again. We signed a lease, basically. Right. I can't believe you thought that. I'm very aware. I'm very aware of this situation. Before you had money? Oh, yeah. By the way, listeners, listeners and viewers, please do not do that. Don't. I would not recommend it.
21:49
all. felt like it was really, it was like what happens when you're house hunting. I think people get really excited. They start looking at redfin, they start looking at houses. And before they know it, they're like, I don't even have a free room. I need that letter to put down an offer. Um, that's kind of what happened to us. We were basically at that point of, know, no return. Yeah, we had little wiggle room.
22:17
I don't think we had signed it. mean, things are kind of fading a little bit, but I don't think we had signed it, but we were definitely well down the path of negotiating with the landlords and the real Well, when I met you, Doc. Oh, yeah. That was the beginning. Yes. I you this is going to be more than 40 minutes if you want to hear details of how it played out. So when I met you, you had signed a lease. Yes.
22:47
And your, your budget was somewhere around $400,000. And if it. Downtown Seattle, which it's very expensive to build downtown Seattle. And, and your free rent was ticking. Oh yeah. Oh, it already started. Yeah. So, okay. So.
23:13
I guess I'm curious, so you're in a situation now and I remember it vividly, but again, for the listeners out there, I want there to be a lesson and that's be careful about who you surround yourself, especially for a startup. Now, there's a lot of great coaches, there's a lot of great equipment people and contractors, and so there's a healthy skepticism for sure.
23:43
You got to have a healthy skepticism. You can't go into it thinking, I can't trust anybody because that's the opposite of what you need to do. However, you don't trust the first person, I guess, is how I would say Well, because here's my whole thing. That real estate person, I mean, what the heck was that person thinking? Right? In a way. In a way? No.
24:07
Absolutely. I had a without having money behind it that I mean that conversation, that's one of the first things out of the gate. I mean, and I'm sorry you had to go through that Joanna, but and you won't go through it again, obviously, but and we hope none of our listeners will go through that because you're exactly right. Yeah. And so because of that, you know, like we had an equipment person that we were kind of working with and you know, he had
24:34
worked with us a little bit before, so we're like, okay, well, it just kind of makes sense, right? And then because I think a lot of times in all of this, people start going down the path of like, oh, well, this is my buddy, and I've done this with him. Yeah, my buddy! Where's it at, Don? That's right, my buddy.
25:01
That's exactly it. Dentist buddy, here it is. My dentist buddy did it. Come on. And I think that's what happened to us. was like, okay, well, we don't know, right? So we don't have, we didn't have all the connections or network to be like, okay, this is the right person for this. It was really like, oh, well, this person's done it. Okay, well, so then you just corral these people in. And I remember, you know, we had a phone call with
25:30
in. He like put everything on pause and like flew up to save this thing. Like immediately? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you flew in like, like 48 hours later, something like that. It was in he was like, Oh, no, no, no, this is really bad. it was really bad. It was really bad. And I think he knew it was bad. And we're just like, we need to stop right now.
25:57
I Nadia, Joanne, when I, Joanne, I told Nadia, said, okay, we literally have to take four steps backwards. Yeah. One step forward. And she almost had literally a meltdown, but, but they totally trusted the system. And talk about that day that I came in and we had interviewed, I don't know how many people, but did you really, what was that like? John, John, just so you know, I mean, we,
26:28
when I flew in, we basically fired the whole team involved. And then, and then lined, we lined up all of the folks that do this pretty much every day, day in and day out. And they interviewed, I don't know how many people, but was that a little bit different than the first interviews? Oh, absolutely. don't think there were interviews, Mike. Remember? Like it was just, you can put a chair in. Great. Awesome.
26:58
Don't do that. I can't believe I'm telling you guys this. No, it's perfect. It's perfect. know, because you think, Joanna, you're not the only one that's done this. No. I just, and I think it's great that, you know, we're having this conversation because, you know, it is important. I mean, it worked, it's like what you said, it worked out. I think it probably would have in some form or fashion, but probably not as easily or smoothly as.
27:26
So yeah, that day when he came in, he pre-arranged basically two or three people from each kind of aspect of what we needed. So we had contractors in the meeting, Yeah. it was very interesting because he brought different people in and it allowed them to kind of come in.
27:55
and present what they had to offer to us, which was really nice. And I think that's definitely the way to go because I feel like during the whole process of all this, it's like you're fed to a pack of wolves. mean, I mean. Put that in. You put that You're in so much trouble. I'm sorry, that's what that would mean. That's what that would mean. This is amazing. Perfect. That's exactly what she should say.
28:25
Exactly right. By the way, we talk about that all the time. We talk about that. I would hang out with you all day long. But I just felt like it really was we had no idea what we were supposed to be doing. And everybody just comes to you like, Oh, you need this, you need that. It's planning a wedding, but times 10. But everybody is feeding you all these sparkles and things. And you're like, Oh, I need that I need that. And I think the best thing that life ever said, and it's
28:54
It still comes to me sometimes when we're making decisions. It's like, do you need it or do you want it? Is it a need or is it a want? He said that so many times throughout the process. And I feel like it's very, very important because I think everybody comes to you with all these high budgets and everything. And it's like, didn't matter how much money you had because you're going to
29:19
Well, and that's what we talk about. We talk about that all the time. No matter what the budget is for the project from the bank, you seem to come in one US dollar less than that somehow, some way. And so what we're trying to do here, Joanna, just so you know, we want to try and preserve money, spend money the smart way, and also make sure when I say preserve, I mean, reallocate enough money in the marketing budget and in the working capital budget for us.
29:49
to build the businesses the correct way. And then yes, if there's money in that bucket a long time, then you can get that special piece of equipment. Then you can do something different, but don't have that mindset of how am I going to pay this at the end of the month based upon stupid spending early on. So Mike, kudos to you. Joanna, kudos to you for saying, you know what, we need to stop this madness because
30:18
Some people don't realize it and they end up spending $40,000 in operatory of equipment or 50 or 60. it's like, what the hell are you even doing? It's so dumb. It is. really is. I think the biggest thing, one of the biggest takeaways, there are lot of takeaways, but one of the biggest takeaways I had before we even opened is this fact of you've got to be resourceful. There's a lot of...
30:46
I mean, money can buy you a lot of things, but it's like, you, is there another way to get what you want without having to spend that? then later you're like, shoot, I wish I had that, you know, money for payroll. I wish I had that more than marketing. Because it's so easy to just spend it on the equipment or the building. I mean, do you remember Mike? They wanted like $35,000 for a decorator. I was like, you're crazy. You're crazy.
31:15
So I don't know if he told you about our process. We did a design build, so we didn't have that traditional architect and all of the design finishes, everything, united. Right. We were like, forget it. We already don't have the budget that we need. have your vision. You talked about it. Yes. Right? You don't need someone else extrapolating your vision. You already had it.
31:42
Yeah, and so fortunately, we were both very good with colors and everything. And we were like, okay, we know exactly what we want. And we just had somebody basically put that counter up. think that's the biggest thing, right? Like every project, your project will be unique than anybody else's project. Every project is literally different in its own way. And every dentist has skill sets and visions that are different.
32:11
We talked about it, John, with Dr. Kroll. He had a vision that he wanted a lot of technology right out of the gate, but he probably cut in other areas, right? And these two, they didn't have a huge budget, so they cut and designed because they had resourcefulness and skills in the department. And we didn't need it to look, because we never wanted it to look glamorous and expensive. That was not our thing. For us, it's just like what you said, our
32:41
vision was to have a group practice. wanted patients to know that you can come in here and everything would be able, you know, we can do everything for you. So we wanted to highlight, you know, the technology, the people in there. So it almost worked out in our favor that everything is very, very clean. Like I'm very OCD. So everything in the clinic is just minimalistic. There's nothing.
33:10
Lots of whites, countertops are empty, and we really wanted just to highlight the things that we wanted people to see. It wasn't about the marble or the fountain. we didn't, it didn't work. So, you know, we just had a lot of like, inspirational poster, like wall art and stuff like that. And so we were able to kind of capture that, you know.
33:36
this is a nice place. I patients would pop in and they're like, man, this place is swanky. And we were able to capture that without having to use our money on that. Because we needed a lot for you walk into that office, it, definitely gives you the impression that you guys spent a lot of money on that look. And, and, and it is a lot of money, by the way, if you look at it, but it's not
34:05
It's not the amount of money that you probably would have spent, you know, I like the finishes and whatnot. We spent way less than, you we probably could have. You know, here's the thing, too. You know, and this is a I'm not going to say it's a tactic, but there's this mindset of it's not about the dollar, right? It's nothing about the overall dollar. You could break it down to a monthly payment. Right. Well,
34:34
In this world, you need, Mike is shaking his head right now, but you need to hit a budget because that's all the money you have. But beyond that budget, even if you hit underneath that and people are like, well, it's only, you know, this room of $40,000 of equipment is only, you know, three, 3000 or whatever it is a month times five. Well, you've got to cut a lot of teeth.
35:04
for that monthly payment for that room of equipment or that x-ray or whatever it is or that design or whatever it like I understand that it all comes down to a monthly number but I want our listeners and people to understand you still have to pay that every single month so let's be smart about how much money your monthly payment actually is and do you feel comfortable with that?
35:33
paying that over a 15 year period or 10 year period. want to say specifically to our listeners, it's only $100, $1,000 a month. If someone breaks something down by the month, literally walk away from them. Literally hang the phone up and say this conversation's over because all they're trying to do is sell you something that, by the way, they don't have this
36:00
this vision or not vision, but they don't have the overall, you know, concept of what you're going through, right? They don't know what your budget is, what your vision is. They don't know any of this stuff. So if they're trying to sell you, oh, it's only 350 bucks a month. Or hey, do curved walls instead of straight walls. It doesn't matter. It's only going to cost you this much across, know, or this upgraded carpet. I'm not only saying equipment, it's everything. Because everything could be, you know, ticked up. And suddenly, your budget's out of control.
36:30
Then I feel monthly stress. do you, your job is already stressful. I already saw with my dad, very stressful job that he did this all his career, but it's, it's, it's why have that stress of money every single month? Yeah. Make smart decisions. Yeah. And decisions that, know, you're, feel like you have to think.
36:55
Okay, you can, I mean, there were so many things, for example, we went with, you know, all of our equipment is in Seattle and every bit is so expensive. I mean, the monitor, the patient education monitor that's attached to the chair, it's white and it's very nice looking on there, but they wanted like a thousand dollars, $1,200 for this monitor. There was nothing special about it. And so we're like,
37:24
Can we find any other type of monitor out there? And they're like, well, it's medical grade, so you can keep wiping it. I'm like, okay, but I can buy eight of these monitors. I went to bathroom and I could buy another one. And still have, so, you know, we went with some, like we had the idea, we wanted that concept, but we went and found ways to achieve it without necessarily buying that. Resourceful again, and Flex support.
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I love that. love it. You guys were you both were were really the masters of having this vision. And and when you got your your your mind around kind of the way the New Order aka the the New Order was going. But once you got into that mode, then all of a sudden it was like, wait a second, let me think for myself and not you know what I mean? And
38:21
I need the white monitor and do I need the cabinets? Remember the exercise with the cabinets? was, although you ended up going with them, you know, it was still we went through the exercise and I don't, I don't think doctors go through that exercise. No. And then remember the cabinets, the sterilization cabinet, I remember like they kept on telling us, you know, it would be this much to get all these little pieces for sterile. And I was like, wait a minute.
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We only have, we were only able to start with two chairs. You remember that? That's all the budget allowed in an eight hour. Oh, I remember.
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two chairs, how many trays am I going to have? How many of this stuff am I going to have? What if I didn't buy that second tower? I'll call it later when I have the need for it. And it wasn't even something that, you know, none of the reps or anybody, they're not going to come to you with that information. Yeah, was sitting there one day and me getting frustrated because they kept on telling me how much it was or, or they're like, well, we can take off the lights.
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and I'll make it cheaper. I'm like, but I want the lights. That's the whole, I mean, that's a huge part. Why in the You don't need a second tower holding 44 trays from day one, what you're saying. I just didn't buy that one right now. And it was literally like, oh. Oh. Oh, well, we can do that because these are all modular. Oh my gosh, this is groundbreaking. And that's how we did an office.
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$450,000 budget in downtown Seattle because you were resourceful. You thought about it. You got others you interviewed lots of people you worked through the progression. Yeah, and we Yeah, one started asking. mean, the worst thing we can say is no, we I mean, we asked for everything. We're like, can you throw in a whatever? you like, and I don't think a lot of people will ask. And we got you know, a lot of extra things, you know, our cameras and whatnot.
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thrown in with it. think we got some extra. They were were they were sympathy gifts. Yeah, a little bit. And we also made it like, hey, you know, have eight more Clippers operatories to be filling out. have Everett. So there was a way to negotiate with them like, hey, this is not just two chairs. You're going to that. I always do. I mean, I always think about that.
40:50
that it's not about and unfortunately, and maybe you caught a good one here, but some people, they will try and outfit you all eight operatories. And again, listeners, if they try and do that, run immediately, get the hell out of that room because that's BS, okay? If you think about and you have empathy for the end user or the person not across the table, you should be sitting side by side, you know, with that person.
41:18
with that equipment rep or that contractor or that architect you want to sit side by side because that's you know, that means you're in it together. But if you have empathy for what they're going through and how much money they're spending over this lifetime for this project, man, you don't need all of that today. You're going to get the credibility and the trust and that partnership for life because you've done the right thing. Right?
41:45
And I think that was a really big point too when it comes to making a team. We've already decided it's huge to get a team from the get go. And I think that team has to believe in your vision as well. They have to believe in what you're after. Because then it'll help drive them to give you the things that you truly need. I love that. That's phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah, we were pretty fortunate. that most of them, I mean, they weren't truly fools.
42:14
I don't think they even intended to like upsell us or give us all these things. I think it's what he said. It's, they just don't know what you really want. so. We talk about this. mean, Mike, you and I talk about this. They shouldn't be talking about, and that's why we're trying to put these dentists through a process, you know, equipment or some of these things, computers that comes down the line. Like.
42:43
this vision, demographic studies, banking, real estate, those are how you start this process. And we want people to understand that if it is a equipment person or if it's a technology person, they understand your vision. Like you said, they actually understood it. So that way they could build the products around what your vision is because
43:10
I guarantee you if you said I'm doing a Medicaid clinic that I'm giving away free dentistry every single day, even less Medicaid, anyone walks in, I'm just doing it for free, right? Not even Medicaid. There's nothing wrong with that. But I doubt they would be saying, let's do a very expensive operatory of equipment. They would be speaking about different items. So they had to understand your vision, which is brilliant. I love that they did that for you.
43:39
And we talk about that, these people, you need to be able to set the tone of what it's going to look like from your perspective. But isn't that it? Like if the doctors don't have it, then who's going to drive it? And I think- By the way, you're not ready to open up a dental practice if they don't have a vision and they don't have a-
44:05
then doc, then we wouldn't have as many startups or people buying practices that I guess I get that's no man. They just they just do. And and and I and I think that's what this program is really meant meant for us to to challenge folks to think about this stuff before they go in and get real hire coach, get whatever listen to a podcast. I don't care. But at the end of the day, I always say this if you don't drive
44:34
what you're trying to accomplish through your vendors, they're not going to know. So they're just going to do what they've done hundreds of times before you. And that's, that's probably not exactly what you want. By the way, when we're talking about vendors, even bankers, right? Bankers need to know what your vision is. We talk about, you know, not a lot of people have it business plan, but like they like that because it gives them the thought process. Okay. They have.
45:04
they know what they're gonna be doing here. We love them. Like, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for being on the show and listeners like this, this stuff you can't read in a book. You can't like, this is what it's all about. So first of all, thank you. Everybody's gonna get on our show and tell us about how amazing they were and how they did everything right. And that's not the truth. And I can tell you that's not the truth.
45:32
I've been in the industry long enough. People are getting, I hate to use the word duped all day long, all the time. The thank you because this actually moves the needle and thank you. So I love what you're doing, Joanna. mean, most importantly, what I love is your humility towards what you've done in your career. And this actually is going to resonate to our listeners. Yeah, I mean, I hope that I
46:01
gave you some good insights like nothing's perfect. Even though in dentistry, we're all about making it perfect. I feel like it's nothing but that it's not glamorous at times. By any means you have to get dirty, you have to, you know, be willing to, you know, get out there, you gotta be willing to like, you know, be at the same level with your team. Those are the things that
46:29
is going to make a huge difference. so unfortunately, it's not like a book. I can tell you like follow things, you're going to be successful, you're going to have your three day weeks. And actually, I feel like it's the total opposite. For those people who think that buying a business, you're going to be able to have those long weekends and three day weeks. It's the total opposite. I feel like having that business is you're committing to working at 930 at night and stuff like that. And that's a whole nother thing. mean, we talk
47:00
videos on how to manage your time. But it takes a lot of commitment. And, you know, you've got to do it day in and day out. And you think you got it right. Three days later, you know, something else is going to happen in terms of people. There's a lot. There's a lot of books out there. A lot of books. But they don't ever really tell you what you're talking about. Right. You're in it. All I can say. Hang on one second. I want to go back to something.
47:28
Joanna, I want you to be an ongoing contributor to this show because I think it's, there's a lot of stuff. Yeah, I would love to. I think, you know, we have, we're in this together. I've been through it. I've been in the dark. It's hard. It's also very lonely. And so true for partnership, true for anybody you're interacting with. I think you have to be able to, you know, know what your strengths are and acknowledge other people's strengths.
47:57
and accept that because you can use that to your own benefit.
48:03
Well, that's a perfect place to transition. Again, I said it 17 times. I'll say it one more time. Thank you so much for what you've Of course, of course. And to everybody that's listening, know, again, subscribe YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. We pretty much have this on every channel there possibly could be. To find Dr. Valentine and Icon Dental, we'll put plenty of links in the description of the episode. So please
48:32
Reach out to her directly and her partner. And thanks for being a part of the show and continue to be a part of the show. That'll be a real treat for everybody. Thank you guys. I think it's very long-awaited for something like this to be out there. you know, it's awesome. I you guys keep doing it. Great. Love it. Good stuff. Thanks for doing it. We'll see you next episode. Take care. Bye. Bye.
48:59
Thanks for listening. Tune in next week for another truth-filled episode of Startup Unscripted.
49:13
Check out Startup Unscripted on Facebook and YouTube. Click like, subscribe, and interact with Michael and John.