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This podcast covers from START to FINISH How to Acquire a Dental Practice. Michael Dinsio, founder of Next Level Consultants has literally seen hundreds of deals as a banker in the industry & he has personally consulted hundreds of dentists as a Buyers Representative. Michael talks with GUEST SPEAKERS about Due Diligence, Legal, Demographics, and more... He invites experts to the show to help you avoid those headaches and heartbreaks. So start at the TOP w/ Episode 01 and work your way through the transition process. We break it down step by step in a true #UNSCRIPTED and genuine way.
0:00
[Introduction Music & Annooucer]
0:43
All right all right guys, welcome welcome back to another episode of Dental Acquisition Unscripted. This is Mike Dinsio as you know the host and founder program. Guys, thanks so much for tuning in. As always, subscribe, like follow us. My goal is to offer you guys great information, great people, great connections and continue helping you guys along that ownership journey. As you know this program is all about dental acquisitions and the process in which we walk people through from start to finish but today a little different. Mixing it up. I am bringing in one of our clients that we helped actually go through the process and I wanted to hear from him I wanted to hear from Him and in His experience and the challenges and maybe trials and tribulations all the things right and so I'm lucky to have him on the show and him investing time His name is Dr. Josh Raifee and he owns Shea Dental and welcome to the program my friend how you doing?
1:51
Thank you Thanks for having me. I'm doing great how are you?
1:53
Good you looking good! You're looking… I feel like totally underdressed. You look fantastic. Like..
Oh man I appreciate it
I wouldn't I wouldn't expect anything less man yeah I always gotta like up my game when I'm when I'm on when I'm in front of Josh but but hey, I'm just in little wash a Tacoma Washington you know they call this Grit City. This is, I look professional. You my friend have a practice in Scottsdale Arizona so I would expect nothing less you look great, buddy. So yes, Josh bought a practice in Scottsdale, Arizona. We had the privilege of working with him, buddy, give me your background like where are you from? You're obviously a dentist, but just kind of like how you got into dentistry, your school? Just a little backup?
2:38
Absolutely. So I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio. I moved out to Arizona. 10 years ago. Go OHIO. But
2:44
That's really why he's on the program. He’s an OHIO boy.
2:48
There you go. And I moved out here about 10 years ago for all my schooling. And I went to Glendale for Midwestern Arizona for dental school, great program, great clinical program. And then I worked in North Phoenix for about 18 months
3:04
As an associate for almost two years.
3:08
Almost two years. Okay. And from there my next phase was buying this practice.
And your dad?
So my dad is a dentist, and again from Cleveland. And he moved out here a bunch of years ago too and I saw him own multiple practices at some point, but definitely I've been chairside since I was 13.
3:26
I was gonna say… that's why I bring it up. You're successful in your own right. But like someone that like grows up in the dental industry, and it's a good industry, we all love it. I love it. You love it, but like you literally grew up in the dental chair!
3:39
grew up in it.
3:40
Did you do? Did you work in your dad's office?
3:44
All positions, you know, I was assistant when you know… One summer I decided not to go to camp anymore. And my parents were like, You got to do something. And, my dad was like, I'll pay you. And I wanted a dirt bike at the time. So I'm like, Oh, if I work one summer, I'll get a dirt bike.
3:59
I love this story. So what did you What did you do in the office that year?
4:03
The first year I was a dental assistant. And then I loved it. And then I bought my dirt bike. And I said I want to get a dirt bike for my buddy so we can ride together. So the next summer I did the same thing.
4:15
So the patients were like literally like in the chair, you know, and here's you handing dad tools.
4:21
Yeah, yeah. And I was learning how to how to be a dentist. And as I grew older, I I started to learn more about the business side of the dental practice. Yeah. And at some point, he had multiple practices. And as I got older, I was going to him with meetings with his accountant, his attorneys and everything like that. So I was I was chairside and then
So you were born for ownership. You were born lliterally were born for ownership. You were groomed for ownership. I guess that doesn't surprise me that you own and you're you're kicking some serious butt. So
Thank you. Thank you.
4:53
I guess to that point, like it's kind of a stupid question. Now. I didn't have that little background there. I guess I remember member talking to you very early on. And you probably told me that but, but like, why did… Why did you want to own? It's kind of a stupid question now having that little backdrop so what why? Why own and we can get into like, later we can get into like more specifics but like in general, you're an associate, you're 18 months and why do you want to own? Why does that make sense? Why did it make sense to you? You know,
5:26
at the end of the day owning owning gives you autonomy, and you get to grow your brand into how you want to grow it? And you can't do that as an associate?
5:35
No, nO, you can't. It doesn't surprise me when you're, when you're talking to CPAs with your dad, and professionals, you can kind of already see it, but like, to the average listener on the other side of this microphone. You know, they didn't have that background. So they're sitting there and they're working for someone else and, you know, I hear autonomy a lot. I hear clinical autonomy is probably my number one reason why. Why is that Josh? Like, yeah, help me understand. Yeah, like, the clinical autonomy part.
6:14
You know, there's a lot of clinical autonomy, but there's also a lot of leadership autonomy that you can do as a practice owner. And, you know, if you if you work for somebody, and they like doing this material, and this procedure, and this is how you do it, you kind of have to do the same thing. There are some owners that are really cool, and they'll let you explore. And that's great. But a lot of owners unfortunately, are, here's how we'll do it. Here's the lab we use. You work for me,
6:41
And, but like, do owners literally, like, tell you how to do dentistry? I mean, when I hear autonomy, I hear like, No, you can't do it that way. Like I as a non clinician, and everybody listening to the show knows what you're talking about. But like, I always wonder, like, do they literally tell you you can't do a root canal, they literally tell you like, you know?
7:08
I was fortunate in my first position that I had a pretty good boss, you know, he let me do kind of, you know, clinically what I want to do in a way. But there are some procedures that I wasn't allowed to do, because he took them, there are some bigger procedures that some owners will take.
I see
You know, if you want to just grow, how you should grow, there's just there's just gonna be a cap at it at some point, whether it's super low or super high, but there will always be a cap on it when you work for somebody.
7:33
And there's probably a continuum there, some jobs, it's probably really low. It sounds like you had one of those high ones.
Yeah, I had higher one.
So you just wanted more control more autonomy. Vision, you had a vision for what you wanted to do already added on? Did did you as an associate Did you like how do I say this? Did you? Did you yearn for wanting to manage people and impart kind of your leadership? Or was that like something that you weren't really like? Like, is that something that you wanted?
8:05
Absolutely. And I will talk about this more later about how owning versus being associate is essentially the same thing, because it affects you directly. But I definitely had that when I was an associate of – wanting to lead and kind of grow people and let me not teach them and not tell them but show them and have them grow alongside me. So everybody gets better and more efficient or at their at their chosen duty.
8:29
Yeah, I I find that a lot of doc's. It's interesting. Some people want ownership. But they don't want that. And that confuses me. So I, you know, I'm interviewing you, because you have, you did have a very successful transition. A lot of people have a hard transition. And I think that's a key element you wanted that, which makes sense why you would want to own and also make a little bit more money. Um, I know at one point you were considering a startup before you bought but to me, we do a lot of startups, we do a lot of buyer representations. I don't care which direction you go, why did you end up going down the acquisition path?
9:11
Yeah. So when I… The story about my, my job was, you know, I was working there for about a year and about a year and I was producing, I produced a million bucks.
As just the associate?
Yeah, just on my hands. I was doing just about a million dollars. And about a year a year and change in. And I started going, you know, hey, I want to know what my future is here. I don't need the whole thing. I just want to say… you know, what's my future here? And he was older. He was over 60 and I'm an early career guy. And I said, you know a what's our options here? And we could do it in a way where you can stick around for a while we could Jr. Partnership. And so whatever it is.
You just want to start the conversation.
Just something right? And he pretty much told me to pound sand and two months later he fired me. And it was the best day of my life.
It was not! But now it is.
It wasn't then. But it now it was the best day of my life.
10:05
I've been fired once. That's brutal, yeah.
10:09
And he fired me over text message.
10:11
Oh my god. Of course he did. Of course. That's, actually crazy because we help some some clients with some really big practices that have multiple associates in it. And I'm sitting back thinking to myself, like, we have an associate, like, imagine me as the consultant. And we're advising the owner, and the owner has an associate producing a million dollars. And I'm imagining, okay, I'm imagining my client come to me and say, well, the associate says they want just a piece and started having the conversation. And I'm like, bro, like, you have a $2 million practice or whatever. And he's doing a million. So like, we got to, we got to have that conversation. You got to lock that down. I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine saying, Yeah, tell him to go pound sand. I couldn’t imagine that! Like because the practice is only going to do one thing. It's going to do one thing. (Production is going to go down). Yeah, you might need two people, two associates coming in to bridge that gap. And so the practice is just naturally going to go go down, or the the other owner is going to have to like work his butt off to make it up. Whatever it is. So anyway, he tells you to piss off and you're like…
11:27
Okay, and the fires me over text message. Oh, my God, what's going on? And now looking back it was the best day of my life. And for a month I just traveled, I did some art I just explored. And I was thinking about what am I going to do? And in that month, I was thinking, Okay, well, let me build a practice.
Build! Not Buy?
Yeah let me build a practice. And I actually designed my own 2400 square foot office.
11:58
You have that just hanging? For inspiration?
12:02
You designed that?
Yeah, this is to scale.
12:06
Oh, my God. So folks, for folks that are not on YouTube right now watching. And just listening, Josh's just just showed me a floor plan that he apparently chicken scratched himself. And it looks like a full on CAD file is what it looks like.
12:24
So yeah, okay, now this, everything's to scale, everything is blueprint. Everything's good to go.
12:28
That is wild. Okay, so you were all in it. You were all in?
12:33
Yeah, I had meetings with some financial people. I you know, I met with some banks. I mean, I was I had commercial guys everything. And, you know, I even went to an architect. And he's like, wow, not everybody does that.
12:46
No, no. We do that. We actually do that for our clients. We help them do that at Next Level Consultants. Maybe I'll maybe have you start doing it for us! LOL
12:57
LOL, But I just realized I said, Okay, I, it's going to take about a year before I see one patient is going to take about a year. And you know what, let me see what else is out there. And so I knew of some practices for sale, I knew some brokers in the area. I knew other dentists too. And I was thinking, Okay, well, let me let me look into this then. And I fortunately found a really good opportunity that I couldn't pass up. And, you know, on May one,
13:24
Wait wait wait… How did you find that. How did you find that? Because one of the biggest frustrations of my clients is they can't find a practice. And so they ended up doing a startup. So how did you find the practice?
13:35
Yeah, I, so I knew the guy actually, through a study club, I visited a pretty large study club in Phoenix, Phoenix, Scottsdale. And probably about 40-50 people that go every meeting, so I knew him through there. But I,
the broker or
The seller, the seller, and then I saw the practice for sale on a broker's website. And I, you know, there it is, there it was.
13:59
So I'm actually fascinated by this, Josh, because I tell everybody that's looking for a practice, like, you know, go to the websites. But, folks, if you're looking at the sites, you're looking at the same listings everybody else is looking at. Some of them are total crap. Some of them might be… A very small part, good. But you went to a study club. So for folks that don't know, Dr. Josh, he is a go getter. And he's at a study club, and he's having conversations, folks, I'm telling you, that's how you find the good ones. That's how you find the good ones. But anyways, go ahead. Sorry.
14:43
No, I absolutely agree with you. And from there, I reached out on May one, and then transition closed on July one. So two months. Exactly.
14:53
That's fast. That's crazy fast. When did I come into that scene?
15:00
You’re probably a week into it, about a week after. I've already met the broker, I met the doctor selling doctor in his office. And about a week later is when I reached out to you. And I said, Hey, let's let's get this done. I want this done. Right.
15:13
So I find that fascinating a little bit because, what about that whole process? I guess, made you feel like you might have needed a buyer rep. And and I'm not trying to throw a softball up to like, promote me. I'm literally trying to understand. Like, in your mind, you felt like there was a deficiency somewhere. It's like vitamins, it's like E vitamins, and you're trying to fill a deficiency in your diet. That's how it goes. So at some point, you felt like maybe there was a deficiency somewhere. Otherwise, you wouldn't have invested in me. So what was it?
16:02
You know, when you realize that the people in the deal, are there for one or two reasons to make the deal go through so they can get paid and represent the seller. You realize that you're alone. And you have your attorney, or you should have your attorney. And have your accountant. But everybody else is not on your team. And not that they're against you. But they're there to do their job.
They are pro deal.
They are pro deal no matter what.
16:34
I remember something that you said to me, you said, Mike, if this isn't the deal, I'm out. You're like, just tell me. You were like, just tell me, if this a good deal? Because if not, and if they don't appreciate this, your number or whatever, I forget the details. But I remember you specifically saying I'm not desperate. But is this a good one or not? And you already had a team? So there must have been a deficiency somewhere. And you felt you felt that?
17:02
Yeah. And you know, you just want someone over your shoulder, protecting you and representing your best interest right? And look, whatever the fee was, compared to what you… What an average dentist will do in their career is they will buy a practice, possibly. And that will be the largest deal that they ever do. And then 20-30 years later, they'll sell it, and that'll be it. Right?
17:23
And that’s their second deal.
And that's thier second deal!
17:25
And you are dealing with people that they do this every day. This is all they do. They are trained professionals, they know when to be your friend, and they know when to be your enemy. And they know when to make it tough. They know when to make it easy. They know how to play the deal, you do not. And what I think is really important is for dentists to realize that the second they want to become a practice owner, they become an entrepreneur, and we need to talk about this in the community is you are not just a dentist at this point, you are a business owner, you're an entrepreneur, you have to think like one. Because the only person that is going to get affected is you and your career.
18:04
It's true. And I find that the practice brokers are really good at making you, the buyers, feel like you know you don't really need anybody else. I know everything. And they do. They do. I've sold practices they do. They know everything, but everything that they give you, everything that they say, every document, every piece of advice is to help them and the seller and well there's just little things that just need to be tweaked. That's interesting, because now I've got a question and it's, it's really like this idea of buyer rep. Because if I remember right, you have a banker in play when we talked and then you had a CPA also in play at the exact same. Did you get the prospectus first and then you sent it to them? And you're looking at it and about that time you're like, you felt like maybe something was maybe missing because I think that's the that's the common track of most buyers is they they talk to a banker, the banker says oh, here's… here, I'll give you the money and then the CPA is like, Well, yeah, here, here's the cash flow. This looks good. Some I feel like black and white is easy to see but then it's the gray stuff… Like why hire a buyer rep in your in your opinion?
19:41
Yeah, you know, honestly, the at the end of the day, the buyer rep is there to protect you. Everyone else is essentially there to make the sale goes through. Simply for the benefit of themselves. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just a part of a sale, the transition. You know, if you as a entrepreneur, and if you become a practice owner, you are an entrepreneur… We have to establish that in our business right now. And I think there's a lot of people not going on about that. If you go and buy a practice, you become an entrepreneur overnight, you have to start thinking like that. And as an entrepreneur, you maybe buy a business and sell a business once, and you're doing really good. And maybe you do it twice in your career, and you're doing awesome. Yeah, but there are people that buy and sell businesses every day for their entire career. So when you as a buyer coming in, as a seller's agent, they know when to be your friend. and when not to be your friend. And they know this!
20:42
Or when to start pressing and selling. Because they're selling, that's what they're doing.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
No
It's just they have their job.
Yeah, to get max value,
Their job is to get maximum value. And your job is not to overpay.
21:03
And going into that middle ground is where the transition gets sometimes really fun, and sometimes really dicey. And I know we had some moments when we it was getting a little dicey. Yeah. And if you did not have a buyer representative, who does this like you do, you wouldn't know. You you and you fall in love as as a dentist. So there's an entrepreneur side of you, and there's still a dentist to you, right? Let's say you want to have your practice. You've been dreaming about this forever. And you have this great practice that you think oh my god, I can't wait to go in there. There's four or five, six beautiful, opposite receptions. Beautiful. I can't wait to edit. I can't wait to upgrade, you start creating these fallacies in your head, which is fine. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good doctor. But you want to make the deal go through. And when that happens, you get emotion involved. And that can really be bad.
21:47
It’s kind of like shopping for house. Right? Like you you see a house. And you see all the potential in it. Right? And then you're like, let's go, especially in your area, and at the end of the day, you know, the business is worth something today. And then the business could be worth more, or less, but you don't think that way. The business can be worth if I more if I put all this work into it. If I increase new patients, if I do more dentistry, if I do that procedure… he or she owner doesn't do today Like you're getting excited about that. Right? And so you might be willing to overpay – quote unquote. Because of that potential. But the truth is the asset that you're buying today is worth this today, not not what you could do with it. And I think that's what a lot of brokers tap into, is that emotional part of it for you for the buyer, and the bank, they're not going to tell you the value. They're just giving you the money, their job is not to tell you, “Yeah, this is worth it or not”. They can't do that. And then the CPA, they'll give you some some ideas for sure. But I think the clinical part, the clinical, marketing, even some of the negotiations, the intricacies the CPAs don't really touch. So there's some of these things that like are not caught. I'm glad you're saying that.
Anything else that maybe caught you for surprise on your transition that you're like, Oh, I wasn't even thinking about that anything that pops out in your mind.
23:41
You know, I had a banker when I came into the transition, and I had a different banker when I came out of the transition. And that was a lot of help, you know, from you. You know, they're they're all good guys, you know, they want to see you succeed. And you know, at the end of the day, you know, they get paid when the loan gets issued. And so they want to get this thing going. But I had great help from you to get connections and more connections in the banking industry and, you know, a loan it saved on the interest rate. You know, $200,000 Just on a connection?
24:10
What about the like the purchase and sale? Do you remember going through some of the nuances with the purchase and sale? Some of that legal work and surprising there?
24:20
You know, look, there's technicalities on the legal side of things. I had a great attorney who's been doing this for probably 30 years at this point, and that was crucial. You absolutely need an attorney. And you know, there's any break down more into the goodwill and, you know, how can you be favorable on that, obviously, you're gonna want one thing, you're gonna want the other thing and again, meeting in the middle, that's where the deal comes through.
24:48
Did you find that like, a lot of my buyers and clients kind of have this idea of like, win/lose, or lose/win kind of mentality Um, I guess I just find that like, there has to be a win win. And I know with your particular deal, there were some there were some moments where some heated moments where one side might have felt like they were losing and other side might have felt like they are winning. But yeah, I think I think a lot of buyers need to hear that, hey, look, you're not going to win every deal point. But trying to find that middle ground, I think is what you were trying to say there is the key. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on.
25:32
Question, post close. You're now brand, you're now a new new owner. All right, and you got the keys, you're excited… It's your baby. And in your situation, the seller stayed on. So it's even more kind of like a complicated, more, less clean type of deal. So you had a lot more things going on where the average doc gets in, and their baby, and it's their decisions, and there's no other influences. So even more so with you like, so how did that first month, two months, three months? How was that? Any surprises there challenges that you can recall?
26:11
That’s a great topic you bring up. When you have an idea of something in anything in life. But if you have an idea of something, and the opportunity that's presented to you is just a little different, how well can you adapt? My entire life, I thought I was gonna buy an office, I was gonna be the guy. And then I figured out that opportunity that didn't want to pass up came but the guy wants to stay on. Yeah, I'm thinking, okay. Logically, that's gonna ruin my cash flow. But goodwill wise, you know, he's gonna stick around for a little bit. And I'll tell you now, because it's been some time. You know, it's, it's working out quite well now. Even though but in the beginning, remember, you have to be in there producing the dentistry because you make the most money when you produce the dentistry yourself. If you have 1,2,3, associates doesn't matter, you don't make as much. And in the beginning, when you only have x amount of production, and he's doing most of production, you don't really have that much leftover. But as your side gets busier, and his side kind of stabilizes, you start making good cash flow. So in the beginning, the first few months, I didn't really pull money out. And that's because I didn't really want to. One because I want to reinvest in my business. Because it’s the best returns you'll ever have. But two, it's just, it's just a little different. And looking back now, I'm happy how it turned out, I am actually really happy to have an associate part time, my production in the practice is bigger, now because I have that.
Two people, more production,
More production, right. And, you know, the beginning was a little tough because I want my bank account to look bigger, but I know I have to pay out a highly paid employee, which is an associate. Yeah, but as my schedule builds up, it's all everything works out.
27:55
And that's the rub. What about so forget financials. You're very... One thing about you that I appreciate is you're very sensitive and you own own your numbers, I would say most dentists don't. In general, it's not something that they (dentists) love to do. Forget financials for a second. Let's talk leadership, and transitional HR, and culture and like, to me, that’s one of the biggest things I hear from buyers is Oh, wow managing a team is by far the hardest thing about the transition. You had a pretty solid transition when it came to your team. But, like still, even with a great team that had a great spirit about them and a willingness to adapt and learn. They were great. That's not a typical transition because you're always gonna get someone that's kind of that grouchy person. Like there's always an overdramatic, hygenist that just can't… whatever right? So you lucked out, but even still, with that luck, is there anything that you'd like to impart to folks that are considering going in? Now that you're about a year in.
29:10
Yeah absolutely. And when you look at your breakdown of overhead, your largest expense is always going to be your “staff.” When I look at my overhead, I look at my largest overhead as my “team.” Okay? When I look at my numbers, and I look at… oh my god, how much am I spending on my team? You can look at it as WOW this is an expense or you can look at this as this number actually produces me the most money.
It's an asset
It’s an asset and you have to look at it like that. I made a rule when I when I transitioned I let everyone know. You are not my staff. You are my team. Or people call their front desk girl front desk. Don't call them a piece of furniture. Okay, front office manager whatever you want to call it, but don't call him a front desk, okay? It's how you speak that the energy in your office carries. As you the owner/doctor, you are the leader of your practice, how you speak how you think carries into the entirety of your office and into your clients. And so with that being said, I’ve had a really fun time with it. I love leading people. You know, you as you are, you cannot hide from your team.
Okay, if you value health and wellness, fitness, treating people well treating people to respect being an honorable guy. They see that. You can't run from that. And at the very opposite side of it, if you're the opposite of that… they’ll see that too. And energy carries. So I’ve been very fortunate when I transitioned, I had seven or eight team members, one I removed, because it was not the right fit. And I saw it from a mile away.
30:52
Whoa, wait, that's really good. We got to talk about that. Yeah, we don't need to get in specifics or anything. But at the same time, I want to touch on that. Because I will say and we were with you post transaction as well, Paula and the team (Next Level Consultants coaches). And I will say that like most transitions there reading books, listening to podcasts, doing all the things right. And there's 100 podcasts out there on topics like this and everybody banker, CPA, you name it alike… Says do not change a thing. When you buy a practice, stabilize the business don't. And I think that is actually really good advice. Because if you go in like a hammer, yeah, you could you could really mess some things up. I've had mass exodus literally weeks in. But I think it's good to hear from you a year in that you did make some changes pretty quickly. And you survived it. Because be honest. When you closed, were you thinking you're going to drop someone like pretty quickly? Probably not, because you've heard not to do that.
32:14
Yeah, I hear all the advice. Don't change too many things. Walk slow. Look, I don't know you have faith in yourself. If you truly believe… and this is beyond just owning a practice or being a dentist, this is for anyone's personality. When you wake up every day, and you look in the mirror, what do you tell yourself? And if you believe in it, and it's positive. If someone's gonna leave, they're gonna leave. That's not on you though. If you're creating an environment that people want to be in, that's not your fault. Don't take it to heart. But so going back, I immediately came in and I saw someone from the beginning. She was always late. Just wasn't the right fit, and you could tell. You could tell there's some animosity between everyone. But no one wants to tell you as a new owner. No one's going to tell you the drama until you figure it out.
Ah! There’s a tip! I like that one.
33:00
Because they don’t know you!
So what you’re saying is… As you go in, everybody's just kind of like feeling it out. Right?
33:04
Yeah. But then I started noticing that there was one particular employee that just wasn't the right fit. Why is she here? And I gave it a fair shot. You talk with them, you figure out who they are. You give them an opportunity. Yeah, that's the one thing… You don't make rash decisions. You give opportunities for growth. And if you give opportunities for growth, and it's not taken, you have to take care of yourself and say, Look, you're no longer part of the team and I can't do this anymore, unfortunately. Yeah. And then another person left just because she got different job offer closer to home. And you know that that happens too. So I transitioned with eight, I was down to six. And now I have 14 people on my payroll. Oh, my Lord, one year in.
33:42
Geez. So let me ask you that, like, you made you made the decision to let someone go. How quickly in?
33:55
I knew within two months, and I released her four months in.
34:01
Do you wish you did it sooner or, No?
Absolutely.
That's always the case. But still, that is pretty quick, good for you… for making the decision inside to two months. A lot of people hold on to that for way too long. Was it a front office person?
34:19
It was an insurance administrative stuff.
34:24
Yeah I think that's a tough one. You know, just again, managing people. I think it's great to hear that you made some decisions you identified, kind of like a culture thing, right? So you identified a culture issue and you made a decision fairly quickly and worked through all the HR fun-ness of, of HR. So any other any other things to kind of highlight? As I'm looking at my notes here for the program, any other things from inside the first year? Challenges or things that you thought, well, maybe, I llearned from failure in certain ways? Anything that you think you failed in that you could have done better?
35:13
Huh? Fail?
35:16
Well those are the best lessons.
35:18
Those are the best lessons. You know. I don't want to talk about like clinical failures, because every dentist will have that. I think business owner failures is what you're talking about
35:30
Well, really anything.
35:33
Listen to your gut, is what is one, I would say, I was going to build a website with a firm that was not dental specific. And I'm not saying you have to go dental specific for everything, by all means. You should definitely play the field and see what's out there. And you can bring players into the dental field if they're really talented. And I was with a website builder that I knew, and I just wasn't getting good feeling from it, I wasn't gonna be a top priority, it was gonna be too expensive. And I wasted four to six weeks to get that going. And I went to one other company for my website, and I'm very happy with them now and great marketing firm and you know them well. And I think, if I were to think about no catastrophic failures, thankfully, but if I were to go back, I would just say if you have a gut feeling, don't wait.
36:17
Yeah. I love what I think. I think that's great. I mean, that's why you got into ownership. Right? We talked about that already.
36:28
I love to talk about really quickly, and why owning is essentially the same thing as being an associate.
36:36
Yeah! We got to circle back to it.
It wil take just a few minutes. But…
No, take 100 minutes!
36:42
When you when you look at the pie, right, the practice, you look at all the pie, who's the one producing who's one baking most of the pie? It's the dentist, and some and somewhat of the hygienist, right? You know, one quarter, you know, 25% of the practice revenue on average will be hygienist 75%, will be the dentist, right? On average, who's baking the pie? It's mostly you, and maybe one or two hygienist. When you look at who gets to eat most of the pie, everyone knows as an associate, you get a third give or take of what you produce. Great!
Of the pie?
Yes of the pie. But when it comes to baking the pie, who's the one putting the flour and the sugar and measuring the milk and putting in the oven? You the dentist? Associate or not? That's who's baking the pie. But what if the oven is not hot enough? What if the flour is not good enough? What if the milk spoiled? It affects you. It affects the associate and affects your pie. And you're the one eating your pie. And so when you're an associate somewhere, and the front office is not efficient at getting new patient calls? Or maybe they don't have the best personality over the phone? Or maybe the greeting process or the paperwork isn't good enough? Or maybe the marketing isn't good enough? Or maybe there's no marketing at all? And what about the patient experience? What about the follow-up? The only thing you can control as an associate is – I Mrs. Jones will do a crown today and can you do a crown and how efficient are you? But clinically that's your pie no matter who you are, the owner associate doesn't matter. But all the rest of the pie, which is very important. And you know, I love that stuff. From the moment the patient hears about your practice, from the moment they leave your practice, hopefully on good conditions. All of that pie, someone's baking it. And you the dentist, whether you're the owner or not, is the one producing most of the pie. But everything else all the other conditions, it can either be in your control or out of your control. But whether or not they're in or out of your control has a direct correlation of what pie you're producing, and how much you get to take home to eat. So you might as well do a little bit the extra work and figure out is your oven hot enough? Is your milk good quality? Is your flour right? Are your eggs good? You might as well figure that out. And it's not that hard. If you're already doing the clinical dentistry you're 90% there.
38:59
And what's interesting about that the baking analogy you're making is is that the dentist if they're good leaders, and they they care about the whole process, and they own a lot of that process. And let's say you're an associate, and and I've had clients that basically run a practice for someone else. They are literally responsible for baking and making the whole pie. But they're only eating 30% To your point 30% of their 70%. Right? And that's a that's a shame.
39:41
It's a shame. They are doing all the work.
39:44
But, sorry… But I will say, if you're an associate, and you're not interested in the whole process of making the pie, and you're only interested in your, your piece.
Which is fine.
Dude, don't even get into ownership.
40:07
But find a baker that's really good at baking the pie. Don't find somebody else that isn't really paying attention to the oven. Because then it hurts you. If you find and this is the golden handcuffs, right? If you find associate ship that the guy or girl is on their dime, they are crushing it. They take care of the marketing, they take care of the patient experience everything else, right, you find a great owner. And you just want to work two, three, maybe four days. And you're happy with how the owner is doing everything else how he's running his bakery. Sure. Go bake pies all day long. You'll be very happy with the results. Yeah. But if you are… and I would say more often than not, there's too many cooks that are baking somebody else's pie. That the owner of the bakery isn't even isn't even there.
40:50
It's true. That's what I'm saying!
40:54
If you can find the golden handcuffs, let me know.
40:57
Well I guess where I was going with that is… I meet a lot of doc's that do really well financially as an associate. Some of them are making $300 - $40,000. And, and I wonder, now they're working their butt off, don't get me wrong. You have to be. right? And they can negotiate their percentage to maybe 35%. Or maybe they have a scale or whatever.
41:27
It’s pennies overall. But yeah.
41:29
But still, though, doc, like, some of those people are not good communicators. Some of those people have zero vision, some of those people, they don't have leadership. So be careful about being too too loud about ownership. Because I'm going to tell you, of all of our clients, some of them shouldn't. And they and they probably won't make 400 grand as their own owner. And it's really interesting. I will say that, like, folks, you're listening to Josh, and he obviously was born for ownership that's not most people. My point to that is to know yourself. Some people don't even want to work that hard. Some people are totally fine working two days. And so like, just know yourself, because Josh, you are actually making it sound super easy to own. Can you at least admit that it's kind of hard?
42:35
Let me let me explain this. I am a type of guy. And you're absolutely right. And, and tell everyone I meet, I truthfully wish the best for everyone I meet, I want them to succeed and whatever success means to them, right? Whether it's purely financial, which it's much more than that. It's a combination of happiness. I want them to succeed wherever they want to succeeded in. And I truthfully believe that we as humans are always evolving and always trying to grow. And that's what we are here for this earth. It doesn't mean growing your business, it doesn't mean growing your professional skills. But it could just mean growing as a whole. One thing I'm going through right now, and I'm very open and vocal about this is healing my past traumas from my childhood. And I had a great childhood. I'm very blessed and very lucky. But I still have traumas we all do. I'm going through all of those hurts right now. I'm working through those right now. And what has happened is because as I'm going through my issues, because I don't want to stop what else is happening in all other avenues? My life, it's improving. Business, personal, everything, you name it. So you're right. If you have someone who is a dentist, they're associate, they're just happy doing what they're doing, but they don't want to personally grow. Absolutely don't don't own. Because owning is not necessarily just about how well you can treat the patients, you know, lead your staff. It's about how well do you know yourself? And it will and this is with any business is with any industry? How well can you know yourself? How deep can you dive into yourself and figure out where your limitations are? And if you're down for that, go own? But if you're scared or don't want to do that, maybe don't? Baby steps. So I agree with you 100%
44:08
Yeah I just find that a lot of clients don't own the bakery. They don't want to know or own or work with your coordinator upfront, or they don't want to dig into the systems and the spreadsheets, and they don't want any of that. They just want to do dentistry and to those folks, I have to ask why ownership right? But yeah, great episode, man. I really appreciate your time and energy and insight.
44:45
Oh what’s this?
By all means! I released a children's illustration book of how to brush your teeth in a fun and effective way for kids 0 to10 and all proceeds go to charity Prevent Child Abuse America. So I just want to plug that in there.
44:57
Okay, well let's talk about this. We'll put the information down below…
45:02
It is on Amazon, hard covers and soft covers.
45:08
Walk us through this so could doctors dentists buy that and give it? Or sell it? What are you doing?
45:17
Absolutely whatever they want to do. If they do, we will link my contact information, my email or my cell phone. If you want to host this in your office by all means that's great. 100% of proceeds go to Prevent Child Abuse in America. There's a large epidemic of child abuse, childhood neglect, to child sexual abuse and I'm very vocal about it. You can definitely host this in your office. Patients love it!
45:38
So, Josh, for folks that can't see Josh and Gigi’s toothbrush adventure. That's super cute. Did you? How did you create this.
45:52
I wrote the book about year ago, it took almost a year to make this I wrote the book myself. I had it professionally edited by a New York Times bestselling author. I then had it professionally illustrated by a woman out of Ecuador. It was a very, she did a wonderful job. Seriously it was not cheap, but it was very she absolutely crushed it. She did a great job that's really high quality. And what is amazing is… and when you put what's out there into the universe, positive things, it comes back to you. Whether you want to call it karma, or cosmic energy, whatever you want to call it. I was using a printing shop that might cost was $10 a book and I was talking to a patient of mine and he says my best friend from childhood owns a printing shop. I'm gonna get you over to him he's gonna make these books for you at cost. So I got the first book cost down by half of what I was paying, which is great because that just means more money going to charity.
46:45
It’s a great cause. So 100% of the proceeds on goes towards what specifically?
46:51
Right now it's gonna go to Prevent Child Abuse America one of the largest child abuse charities in the country.
46:55
Badass. That guy's if anything… If anything, let's market that. The links will be below. Doctor, doc, thanks so much for your time, man and investing back into the community.,
Absolutely.
Like you said what you put out comes comes 100% back. So I appreciate your energy and your passion for what you do. Thanks, man. I appreciate you.
47:20
And thank you so much. And anyone can reach out to me at any time and I believe that dentistry is one of the best professions in the world. And so let's keep it going. Let's make this profession even greater. So thanks, Mike.
47:30
All right guys. Well, another great episode of Dental Acquisition Unscripted. Again, Mike Dinsio, owner Next Level Consultants and let's let's make it a wrap. Thanks, Josh. Talk to you soon.
47:41
Talk to you soon.