Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Dentists, Puns, and Money is a podcast focused on two things: The financial topics relevant to dentists leaving clinical practice and the stories and lessons of dentists who have already done so.
1. The stories of dentists who have transitioned from full-time clinical dentistry.
2. The financial topics that are relevant for dentists making that transition.
If you’re a dentist thinking about your exit from clinical, and you’d like to learn from the experiences of other dentists who have made that transition, be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app.
Host Shawn Terrell also dives deep into the many financial components of exiting dentistry, including tax reduction strategies and how to live off your assets.
And, we try to keep it light by mixing in a bad joke… or two.
Please note: Dentists, Puns, and Money was previously known as The Practice Growth Podcast until March 2022.
Dr. Paul Goodman
Voiceover: [00:00:00]
Welcome to dentists, puns and money. I'm your host, Shawn Terrell. My guest on today's show is Dr. Paul Goodman, otherwise known as Dr. Nacho. Dr. Paul is a dentist and partner of a group practice in Mercer county, New Jersey, but he may be best known for founding the dental nachos Facebook group. We cover a number of topics in our conversation, including Dr. Nacho's latest venture dentist job connect.
Which helps dentists job seekers connect with dental practice owners. As a reminder, you can get all the information discussed in today's conversation by visiting our website. That's dentist, exit.com. And from there, you can click on the podcast tab. And if you are a dentist interested in taking the first step.
To find your eventual exit from active practice to financial independence, whether that's three months or 30 years away. Let's have a conversation. [00:01:00] You can schedule a discovery call with me by going to dentist exit.com and clicking on the schedule meeting tab. That's in the top right corner. Of the home page.
And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Paul Goodman.
Shawn Terrell: All right, Dr. Paul Goodman, Dr. Nacho, welcome to dentist puns and money. I'm excited to hear your story. Thank you for joining us.
Dr. Paul Goodman: Oh, glad to be here. Love sharing with this stuff. Give you a lot of credit for producing these things to share information with your audience. I think it's awesome.
Shawn Terrell: So the first place I have to go is dental nachos, doctor nacho.
Where does that story or that name?
Dr. Paul Goodman: I was just posting cause we're almost past 40,000 members in our Facebook group in 2017 in February, I was sitting on my with my wife, uh, wives used to have better ideas than, uh, anyone. So I said, I'm going to start a Facebook group to talk about implants and practice management.
What should we call it? You know, and I'm a broker, I'm a dentist, I'm a speaker. So I love Mexican food. I worked as a Mexican at a Mexican restaurant when I was 19. I learned a lot about [00:02:00] systems and amazing corporate place called Casa Lapita. I go to El vez and Philadelphia with my family all the time. So I would like to thought dental nachos would be a good name.
And while I do like marketing, it wasn't intentional, but not, those are kind of like the golden retriever puppy of appetizers. So-and-so when I started the group, people were just posting pictures and nachos, which is bringing a lot of hats. To the, uh, to the table. So it kinda got this fun attention, but you know, the story is, you know, nachos are meant to be shared, but the can get messy meant to be shared amongst friends.
So I think the dental community at large really needs to have more fun, but more fun, more friends, but also more conversations that can get a little spicy with a foundation of respect. So that's how dental nachos came about to really help dentists feel like they're a part of something feel bonded together.
Learn about the four major decisions of finding a job, buying a practice, hiring an associate and selling your practice and the dashes in between, you know, there's that poem, you know, how do you live your dash from birth date to death date, which is a poignant poem, but it has a lot of meaning to it, you know?
So where do [00:03:00] these dashes mean for dentist? How do you navigate these decisions? Clinically business leadership. And, uh, I think dentistry sees more of that and I'm happy to be part of the solution providing it.
Shawn Terrell: I think you said it, but. 2017 or 2007
Dr. Paul Goodman: in terms of what? 17. Okay.
Shawn Terrell: So pretty large following and a relatively short amount of time.
As we record this in early 2020.
Dr. Paul Goodman: Yeah, I'm really proud of, you know, we've, we've expanded beyond the Facebook community to Instagram, to a text message community, but I really, uh, love Facebook for conversations. Facebook really is the only platform. I believe that you can have these group conversations.
Around a post on a clinical case around a post on your career. I do love Instagram, but there's sort of a lot of applauding and Rob Ron Instagram, there's nothing wrong with that, but I love the Facebook community for dentists because of people coming in and commenting and sharing like, Hey, I might've done it different.
Or that's what happens to me in my practice. Or have you ever tried this? So it really has this. Mentality of coming to people's help, you know, helping people, [00:04:00] um, inserting advice. And I encourage dentists to speak up, you know, like it is sort of the new way to show, like, you know, to find a job out there or hire an associate or buy a practice, you have to be known in the community.
And this is a virtual community. You can literally sit on your couch and get your face out there on Facebook. So I really enjoy doing that.
Shawn Terrell: So this all began with you being a practicing clinical dentist, and that's something you, as I understand, still continued to do to this day. Uh, maybe just talk about the evolution for sure.
Starting out as a younger dentist and building your practice and kind of how you have added a lot of different things to your world. To my words, uh, provide a lot of value and resources out there for other practicing dentists in the
Dr. Paul Goodman: dental. Thanks. I'll I'll use a Dr. Dennis Tarnow is one of the best dentists on w w with regard to dental implants on planet earth.
He's one of my, uh, idols. I went to hear him speak and he has this great quote, which I put in my presentations. I'm going to speak on implants tonight. And the summary of it is when I go and leave my family and give a presentation. When I [00:05:00] go talk to dentists and teams, when I help that one dentist, they go.
Thousands of patients. And that really is meaningful to me. So what I share is there's plenty of dentists to help patients, but I want to be on the team to help dentist help patients. So my evolution, you know, finishing dental school in 2002 from Penn, doing a multi-year GPR at Albert Einstein Philadelphia, I started a study club called the rising dentists study club in 2005, where we would meet, talk about topics, have speakers.
I try to get sponsors to give us free food and the mission of this study pub. Hey, if Dennis could get along early in their career, maybe they wouldn't hate each other. Let later what bothers me? Dental school has this dental student hunger games, mentality. I have a three-year-old that lives in my house.
I don't know if you have a three-year-old for, yeah, they're insane. People they're off they're down. I mean, when someone says kids are nice and like fine, bring one Easter candy to two. Three-year-olds see how nice they are then. Right. So I wanted Dennis to get along early in their careers. So that was part of my evolution.
Getting into speaking. I love doing that and implants and practice management, bringing people [00:06:00] together over time from 2005 to 2017, I pretty much worked three or four days a week in private practice in our group practice much. My dad started, I worked with him for years until unfortunately passed away, but amazing dad and dentist.
I work with my brother. I role model collaboration. Eight dentists working in our two locations with specialists. What that does when you have other dentists working with you. So if anyone's listening, is it gives you schedule flexibility. The more dentists you have working with you, the less money you make from dentistry, but the more schedule flexibility you have.
So it allowed me to start being a broker, helping dentists by practice, helping start dentists, job connect, doing dental, not just so now I'm doing clinical dentistry. One day a week in my practice, we'll be planting implant cases, but I'm kind of working eight out of seven days a week. So. You know, I've never worked more in my life total, but less in dentistry.
So I used to have this kind of claim three or four days a week. Speak do this. Now I really enjoy this entrepreneurial journey. I have nobody to blame, but myself, I'm very, self-aware when my favorite people's Gary Vaynerchuk. I'm an incredibly self-aware person. I've [00:07:00] created these Frankenstein's. I have to run them.
I love running them. You know, doing some of this can be. Uh, exhausting, as you could imagine, but I really get a lot of fulfillment out of people writing me and say, Hey, I wish I had dental nachos early in my career. Hey, I wish dentist's job connect exists. I mean, just I'm a big story fan. His story is the star.
There is a dentist leaving dental school in two months, who's getting a job over $250,000 a year in Illinois because of dentist's job connect. He would have never found this job. So I put two people together, practice owner who wants an associate. And this dental student who's willing to move to a far off land with his family.
It's the right move for him. And the only way these two people know each other is through our work at dental job dentist's job connecting dental, nachos. So that is what really inspires
Shawn Terrell: me. So yeah, dentist's job connect is the newest venture for you. Founded as I understand it in 2021, uh, maybe some broad strokes, there would be helpful for the audience in terms of what it is and who
is.
Dr. Paul Goodman: I love toggling the story. So my company is like real nachos. You, you get toppings, right? Walk chicken, [00:08:00] cheese, but everybody likes one topping, right? In general. It's a lot like guacamole. Right? Totally does a whole thing on the guacs extra Gary Goldman, if you don't know him as a comedian, but he's hilarious.
He always talks. Like, I feel rich when I have the extra money for guac. It's a, a. So, what I found was, you know, I do things on online CE, right? But a lot of companies are doing that Spears doing that. My friend Lincoln Harris, we do great online. CE we have a platform called nacelle flex, but a lot of companies are doing that.
I've started this patient communication thing. A lot of people are doing that. But what I found is dentist's job connect. That topic seems to be the biggest pain. And the reason is Dentists are graduating with enormous amounts of debt, which I think is a huge. problem Both financially and emotionally, how do they find where to go after dental school?
I find this Nacho Nuts Shawn dental school charges, $500,000 to get this degree gives zero useful information on how to find a job to pay off that degree business school way better law school, way better. I'm sure they have doctors way better. [00:09:00] Doctors have to go to residencies and follow around bigger, stronger doctors.
So what I found is Dentist job connect has emerged as the. Most attention getting topping. So we really have segmented that and we have a whole platform for it, a separate website, and it just seems to be the thing. That dentists are most concerned with because we have exhausted practice owners and we have dental students and new dentistry jobs.
So if I can bring them together, I really can solve what I think is the biggest problem in dentistry and that's dentists working together.
Shawn Terrell: So you mentioned how Dennis coming out of dental school need to find a really good job right away because of the pressure. Student loan payments. Uh, we're going to assume going to be due six months after they, they finished graduation at this point.
We'll see what legislation changes as we record this. But, uh, maybe speak to that a little bit more because there's just not a lot of what that pressure of the student loan repayment is. One, one pressure. There's not a lot of margin for error and getting it wrong for the dentist coming out of school.
And, and how does a [00:10:00] dentist's job conduct work to help solve that?
Dr. Paul Goodman: Yeah you were mentioning music before. I'm not a huge, huge music. I don't know music. Right. As well as you do, my brother's make music fan, but there's that song like mind on my money.
So it's I say it's money and morale. So these smart people. Went through four years of dental school, their friends, when I was in dental school, you don't, my friends were doing, they were at business meetings. They were at networking events. They were standing in the clothes that they wore at 7:00 AM with a glass of wine at 10:00 PM, talking to someone who's worth eight figures.
So most normal people business, uh, HR, they are in the real world network. Developing relationships. And you know, we're at dental school, we're in a basement, burning ourselves with wax, studying for tests that are meaningless. And I say this in a fun and funny way, we become very, very, very, very weird. We are not interacting with our people older than us.
We're in this school mentality. So when we come out and start looking for jobs, we have pressure on me. But also our morale, we just spent four years learning this [00:11:00] thing. Is it going to be a positive environment? There's some things going on in the private practice, dental space, dentists not getting paid dentists, being mistreated.
There's not a lot of good industry regulations. So I do dentist's job. To connect Dennis with options. So both a they can make money, but more importantly, they can boost their morale. This is their first or second job out of dental school. And imagine investing four years of your life doing this, all the money all the time.
And now you're in a place where you're just super unhappy. That can be, you know, in a poignant way. We have problems with depression. We have problems with Dennis dying by suicide. We had problem with people leaving the profession. So what I'm striving to do. It's to create a platform for connection, and it's not perfect.
When someone goes, do you vet every candidate? I go, no, I do not. You want to know their favorite color show? And you got to ask him on the interview, right? Is this practice owner the best at doing veneers? A, I don't know if there's any rankings on that and B you've got to get out there and ask them. So I've modeled after care.com during the pandemic.
My wife [00:12:00] and I, someone came to us, we're sitting on the couch and Morgan came to us and said, Hey, Paul and Mary. I got to tell you something now, I don't know how your life's con showing, but I've never heard something good at the end of that statement. Have you
Shawn Terrell: now your stomach usually drops when you hear that.
Right.
Dr. Paul Goodman: So Morgan is looking at us and goes, Hey, you guys. Uh, I just want to let you know that I grew up in Philadelphia. I finished college. I've been here for a long time and I want to move to San Diego and see what's out there. And I say, oh man, Morgan, San Diego is closed. You have to stay here and be our babysitter forever.
So I wish that was the case. But Morgan who works with Del nacho, she left Philadelphia in June of 2021. Move to San Diego and left us with an enormous problem. Morgan took care of our kids three days a week. The homeschooling stop all the challenges. So how did we get a new Morgan? You got to go on care.com.
You got to ask people that, you know, so dentist's job connect is the care.com out there of trying to connect awesome people to help practice. Or sometimes you need a babysitter for your practice. Something that you smoke for six months. Sometimes you [00:13:00] need a partner. If you are a parent who has had a babysitter leave that you loved, you know, that feeling and it is a difficult field.
There's always, I say, Sean, this is my quote. Sometimes the best thing to happen to someone else is the worst thing to happen to you. Right? She comes and says, Hey guys, I'm going to San Diego. And I got to pretend I'm having. Good for you, right? When inside I'm like, just stay here and be our babysitter. So
Shawn Terrell: that's the thing about good people as they leave for better things sometimes.
And in dentistry and in, I can relate to the childcare dilemma as well. It's funny. It sounds like we're both in a similar stage of life. We have a short amount of time today, but you mentioned something well, before I even go there, let me back up. Dentists job connect work. How much does it cost and how does
Dr. Paul Goodman: it work?
You mentioned thanks for asking that right now they've made it free for job seekers. So if you're looking for a job, you can go to dentist's job connect ca.com, make yourself a free profile. You can connect with all the practices on there for free. We are going to experiment with like a premium service for job seekers, but right now it's free [00:14:00] for practice owners and there's three types of candidates, a solo dentist.
Who's exhausted. And. A group practice like my brother and I who's looking to expand or a corporate or DSL that has 30 practices and all of these associates, those are our three candidates. They can advertise on the platform at the time of this recording, like a thousand dollars for 90 days. It's not a guarantee for success.
It's an awesome opportunity. I've been part of the head hunter model where people will pay you 10 to $20,000. Per position. There's nothing wrong with that model. We have recruited on there, but we're trying to make an affordable solution for all. Whether you are a 30 practice, $30 million group, or you're just a guy or a female dentist doing $750,000 and you just need part-time help.
So I'm really trying to make it fun and affordable. Awesome opportunity for anyone who's on there. So that's the simplistic way it works. Practice owners pay to advertise. Job seekers can do it all for
Shawn Terrell: free. And what sort of information are you asking for, or having candidates, [00:15:00] both practice owners and associates.
What are they putting in there to try to narrow it down, to look for
Dr. Paul Goodman: alignment with each really great. We're trying to give enough details to move people forward, to talk to each other. So. Compensation a range of compensation, this position 150 to $200,000 a year. This position full-time or part-time this position requires you to do root canals and extractions, but not a tremendous amount more from that because my dentist people, we actually learned the wrong way.
We become overly detailed focused, and we want to know too many details. Before we go on the date for four, before we meet the friend, we would all tell our child, Hey, does this kid live in our area? And also kind of like soccer, you should meet them. Then if you meet each other and you're known, get along, just don't meet again.
But dentists get into analysis paralysis. So we intentionally just offer very. Uh, framework of details from the job seeker. We don't really offer much, but I tell them the more they put on their profile, you know, if [00:16:00] they say I really like placing implants, that would be attractive. Right. If someone said to me for free, there was friendster.com.
I think that should come back. I was trying to meet another dad for him. He goes, I like comedy at eating notches. I go, why would I meet this Sean Guy? That's what I like to write. If another dad said I like hiking and whitewater rafting, I go, I am an indoorsy person like Jim Gaffigan, right? Jim castle. We are intensely trying to make it fun, but really do the anti dentist thing of not a tremendous amount of details before you meet in person, because meeting in person or on zoom or talking on the phone is the magic to move forward.
Shawn Terrell: It's interesting that you said, and someone who is involved with several businesses, I'm guessing that's a lesson that you've gotten better at practicing yourself because you know, the key to any business is just, you know, get 60 or 70% there, test it iterate from there. And is that the same methodology that you form?
Dr. Paul Goodman: Oh, I love it. I mean, I listened to a podcast. There was this company. I don't know if you've heard of it, but, um, in initially they were sending out emails and they were spending so much time on their email marketing to make sure it was [00:17:00] perfect. They were sending out like one email a day to their followers, but it was perfect.
But what they found over time was they could send out emails with misspellings. They could send out emails with broken links. They were saying like eight or nine emails a day and they were growing their audience. So when they got out of their own way, And started doing that. They grew, I'm not sure if you've heard of this company, it's called Netflix.
Okay. So Netflix, when you listened to the founder, he tells this story early on about how he had to get out of his own way of perfection. And there is no such thing as perfection. So. Is this dentist's near, you needs a job full time. That's enough. Talk to each other. I have a conversation.
Shawn Terrell: Yeah. So one thing that I wanted to hit on in our time that we have that you mentioned at the very beginning, before we hit record, was the four major decisions that all dentists face and they're pretty big ones.
And you got some thoughts on that.
Dr. Paul Goodman: When you go to a dentist office, they give you a treatment plan and let's say, To get your teeth cleaned. Two fillings, three crowns, and an implant. Well dentist, how do they treatment plan their career? We're talking about this 30 year journey, this [00:18:00] 30 year marathon.
So finding your first job, buying your first practice, hiring your first associate and selling your only practice while they're entrepreneurial and minded dentists. If you have a hundred dentists in a room and say, how many practices do you own? Eight out of 10 are going to say one, right? So most dentists own one practice.
So how do they make good decisions? How do they make good help? And the dashes in between, you know, we talk about live your D that comb live your dash from your birth date to your death date. The impact that you have mine might not be quite as pointed or emotional, but it was. How do you find your first job at your first job?
How do you succeed? When do you leave that job? Do you ever leave that job when you go to buy a practice? How do you look at the numbers? How do you not, you know, just how do you not like, you know, some dentists go, I don't like my job, Paul. I want to buy a practice. I go, what about just finding a better job?
Right? Like maybe find a better job first. So we really strive to give them. The stuff, dental school does not cover. There's plenty of material on clinical success. We have that, [00:19:00] but business success, leadership success, um, I don't know. I don't know if your field, they talk about KPIs, but they talk about this in dentistry on key performance indicators.
So there's only one KPI to being a dentist. The only one important one, right? Some people say it's profit or EBITDA boring. It's the number of times you feel like crying inside. How many times in your day, do you feel like crying inside? And sometimes those crying inside things are not in your control.
Patients cancel patients, don't show up. Some of them are within your control. Did you buy a practice that was small and you thought you could build it up, but you never built it up. Let's make sure you don't make that mistake. So I always say we're here to increase success, decrease stress, and reduce that crying inside
Shawn Terrell: number.
And something that I picked up from listening to your podcast, which I really liked because I try to incorporate this with the financial planning I do with dentists is, you know, start a little bit higher up the totem pole in terms of what do you want out of your life? Yeah. What's really important there.
And then work downwards to how dentistry or your career fits into that. [00:20:00] It seems like you've kind of got the same message and a lot of your stuff.
Dr. Paul Goodman: Yeah. I mean, there's also learned from people who've gone before you who this always say is the best question for people, right? It's like, Someone's like, would you have kids again?
People have to say, yes, you're just like a monster, if you say no. Right. But there's parents out there who probably like, I'm not so sure I would have had three kids, but I can't just vote one off the island. Right. But this is a better question. And I think, is this, would you have made this decision at the same time again?
How would you have made this decision differently? So, you know, I encourage young dentists to go to an older dentist. We have financial planning. Would you have started saving for retirement sooner, right? It doesn't mean you're on the money and here's how yes, I would have done that. Right. Would you have bought a practice sooner?
Maybe some say no, maybe say I bought a practice too soon and it was reactive and it wasn't the right practice. So ask people how they, the decision that they made. Tell me more about that right now. Would you do it again because it's easy to say yes or no. It makes people think and say, You know what? I would've bought a practice a little bit [00:21:00] later.
I rushed into practice ownership. I realized you can't return a practice like a jacket that's Seinfeld joke. You can't return a dental practice out of spite, like the jacket and Seinfeld. And I just think that that's so important whether to what you do with financial planning to family plan. I mean, we have 50% female dentists or more.
So having a child impacts your practice ownership journey. You know, a practice is like a child that never grows up. So, I mean, it's like magic. If you have two of them at the same time, one human, one, one practice I say to these nice female dentists, I go, that's going to be a really tough year of your life.
So, you know, maybe you want to strategize this in a different way. So those are some of the things I really like to talk about in the
Shawn Terrell: four major decisions. And we've hit on a lot of stuff. Anything that I haven't touched on that you would like to make sure that you mentioned, or you think is important to convey to the audience?
Dr. Paul Goodman: One thing I like to share and I love doing these pockets cause really appreciate having, having the honest, how we communicate with people really determines our success in life. You know, there's. Content pieces, how to sell by Daniel pink is [00:22:00] one of my favorite books or to sell is human by Daniel. Pink is one of my favorite books.
Dentists have a very weird feeling about talking about money with people. And I think it messes up their entire life. Dental school charges you a lot of money, but they don't teach you to talk about money. The second is how to speak by Patrick Winston. So I can do like two things, well like eat nachos and do public speaking.
I've taken a tremendous amount of public speaking. I'm not a professional speaker, but in dentistry, I might be fairly close to one of our top ones with that. I don't know if there's rankings. I listened to how to speak by Patrick Winston before every big performance I have. Cause it reminds me how to get your idea across how to build a fence around your idea.
So whether you're a dental student, whether you're somebody who works with dentists, whether you're a parent, how to speak by Patrick Winston, Google. Tube and watch it. It's one of the best pieces of content for interacting with human beings, especially finding jobs. So those are the two things I would add.
Shawn Terrell: Name of the podcast is dentist puns and money. You ready with your best dental joke?
Dr. Paul Goodman: Yeah, my best dental joke is this. [00:23:00] Okay. You make it weird dentists. So your, this might not resonate with you, Sean, but your dental people listening well, when you're in your dental operatory, and one of your patients.
Yeah, it doesn't have a filling on the tooth in front of where they're missing a tooth or the tooth in the back. What do you call those teeth without feelings to a 78 year old woman on Tuesday morning, Sean. So we are trained in dental school to call those teeth Virgin teeth. Does that make you feel comfortable?
Virgin teeth. So you are making peel people feel very weird. Calling their teeth Virgin. So my joke to you is stop calling teeth virgins and making Millie feel weird on Tuesday at 10 30. And before she goes to the senior centers, lunch 11:00 AM and start calling them teeth that are filling teeth, teeth without filling.
So stop saying birds. Stop making people feel weird.
Shawn Terrell: That's my dental chair. I will, I will avoid the V word as well, uh, moving forward within dentistry. Uh, but for those that are, for those that are interested in finding more about, uh, [00:24:00] you and your companies, that what's the best way to get in touch. Dr.
Nacho
Dr. Paul Goodman: two, two ways. Odell nachos.com and Dennis' job connect.com are two simple websites that will direct you. But one of my idols, Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V. I was at the beach about two years ago and I saw he started. Platform through community. And I was like, this is amazing. So I have a text platform that people are texting nachos to 2 1 5 5 4, 3 6, 4, 5 4.
They text the word not two as the 2 1 5 5 4 3 6 4 5, 4. They get $143 gift from me. Which is a 1, 4, 3 was Mr. Rogers, favorite number? I love you. I love Mr. Rogers. So that texts community, I would love you to text me, ask me a question. Anything you would like to know if I can help you in any way, I'm here to be your dentist and friend.
I think we need a community that shares and cares more, and I want to be part of that.
Shawn Terrell: That is Dr. Paul Goodman, Dr. Nacho of dentist, job connect and dental nachos. Dr. Paul, thank you for sharing your expertise and for being a guest on dentists puns. Thanks, John [00:25:00] really appreciate it.
[00:26:00]