Stop Stress of Practice Ownership

Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.

00:11
Raise your hand if you think dentistry is an awesome profession that helps you change lives. And I say, keep it up. Raise your left hand if you find dentistry very, very, very annoying and sometimes regret signing up to be a dentist. And both hands are up. If sometimes you’ve questioned your sanity and wish you could move into the middle of the woods so no one can ask you any more questions. And then in a fun way, the audience has. And I highlight, I’m a big both person. Being a parent is awesome and annoying. It’s 100 % exhausting. Being a dentist is amazing and aggravating.

00:40
Welcome to dental all-stars. I’m Alex Nottingham founder and CEO of also dental Academy and with me is Paul Goodman always makes me smile over at dental nachos and we’re talking about the stress of practice ownership and how to what did you say with it make it less worse make it less worse Please welcome Paul Goodman Thanks, Alex. I appreciate it Love being on your podcast in the past love to collaborate with you guys as sponsors was had an honor of speaking at your event really should be

01:09
When I speak on stage, I share that I was watching TikTok and a dad said, instead of telling your children, I’m so proud of you. You should tell them they should be so proud of themselves when they do something great. So you should be so proud of yourself for creating All-Star. You guys help so many dentists with this stress. I’ve playfully coined it. Everyone talks about EBITDA, right? Which is a fancy way of saying the profit of a dental practice. If the owner took out their income as an associate, I know maybe accountants.

01:38
will say that’s not exactly what it is, but it’s kind of like the profit of a business after paying everyone to work there, including the owner dentist. But I’ve talked to you about ESPITA and that, that stands for stress building inside towards dental annoyance. How annoyed are you every day? And you know how you track this Alex already? Cause EBITDA, you know, you get your, your cost of goods, you know, your team pay this and you get a number, right? And I want to share for a second, I’m involved with practice transitions.

02:09
And you would think that EBITDA would be the same no matter who looks at your practice, but you probably know. DSOs look at the same practice and come up with wildly different EBITDAs, which is just an example of how many things are based on feelings over facts. how do you track SBDA? It’s very easy. The number of times… Oh, go ahead. Well, when you put this out to me as a topic, I’m like, I don’t want to talk about EBITDA again. don’t want… I mean, I’ve had a few practice ownership consultants… uh

02:37
One of them is one of your sponsors. Another one is one of our sponsors. And it’s interesting. It’s very interesting, but I can’t be talking about the same thing in the podcast over and over. I’m like, now Paul’s going to talk about it. uh There’s a great, um, uh, speaking YouTube video, how to speak by Patrick Winston. It’s phenomenal. I’ve watched this start to finish 30 times. It is, has 21 million YouTube views and he talks, how do you present your ideas? How do you present yourself for a job?

03:05
So he says, tell people what your idea is not. So Espida is not Ibida. It is the stress building inside towards dental annoyance. And the way you track that is very easy. You just keep track of the number of times you feel like crying inside a day. Whenever you feel like crying inside, put it on a piece of paper. And here are some things that make dentists want to cry inside. When patients ask, why doesn’t my insurance cover 33 veneers? Even though they have 32 teeth, right?

03:32
when you get a text message at 7 a.m. from one of your team members that says, hey, guess what? I’m not gonna make it in today. There’s so many things that cause us to cry inside. And my goal, and I know all of us do the same, is to figure out ways to make practice ownership and the people who work in the practice decrease their C but a number. Yeah, I think that that’s so critical. uh Systems are important. Profitability’s important.

04:00
running a business, all these area. But at the end of the day, it’s how do you feel? We, we, this is a big topic, Mr. Paul. I mean, stress and ha and the opposite of stress is calmness and happiness. And that’s what we’re striving for. We’re hoping that more money and, uh, whatever, a better functioning practice will give us, give us that now we may for sure. Um, so I like you getting right to the heart of it. So.

04:30
Let’s talk about some of the annoyances that go on and then we can talk about remedies. so I will say this is a great statistic. talk about it in all my webinars, which is the ADA did research and found, you know, American dental association that, well, we can go into that the big, you know, the biggest stressor in a practices for a dentist. I’m going to get something with hiring team. Yeah, it’s, it’s team members. Yeah. And so.

04:57
We have a hiring service at All-Star. I know you have been a messager. A of people do. You helped us personally. got another one going with you guys right now. And it’s great because like, I mean, I know we’re sponsors with, but like you’re not doing it because it’s a sponsor. You love it. You eat the pudding. And I know what trends I’ll share. I’ll interject for a minute. So I love all the sponsors we have. They help me grow my companies. They help me pay people. They help me help dentists. I just want to share.

05:27
that dentists don’t wake up every day and say, I can’t wait to change to a new burr, right? So there are better burrs and there is better burr technology. And it’s like a better running sneaker, right? I am glad I have a better burr. But then you just keep on going on with your life. But you have helped us hire dental assistants, hygienists, front desk team members. It is transformative. So when you are missing a team member and someone can come in and fill that with, you guys have done an amazing job with us. It’s just a.

05:56
I really magical. It’s a magical game changer. is the best reducer of SBDA or SBDA that I know. Pat myself on the back there. The, so that’s one very big frustration is staffing and hiring. Uh, and, like you said, you can get around with an old cleat or old shoe or old burr, but having a team member that it’s not functional or that’s not there.

06:26
or you’re understaffed or you’re unhappy. Like that just irritates and irritates and then they do it with a mistake again. It’s more irritating. So that’s a big issue. Plus dentists aren’t as, I guess, extroverted like you and, and business savvy is they avoid confrontation. My father’s a dentist, as many of you know, and he’ll say, I don’t like confrontation. will avoid it like the plague. And that could lead to big problems. So

06:55
So team members is not a comfortable area. that’s one. What are some other frustrations that are going on there, Paul? I don’t know if I can think of one. Oh wait, I thought of one. So when I do my lectures, I say, raise your hand if you think dentistry is an awesome profession that helps you change lives. I say, keep it up. And the majority of the audiences keeps their hand up. And they say, raise your left hand if you find dentistry to be very, very, very annoying and sometimes regret signing up to be a dentist. And both hands are up.

07:26
And then I say, stand up if sometimes you’ve questioned your sanity and wish you could move into the middle of the woods so no one can ask you any more questions. And then in a fun way, the audience has it. I highlight I’m a big both person. Being a parent is awesome and annoying. It’s 100 % exhausting. Being a dentist is amazing and aggravating. And I think if we call out the both in things, we can deal with it better. Because I think this part is dental insurances are paying dentists less for procedures that cost more to do.

07:53
So I tell people when I’m at the dog park and someone says, I can’t believe my dentist dropped my dental insurance. I’m going to leave that dentist. I say, I would just like to share with you person doesn’t know dentistry. Would you work at a company where they paid you less each year and expected you to do the same job? And then I stopped talking and the person usually, you know, is silent. And they say, no, I wouldn’t do that. say, well, that’s what dental insurances are asking dentists to do.

08:18
And this cuts across out of network and in network. We are fully out of network and we deal with insurance problems daily. So while it is more magnified for an in network dentist because they truly have restrictions on what they can charge. Insurance is paying dentists less also affects out of network dentists. So I believe that is the number two thing I saw like about, you know, dental insurance, hiring challenges, uh, dental school debt, because the amount of what, what amount

08:47
What dental school is charging our newest colleagues to get to go to dental school is stunning in a bad way, I think. And I think we all need to understand that it impacts our profession, that it’s costing them $600,000 or $700,000 to get degrees that cost us $200,000 or $300,000. So that is another one. And then the fourth thing I talk about is DSOs. I work with DSOs daily with Dentist Job Connect. I have friends who have sold to DSOs. I’ve talked with DSOs about transitions.

09:17
they’re more nuanced in just that corporate dentistry is growing inside of the dental world. And there are some really interesting things happening where there’s an opportunity for systems in place. I don’t know if I know I’m rambling, Alex, but sometimes DSOs tend to follow systems like, let’s just call it OSHA training, okay? OSHA training. And then sometimes you say to a private practice dentist, when was the last time you did OSHA training? And they go, well, there’s a manual around here somewhere. go, well, that’s not OSHA training.

09:47
Right? So I think what we can learn from sometimes corporate structures is their systems. There’s also some of the challenges because they have sometimes newer dentists working in locations without any mentorship and that can cause problems too. So those are some of the Espida challenges I see dentists facing. That’s powerful. And I go back to even my dad as, you know, decades ago with his practice. I mean, he started before

10:15
Insurances were so powerful and then he started taking them and it took away from that love of, what you’re looking to do. And, uh, it’s. Look, I mean, what I say in all star, as many of the listeners know, have the online training, we also have coaching. And if you are taking insurance, having better systems and having better quality training team to, to make it little easier.

10:43
But, but at the end of the day, what’s interesting, we have this joke in our company that we never get people on insurance. We always get them off insurance. And one of our philosophies in coaching is self-funding coaching. And probably the biggest tactic of self-funding coaching is to get off insurance. Cause right there, there’s so much money that’s unlocked. However, lot of dentists will just go cold turkey. They try to do it themselves. And I think that’s where people miss a community.

11:13
like dental nachos and coaching and opportunities to learn and have mentorship. It’s so powerful. And there’s this mindset of a lot of dentists too, being they’re engineers, I’ll do it myself, I’ll figure it out, nobody’s gonna help me. Which I wanna interject, we saw a company, I’ll leave them nameless, try to teach, say that we could do orthodontics at our house. And all the dentists were up in arms, me included.

11:39
When a company said, you can do orthodontics with aligners at your house and you don’t need a dentist. That company has since gone bankrupt. Every dentist knew it was a terrible idea. So why do we pretend that we know how to do Google ads or pretend that we know how to coach our team or pretend we’re going do this? And when it comes to insurance, so what I say, you know, it’s like when I say, I’m not here to tell you to sign up for insurance plans. I’m not here to tell you to drop insurance plans. I’m here to tell you, make a plan about your plans that focus on your happiness.

12:05
Make a plan about your plans that focus on your happiness. And that to me is something I will always share because going cold turkey with dropping insurance can be a disaster. Signing up for every plan could be a disaster. And you need someone from outside of your box, a coach like your amazing coaches, like an Eric Vickery, these people who can say, Hey, let’s look at this together. Let’s see what makes sense for you. And I’m not emotionally invested in the practice every day. So I can look at it with a different lens than you can. Yeah. It’s, it’s easy to complain.

12:35
And we all, and there is like, you say there’s both. We recognize and have sympathy for the struggle. It’s hard Dennis, the work. It’s not like easy work. sit there pushing papers, you’re working hard. And then like you said, not to get paid where you feel is appropriate, not to be able to provide the care that you vision. Spending hundreds of thousands, if not nearly a million dollars to get trained and then you’re having to settle is very frustrating or sell your soul or something.

13:05
It’s, very difficult. So, so we resonate with that. Now at the same time, this is a, this is a business. Uh, and if you’re optimized, this is important. You want, what are you optimizing for? And I would say to have both great productivity and happiness. Yeah. And to do that, the fastest way to do that is to model the best. That’s what Tony Robbins, I used to work for him taught me that. Okay. Which is who’s doing it. That’s where coaching is a shortcut.

13:34
communities like nachos is a shortcut. Experts going to the right and here’s the thing. I’m not saying all stars for you or nachos is for you uh or guacamole is for you. The point is, is you gotta find your tribe and keep looking of what resonates with you. And when you find it, work with it, make the investment, cause it will shortcut. Because I think there’s different reactions to stress.

14:02
One is you flee and you do nothing. You put your head in your sand. The other is you go attack it. Right. And you say, I’m going to find a way to make this happen, make this work. And the biggest, what often happens, and which is unfortunate, you see a lot too. When there’s a problem, a lot of dentists, uh, will wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And they end up having to make a rash decision, either decision in their practice, or they hire the wrong people. Like you talked about, and then it has devastating effects. Do make changes and learn.

14:31
when you’re not in dire straits. So you can I love this message. It’s reactive versus proactive. And now since, I don’t know when this podcast is gonna come out, but if any, even if it’s years from now, we are recording this in the middle to late November. And guess what happens in the middle to late November? People call us up at our dental offices and says, hey, can I get in for this crown before my insurance expires? And we treatment planned it in February. And I just wanna share with you, it’s very irritating to the dentist. Cause we said, you have nine months.

15:01
to come in and now you want to cram yourself into the holiday schedule. So don’t be like those patients who are too reactive instead of proactive. Proactively look at your numbers, proactively talk to coaches, proactively join a community because it’s human nature. We’re all in situations where a friend runs up to us with a crisis that they kind of have caused themselves. And now they want you to jump in and try to solve it. And it could be everything from not having a babysitter to go out on a date night, but they never look for a babysitter, only having one babysitter.

15:31
So what’s interesting is Alex and I like to shine the mirror in dentists. We tell people, be proactive, get your teeth cleaned, come in every four months, do this, but then we turn to our business. Why don’t we use that same advice for ourselves? And then we’re not optimizing for happiness and reducing stress and dentistry. There’s a lot of burnout I’m seeing a lot. And it’s, uh, maybe there’s this, cause again, you guys work so hard and you feel like it’s, only on me and then you will burn out. And so.

16:01
What I think the message here is, is it doesn’t have to be that way. And you’re not alone as you’re talking about and you can be, and you hit the nail on the head. is being proactive versus reactive. You can start making steps. I mean, you’re listening to this podcast. So obviously if you’re listening, then you’re working on yourself and so on here in that message, but, optimize. We started with hiring as one of the biggest struggles and you’re paying, you know, all starts an hourly rate and you’re like, Oh, I don’t want to pay money, you know, and,

16:30
But then again, what’s the alternative? You’re gonna do it yourself, it’s gonna cost you more money and how inefficient. I’ll give you another example. So this is just totally off base, this is just what I think about. So I handle my own investments, that’s good or bad. And what to say what the market is, kinda scary at this time. So I buy, I’m able to buy insurance on my investments. Cost money, I hate to spend money, but you’re gonna like that when you paid.

16:58
and the market goes down and if you don’t, you don’t. So the point is you have to make those insurance investments. So you leverage coaches, hiring specialists, consultant speakers to be able to get a better result than you would do it all yourself. Then everything’s on I want to ask you a question, just, know, because I come at it from a different angle, but I like what you’re saying. like, why do think people hate to spend money? Cause I don’t hate to spend money. I actually enjoy spending money. Like what do you think it is?

17:26
Like money’s just money. can always make more. That’s a great question. Money solves problems. Money gives you resources. Money gives you tools. So when I’m like, hey, you hire a coach. Like it’s expensive. And I go, how much does it cost? They go, I have no idea. I go, well, you’re acting like a child, right? Like, you know, like when someone goes, I don’t want to get a coach. They’re very expensive. I go, oh, cool. Cool. Dr. Bob, could you tell me how much a coach costs? They go, I have no idea. And I go, that’s a very childish way to. Or the reverse, Paul. It’s like, well,

17:56
they get a response from a patient that says, uh what do you charge for X, Y, and Z treatment? It’s like, oh, it’s too expensive. then the dentist says, you have a low dental IQ. So we say that the same thing to patients. They go, sometimes I did a lot of implants when I was practicing a lot. So I just walk in, and they knew the implant person was coming to talk. And they just go, implants are too expensive. And I go, oh, no worries.

18:20
How much does an implant cost? And they go, I have no idea. But it’s, this is a great point as we can kind of like round the end of this uh podcast, because that’s a very good question. And what I see, I speak to hundreds of dentists personally per year. Okay. Every person that signs up, I try to meet with them or, and, and, or our, um, uh, our co co-founder, my wife and the, I noticed a pattern over the years.

18:50
interviewing thousands of dentists, talking to them. And the ones that are the most successful make the investments and they don’t even hesitate. So you have two, you have three person, one that just don’t do it. One, I want to think about it. And there are others that are more like you’re like, that makes sense. Let’s give it a try. What do I have to lose? A few hundred bucks, whatever that might be. And I, you know, for you, some, this is difficult because someone like you, oh

19:20
Maybe I’m looked by my wife as well. You guys are very decisive. You willing to make investments and so on. It’s a different character, uh, than a lot of most dentists and I can resonate. Maybe they’re, I don’t know. can, I was cheap. was going to, you know, it’s interesting to me. It’s, are we going to say cheaper? Well, I’m well, yeah, like I would consider myself a frugal person. I’ve tried to evolve before being cheap. My mastermind group that I’m a part of that, that I see some of the mastermind leaders like Alex, you too tight.

19:49
You know, spend some money, damn it. uh And okay, there’s a lot of conditioning, right, that may be along with it. So, I mean, this is a deep psychological question. mean, where they were raised, their parents, their culture, uh and so on. you know, so there might be their little arrogance. Who knows? That goes on. But I think… I don’t know if we’re gonna answer that here on this short podcast, but I will say the…

20:19
I’ll give you this, what I do, this is proactive. There are certain behavior characteristics that I have that are very, very good that made me successful. There are others that are problematic and impede me, but I’m always working on what are the best doing. Like I hear what you said, I spend it. I go, go you, Paul. I’m going to be more like Paul sometimes when I’m being tight. Like my wife likes nice things and I would stay at the motel six, but I’m learning from her like.

20:47
Oh, that was a nice experience. want to share it’s like risk mitigation too, right? like, I was gonna like when I started nachos, I needed this coach. And it was, I didn’t have the money to pay this coach by new I didn’t get there. They asked me for money that wasn’t my kids college account. That wasn’t my 401k. They they asked me for $5,000 a month. That’s what it cost. And I the business was not bringing in $5,000 a month when I started nachos. It was not in a consistent way. But I said, I’m never going to get there unless I try and invest.

21:16
And what’s the worst that can happen? Even if I do an entire year, I’m not going to lose my home. I’m not going to not send my kids to college. And if I did that entire year and I spent $60,000 and it wasn’t good, would just, I don’t know, here, this is crazy. I just not do it again. know, I’ll say this. What’s interesting about that perspective and my uncle, who I wrote a whole book about my uncle, the magician, he would tell me, you’re not going to miss that money. It’s little.

21:42
So to start a coaching engagement, and coaching will typically range between 1,000 to 5,000 to 10,000. I mean, there’s large ranges. But even if you started 1,000 or 2,000 a month, you’re not gonna miss that, the try for a couple months. And even $60,000, if it was for a worthy endeavor and you got some value and so on, in the scheme of things, it’s nothing. And so business, great business people.

22:08
and people that also value their time and their stress and their happiness, lack of stress, is they’ll make those investments and they don’t, maybe part of it too, I was talking to a friend today about that, part of it is the fear of making the wrong decision. That’s a big part of it too. It’s a huge, and I have, I do not, that fear is not inside of me. I don’t have it. Wow. It’s not inside of me. It is not inside of me. You’re a natural entrepreneur. Now, I’m not saying,

22:33
Well, listen, I don’t skydive or do things like that. I’m not a risky physical person. So in that moment, I just thought to myself, I’m never going to get there without this coach. Let me try. If it’s $60,000 and it turns out to be a waste, everything’s going to be fine. But if I spent $60,000 and now I have a company that has 23 people, look at that. That person helped me. So like to me, I just think, you know, my message is it’s just money. You can always make more. Don’t be wildly risky where you’re risking your home and your retirement. But most of the time we’re asking dentists.

23:01
to risk very reasonable sums of money for a life that has a decreased espada to bring it full circle. Decreased espada. I love it. It’s rare people like you. And again, my wife is like you. And I admire all the great entrepreneurs that I interview and that I work with and that I model do that. I eventually make the decision. I’ll eventually make, take the risk. But it’s so much work for me. It’s like, I have to go through this. have to go through that. And like, if I was just like Paul, like do it.

23:32
And then no effing stress, stop looking at it. Like my gosh. um, uh we could, I mean, that could be a whole nother pod. Do another episode on it. love this conversation. Uh, Paul, thank you so much. It’s, always, it’s always a pleasure. I, I, again, you started this with this topic and I’m like, not EBITDA again. And you’re like, no, no, no, no, it’s, it’s stress. But I’m like, yes, this is fun. You’re so creative. I love what you do. I love your speaking. I love your platform. Um, you’re a force for good, which is great. Uh,

24:01
and uh wonderful personality. So thank you for joining us. Paul Goodman, the great Paul Goodman, uh the owner of Dental Nachos as well as Dentist Connect, right? it? Dentist Job Connect. Yes, Job Connect where you help with dental dentists to find associates. awesome. We’ll get this podcast out, Lickety Split, whatever that means. And remember to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Hey, you know, I have the guy of Dental Nachos. Man, tell everybody.

24:31
in your group to like, subscribe, follow all of our stuff because what does that mean? We’ll get the podcast out there more and we’ll see more of Paul on the podcast. So share with all your friends and until next time, go out there and be an All-Star.

24:49
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com.