Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner with Special Guest Dr. Marvin Abarca - The Inspiring Dentistry Journey from Student, to Employee, to Dental Practice Owner
Ready to unearth some profound insights into the realm of dentistry? Tune into our latest episode where we introduce you to Dr. Marvin Abarca, a distinguished pediatric dentist from Miami, Florida. Dr. Abarca spills the beans on his thrilling odyssey in the field of dentistry - from attending Columbia University to his residency at Howard University to eventually owning his dental practice, Little Champions Dental.
As we navigate the conversation, Dr. Abarca paints a candid picture of his life as a post-graduate dental student. Imagine attending to 30 patients daily! Uncover the impact this gruelling schedule had on the effectiveness of his treatment plans, customer service, and work quality. He also shares a heartwarming account of how returning to his hometown of Miami in 2016 reinvigorated his professional life.
The latter part of our conversation with Dr. Abarca is a treasure trove of advice for anyone aspiring to transition from an employee to a business owner. Learn about the critical aspects such as location, the financial implications of being a W2 employee versus a business owner, and the value of Breakaway seminars. Hear firsthand how he navigated the intricate process of opening his own dental practice and the financial discipline it took to achieve this feat. Dr. Abarca's advice to budding dentists is an absolute pearl of wisdom- take the risk and just do it. Don't miss out on this episode packed with valuable insights, practical advice, and an ample dose of inspiration.
I'm Dr Shaheen Safaria and have a special guest for you guys Dr Marvin Abarca from Miami Florida. He has a practice he's a pediatric dentist called LittleChampionsDentalcom in Miami Florida. Talk to him quite a bit about his past. We've talked. Probably about a year and a half ago we connected.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Give or take. We chatted a few times and told me that he's gone into ownership position. Now that we'll talk about some, but first, before we start, marvin, what do you tell us a little about you man?
Speaker 2:First of all, thank you for having me on your podcast. That's very nice of you to invite me. So I'm from Nicaragua. I came to the United States with my family when I was three years old, to Miami, florida. I lived here for the majority of my life. I went away for school and I've been practicing in the state of Florida since 2013 as a pediatric dentist, and we opened the clinic here in March of this year, so I'm here for a while.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, Congratulations. Where did you go to dental school?
Speaker 2:bud. So I went to dental school at Columbia University, New York City.
Speaker 1:And did you do your residency there as well?
Speaker 2:I did my residency in Howard in Washington DC.
Speaker 1:In Howard. Okay, great, yes, so what did that cost you getting out of school so?
Speaker 2:the cost for dental school was about like I came out over $280,000 in debt for dental school, Dental school, because that included a tuition board.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then your residency was three years, correct?
Speaker 2:Two-year residency. Two-year residency at Howard.
Speaker 1:And what was the cost of that?
Speaker 2:For there we had like a stipend, so we actually received money. So that was a lot.
Speaker 1:So you went through residency and you got paid.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, how the hell does that happen, man? So you became a pediatric dentist and you're $280,000 in debt out of both schools.
Speaker 2:About. Yeah, you were taking a couple thousand.
Speaker 1:That's hold on a second man, hold on a second. That's pretty amazing, man. I was expecting you to say like $700,000, $800,000, but $280,000 is not a bad thing, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was remember. I graduated 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but so what? I graduated 20 years ago I was $400,000 in debt out of Tufts and I went to GP program. So you know, I mean that's coming out at $280,000. That's pretty amazing, man. That's including residency. Some residents, some specialists are coming out with $800,000, $900,000 plus in debt. I talked to a resident that graduated from orthodontics out of Harvard and he was $1.2 million in debt as an orthodontist. So getting out of his dental school and his residency for orthodontics, so for you to be $280,000 out, that's got to be a pretty good record, man, Unless, you know, we've got rich parents that pay for you. That's a different discussion. But $280,000 is pretty good man. You must feel good about that, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean well, $280,000,. Remember, it just depends. Yeah, some people have more health and then some have less. It just depends on a lot of factors. I know the cost of living has gone up tremendously. We've seen a friend of mine who's in dental school and each year it's about $115,000. That's with dental school now. So it just depends. You know everything is going up.
Speaker 1:But if you go to Columbia and you want to become a pediatric dentist, you can go to Howard and get a stipend and get paid and you'll come out getting paid for your residency. That's not a bad combination, man. That's really really good. So tell me, you graduated 2013 from pediatric residency and you know you're 300K roughly in debt. What were you thinking at that time? What was your mindset? What were some of the thoughts that were going through your head?
Speaker 2:Get a job as soon as you can.
Speaker 1:Did you?
Speaker 2:want to go private?
Speaker 1:Did you want to stay? You know, corporate. What was the school telling you? Was there any recruiting going on at a school?
Speaker 2:Yeah, very good question. I just had a focus that I wanted to come back to Florida because I'm from here. So when I was looking for jobs, I found the best fit for me at that time was a full-time practice in Orlando, so which I thought is not too bad. One of my best friends actually lived in Orlando at the time, a friend of mine from high school. So I was like, okay, it's not too bad and it's very close to Miami, it's only about three and a half hour drive. So if I ever get homesick I could just go down the term pike and I'm there.
Speaker 2:And it was a good fit. It was full-time at one location. It was with a group called Main Street. They're probably what they call like a DSO, but they treated me very nicely. I was very happy there. I can tell you that I was there for about three years in Orlando and then they were able to transfer me back here to Miami. So my number one thought was just get a job, something that's a good fit. And I was at one location. So and that's very unique to find, coming out of residency for a pediatric dentist- so what should a resident look for?
Speaker 1:a specialist look for? As far as? Were you getting like 35%, 40%? What was your salary coming out of school?
Speaker 2:So what a resident needs to look for is the contract. Make sure the contract that you have a lawyer, that you have more than one lawyer, if you want to take a look at it. I mean, that's one thing about my contract. It was very, very fair. So I've seen in my experiences, if the contract, if they pay you a lot, then they become more restrictive. If the pay is less than they're less restrictive, there is like an inverse relationship with that.
Speaker 2:We're going to pay you a lot, or you're going to have to be cooking and you're going to have to. So I found a happy balance or a happy medium, and I think that's what a resident should look for is If it's a good fit, if they like the environment, if they like the management that they'll be working with. And pay is important. You should get paid because what you're doing is not easy, but you should balance out what's in the contract Because, at the end of the day, that supersedes what you think things should be like, because you're sorry, so let me understand.
Speaker 1:So, if you get paid a lot, what are some of the restrictions versus?
Speaker 2:not getting paid a lot. So I've seen that some sorry about that. Some restrictive covenants could be not proportional to the population density. So, for example, if you're in a high density area it shouldn't be like a 30 mile restricted covenant kind of stuff. Or they shouldn't restrict you from all the practices, Maybe just the one that you have the most influence at. So I've seen contracts where they'll pay you a lot 45, 50%, Wow, sounds amazing. Or whatever. The 1800 or 1600 per day, the per diem. But you have to redefine detail in the contracts, At least in my Hold on one second.
Speaker 1:First of all, getting paid 16 to 1800 per diem that's not a very common thing in the GP world. So you know people in the North of Venice get about $600 a day. So you're saying that you came out of school and.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about you. What was?
Speaker 2:your contract. Oh, my per diem was at that time a little bit north of 800. So I think, the statute of limitations are up, so I hope no one gets offended.
Speaker 1:So what is it?
Speaker 2:was very good per diem but I was also seeing about 30 patients at minimum per day. So I was working very hard and they had a very interesting structure where they could do a per diem and then a bonus at the end of every other month. But I can't go into the details, just because some of those details I just can't go into, just because of confidentiality, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So some places I've heard that they do pay pediatric dentists that but I've seen from other contracts and they just become very restrictive, which is fine. It's up to the both parties to agree to those things and sometimes an associate doesn't mind just because they see themselves their long term.
Speaker 1:Did you have any restrictions, being that you were on a little bit of a maybe a lower end scale pay scale on a per diem?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're very fair. Five miles, which is very, very fair. Five miles in a couple of years.
Speaker 1:Your biggest concern is the covenant to compete as far as your contract is concerned.
Speaker 2:For me just the language. It was a simple contract Like now I'm seeing contracts are like 10, 12, 15, 20 pages long and I'm like do they need to be that long, I guess?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The longer they get. It seems like. I don't know, maybe they've had experiences where they need to add certain language in there.
Speaker 1:Did you have to sign like a one or two or three year contract with them? Did they sign you up for multiple years, or what was that like? Or could you basically go in 90 days and you could leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a two year contract and renewed just whenever both parties, whenever it was coming up to that anniversary per se. But they treated me very fairly. I was very, very happy. It opened a lot of doors for me to also give back. I think that's one thing we also probably didn't want to do, so you were seeing 30 patients a day.
Speaker 1:Were you working five days a week or six days?
Speaker 2:a week. Yes, five days a week, five days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure you could appreciate that if you started having problems month six or month nine which some of these contracts do have, with the doctor having issues with the DSO, it could become problematic that you got to still kind of work through the process for another year, year and a half, right.
Speaker 2:Right. So that's what they have to redefine detail because, for example, if you rent at a house or apartment, there's a language in there for you to get out of that right. But you have to make sure that you as an associate also have that in your contract at any time.
Speaker 1:So I think like one of the things that could be beneficial is an exit strategy. Did you have an exit strategy in the contract that said something along the lines if I'm in here and after six months or nine months I'm not happy, I have the option to opt out.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. I mean what if I won the lottery? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess you could put that in the contract right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That would be in very small print on the last page probably, but I guess it's possible you play the lottery. First of all, you got to play the lottery to win. Do you play the lottery? No, so then you couldn't win the lottery. What are you talking about, man?
Speaker 2:Someone could just drop off money in my car and say here, you deserve this.
Speaker 1:So that went through a three-year process and then you moved 2016 to a new practice. You want to tell us why you transitioned. Were you just coming back home to Miami? Was that?
Speaker 2:the reason Coming back home to Miami.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and with the same company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's why I owe so much to them, because they, they fit, they fit me in and it's so. It's very competitive in Miami to find Employers like them, who are it's. It doesn't feel like you don't have control and I think those sometimes like a myth. Yeah, so I will a lot to them and they they brought me back home.
Speaker 1:I Tell you what this is. It's good that you had this positive experience, but I can tell you that a lot of GPs and specialists are going through their DSO programs right now after school, and they're having problems. They're having ethical issues. I mean seeing 30 patients, I think and again as a child you know being a pediatric dentist Might be a little different, but 30 patients is quite a bit, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is. It is. But from conversations with my colleagues and other friends I was like on the low end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's the problem, because I think if you get into higher numbers as far as number of patients daily, your quality has to drop, your customer service has to drop right. I mean, don't you, don't you think that that was? Did you ever have those Questions when you went home? Those three years, like you know, I had that patient wait an hour and a half before I was able to see them and I wasn't able to, you know, break that Contact properly or finish that contact point properly, because I had three other patients waiting for me. Did those challenges ever come about in your first three years?
Speaker 2:Absolutely we. You know there's a saying that's like you know, we run on children time, so the you know an adult will sit in the chair open and I will numb them up. You'll do whatever restorative problem that they would need off for a child. We're on their time. So it's trial and error, like you. You plan for the best and then you have conversations with management on how Children should be scheduled or appointment should be scheduled.
Speaker 2:But it's a learning process, is it takes it takes at least a minimum of months to just gel right with the right staff, with the right managers, and Just be honest with your management to tell them look, I Need this, or I can do this, or I can't do that. And I think that's one thing that I was fortunate to have. Is that, that clear communication where Expectations were understood because, yeah, it's you providing a service and it's a business at the same time, and you find a happy medium and you just learn how to schedule Smart and, at the end of the day, everyone is happy, you diagnose correctly and you go to sleep. You can do it. So you.
Speaker 1:You were comfortable with, with the number of patients that you were seeing, with the management, with the quality. Didn't find any issues in those three years at all.
Speaker 2:I was fortunate and I tell friends of mine and when I work I rarely I mean we didn't do much Restored up on permanent intuition. It was. It was a lot of just little ones, just little ones. Yeah, yeah, the court. No, I, I took my time.
Speaker 1:I would rubber down kids.
Speaker 2:I would put a rubber down and I took my time and. But what thing would took the longest? For the most part Is treatment planning. We are pediatric dentists, I think for me that was like the. The thing is just like treatment planning you get it. They are based. I mean, I would be exhausted and get me wrong this Friday.
Speaker 1:I'm like I want to go home and rest, so yeah, yeah, I mean I tell you you have to realize that you were blessed at some level to Fall into this kind of situation. I'm not saying all DSOs are bad, but what I am saying is I can tell you if I'm seeing 30 adult patients in an eight or nine hour period, my quality will suck, my customer service will suck and no matter what kind of management team I have, you know it's just not possible to provide high quality dentistry. Seeing that many patients, that's just as an. I don't see kids. So I can tell you as a customer, if I'm waiting an hour for a doctor, hour and a half for a doctor to be seen, that's not great service. And if I want to provide high quality and High treatment plan Conversion rate, that's not the game to play.
Speaker 1:So you know I'm speaking from my perspective now as a private practitioner. I mean, if I see eight patients in a day, that's a busy day for me. So you know I'm really seeing on average probably right around Seven, eight patients a day when I'm working. But you know we can also have a high production number coming out of some of those chairs. I work out of one and a half chairs. So if you're seeing 30 patients. You're probably seeing three. You're working out of three, maybe four chairs at a time. So you know the the business model is a little bit different, but from quality and from customer service side, 30 patients for one doctor is is not the best approach. So now let's talk about 2016. You come down to Miami with the same group. Are you still getting the same kind of? You know You're feeling good about what you're doing and you know you're happy with where you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I was Extremely happy. I'm back in the city where I went, where I was raised. I'm closer to fall, I'm seeing my, my siblings, mara, my parents and and I'm in the community that you know I'm more familiar with. So, yeah, I was extremely happy with where before I was at.
Speaker 1:So we started talking. I think it was 2019 and you were kind of itching to go into ownership and walk away from being an associate in a DSO. Tell me what when that started to trigger for you? Was it right out of school or was it at some point in in your Practice, in the first? You know five, six years that you're like shit man. You know, when am I gonna? When am I gonna ride my own ship?
Speaker 2:I think I owe that to being or coming from a family business. My dad is a civil engineer and he still has a civil engineering firm in Miami for over what? 20 years, 25 years. So I saw that the autonomy that he had is part of the reason why what brought me into dentistry. So in the back of my mind, I always wanted something of my own, but I just didn't know how, or I just wanted to have my practice. So it just probably was a seed planted from birth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you knew at some point you're going to transition out of being an associate into ownership.
Speaker 2:I was very happy with being an associate and being a partner at some of these DSOs. It was brought to my attention, they was offered a lot of. I know a few people that have done that and they're very successful and I just know that at that moment it just wasn't for me but I was very, very flattered to have those offers.
Speaker 1:One of the challenges also is that you could be a resident specialist or even a general practitioner and let's say, GP does $300,000 out of a as a gross income, or as a specialist you're doing over $500, maybe $600,000 a year. The problem with that is you're a W2. So 40% plus of that, 45% of that goes to tax. So as much as you're feeling good about your gross, it's more about what you take home. Was that a considering factor for you to become an owner? You?
Speaker 2:know I actually I had this conversation with a friend of mine recently. So it's a similar analogy, like when you're renting versus when you're buying. It's going to probably be good at that moment, but there's no equity being put into it. Right. If you own a house, you're putting equity into it, or some property, right. Or here you're doing that, you're putting some equity and, yeah, the math will tell you right, 60% or 70%, and this is a lot of money that you don't take home, right. So when you're in transit, it's all about the equity. Like you said, you could be making over $5,000, but you're really taking home $300.
Speaker 2:Because you're getting taxed at the highest income and you can't deduct much. You can't deduct the loan. So yeah all of that takes some self-education yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I tell you what. First of all, realize one thing If you're coming out of pocket, if you own a home this is a discussion so we don't need to get into that but an asset is when you're getting money from a home. The only time you potentially could get an asset from that home is when you sell it, but every month that you're paying on the mortgage, that's a liability. So owning a home today is not necessarily an asset. You're coming out of pocket every month because you're spending money or paying money on a property. So keep that in mind that it's not necessarily an asset on a monthly basis. Now, on the back end, if you try to sell and you gain $100,000 in value, then that could be an asset, of course, at that point. But that's a different discussion. But here's what I'm interested in. Now you're paying down. You're six years out. You're probably paying down on your loan.
Speaker 1:What were you looking at as far as buying a practice and what did it cost you to open up a practice? What did you go to the bank? To me it sounds like so. We started talking in 19 and I was kind of like at some level pushing you to say listen, man, you've been at this five, six years, and if it's not now, when are you going to do it? And so I'm sure at some point it started to come in your head. All right, well, let me start moving forward. What were some of the first couple of steps that you took in wanting to move in the direction of ownership?
Speaker 2:Okay, so one thing I recommend associates is to probably take this course called breakaway.
Speaker 1:Breakaway seminars.
Speaker 2:Breakaway seminars Yep, go there, fly there, listen, and that was like step one. They'll help you navigate. What are the steps, or some of the steps?
Speaker 1:But if you hire them as a consultant, they charge you about 50, 60k, right Is that? Am I not mistaken?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was some. Yeah, but I didn't use them as a consultant Went to the port and then I just happened to have an agent and the agent happened to find this location. It was a good fit. It's almost like a triple point because it's just south of downtown Miami, south of Brickle, north of Coral Gables and Coconut Grove. It's really close to like a major highway.
Speaker 1:So first step for you was to go to breakaway seminar, and was that like a weekend course or was it a six month program? What was it?
Speaker 2:So breakaway was I think it was a two day course.
Speaker 1:And what did you learn there? That was that released it out for you.
Speaker 2:How to find also, how to find like or how to pinpoint like a location. Right, you know the importance of location. They recommend a couple of places. They recommend a lot of things to do to how to find a location, how to open up a practice and stuff. But again, I can't go into too much detail because part of going to those seminars is that you don't you sign a non disclosure as well.
Speaker 1:They had you sign an NDA. I think they did something like that. Yeah, oh man, yeah, that's pretty intense. You realize NDAs really have no value.
Speaker 2:I mean NDAs basically listen NDAs.
Speaker 1:is somebody's got an idea?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they have. I would do the seminars first. I would just see where you're at. You know, if you think you can do it, you're right. If you think you can't, you're also right. Yeah, it's all. I think it's a mindset.
Speaker 1:At least wait, mindset. What does that have to do with dentistry? Are you crazy? Come on, man. Here's the thing. Listen, at the end of the day, it's all confidence. It's all it is.
Speaker 2:You know, it's all confidence.
Speaker 1:All this other stuff is really bullshit. You just got to have the confidence to go out there and do it Right Now. I'm not saying that lightly, I mean I'm being a little sarcastic, but number one if you're not confident, nothing will be successful around you. So, um, it's not the seminar that got you to push over the hump, it's really you. It's you ready to want to become an owner? Um, and then, having the confidence to do it, give yourself some credit, man, come on yeah no, I definitely it's well.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that, I think it's. It's um. Yeah, like I said, I see it with planted long time ago. I'm part of a family business and against all laws, like I saw, like my dad do it, so I think I think that was a huge part of the motivation, or the fact that I I was well.
Speaker 1:So you had the broker and he connected you with the location. Did he also hook you up with the bank?
Speaker 2:The bank. I I sought out the bank. So I sought out the bank and it was through a loan. They'll give you a loan, depending on Of course they will. So many factors, obviously.
Speaker 1:That you're a doctor and you're a pediatric dentist. That's the only reason I mean banks give you loans, like I mean, it's so easy to get a loan. I mean unless your credit's really bad, which I've been there too but you know, if your credit's decent, they're going to give you a loan. What was the loan that you got? How much did they give you? Typically it's about 500K. They offer you right.
Speaker 2:Somewhere in that neighborhood? Absolutely, and then they break it down for working capital. They break it so it's divided. You'll have money for you to keep operations going. They'll give you money for equipment and for a potential build out.
Speaker 1:So what did it cost you to open up your office Somewhere in that? Neighborhood of you used all the money, no, no, you used 500K.
Speaker 2:I would tell anyone who wants to open to just do it, just stream big, do big. And probably ask another friend who already has a practice, because that's the best thing, like the best reference point, right, yeah, how many ops has it got Right? How many?
Speaker 1:ops does your practice have?
Speaker 2:So my location was neat, so there was already a dentist here, so it was already plumbed out, so it wasn't a.
Speaker 1:You started as Was it a pediatric dentist that was in your it was a general dentist. Okay, did you have to change a few things because of general dentistry versus pediatrics, you know.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about, but at the end of the day, the rooms are partitions. All I had to do is just paint it and decorate it the way that I want to, and that right there saved me a lot.
Speaker 1:So how many ops?
Speaker 2:I have four chairs, four ops.
Speaker 1:So you were a scratch practice. Basically, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:You were a scratch.
Speaker 1:You started from scratch.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes, Okay, yeah, from scratch no place to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so day one Before day one. Let's say you're six months out now, construction is going, you've leased the place and now you're preparing for day one. What are some of the things you did in your preparation for day one?
Speaker 2:Mind you, let me see. Number one is try to get a staff right. Like you need staff, you need people there to pick up the phones to help you do the insurance part to help out with a lot of things just organizing off the practice.
Speaker 2:So there was a lot of preparation, the paperwork, your accountant, your banks, your lawyers, your systems, try to get your systems in place and a lot of that. I think the way that the position where I'm at now is because where I really work, just like everywhere, you grab things from there that you like and you try to apply it for yourselves. So I think that helped a lot to actually have some experience. I worked for about seven years before I opened my own practice, so everywhere I went I was fortunate enough to see great things there and make it part of my own.
Speaker 1:So you opened this year, correct.
Speaker 2:Correct March of this year.
Speaker 1:So did the pandemic get in your way as far as, like the fear factor? Did you ever have any fear, man? Were you shitting your pants going? Holy crap, is this going to work?
Speaker 2:I think I had a conversation with you and another friend and they were like well, this is the end of the world. You might as well do it right. I was like well, that is true, right Like it is and it is. Because, you told me something that I still hit home, which is as dentists, we're so measured, we're so precise, we want everything perfect. We don't want to spend an extra dime, we don't want to do more or less, we want to get it perfect with everything. And I was like yeah this spot looks fantastic.
Speaker 2:It's, you know, it might not have one thing, but it has this other thing. So I was like all right, let me do it and just ride the wave and just make it work. Right, You're going to make it work as you're a business owner, yeah, so so yeah, I mean, and it was it was around. Yeah, covid did, did have some impact, but I think this is when we were coming back from COVID the vaccine was already out and at least like a third of the population already that was eligible already were vaccinated.
Speaker 1:It was. You're also in Florida, which helps, right? I mean it's a red state, that's a big help as well. Did you have any? Any kids in the chair? Day one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did. Well, I remember I kept trying.
Speaker 1:Not your own kids, right, come on. Yeah, are you married?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm married. Yeah, do you?
Speaker 1:have kids.
Speaker 2:No, not yet.
Speaker 1:Not yet. So it couldn't have been your kids, so you didn't have some kids in the chair.
Speaker 2:Definitely yes, and we? I kept pushing back the opening date. I pushed it back twice. And yeah, we had, we had a couple. We had a couple that that that first day and it was. It was very, very special and actually they were here last week again for like recalls and stuff like that, which is now is the time where we're seeing our first patients for the second time. It's big, it's very special.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great. Do you own a house? Yes, I do so. Now you're 280 out of dental school. Looks pretty small compared to your office in your house, right? So this is, this is. The big lesson here is that you know, dental school is just a platform for more loans and more debt. Don't anticipate that it's going to drop anytime soon. Man, you got to buy a house. You got to get married. The wedding cost some money, so did the honeymoon right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of those had costs.
Speaker 1:So, look, the thing is, is a lot of the young students right now are new grads or or even associates are looking and going holy crap, I'm 400 and dead and I got to buy an office, I got to buy a house. I mean, look, don't be surprised that you're a million, a million and a half, maybe two million in debt when you, when you're early on in your career, right, Right.
Speaker 1:Depending on the size of the house, depending on the size of the ring, depending on the size of the wedding, depending on this, you know, the school and the there's a lot of factors that come into play. I think one thing that we need to understand is that you have the potential in the next 30 years to do anywhere from, depending on what kind of pediatric dentists you are in this case, but anywhere from 40 to $100 million of dentistry in gross business, and you know, a million and a half of debt to create that platform is not a bad thing. So stay positive, I think, is the message I'm trying to share here. As far as you know, taking the steps to become a doctor and to to open up a practice and have a life and get married and have kids, and that's coming next for you. So so here's the question, here's the question Are you happy with becoming an owner?
Speaker 1:Do you think you made the right choice? You know a lot of doctors are like well, shit, I'm going to. You know I'm making 300k. If I become an owner, my income is going to drop, I'm not going to have any money. How am I going to pay for everything? Does that, did that ever cross your mind?
Speaker 2:I think my situation was unique, that I worked about seven years, so I was able to save some money and also I lived modestly too. I think that's an important thing. Everyone wants like the really nice Mercedes Benz and BMW You'll get them eventually, but like I want it. I remember I wanted the Mercedes Benz, the C63 509 edition, and it was like $1,200 a month. I was like no.
Speaker 1:I mean, see, I would have got it. That's the difference between you and me. You're smarter than I was when I graduated because I drove that C63, whatever, whatever for 1800.
Speaker 1:So that discipline is, you know, commendable, because not everybody has that discipline, but I think that's really important. Obviously, having some cash in the bank helps, but, you know, I think that's very valuable. So would you, if somebody's on the fence right now and I know you got to go cut some baby teeth now, but when? If somebody's on the fence right now, what would you recommend to them?
Speaker 2:To seek a mentor. Seek a mentor, seek someone who already has done it and just just do it. Just do it.
Speaker 1:Just do it, baby huh. Just do it. It's all you got, man. Just do it. Just go into debt another 500K At least. Just get married and buy that million dollar house At minimum, come on At minimum. Yeah, well, you know, listen, doc, I appreciate you coming on. I know you got a busy day today. You certainly got a lot more patience than you did day one. Now, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's. That's especially, you know, we we strive to to give the best customer service. So the way that I work, now we don't see that volume for many reasons, but on average day it's. It's not that many, not like 30 or 40. No, you know, I like the customer service, I like the quality, I like the what are you saying? Like 15, 20 patients a day now, yeah, Well, a little bit less than that, but yes and even with that, I mean I think we're like nonstop.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, listen, doc, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you spending time with us today. Dr Marvin Abarca from Miami Florida, little champions dentalcom, started his new practice ownership after seven years of being an associate for a happy DSL location and now he's happy being an owner and and I wish you the best man I appreciate you coming on. I know you and I have spoken a few times over the last couple of years and I hope some of my input gave you a push to to get into ownership. And you know it all comes from confidence. Most of it is confidence of you going out, taking that risk and then, obviously in your case, after seven years, being prepared and seeing what others have done, how they've succeeded, how they failed and that helped you get started as well. At little champions dental on Instagram as well, you guys want to follow this guy, young guy, and I know you're going to make some noise in the pediatric world. So best of luck to you, man. Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, no, thank you, sany. Thank you for having me on your podcast.
Speaker 1:Awesome man. Listen, I'll be back in Miami so we'll have to go get lunch pretty soon, but for now go cut some baby teeth. Bro, come on Right. All right, buddy, take care. That was great.
Speaker 1:Look, I wanted to bring him on just to kind of share a little bit with you younger dentists or doctors that are looking to move into ownership, what some of the steps are and kind of what he was going through. Obviously he was in a better position. A lot of you are struggling with your DSOs, are struggling with your private practice and want that autonomy certainly can reach out to me. I would suggest following me on Dr Shaheen Safarian on Facebook and Instagram. Follow Love Bytes Dental on Facebook and Instagram as well. But look, I hope these 45 minutes encourage some of you to at least dig a little bit deeper within, gain that confidence. It's going to be a beautiful world when you become an owner. You're respected more and obviously it'll have some other benefits as far as tax benefits and networking with other black-minded individuals. So I want to thank you for joining me at Shaheen's Corner again and until next time. I'll see you soon.