Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner with Special Guest Dave - Finance CEO's Pearls of Wisdom on Successful Dental Practices and Personal Growth
Ever wished you could peek inside the mind of a finance company CEO? Want to understand why self-financing your patients might not be the best move? We've got the lowdown for you! In this riveting episode, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Dave, a financial guru and CEO of a finance company. With an extensive background in dental practice management, Dave is a wealth of wisdom. He unpacks the complex world of finance and patient lending, offering pearls of wisdom on the entrepreneurial strategies required to run a successful dental practice.
The conversation we have with Dave goes above and beyond pure finance talk. We delve into the personal growth aspect, where Dave emphasizes the significance of traits such as self-awareness, risk-taking, a strategic vision, and fostering a positive culture within your practice. He also shares valuable insights on transitioning to high-end, non-insured dental work and the kind of mindset necessary for this shift. We promise this conversation will leave you enlightened and better equipped to make informed decisions!
The episode concludes with Dave showcasing how his finance company helps dental practices flourish by taking on the risk of large case financing. We also discuss the importance of having a business plan and making necessary investments to achieve your practice's goals. Along with Dave's perspective on how passion for dentistry and positive interactions with patients can directly impact your bottom line. This one is a must-listen if you're keen on achieving success and growth in your dental practice while also nurturing your personal growth. Tune in for this enlightening conversation!
Dave, good morning Good morning for you.
Speaker 1:How are you? I'm doing well Great. You're going to be on your podcast. Appreciate you being here. There are so many things I want to ask you. As a practicing dentist for 20 years, I've made all the mistakes on the finance side. I've been a bank. I've lend money to people myself as a practice and saw my AR drastically increase. But before we get into that, I want to know. So you know, we go to college and then we go. Okay, we're going to go to dental school and we're going to become dentists. How do you become a CEO of a finance company? What's that process like?
Speaker 2:Sure, Well, just a little bit about my background. You know that might be helpful. I described myself. I've had three careers. I'm a CPA. My first career was in public accounting.
Speaker 1:I was a tax partner at.
Speaker 2:Grant Thornton did a lot of high income, my individual network type individuals, so a lot of the doctors and dentists and practices, so I used to you used to help them with a lot of their finance and tax planning strategies. I was lucky enough to get hired away by a large client of mine, Cabela's, and had a great career with them and actually was their CFO and president, so had a lot of executive management experience but also started a credit card bank for them, which has really got me interested in unsecured financing and on and on.
Speaker 2:So all of that, I tried to retire, got bored. So what do you do? You become a consultant, did a little of that, but I ran into ClearJoy. So they were one of my consultant clients who made your project for me and they had problems with patient financing. This is after the credit crisis. A lot of lenders who were providing liquidity for patient financing just stopped getting out of doing that and got out of business. So, you know, I was hired to try to solve their problems and we did. We were able to figure out a facility.
Speaker 2:But having done all of that, I decided, hey, look, there's a better way to do this. There's not a lot of good product out there for patient financing. It's really more of a push down where somebody will create a product, a bank or a financial institution and offer that to the doctors and dentists and say, hey, use this is what we got. Well, you got to make that work instead of building a product up from the ground and saying, hey, here's what you need, here's what solves your problems, here's a product that works for you, your patients and your practice. So that's what got me here. So how do I become a CEO? I started the company, I founded it and built it from a startup to where it's at today.
Speaker 2:We've been in business about seven years old, told you know, the first two years were a lot of just development of, you know, technology and the infrastructure that we needed to run this business. Because we're a funded model, we send out, you know, millions of dollars every day to our providers and, you know, grow the company. You know you just, you know you can talk about, you know what does it take to build something like this. But there's been a lot of fun. We have to enjoy what you're doing and you have to be passionate about this and I think we are. We have a lot of good core values here and you know we're trying to help you, help your patients at the same time, build your practice, you know, financially, help you make more money and be more successful, be able to grow, you know so that's what we do here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I really want to get into the risk component a little bit. I appreciate the background. There are so many doctors and offices, small businesses, that lend money to people as a practice. Why is that not a smart idea?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, you know. A lot of times you know you get into. You know I call it seller financing, though. So you're financing your patients. You're taking the risk of that patient paying you, and here's the problem that I see in practices is one you don't know the credit profile of your patient. You're not able to run a credit check or check their credit history or really have any clue of what their financial background is and what their financial history is. So you're taking a risk that you don't know what. You know who you're lending money to and their ability to repay, their intent to repay, their motivation to repay. None of that's really in a decision that you make you know, then you get into, okay, you make the loan.
Speaker 2:now you've got to manage the loan and service the loan and collect the loan or the receivable. You know that is an area that you know takes expertise and most of the people in your practice don't have that expertise. You know it may be an afterthought, it may be something they just don't pay attention to because they're too busy or they're trying to do other things in the practice and they just let things go. So you know it's a risk business. You know I describe what I do is I make large, unsecured loans to strangers, coast to coast, every day. You know I have no idea who these people are. I, you know I have to rely on technology to help me make decisions.
Speaker 2:So anyway, it's you know it never, ends well when you try to finance your own receivables unless you know you really know what you're doing and it's it's hard to find people that have that skill level. That would work in your practice.
Speaker 1:There's some companies out there that the pros and cons of this basically Dave, that basically allow you not to get your credit checked and they just need a bank account and they have as apparently a smaller processing fee. A lot of doctors are stressed or worried about the processing fee component of what they need to pay to the financing company. It ranges anywhere from five, six percent to maybe I think about 15 to 18 percent, if I'm not mistaken, of the different products that are in the market. Talk to a little bit about that. A lot of doctors have the thought that well, I'll take, I'll take that risk and then I'll charge the 10 or 15 percent, and but not a very smart move, yeah you know, let's address that.
Speaker 2:You know how do you think through that. You know I'm a finance person and I manage money in terms of you know, helping practices grow and really thinking of you know with the product that we offer and we're a large case Lender and dentistry we do a lot of the high end dentistry financing where you know you're talking about implantology and or cases that are large anywhere from you know we financed between 2570,000 anywhere in between.
Speaker 2:So these are large cases. So one you know when you make those kind of risk and loans or procedures, you know do you really want to take the risk on those large cases. But you know when you talk about provider fees and what we charge to fund these loans, you know I, most of you, and your colleagues and the people that work for you you know, the first thing they say is well, how much does this cost?
Speaker 2:Where do you charge? Right, and I always tell people you're asking the wrong question and it just stuns them because they go what do you mean? You know, I just I want to know what you charge and I said well, I'll tell you what I charge. But you know, the right question that you should be asking me is how much revenue can I produce for your practice? At what cost? Okay, that's right. And if you start thinking about it that way, that's not the most important thing in what we do or what you need to evaluate, because you know I can improve everybody and give them $100 credit, okay, and have 100% approval rate and everybody's happy. You can have 100% approval rate, but that doesn't do you any good. It doesn't do you know the practice any good. You know it's. How much risk do you want me to take? And you know this is a risk business.
Speaker 2:So I try to you know, share that risk with with three parties. Right, I have the patient who takes out the loan and they pay an interest rate that's risk rated based on their credit and their credit responsibility, their credit history and their credit scores all the things that we look at. So they're taking part of the risk of loans not being repaid. You, as a provider, are taking and sharing in that risk. You know my loans are not recourse, so I fund you and you're out. You have no risk whatsoever after, after that loan is funded, but I'm going to charge you for that and you're going to share the risk.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then I'm taking the full risk because these people and the patient and the barbers don't pay. You know it's my loss. I have to absorb that loss and take that loss. Now think about you know what's going on here with the three parties is, you know, in a perfect world, you want me to take more risk, but you don't want to pay for it. Okay, patient wants a loan with a low interest rate and great terms and conditions, but you know that's, they don't want to pay for it. So they want me to take all the risk. Okay, my business model doesn't work when I take all the risk, because then I go broke and you know I have too many bad loans and all that.
Speaker 2:So if you really want a great patient financing product that works for your practice. You have to get that in your head. You know we're here to help the patient, we're here to get you more cases, we're here to grow your practice and you know let's work on this all together and put everybody that's involved in this. Everybody puts something on the table to make this happen. Because I will tell you from my experience and this is why I've created this business is the biggest problem in dentistry with patient and patient financing, especially in large case dentistry, is affordability. Yeah, you have to make this affordable if they're going to say yes to a large treatment plan and they have to feel comfortable they can afford it right. So they want a low payment. They want something, a financing product that that you know they want to pay. They just can't pay you now. So you know they want a great product, but they tell about affordability and the more we can make you what you guys do affordable, the more success you're gonna have. Everybody wants, because the market is so huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I really think you know it's very true in a sense of saying you're coming on as a team player and not a as an expense right, and so you have to really consider how you're gonna help Grow your business by bringing on proceed finance instead of why do I have to pay a processing fee of five or ten or fifteen percent. That mindset kind of brings me into this whole thought process of we, as dentists, really need to respect the word or the terminology of being a Corporation and being a CEO. I think one of the things that happens for us is we get to become a CEO without really earning it. Let me explain. As I said right at the beginning, I said look, we go to dental school, would become dentists, and it costs, you know, 800 to $1,200 to become incorporated and then you can tag yourself as the CEO of your corporation. That is really not the right mindset of becoming a CEO, because that's what most dentists do. So now you, you know, go on LinkedIn and say you know, I'm dr Shaheen Safarian, ceo of my business, and it sounds really sexy. But in reality, when I graduated in 2001, there was really no discipline behind that word CEO and being incorporated.
Speaker 1:Do you want to talk a little bit about the finance side of so? I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking, okay, well, I need. You know I got a four-unit crown that I got a cut and you know I got a couple of Vineers that I got to prepare and deliver a case. What is the mindset of a CEO as a dentist? How should a dentist think on the financial side when they walk into their business? And I know it's kind of a Kind of a deep topic, but what are some pointers that you can suggest for for doctors that are CEOs? What do they need to pay attention to to their business that really moves the needle for them?
Speaker 2:Sure, well, you know a CEO mindset is kind of what you want me to address and I'll talk a little bit about that. You know, over my careers and you know I've had lots of training and been through a lot of different experiences. But CEO mindset is okay. What are you really trying to do? You know you focus on goals, objectives and what you. You know where you want to go. You have a visionary type strategy that says, okay, here's what I want to do. And you know if, if you're just a Doctor in a practice and you're managing your practice, you know a lot of times you're gonna get all tied up in your day-to-day routines. All the issues that involve in a practice, all the you know HR issues, you know the issues that are, I would consider, day-to-day Issues and problems. Okay, you got to set that stuff aside. I think big picture if you really want to grow and Accomplish goals.
Speaker 2:So you know, if your goal is.
Speaker 2:I want to make X and I'm making X now, how are you going to get there and what's that going to involve? And so you start figuring out how do I manage my profit, my practice profit, okay, and you know that involves a lot of things. Utilization you know how much of your day is scheduled with quality work that you know is very profitable. How do you shift work around to your staff people? How do you schedule? How do you get new patients? That's a huge one, you know to grow your practice.
Speaker 2:And then, if you want, to get into really, you know, looking at General dentistry versus specialty dentistry, you know you got to think about well, can I do specialty dentistry? I will tell you, that's where the margins are, that's where you can make a lot of money and you know your rate, that you're earning for you and your practice is significantly higher. So how do I get more of that type of work right? So you know, first of all, technically, are you capable of performing and doing those procedures? You know where you're delivering a real quality professional product. So you have to be trained and be able to be comfortable that you know what you're doing and that you know you have the resources to to be able to to do do those types of cases.
Speaker 2:But you know it gets into this you know I try to transition doctors is. You know. I'll just give you some facts because they're kind of interesting. You know a general dentist that isn't doing a lot of high-end dentistry, you know doing crown bridge. Just just a family general dentist, you know, maybe can do a practice where you know, there I've seen making 150 to 200 thousand a year in Bottom line. That's what they're actually taking home after all their expenses, after you know paying For the, the types of you know things that they need to do to run a general practice.
Speaker 2:If you start thinking, hey, I want to do better For my family, for me, and maybe more productive, how do I increase, you know, my profitability, my practice? Well, you have to grow, you have to change the mix and you have to be smarter about how you spend your time and what you're spending your time on and getting into procedures that aren't all insured. So you've got limitations with insurance and dental insurance and all that. But you can actually start doing uninsured elective type work where there's a huge demand In your industry. The dental insurance products that are out in the market place don't cover much. They have really small limits and caps. So you want to start doing the big cases so you can transition your practice and, if you can, be a specialist and start doing as many cases of implants or the more cosmetic ninnah procedures we can pretty much show you how you can triple your income at a fairly short period of time.
Speaker 2:It's there. It's there how to do it, and we help do that. Now you've got to do a mix of things. You've got to listen to people and try to make sure you start transitioning it, but with successful practices that our general dentistry may be doing, we're having to anywhere between $600,000 to $1 million a year.
Speaker 2:you can turn that into a $3 million practice fairly easily and then you can go from there. So when you get one practice and my entrepreneurial type doctors you know will want to grow beyond that, so they open a second practice or a second location and then they've got one down. They know what they're doing, they can make it work and then they want to duplicate that and continue to grow, and it's just what are your goals?
Speaker 2:So you look at the entrepreneur. How much of an entrepreneurial entrepreneur argue. Do you want just to do a one practice this is what I want to be or do you want to grow? It'd be something more special, bigger and you know. Take on where your goals are you know something way beyond.
Speaker 2:you know just what you are today. So CEOs think about all that stuff. Now, how do you execute that? What do you all need to make that happen? What's it going to cost, what's the investment needed, how do I finance it? And just how do I grow? And how do you execute a successful business plan?
Speaker 2:You know so it's working and it's successful and you know you're part of it. So you know there's all kinds of elements to that. But you know we didn't go as deep as you want. I mean, obviously, a lot of it's people. You've got to have good people in your practice and if you don't have good people, you know you're probably not going to accomplish your goals and objectives, and you know. So.
Speaker 2:Then you get into how do you get good, qualified people to really share your vision and part of it and, you know, help you accomplish what you know you want to do and they see it, they want to be part of it. So you probably have, you know, mission statement type stuff where what are we trying to accomplish here? So everybody feels good about it and they get engaged in their job and their careers and they really want to be part of something special. So you've got to create culture. You know there's just all sorts of elements to make something really successful. But CEOs think about all that stuff and you know you have to put all of that together. And you know, if you're not an expert in something, you know get the expertise. You know don't try to solve problems that you're not qualified to solve. Get help and there's lots of that out there to you know basically help you accomplish where you're trying to go.
Speaker 1:You know, this is the problem. I strongly believe in our profession. Everything that you just mentioned there is everything that we don't have any training on when we go to dental school and the reality is is when we come out into the real world, we don't really seek that level of training. You talked about vision. You talked about systems. You talked about delegation. You talked about a couple of other things that are really. You know planning strategy. You know where does a dentist start. So now you're 25, 26 years old and you're out in the real world for the first time.
Speaker 1:I can tell you that it's a struggle for many throughout their entire career. You know finding the right team members, trusting the right team members, trusting the money that you're going to spend away from anything that's not dentally related. Self-development comes into play. Self-awareness comes into play. You know your mindset as far as internal happiness. Where are you? Are you? You know your risk level. How much risk are you comfortable taking? This is the real world.
Speaker 1:This is the reality of you know what I've dealt with the last 20 years in private practice and I'm still practicing today, and it's still an ongoing process of establishing systems, establishing delegation, establishing a vision, establishing strategy.
Speaker 1:And the problem is is we're so focused on being in our practice clinically that we really never step outside and focus on how I can self-develop to have a vision that will direct me in the right direction, and then the trust and the confidence within yourself to push through that strategy that you have in your mind as far as where you want to be in two, three, five years.
Speaker 1:Many times that strategy is just the weekend strategy that you come up with and by Wednesday, thursday, it gets difficult and we stop and we go back to where we are because that's what's comfortable for us. This is one important component of what I'm trying to do in my content, dave, is to say look enough, talk about just dentistry. Everything you just mentioned here takes a lot of time, energy and effort and money to invest into and I think that's such a big missing link for us and the more doctors that grab on this idea and really dive in into understanding who they are and what will internally make them happy. And that vision can take your 30s, your 40s. I know many doctors today in their 50s and 60s that aren't internally happy and that directly affects their business because again, they're just kind of coming in with their head down and just doing the same old thing just another day.
Speaker 2:Yep, you have to be passionate about what you do and what you like to do, and if you're not passionate about dentistry and it becomes something that's not fun anymore, I mean, I look at a career or a job, is what's rewarding, what gets me up in the morning, what makes me motivated, what is something that I really feel good about? And I you know which. Obviously, you know there's a lot of balance in life that you have to do, but you have to really, you know, feel good about what your career is and what you're doing, and so you know the doctor and another big component is dealing with people.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:You know the interaction that you have with people, whether it's your team members or team members, between team members and what team members say to patients and what patients say to you, that culture component you know a patient walks into your office they're not gonna wanna invest in something that they're not happy in. If they see that the team doesn't get along, the culture doesn't feel positive and it's negative. That directly affects your bottom line, absolutely. How do you create that right?
Speaker 2:Yep, you know, and you've gotta have the people that believe in what you're doing, in the product, and they're, you know they're there to help people and you know people who visit you and you know, have issues, problems, they need healthcare, they need, you know, things that are gonna improve their life.
Speaker 2:A lot of what you guys do, especially like in the stuff I see in finance, is life changing stuff for people. I mean, you know they. You know people who have poor oral health and you all know this, you know do not live a happy life. Yeah, they, they, they're in general introverts.
Speaker 2:You know they have missing or a periodontal problems, or, you know, teeth. They're shy, they don't smile, they don't socialize, they are embarrassed and it's just a miserable life, you know. And they get. You know they get turned down for promotions potentially. They get turned, you know they don't socialize, so people don't interact and they don't wanna interact because of you know their situation. So if you can fix that and turn that around for them I mean these people it's life changing for them because they could finally break out of that and, you know, live the life that they really want to. And so if people say, look, that's what we do here, you know we improve people's lives and every patient that comes through and we do, we do procedures for we have that opportunity to, you know, increase their happiness and their whole quality of life. So you know that's what you know. So let's do that here, because this is a good thing and we're all gonna have fun doing it and we're gonna try to give these people the best care that we possibly can.
Speaker 2:Now, if it costs more than we can afford or you know a lot of this stuff is expensive let's help them, you know, get the affordability, let's make it affordable for them so they can go forward. We do not want money to be, you know the problem where they don't, you know, take care of these life-changing events that can really turn their life around, and, you know, let's help them through that. So that's what you know. You gotta get a practice that can do that and you know that's where I got interested in patient financing is, I want more people into these treatment plans because I wanna change more lives, and so I have to create affordability.
Speaker 2:So how do we create affordability? Well, to make loans that are affordable, okay. And how do I make loans that are affordable? My view on that is, if we all put something on the table, we can make this happen, okay. And to build a product and a financing product that everybody is there to accomplish. You know what they need and what, and you know that's what we do. And if you, you know, believe in that and you start doing it, you know everything changes for everybody, including you, your staff, your practice, you know, and you start accomplishing the goals that you're trying to. You know that you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1:And you know what is that?
Speaker 2:You know, if you wanna grow and make more money, it's there. You just have to go out. You know, figure out how to do it, and that's what we try to help with. And, you know, make it work. I love to put business plans together that work, and you know we're pretty good at it here on.
Speaker 2:You know, if you wanna do this and go from here to here, you know let's talk about how that happens and what's all involved. But you have to be engaged and you gotta wanna do it and you gotta, you know, do what's necessary to create that. If you don't change anything and I see that a lot I've been at a lot of conferences or I speak at a lot of different you know events and so we get people all excited about, hey, you know this is achievable, we can do this. And they'll go back Monday morning to their practice and nobody, nothing changes. So it's like, well, okay, you know, if you expect something good like this to happen, you know you have to do things.
Speaker 2:But you can't just expect it. You know the phone to ring and people are gonna wanna, you know, do a full, large implant case. You know it's here's what all has to happen. You've gotta have your team members involved in, you know, believing in the mission and doing what's necessary to do it. So it's gonna change. You know the traditional comfort zone that a lot of your doctors have. But once you get them out of that and they get used to it, I mean you know the results start happening and they're gonna get successful and they're gonna feel good about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know the discussion here really is how do you go from having a $600,000 to a million dollar practice to a $3 million plus practice? And this is where Proceed Finance and Dave is really this can be a strategic partner coming in. We're getting some comments coming in here, which is kind of cool, but you know you wake up in the morning, you think about the things that you think about as a CEO and what ends up happening for the doctors. They wake up and go. I hope my hygienist shows up on time. I hope this case is gonna be here on time. We had a doctor that commented saying I wake up in the morning and I'm worried about troubleshooting an all on X case. That isn't quite going right for him at this time. So you know, waking up in the morning is a big component of getting started on the right track.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to talk about that mindset of coming into your day. Eight o'clock is game on. Eight o'clock is time to shine. Eight o'clock is a time that you're ready to go, you're productive and you're ready to, you know, basically dominate the day, and I believe that attitude is such an important component of your every day A doctor, if a case doesn't go well, by 11 o'clock he has his head down.
Speaker 1:That directly affects everything in their practice and it's very difficult to emotionally stay stable throughout the day from eight o'clock to five o'clock with that mindset that I'm gonna dominate the day. And if you're getting into the bigger cases and the bigger treatment plans and bigger patient payments, these are the more challenging days for you, and so that mindset is really, really important. But one of the components that Dave talked about is is, yes, they're there to finance and help patients. But, dave, I want you to talk a little bit about the importance of the internal team, meaning that you're only one part of a much bigger picture. If the leads come in and the team is unable to convert the leads, then there's not that many new patients coming in the office. If there's not that many new patients coming in the office, there's not that many opportunities to convert cases. If there's not that many opportunities to convert cases, you won't have the ability to change lives for the doctor and for the patient. You want to touch on that a little bit please?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you want to, okay, how do you make all this happen? I mean, you know, obviously talk is easy, doing it and making it work is a little more difficult. It takes time. But you know, I tell doctors okay, where are you? You know where do you want to go. Okay, you want to turn to your $600,000 practice into a $3 million practice. You know how's that possible? Okay, we start looking. You know, first of all, technically, do you have the skill levels to do high end dentistry? Because you know the margins and you know, as I call it, drill and fill dentistry are not that great. There's a lot of competition and you know you have to work long hours and not make a lot of money. You know to make that work and you, you know you have all of the same problems you were going to have.
Speaker 2:If you can convert that to a larger case types practice where you're more specialized and you know you're doing. You're doing these larger cases, life changing cases, you know. So how. Where do you start? Okay, let's assume you you get the technical training and you're comfortable that you know you can perform these procedures.
Speaker 2:You know, do surgeries and you know, do what is necessary. Now, I always tell doctors you know the phone, you know you get your technical training. The phone just doesn't ring when you get back to your office. There's a lot of switch. It's happening. Okay, that's right. You're going to have to start getting into marketing and understanding what that all means. Yeah, you're going to have to start getting into. You know. Obviously you've got to invest in the equipment and the office things that you need to do these procedures. You need to make your practice look like a high end specialty practice. You need to invest in your facilities. There's things you're going to need like a consult room, a room where people feel comfortable, you know, to talk about money, to talk about their life, to talk about their problems, to talk about things that you know are going to, you know, change their lives. And you've got to invest in continuing education. Of course, that never ends.
Speaker 2:And most of all you have to invest in staff. Okay, you have to get people who share the vision. So you know, when I talk about high industry, you know you don't have somebody. You're paying $15 an hour selling a high, a full, large case, okay, it ain't going to work. They don't know how to do it, they're not trained. You need, you know I call it treatment coordinators that are trained and know how to really sell that case. And it's, there's emotional pieces to it, there's psychology pieces to it, there's finance pieces to it and there's, you know, the end result and most people when they understand what can be is possible and they want, and they know they need to do these things.
Speaker 2:You know they have other priorities in their life, but this becomes their top priority is they want to invest in themselves, because if they invest in their social life, in their selves, and they invest in their family and they invested all of their life changes and things that you know really they want to do, they'll figure out a way to make it work financially. Okay. So now you have to help them because they don't know how to do it. I'm just telling you so you have to have a skill level on here's how we can make this possible for you and here's, here's how you can pay for this and we can make this happen for you. And you know not at all. So that's a special skill level. And you know I also tell people okay, you get your stuff.
Speaker 2:You need to reward the people that create success in your practice as well. You can't be cheap on these types of things. You need the best. You don't need, you know, if you're going to make it work, and all of this exists. So you know you have to invest in equipment, you have to invest in education, you have to invest in staff, you have to invest in marketing. I'm really talking about marketing, but you know how do you get leads? How do you successfully get those leads into your practice? And then how do you successfully, once those leads are in your practice, convert them to a case? Okay, and it's a waterfall. And there's ways to make it work very successfully and you know we see it every day. I mean, the successful practices follow what needs to be done and you know they're doing. You know they transform their practice into something special and they do well and they feel good about it and they feel so good about it you know that they want to duplicate it.
Speaker 1:I know the preparation of dental school gets you to that $150,200, but now it's another investment right. So a lot of discussion today on social media about is it even worth going to dental school? Is it worth investing over $400,000 or $500,000? Some GP programs are $600,000, $700,000 after four years of getting a degree. So where is that $150,000 or $200,000 going to carry you and how long is it going to take you? Because then you got to get married, you got to buy a house, you got to pay for kids and car and the expense is just add on.
Speaker 2:Your life is going to be stressful and financial issues are going to be part of it. You know, because look at your exam and I see this every day. Okay, you know, you get a young graduate from dental school that made it, got through and is now ready to. You know, start a practice or start practicing. You know what are their choices. All right if they had to take on a lot of student debt. You know what is now the average dentist coming out of dental school somewhere between $350,000 of debt that they have to carry in service.
Speaker 2:So they have that. Like you said, then they have. You know how do you buy a practice coming out of dental school. You know, with that debt and they want to buy a house. You got married, you know it's just that's probably not going to be enough to have a satisfactory lifestyle for investing what you know eight, 10 years in education. You know from the start, from the time you went to college to the time now you're out of dental school. You know, and is it worth it? Well, you can make it worth it.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know you didn't do this because you know you chose this profession. So you know you feel good about you. Can, you know, do the profession and you want to. You know meet. You know do the professional things that your degree gave you.
Speaker 2:You know, because you're a doctor, you have, you know you can do a lot of things to treat and help people, but you know there's more to it. Okay, so I want to be very successful. You know business person, doctor practice and I want all my people to love me, I want all my patients to love me and I want to do, you know, quality work. All right, all that's possible. But I'm just going to tell you that you know in your profession today, if you're going to go from you know A to B, where you're, you know that general dentist 150, 200 grand, where you're making a half million dollars a year, it's not going to happen without you know a business plan and help and you've got to want to go after that and you know do what's necessary to make that happen and there's there's a lot of elements to it.
Speaker 2:I kind of went through some of them. But you know you've got to be prepared to make some investments and and then you know you've got. You've got to make it work. But I will tell you it's very possible. The runway in your profession is huge. You know some statistics I love to quote. Are, you know, in a high-end dentistry I think? Today they're telling me and these numbers, you know, may be slightly off, but you know there's like 44 million people in this country that are in dentures, meaning they've got missing teeth, and that's the solution that they chose because of affordability or whatever.
Speaker 2:You know, you'll never meet anybody with dentures that likes them or is happy or thinks that's a satisfactory solution. That's right, you know, and so.
Speaker 1:I mean, to be honest, I bounce those cases out of my office now. I mean, it's something that I just don't want to deal with anymore. Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean you know, you guys, the technology in high-end dentistry with implantology is, you know, I follow it and it's fantastic. I mean it just changes all the time. But what you can do is just incredible and you know the skill levels, but you know, when you do that, you change people's lives. I mean, you know, you give them basically perfect teeth for the rest of their life and all of the benefits that go with that, including, you know, longer life expectancy, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know, I think also Dave doctors, let me explain. First of all, if you're in your early 20s watching this and you want to go to dental school, dental school is not the golden ticket. Okay, that's not going to get you into where you want to go. Dental school is a platform that will allow you to excel into the next phase in your life. Now we're talking about this in depth here. But you can certainly have a decent lifestyle, make a six-figure income and have a comfortable lifestyle. But you'll still have some financial stresses. But a lot of dental new graduates that graduate, they come out with a mindset of all right, I'm a doctor now. Now everything should be, you know, much easier. It only gets harder. That's, I think the big lesson here is your mindset when you graduate should not be one of a negative tone, meaning that you know you just started, you're now just starting and it's going to get harder. It's going to mean another three, four $500,000 investment into yourself to develop clinically Now, as we're talking here with Dave about dental implants a great avenue for you to pursue if you're into surgery and you know you like to be involved in that.
Speaker 1:But cosmetic dentistry is also a very valuable, lucrative platform that you can get involved with. There's certainly orthodontics, and then you can get into specialty work where you're not necessarily dealing with insurance as much and networking. But really you have to understand your mindset has to be of one where you're thinking great, I finished one level, now I got to go to the next level. If you have a positive mindset in that and not think, oh my gosh, I'm $500,000 in debt, I have to go work for people I don't want to work for, don't get negative as soon as you come out of the gate. First two, three years, it's just the start. You're going to continue to invest in yourself. You're going to continue to invest into your practice by home.
Speaker 1:And look, I didn't make the wisest decisions the first seven, eight years out and the market humbled me. That's what happens. The market disciplines the undisciplined and I was very undisciplined and I'm a risk taker as well. So that doesn't necessarily sit well at home with my wife sometimes, to be honest, because she's just like you're just risk, risk, risk. But you got to continue to understand yourself and understand where your internal happiness is and, as I'm now in my early fifties, self-awareness is a big component as well. But all of these things are really valuable to realize that every part of your, every chapter that you go through is just another platform, meaning, even if now, like Dave was saying, if you get all the technical training and get all the equipment, that's not enough. You got to now build a team and you got to create the marketing to get the lead. So there's a lot of components and your degree is simply just one component of the big picture.
Speaker 2:No, totally agree with you that there's a lot to it, and the successful doctors that do this get that exactly what you talked about and know what they need to do. And if they don't have the expertise and nobody is an expert in everything you have to get appropriate help to make sure that the areas that you're not comfortable with are covered. I see a lot of doctors that think they can do everything because they are a doctor. They know all about marketing, they all about finance, they all about risk, they all about taxes. They know everything. Those people just aren't going to make it either. So you have to involve people that you trust and people that you feel comfortable with to. We want to be a partner with you.
Speaker 2:The thing I hate and I resist this if somebody brings me in while we're going to put your patient financing project in our practice but you're just another vendor, I don't even want them as a client, because I want to be a partner. And if you don't want to work with me as a partner, where we work together to help each other and we make things happen, that's the relationship that I expect and want. If that's not what you want to do, then you're probably best served elsewhere, because that doesn't fit my business model and I learned that I mean that's what you need. You need partners who care and want to help you and be successful and understand that everybody has to be successful or you're going to make it work. So I need to make money to stay in business. You need to make money to stay in business. Whoever you're buying stuff needs to make money to stay in business. But you can make it all work. But if you tap people for their resources and the expertise that can help you, you know it's going to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. Just let me add a couple more things to that. The problem is the process. The process is a very difficult process. The process is a very uncomfortable process. The process is a process that challenges your level of understanding, perseverance.
Speaker 1:This is where maturity comes in, discipline comes in, leadership comes in. You have to create a vision for yourself and you have to want to genuinely dominate that vision, our vision. If it's not clear, our vision if it's not clear, you will never build a team, because if they don't believe in you where you don't even believe in your vision, then that takes away complete culture of the business. So as you grow into this and look, as I said, I've grown into this mindset over time, it might come to you when you're 25, 30 years old, it's certain then to me, and that's where ego comes in the way. A lot of the young doctors that have graduated, their ego gets in the way and that ego can be blind you to so many things. I know because the first seven, eight years my ego got in my way and so it's really important to understand that the cycles of being up and being down.
Speaker 1:As a leader, you really have to be stable and that stability really comes from maturity, and that's not always the easiest thing for a male or a female. You go through a lot of different things, whether it's health, whether it's natural disaster, whether it's divorce, whether there's so many things that come your way, whether it's the economy. As you cycle through 30, 40 years, you're going to be hit with a lot of challenges and your internal strength is really where it's all at, and that's why this whole combination, or this whole platform that I've tried to create, is really touched so many different topics and not just dentistry. But listen, dave, I really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 1:We're obviously very happy to be part of being involved with what you guys are doing at Proceed Finance. There is a path to 3 million for a general dentist. Doctors are doing it all the time. That path is not an easy path. That direction is not an easy direction, but certainly Proceed Finance can be a partner within that vision of what you're trying to create for yourself as the CEO of your corporation. Dave, thank you so much for your time today and I look forward to seeing you shortly here in the near future.
Speaker 2:Well great. Hey, I appreciate being a guest on this and hopefully your listeners and audience got something out of this. You can contact us if you want more information about what we do and how we do it, our products, our website address is there and we'd love to talk to you and be a client, and I appreciate your efforts as well and what you're trying to do. Dr Saffarin, as far as getting coaching and helping doctors realize, here's what it takes to be successful at all the other elements that are involved in creating a successful practice.
Speaker 1:So I think we all work together.
Speaker 2:We can make good things happen.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, dave. Have a great day. All right, thank you, have a great day. Take care. Well, look, there was so much in this 45, 50 minutes today, but at the end of the day, it's up to you, and we're here only to give you some suggestions, give you the content. Now the question is do you have the internal strength and power to push through some of these challenging times? Look, it's all about you taking action, and I appreciate, dave, coming on from Proceed Finance today, I'm Dr Shaheen Saffarian, and stay tuned for more with Shaheen's Corner. Come join us, subscribe, share this podcast, help us grow the community, and certainly we'll be happy if you're able to do that and be grateful for that as well. Have a great day.