Ep. 1 | From Dental Consultants to Owners | Case Closed: From Consult to Crown

Case Closed: From Consult to Crown | Episode 1 — From Dental Consultants to Owners

Welcome to the very first episode of Case Closed: From Consult to Crown, the podcast built specifically for the general dentist who wants to grow their practice through implant dentistry, without losing sight of what matters most: the patient.

Your hosts, Ryan Pritchard (founder of Maxilla Marketing and Crown Dental Group) and AJ Davino (founder of Dental Plant, Inc. and former treatment coordinator extraordinaire), bring a combined 25 years of hands-on dental industry experience to the mic. They've consulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of dental offices across the country, and now they've taken the ultimate leap: they actually own dental practices themselves. And that changes everything.

The Philosophy Behind It All

Their mission isn't just about making money, though they've turned more than a few non-millionaires into millionaires. It's about growing implant revenue while putting the patient genuinely first. Their ten-word guiding principle: "Grow your general practice with implants without leaving the patient behind."

Why They Started Buying Dental Offices

It started on an American Airlines flight when AJ casually floated the idea of just owning the offices they consulted for. Ryan thought it was insane... until the plane landed and he was already convinced. Hear how their first acquisition, a solo-doctor practice doing $817K per year, became a $1.7 million operation in under a year, and how their second acquisition went from $1.8M to $3.2M.

The Implant Treatment Coordinator and Why This Role Is Everything

AJ makes the case that the real consult isn't about convincing a patient they want treatment. By the time they're in your chair, they already want it. The consult is about helping them figure out how to afford it. That distinction is everything, and it requires a dedicated, skilled, empathetic person in that seat. AJ also shares why he hired an ITC straight out of the luxury automotive industry and why that unconventional decision turned out to be one of his best.

Lessons They Didn't Expect to Learn as Owners

Ryan and AJ get refreshingly honest about what humbled them once they were actually running offices. Staff culture is harder to shift than they thought. New systems trigger real resistance. They've developed a whole new appreciation for why dentists don't always do what consultants tell them.

AJ's Adventures

From time to time on this podcast, AJ will share a story from life on the road. This episode he tells the tale of a cramped coach seat, an onboarding document with some very questionable dental personality profiling, and a fourth-year dental student sitting right next to him reading every word of it. Awkward doesn't begin to cover it.

Whether you're a solo GP who's been curious about adding implants, a practice owner whose marketing works but cases aren't closing, or a dentist tired of having nobody to talk to about the business side of running your office, Case Closed is exactly what you've been missing.

New episodes drop biweekly. Subscribe and never miss a conversation.

Case Closed: From Consult to Crown is hosted by Ryan Pritchard of Maxilla Marketing and Crown Dental Group, and AJ Davino of Dental Plant, Inc.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Every single person that works at a dental office should be doing one thing and one thing well. And if that one thing is not supporting the doctor, then rethink it. Hey guys, welcome to the very first episode of Case Closed from Consult to Crown, a podcast for the general dentist who wants to grow their practice through implantology. I'm Ryan Pritchard, founder of Maxilla Marketing and Crown Dental Group, and I'm joined today by my co-host and friend AJ DeVino from DentaPlant Inc., former treatment coordinator, extraordinaire, and all-around dental expert. AJ, we finally did it.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Can't believe it. You know, after so many years of Chasen literally twisting our arms constantly. He has finally gotten us to sit down and create something like this, which is unique because I've never actually seen or heard a podcast before. So this is all very foreign to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

That's great. Glad I'm in good hands. Yeah. And for those of you who don't know, Chasen is our producer, also a longtime friend. You'll I think people will learn uh very quickly that we're surrounded by uh not just coworkers but but friends. And you and I, we've been doing this a long time, you know, 25 years to uh uh together. Um in dentistry. In dentistry, right, right, right. Uh and we've worked directly in uh hundreds, if not thousands, of dental offices all over the nation. Uh and in recent times, uh we bit the bullet and started buying offices. So you and I together, we own dental offices, and uh we figure it's time to to bring that knowledge that we have uh to our listeners and and our peers and and also our friends.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yeah. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to be producing something with you. Uh we used to often joke when we were driving uh many hours in the car to heavens knows where we're going or what town or city. Uh, we often would joke around and say, hey, uh we should charge people money to listen to us talk about uh dentistry because we literally don't stop talking about it for uh one second. Right, right, right. And just no, uh the podcast is free. Yes, that's true. For now.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

No, I'm totally kidding. For for for now. Yeah, and so before we get too deeply into it, AJ, I I want to tell you how um honored and uh humbling it is to do this with you. I'm really excited to sit down and be able to talk to you. What are we doing, bi-weekly basis to bring our knowledge um to the world, those who will listen anyway?

SPEAKER_03 2:59

No gun to their head, right? We they they uh they'll listen to it on their own. Uh I it's wonderful to actually you know not be traveling. Uh I do a lot of individual uh traveling, not not with Ryan here. And so it's awesome to actually be present in the same room, and then we get to actually work together on something unique and completely new to both of us. Is I mean, I'm honored as well to to start this journey with you as well. I don't know why that sounded really corny, but uh it happened.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

It was lovely. And I I think our our wives are are super happy that we're doing this because it ensures that we're both in the same place. True. At least at least a few times uh a month. And and so so here we are. I'm really happy to do it. Um I think uh getting into a little bit more detail uh about who we are, you know, like I said in in the intro, um, Maxil Marketing, right? This is a full service dental marketing uh agency. We specialize in not just the creation of and implementation of, um, but we we buy media, the same stuff every marketing company does out there for dentists. But I think the big differentiator, other than the fact that we are dental experts ourselves, uh at Maxilla is what we do is uh we're gonna track, we're gonna monitor, and we're gonna train on every single patient journey, right, that that we bring in. And that's great, right? So we what we're able to do is identify very, very granularly why a campaign is not falling apart, right? If I had a dollar for every time a dentist told me, oh, I've tried marketing before, it doesn't work, right? Usually it's because there's something going wrong in the campaign. And honestly, it's not usually the marketing, right? That's what we have found. Um but also what we have discovered is there are things that we cannot fix from afar, right? We identify things in the office, we say, look, this is what's wrong with it. And very quickly in my career, and this is sort of how we developed a professional and then friendly relationship with one another, is we realized that we needed to send someone in, the cavalry, if you will, uh, to fix bigger issues, right? Hey, we we we can see that that we're developing a ton of phone calls. We can see that the front desk actually is really good at booking appointments, but once the patient's there, the office is just not turning into anything. You know, and so uh while Maxilla Marketing might be the the army, if you will, uh DentaPlant is sort of the special forces, right? You go in and and you you you turn things around in an office. Would you say that's right?

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Yeah, uh I've learned over the years, you know, um uh going in with a a battle plan, it can change on the fly, right? Like Maxilla is really good at giving me information that I can go in and immediately start digging into, right? But uh I'm usually not necessarily the most well-liked uh person who walks through the door in dental offices, unfortunately, yeah. By nature of what I'm doing, which is maybe having to have some tough conversations with some of the employees there. Yeah, you rough up, you ruffle feathers. I do, I do. It stinks, but it's the only way to really, you know, enact change, right? Uh I've I guess I can say uh I I love visiting offices. I love digging in. I love trying to find out why something in particular is not working. And I think uh I I believe you're gonna agree with me on this. It's usually someone involved in the process, right? For sure, yeah. Uh it can be one person, it can maybe be a couple, right? And it's not that they're necessarily bad people or bad workers or employees, they're just doing something maybe that isn't necessarily the the best their strength, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Someone once told me that that it's not just getting the right people on the bus, it's it's also getting them to sit in the right seat, right? And yes, this is what you know, we we can identify, hey, there's something wrong here, um, but you're better at going in there and identifying like exactly what it is. And like you said earlier, it's it's almost always a people issue. Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Right. Which is good, right? If we know what to look for when we're walking in or when I'm walking into an office, right? That's it's usually a culprit. It isn't always, right? But it usually is. So I can focus on that, right? I can identify, hey, look, uh you're not putting the patient first right now, and that's why we're having issues right here. Or hey, person who was hired to work the front desk and answer phones, please go talk to this patient about a $58,000 treatment plan. Uh, thanks. You know, let me know how it goes, and I'll be mad at you if they don't say yes. So uh that's the kind of thing that I'm I'm usually uncovering, you know. People who they're they're they're great, right? They want to try, right? But through no fault of theirs, right, other than they're just not supposed to be talking to someone about a $58,000 treatment plan, right? So what does that mean? Uh usually means that sometimes it's training who's there, but a lot of times I think it's it's finding the right person to be able to uh close these big cases or close the little cases, but above all else, treat the patient right.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

You know, I think that that's a core focus of our companies is uh basically if you treat the patient right, um the the yeses to treatment, the money, that'll all come.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Yeah, right, right. That that all follows, and that's a good segue into um, you know, let let's let's be honest. We don't know what the hell we're doing when it comes to running a podcast. Like you said, you've never even seen one. Uh you know, we don't know what we're doing, uh completely clueless when it comes to to running a podcast. So I have actually been reading a book by a guy, I think his name is Eric Newsom or something like that. It's called Make Noise. And um, he's uh just obsessed with defining your podcast in 10 words or less. And I thought, we've been doing this forever, right? This is easy. Uh, but first of all, we waited too long to actually do that. It was yesterday or the day before we finally sat down. We were in the same place, right? Uh finally been able to sit down and talk about what is this podcast in 10 words or less. Um, and it it proved to be way more difficult than than I thought it would be. You don't you don't have a lot of words, which means every word has to mean something. And the reason why I think it was a good segue from what you were talking about is the fact that uh for us, yeah, right. We one of the things we said, making millionaires, right? Like that's what we're doing. And it is what we do. We're regularly turning clients who are not millionaires into millionaires. But for us, it put too much emphasis on just the money, the Benjamins. Um it's that's okay, it's important, right? That's how we feed our families. Making money in the businesses that we have is not something that you should be ashamed of. Um, but there's just too many, uh really unfortunately, uh to my surprise, there's too many doctors that um to get to the cash, whether knowingly or unknowingly, they they put the patient in the backseat. And sometimes it's as small as just the patient experience, right? It's just that. Uh, but it it it does tend to bleed all the way into you know the the the clinical treatment that a patient's getting. Right. And so it was really important for us to describe this podcast in 10 words or less, uh, in a way that is sure, yeah, we're making millionaires, but not not while leaving the patient behind. And so we did finally settle on, you know, um, grow your general practice with implants without leaving the patient behind. I don't know if that's finally it, but we only had 24 hours to come up with come up with that. Uh but I do think that that pretty much says what we do, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

Uh it's nice succinct way. It might not be 10 words, but it is 10 exactly 10 words. Exactly 10. Yeah, that's Chassy we did this morning. I didn't want to count it. I always mess up tooth numbers, so yeah, I just can't count either. Right. Uh but that's really what we want to do, right? Uh we're in the business of helping people, right? I mean, a dental office is still a medical facility, right? Yeah, right at its core. Um, you know, I think a lot of uh offices uh like hearing that when we go and visit them and we talk to them and they see that we're not all about just trying to jam someone into something that we don't think they need, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

Uh I like to say, you like to say, um, we're not selling anything actually to the patient. What we're doing is we're educating, we're teaching them what their options are. You know, uh, for all the dentists listening right now, how many times have you had a conversation with a patient and they said, well, or they they say, I should say, uh, well, you know, uh 10 years ago I had, you know, basically all my molars taken out, and no one told me that I was going to have a hard time chewing, and no one told me that I was gonna have a hard time replacing them because I was gonna lose bone. Were they not told? I have no idea, right? I think a lot of dentists do tend to say these things to them. It's it did they hear it, right? Right, did they hear it?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

And in and also the amount of offices that we go into, and it's like, here, here's what I can do for you, right? That this is forty-five thousand dollars. Okay, and and patient says, I don't have $45,000. And in the number of of doctors and offices where it's like, oh, okay, well, thanks. I get call me when you do. Right, here's a brochure. That doesn't make any sense, right? So, so in the offices that we own, and then also something that we have preached the whole time uh is we need to meet the patient where they are, right? And so it's super patient forward. This is what Crown's about, this is what our companies are about. And uh, I have seen no proof that if your focus is patient forward, you'll make less money. Yeah, right. In fact, I think more, right? Because the one thing I can't bottle up as a marketer is word of mouth, right? I wish I could, I wouldn't own an island by now, but but I can't. Um, you know, but we can create that in our offices by providing an experience that's just second to none. Right. And so, so when you meet a patient where they are, um you you really can grow your office. You can be just as successful as the car salesman of dentist. Uh so so so yeah, you know, I I I think I think just just in that, right? We're bringing um a lot of different perspective. Um, and I think it resonates with most of our clients that this is how we think about dentistry because it's how they want to think about dentistry. Right. Um, you know, I hear uh a lot with the with the marketing marketers, I like to say a lot, right? You've got vampires, lawyers, and then marketers, right? Um, and and for me, it's just so much easier to sleep at night when we're putting patients forward.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Right. And and that's why I do what I do. I know that's why you do what you do. And for most of our clients, I think is why they do it, right? And it's why implants um are so amazing, right? You don't do a root canal on a patient and and they they leave saying, Boy, I love my dentist, right? They're like, I I hate that guy. Uh, you know, but when you change their life, right, they chew food they haven't been able to for 30 years. Now they are telling people um you know why they want to do what they they they do. It's the why of our businesses and and for our clients. But when I think about why we started this podcast, right? Why now? And some of this is Chasen, uh, who who he's looking at me right here. I can feel his eyes on me. Burning a hole. It's burning a hole. Um, but when I think about why, for me, it's it's the affirmation, right? Why now? It's the affirmation once we bought offices, how how how heavily, I guess, it confirmed that everything we preach is right. Like, damn it, we were right. We took our own philosophies and we took a leap, uh a huge leap, because I'm not a dentist, you're not a dentist, right? I would kill someone if I was. Yeah, same. Right. Uh uh, but but we we took the leap because we believed in our system so much. Um and and we did it. And and we have proven that our systems do work. And we'll talk about it today on the podcast. We'll get into some specific examples, but would you agree that that that why is heavy for me?

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Completely. And also we like this idea of trying to, I think, influence people to understand uh what we're doing at a at a maybe more dialed-in level, so that someone may be considering changing something in their office. I don't know, maybe hears something that we're talking about, and it's like, wow, I've always thought this about my office. Maybe I should you know dig deeper into it that could be we talked about uh staffing a little bit, right? It could be it could be anything, right? Um I I mentioned, you know, in a joking tone about how we're always talking about work whenever we're not actually in front of a client and then driving around in a car and on an airplane, right? And I I I meant that, but I I also meant like, hey, this is we we've we've often in those moments paused and said, Wow, I wish we could have just bottled what we just talked about because I feel like someone else would be super interested in hearing what we just said. And uh these are the for those of you that know me, uh anyone that's listening, right? I tend to talk a lot, right? So uh the idea of also being able to talk about something I actually know a lot about and having to or having other people listen to me is appealing to me. Yeah, right. That came off really self-centered.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, but look at uh again, perfect segue. It's it's like we rehearsed this. Ah, well maybe. No one will ever know. But but listening, right? Clients that listen. Right. So so let's talk a little bit about why we started buying dental offices. Right. Uh for me and for you. Same same exact problem. In fact, I'll tell the story, but but basically, we would it would still do, we'll we'll preach a certain way that you do things, right? We'll go in and we'll identify very, very clearly. We will identify this is exactly what your problem is. And then you will go to the office and you will say yes, you will confirm what Maxilla has found. Dentoplant will go in and confirm unequivocally, yes, that is what your problem is. And I'm not just going to confirm that, right? I'm going to shift away the person, because most often that's what we have. I'm going to shift away the person just for a day, and I'm going to do it. You, right? You sit there and you do it. And and you prove financially from a process standpoint, just unequivocal proof. Maxilla has said this is what is wrong. DentaPlant has confirmed and then proven this is wrong because I just did it and showed you that it's wrong. And and we bring this proof to clients, and then what happens? You know. Oh, yes. They just don't move forward, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:00

They don't do what we suggest. The famous line, wow, that looks like that worked great. Everything that you said seemed to, you know, in this small sample size. Like, wow, you're really right. However, I'm not going to make any of those changes.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

And it sounds it sounds ridiculous. Right. That sounds like a ridiculous statement. Or wow, I see all of this. I don't want to make any of the changes because of blank.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Yeah, and in blank. What blank is usually again, it's it's a person. So so uh oftentimes we'll we'll visit an office, we'll do this whole thing, and like you said, it's it's just I can't make this change, right? Because because so and so does that, and so and so has been here for 29 years, and that's how they do it, and and we can show and prove and tell them, hey, but but that's causing you costing you I don't know, uh one and a half million dollars a year. Right. Thinking that the patient's hung up on insurance. Yeah, they're not hung up on insurance. Right, right, right. Things yeah, things like this. Patients won't like that, and so and so won't like that. And so uh I'll tell the story of uh you and I were on an airplane, uh, without a doubt, it was an American Airlines because I don't know if people know this, but AJ makes me fly to all over the place in the country to get somewhere that maybe there's one flight because he is a hardcore uh American air airliner, I guess you'd say. But um when you started telling me, I think you just flat out said it, right? You said uh, what if we just owned these offices? Right. Right? Let's just buy them. Then they'd have to listen to us. Then they would have to listen to us, right? And so uh little did you know uh the way my brain works that was that was implanted uh pun intended into the brain. And uh for uh a year, right? I I thought about that. I'll tell you by the time we landed that airplane. When you first said it, I was like, that's stupid. You're not a dentist, I'm not a dentist, that sounds insane. We both have our own companies, that's ridiculous. You're a ridiculous person, which which you are. I say that I say that level. No no argument. But by the time I landed that airplane, I didn't land it, but someone did. Someone did. By the time we were there, I was sure that we were gonna own offices together. I was sure I didn't know how, but I'm like, we're going to do this. Find a way, darn it. On the plane, I had looked up, can I? There are I at that time, I think there were 11 states where as a non-dentist, I could I could buy a dental office. Uh, you know, but I sort of put that in there, let it cook for about a year. Sure. Right. Marinate a little, if you will. Yeah, marinate. Yeah. So a year later, we're in Colorado Springs, and I I get a call from Missy. Missy, uh, again, from most of you who are listening probably know who she is, but a lot of you maybe don't. Missy is my right hand or was my right hand at Maxilla Marketing, and and now she is the uh COO at Crown Dental Group with us. Um, but she had called and she said, Hey, uh so and so wants to cancel. And I said, Why? And they and she said, Well, cancel their marketing. Their marketing. Yeah, yeah. And and she said, Well, because she's selling. And I said, Selling? Why is she selling her practice? Uh, she's young, right? She's clinically sound, she's totally capable. Her practice all by herself, she had one other employee, I think, at the time. They were doing like 800,000, really, really consistently, right? $800,000 a year every single year for five straight years. So I said, Okay, get her on the phone. I want to talk to her. So the a couple hours later, Missy gets her on the phone. I'm talking to the doctor, and I said, Doc, what what are you doing? Like, why are you selling your practice to to I won't say who it is, but but to a mega DSO that is for sure gonna turn you into a general Dentist, right? You're not a general dentist. You're yeah, you're a general dentist, but you're an implantologist, this is what you want to do, right? So she says to me, Ryan, I've been doing this now for so long, and I can't I can't I can't make this work, right? Now for her work was more than 800,000, whatever that is. And she was right. But I said, if you would just do the stuff that I have been telling you, that all of us have been telling you to do for five years, it'll work. Just do what we've been telling you to do. And she said to me, Brian, you've been telling me that for five years. I've never done it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna sell my practice. And then she said, it's like the universe like just hit me. She said, It's either gonna be to you or to someone else. So I said, Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Right in your lap. Right in the lab.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

I'm like, this we can we that was back there, remember marinating. So I'm like, okay, we're doing it, right? We're gonna buy this practice. And so figured out, yep, this is a state, I can buy it. I bought it by completely by myself.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Did not at the time have a dental uh licensed dentist who was a who was a partner. It was very wild, wild west as I as I think back on that. But uh, you know, what what a wild ride that was. So we bought the practice in early February 20, I think it was uh 2023. Yeah. And uh that practice, again, you know, 2022, they closed out at like 817,000. And if you remember, by the time we were doing our taxes for the for for 24, we had to report 1.7 million in revenue. Remember this?

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah, it's a wild ride.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

Directly related to the changes we had them make, right? Yeah. And and also uh something I think I should have maybe brought up sooner, but it's not even just hey, blindly make these changes. It's also like changing the process, right? Like it's it's yes, it's uh it's a lot of times an employee, but it's also a lot of times there's just no structured process to what that means, right? Like, please change uh this and this, right? Okay, well, let's also clearly define how this change is gonna happen and then what we're gonna do going forward, right? Not just oh, yeah, but this I think this works, goodbye. This this should be great, right? Uh I don't know why I wasn't harping on process more uh before this, but it just hit me now hearing you tell me literally things about uh my own life, I guess, that I have not thought about in a while. Uh but uh I I uh I enjoy um helping an office uh create something that they continue to use. Like it's almost like I don't know, this is an incredible uh comparison, but like sort of creating like a little baby, right? You you create it and it's like wow, this is beautiful, and you nurture it and it's like wow, this baby's growing up really, I don't know, big and strong, right? And then we take this and it's like, I know, let's replicate this baby over here at this office. I know this sounds like absolutely crazy. I'm comparing babies to a process on how to get people to move forward with implants. You can replicate it, right? You can take the same general process, right, that works here and you can move it over to here. Just like you can have a baby that's raised this way over here, right? And then in another part of the country with a different family, it's being raised. I'm getting too much talking about uh Yeah, stop talking about babies. Yeah, what the heck?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

No, no, no, no, but you're but you're absolutely right, right? The process, uh though, it's it's really detailed, right? It's very, very long. And and part of what Maxilla does is is we actually track the process from the point that person is sitting in their living room and they're interacting with some form of marketing, right? Maybe they're reading a postcard or newspaper insert or watching TV, whatever it is, all the way down to they have now spoken to a coordinator, or oftentimes before we get involved, a dental assistant that doesn't want to do it. Right. All the way down to that, and did they move forward and and how, right? How did they move forward? How do they pay for it? Right. And that whole process, if there's uh you know, a chink in the armor, right, then it's broken.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Right. And you have to identify where that is and who it is and how to fix it. And so you're right, you take that process and in and you can cookie cutter, you know. I hate that term, but to foundationally build it. Yeah, right. You can do that. But the I think the big point here though, um, something to remember is every single office has something slightly wrong. It's not the same problem everywhere we go. And and although I have seen the same problem over and over again, no office is equal to another. Right. It's not just like, oh, we're gonna do exactly what we did here, all the way down to, I mean, I think the biggest one for me, and maybe maybe we're getting off topic for for this specific episode, maybe do a whole episode on this, but down to I have some doctors, we have some doctors, right? Uh both in our crown network and then our clients, where love you guys, but we don't want you talking to patients for very long, right? Maybe they're super clinically sound, but but we don't want them talking to patients for there for very long. And then we have other doctors that it's like the more we can get them talking to patients, the better. Right. Right. And so identifying that between two different offices is is huge. And also, although you have your process and it's the same, it's it's not the same.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Right. Uh, I mean, some things that uh vary office to office is I don't know. A lot of offices don't have a consult room, for goodness sake, right? And I just feel like we shouldn't be broadcasting out in you know, full volume of anyone else that's in the dental office, you know, some very private information, both clinically about a patient and also financially, right? These are very big conversations, very deep conversations about life-changing surgery and also potentially like I don't want to say life-changing monetary payments and things, but like this is a huge decision. It shouldn't just be done chairside while someone is getting a filling next door, right? Yeah, right, right, yeah. Super cool. You know, we hear the motor going off, we hear high speed, you know, air, you know, you know, you know. Yeah. Uh it should be done privately, right? That's most people, and another big one too. Uh most people don't make big decisions like that in two seconds, right? They usually need to sit, think, work things out, talk about it, right? A lot of times in a consult process before we get involved, it's okay, so you gave that patient f two minutes to think about this, and then you just shoot them out the door. Uh it's generally not what happens when you're, I don't know, buying a house or buying, I don't know, even a sofa. Most times when you're buying something as simple as that, it's just not done so quickly, right? Yeah, it takes a long time and there's consideration.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Comfortable, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Uh I think before we get too far down the path, uh, we we we we should go back because if I'm listening to this podcast, uh, which I probably won't, um I hate my voice. Uh I hate my face. So we're we're the perfect couple. Yeah, we're the perfect couple. So, so if if I'm listening to this podcast, I'm I'm thinking, okay, well, what did you do? Right, that office you talked about, right? 800,000 and 1.7 million in less than a year. What did you do? Yeah. Um, and obviously we did a lot of things, right? Um, but if we were to go back and talk about a couple of the the core things that that we did. One thing that we won't do is grow marketing if we don't feel like we've got the process down. Right. There's two ways to grow your office. It's either increase marketing and just accept the fact that your campaigns are what they are, right? Just increase more marketing and and and you'll increase the revenue. Um, what we like to do is actually identify uh issues in in our process, like we talked about, optimize those issues and then grow marketing. Because if you optimize issues, you grow revenue, right? But you can on the other side of that coin, you can only optimize issues so much. Right. Right? You can't optimize forever. Um, so you optimize and then and then you grow. So definitely in that office, we had a lot of optimization to do before we grew that marketing budget. We did end up growing it three or four or five X, but all that growth was justified by by previous success. So, what did we do in that office?

SPEAKER_03 30:23

Well, we uh again, uh I guess it's good that I brought up process, is they didn't really have a an actual implant consult process from phone call, right, to the person leaving the office having said yes, right, and is all excited to get their work done. Uh we did not have, I would say, what uh an optimized consult room. It was not set up, right? I'm uh like most people, I'm a visual uh learner. So uh being able to bring up scans to talk about an issue with someone was a was a huge uh improvement that we did to that room. And also we changed the lighting. We just made it a much more comfortable setting, right? Here you are, you have the you actually have a consult room and it's not comfortable, right? Uncomfortable chairs, weird setup, all that good stuff. But we also made, you know, uh we we made a change to the person who was doing the communication with patients, right? They had been in the dental field for many years, and they were we we continued, they were they continued their employment with within the organization, right? So it's not like we said good, you know, thanks for thanks for everything. Here's a cigar, goodbye. I don't know why a cigar. But we we sort of repurposed that person and we got someone in there that truly understood not just what what our vision was, but like at a molecular level, uh this person felt like uh a better fit for the types of patients coming through the door. They were more in tune with the type of person who was coming in needing all of this this work and help and treatment. Whereas the person before was was very much okay, so this is it, this is your choice. Okay, you can't afford it, that's fine, goodbye. And this person took more of a hey, a lot of people who are gonna be coming into our office, this is gonna be difficult for them to afford. I need to work with them more. I can't just give up. I can't just shoo them away, right? Um that to me was obviously mean it's a huge change. We have someone literally uh changing who's talking to patients, right? Right. Those two changes led to, oh, I mean, I I mean the list goes on. I added more finance companies, of course.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Oh, I mean, you do that every officer. That's right, I do. But but one of the things that I don't want to forget that we did, because it happens a lot, uh, we identified immediately, in fact, prior to buying the office, we identified that this one person, right? That the one employee that the doctor had was doing everything. Oh, that's right. This is the assistant, this is the front desk, this is the office manager, and this is the implant coordinator. Tell me how any one of those jobs is being done effectively. Effectively, right? It just you can't spread them thin. Spreading them thin. So one of the very first things we did is we we threw some budget at hiring a support team, right? Every single person that works at a dental office should be doing one thing and one thing well. And if that one thing is not supporting the doctor, then rethink it. Yeah, right. So that's one of the major major things that we did.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Yeah, and that's probably a unique situation for this particular office, right? And we we generally don't know. I haven't seen that.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Yeah, I don't see that very often.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

But but if you're doing that, don't but that speaks to what you said a few moments ago about how it can't be this inflexible cookie cutter thing. No, you must do it this way, right? Because every office is gonna be a little bit different. Uh that person being stretched, you know, hyper thin, you know, can't necessarily do any one thing amazingly, right? Uh, we find this a lot with I'm just gonna randomly pick on a dental assistant here, and I'm not even picking on them, but I'll I'll bring them up, right? It's like uh dental assistant, I I need you to talk to this patient about this big treatment. I need you to to get them to understand what the treatment is after I leave the room, and I also need you to uh, you know, get them to move forward, whatever that means at that office. That could be collecting money, that could be just signing up for the next phase of the treatment, whatever it is, right? That dental assistant has other responsibilities and duties that they need to do, and a lot of them involve the room that they're sitting in, right? I mean, is it safe to say that most dental assistants have to turn rooms over? Right? Yeah, right. So isn't like some kind of internal clock going off in their mind that it's like, yes, I totally want to help this patient and deliver a nice experience, but there's just a built-in time, the stopwatch going, I have to get this person out of here.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Right. Well, well, I mean if the if the dental office is being run effectively, right, they have minutes to talk to this person. And so let's talk about that for a second, right? Let's let's do, let's like take go down that journey, which is you have paid me thousands of dollars, right? And so break it out. It's a couple hundred bucks probably to by the time that patient has uh interacted with the marketing, made the decision to call, called, spoke to the front desk, booked, actually showed up, right? Now they're here. You've talked to them, doctor. Uh so and so has talked to them. If you have a coordinator, they have talked to them. You've got them all the way down to this process, and you say it all the time. Nobody goes through that process, and at the end of it is like, no, right, right. There everyone is like, yeah, I I like this. And like you said, we don't we don't sell, we educate. Our coordinators are not salespeople, they're they're bankers, right? Like these are people who this person has done this process, and it is always, I want this. Yeah, how do I afford it? That conversation takes time. And when you have an assistant, a hygienist, an office manager, a front desk, anyone that isn't designated to do only that, you can't do it effectively.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

No, you just can't. And I mean, you this whole you've the patients gone through this whole process. Of course, they said yes. I also love this idea of like, okay, we've done everything, you know, the marketing work, the front desk uh got them to come in, and then we we we we were able to, you know, we the implants or whatever treatment we have, we can actually do it to this person. Everything went off effectively. And then, okay, great. I need you to decide right now in 40 seconds, and then you need to go. Yeah, right. The consult is not actually the consult is is is not everything, right? The consult for in my book, I I tell my new uh ITCs, that's a little acronym there. The uh ITCs, I tell them, look, the consult is not everything that happened prior to this this money conversation, right? This is all well and good, everything's working and you're and they're funneling to you. The the consult actually begins. And and also, I say this a lot. It would be very strange to me if someone went through all of those steps and then they looked at the doctor or the person in the room and said, I don't want this. It would be very confusing to me. I would say, how did we I mean some how how is this possible?

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Something dramatic would have had to happen during that process, right? Like something pretty to really turn that person up, right? Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

So if we're assuming that, you know, every single person who comes in, of course they want the treatment, right? Well, well, then that's where the quote unquote selling happened, right? They are sold, it's done, the selling's over. The consult now actually begins, which is how am I going to help this person be able to be able to afford this? That's the consult. That's that's it right there for me. Yeah, that's where an ITC makes their living, that's where they exist. This is the world that they have to live in. Because a lot of people who need tens of thousands of dollars worth of dental treatment can't necessarily afford it, or at least think that in that moment I can't afford this right now, right? Yeah. And then, you know, we could I could talk ad nauseum about finding an episode of this podcast, probably three episodes.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

But but that is the consult right there.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

And when we have some cool employee, right, who who, hey, they're really chatty, they're really nice with patients. It's like, wow, that's great. However, they they could be an amazing implant treatment coordinator, but you're you're literally uh hamstringing them and saying you have two minutes to talk to this person, right? You've done all of this hard work and now, ah, can you do it? No, okay, bye.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Yeah, right. And you know what's funny? You know what's funny? Most doctors, most owners, they don't get upset with that person for not closing that case. That's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cases don't close, whatever. Right. They get upset that that the they didn't turn the room. Right. Right. They did they great point. There's insurance that's running behind. No, running behind. What's going on? They don't care at all that they just spent countless hours and dollars to get this person all the way to that spot and then lost it because there's a room that needs to be turned over. Right. I mean, that's insane. But but but it's hard. It's hard to see that when you're running an office. It's hard it's it's hard to feel that, especially for doctors. You know, doctors aren't business people. If they were, then they wouldn't need us. Um out of a job. Yeah, out of the job. Uh, I don't know. I don't want my doctor to be a business person, right? I want them to be a doctor.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Yeah, I mean, my my company's uh goofy tagline, it's a mouthful, is keeping dentists chair side. And the the the concept behind that was let me focus on talking to patients or let my people that I bring in or train, let them focus on that. You do what you're supposed to be doing, which is uh doing work in people's mouths. That's that's your job in this, right? Yeah, deliver the dentistry that you just said that you could to this person. I'm gonna keep you there. I'm gonna take care of everything else, right? And most dentists, I mean, I jokingly say this all the time to dentists and hygienists, right? You didn't go to school to sell things, did you? Right? Like, if anything, the opposite, right? Quite the opposite. You went to school to just kind of like help people, right? And yeah, how many times have we heard this? I just want to come in and do dentistry and go home.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Oh, all the time. All the time, right? Well, we're gonna talk about that at some episode, I'm sure we call it pajama time. Oh, I like that, right? So, so doctors need to, and this is what ground does for our doctors, and and the idea is to reduce the pajama time. So this is after the office is closed, and you've got to now go run your practice, right? You've got to pay bills, you've got to manage employees, and you've got to do all the things that isn't dentistry, right? And anytime you, the dentist, are doing that, you are not maximizing the value that you bring to the practice. Absolutely. Right. And that's that's the idea, and we'll we'll talk more about that.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Uh we've created more topics to talk about in the future, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Just just now. Jason, I hope you take a note. Uh there's a lot of good topics there. Uh so so okay, so moving on, right? So so this office we we we we bought it in in February. And because both of us have a pretty severe mental illness, it's true. Uh, it took till April that we were convinced we know what we're doing. And we bought our second office, right? Um, and so our second office came from, I I I hope I can can can mention him. Uh, he's gonna be on the show, I think. Well, I'm talking about his dad. So so so Dr. Richter, Dr. Tim Richter, I I love him to death. He he's uh the one of the first clients I ever had. Um, I would call him a mentor, I would call him a friend. Um he had, you know, I was telling him what we were doing. I said, you know, I bought a I bought a dental office, and he was like, Are you crazy? And You're not a dentist. You're not a dentist, yeah. I don't know. I've done it. And he did that little smile and he's like, Okay, tell me about it. And I started telling him about it, and he's like, Holy shit, that's awesome, right? And then he says, I'll never forget it. He looks me right in the eye, and his his son is sitting there and he says, Who's also a dentist? Who's also a dentist, who works at the practice? He says, You should buy my office. And I'm like, Doctor, are you gonna sell it to Joe? Right? Dr. Joe, Joe Richter, and and he says, Well, yeah, of course. I but you and Joe should buy it together. And you know, I didn't know Joe really at the time. I worked with him a little bit. I worked with his dad a ton, love his dad, trust his dad, and and you know, my feeling is if his dad is great, then he's probably great. Um, but I didn't really know that. Um, so we ended up going to I think it was Dr. Joe's house, right? Yeah, we shared a bottle of bourbon and and we all we all talked about, we all talked about what does that look like, right? What does us owning that practice together uh look like? Um and uh I'll tell the story sometime when when Joe was on on the show, but um it took a little bit, I think of convincing for both of us. Yeah, a little cajoling, yeah, from both of us to to to to take the leap and work together. Um but we've we did it. We we decided to do this, um, not knowing each other that well, and I cannot tell you how amazing it means you know he's our partner, right? Joe, on our board, he's on our board, he's a part owner. Um I could not have asked for a better partner. He is obviously our clinical partner, he is the the clinical director for for Crown. Um and uh we bought the practice together from from from Tim. And again, same story, right? Same story. This is the back to that affirmation thing, right? So so this practice was doing 1.8 million. So when I first met Tim, the practice was doing under a million. And it took everything in my power to get him to do the stuff we wanted him to do, right? Like do this. Ah, I don't know, right? Because dentists are not used to some of the decisions, some of some of the Suggestions that we make, it's like, oh, wait a minute, right? And you have to really talk them into the concept that uh that this is gonna turn your practice around. And this is patient forward, right? Some some of it feels a little strange. It's like this is all about the Benjamins, but it's not. For example, let's talk about patient financing. Yeah, we can uh spend an extra 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes financing a patient. And to an office, their gut feeling is that's not patient forward. They don't want to be here that long. But you and I know that what we're doing for that patient actually is finding them instead of maybe a 19% APR, a 9% APR. Right. Because we're taking our time to look through every option that we have. That's patient forward, but maybe uh intuitively it doesn't feel that way, especially for a doctor. Right. So, okay, so we end up buying the office, uh, 1.8 million, and we take it over, and inside a year, year and a half, uh, the office is doing 3.2 million. Right. Right? That's massive growth in such a short amount of time. And I'm sure when Joe's on the show, he'll talk about how much uh what what hell that is, but uh he's not here, so we don't have to talk about it. Uh but how do we do that?

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Well, you know, uh we mentioned every office is a little bit different, right? And what I wanted to do with that office in particular was show that hey guys, these things we're talking to you about work, right? So for several months, I was actually visiting the office for one week out of the well, uh, maybe two weeks out of the month. I was actually going down and I was the implant treatment for a long time. Yeah, for for a while, for maybe a quarter, quarter and a half, maybe two. I don't know. Time bleeds together here with what we do, or at least living on an airplane. Anyway, so I was going down and I was kind of just showing to the doctors. I I remember the moment uh that it all kind of clicked for the doctors, right? I got someone to move forward with a very large treatment, and not only did I get them financed for it, right? I activated the loan, hit the you know, activation button, and the money was literally being that day. And then I immediately, this is not an exaggeration, folks. This is this is I'm being completely serious. I said, thank you, shook the patient's hand, and then sprinted to my car in the parking lot and drove as fast as I could to the airport and somehow made my flight. And I had a longer layover, and Ryan, I guess, while I was on that first flight, was talking to the doctors, and they had told him, I don't know if this was a conference call or what exactly how this happened, but they're like, Ryan, Ryan, AJ, he he got the person approved, and then and then and then he turned the loan out.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Collected today.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

He collected it today. He did, he did it right now. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Yeah, and Ryan was telling me this. I'm like, yeah, I mean, that's what I'm gonna do all the time, and that's the expectation once I get someone in here. Right, this is what we do. This is this is this is what we do, right? This idea that we have to be like, okay, well, we got you approved. We'll see you in two months. Uh, you know, when you come in that day to start your surgery, then we'll turn it on. What is this insanity?

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Then put it on the schedule.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

I we don't need to go into all the ins and outs uh about why that type of thinking is very incorrect or just misguided, thinking that that's what's best for the patient, right? But you know, uh at the end of the day, what really you know changed everything at that office was I I obviously could not continue being uh uh an implant treatment coordinator living in a different city 300 miles, 400 miles away, right? So what I eventually did was I hired someone, and uh this person who maybe in the future we'll we'll actually have him on the show, I could see him being someone who knows podcasts, yeah, yeah, yeah, and definitely listens to podcast. Uh I have no idea. But uh getting him in there, you know, I found what I think was the right personality. And you know, I'm gonna say something that like you know, ears may perk up and not in a good way right now, or our eyebrows may raise. But I I actually stole him from the automotive industry. You know, uh there's there's a lot of negativity and rightfully so around the automotive industry and how they treat people. But actually, a lot that goes on in the automotive industry when it comes to the purchase of a car is actually really good. So I like to take the awesome elements, right? I I often joke like when you're on a test drive with a car in a car, right? Do you talk about money on the test drive? No. Well, then you shouldn't talk about money in a dental chair, right? When you are at a car dealership and you're talking about the financing, you're talking about an a financing application or money, right? Are you in the middle of the showroom floor announcing to you know the entire world what your social security number is? No. Well, then why are we talking about this at the front desk, right? What are we doing here? It needs to be in somewhere quiet, right? We take these good elements from there, right? And someone that works in a car franchise, uh, I don't know if I could say the car, but let's say it was a fancy car. It was a high-end uh fancier car, and it's more of a white glove treatment to the people who purchase these vehicles from this particular franchise. So uh this person came pre-programmed with a lot of like, I'm gonna treat this person very, very well. I'm gonna give them a white glove treatment, I am going to make sure that they are comfortable, I am going to follow up, I am going to work relentlessly. And for those of you who don't know, most people who work at a car dealership, uh, especially the salespeople, work, oh, I don't know, between 60 and 180 hours a week. So this idea that he could basically be helping people with their ability to chew, right? Changing someone's life, right? Talking similar numbers, right? Because at the end of the day, some of these treatments that we're offering patients, we are selling cars, right? As much as maybe you don't want to believe that. That's a large purchase. It's a huge purchase, huge, huge purchase, right? Having someone in there that kind of already knew how to do this, I just needed to teach the dentistry, right? The the the the you know, navigating how finance companies work, all that thing, all of those things, right? I I gave him the process, I gave him the tools, and he's off and running. He's doing so well that he is someone that we actually uh use to train other implant treatment coordinators because he's that good. People are coming to watch what he's doing and what he's saying to patients. This is someone that had no dental background before he started working for us, which is actually something I love to do.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Yeah, you do that a lot.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

Yeah, it's a lot easier, you know, uh, for all the dentists listening, right? Uh, how often do you hear this from I'm gonna pick on dental assistants? Today's dental assistant take for me, I guess. Well, at my last office, we did it this way. At my last office, I did it this way. At an office I worked at for 14 years, I did it this way. How often do I hear that as like a negative from a doctor? Uh uh, the answer is a lot. I hear that a lot. Going and getting a fresh person, right, that has no dental background, no preconceived dental notions, and then teaching them dentistry, right? There's a lot of positions in a dental office that you know we sometimes gatekeep a little bit. We sometimes want to say, like, well, that's not a dental person, so I mean it's gonna be hard for them. And the reality is, yeah, it's hard. I mean, you have to hire someone who can, you know, learn, right? And learn things at a high level. But I mean, with the exception of the dentist and the hygienist, in most places, in most states, no one else requires any sort of education or any sort of formal training, really. Some of the best high uh uh assistants I have ever met that work in some hardcore implant offices, their lead assistant worked in a bar, worked at uh a restaurant, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:58

I mean, some of the best. Some of the best. We had a doctor, I think, in Tallahassee, where I believe he was banned eventually from a restaurant because he's he's stole four assistants.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

He literally kept stealing and and the restaurant said to him, Thank you, doctor. We we we appreciate your your your your coming here and spending money, but we need you to stop coming here because you keep stealing our best. Stop doing that. Right. So if if that is true, right, like we can take uh people who have no dental background and make them dental assistants, why can't we you know take someone that doesn't have a dental background and turn them into these amazing implant treatment coordinators? And for me, it's all about uh and I I mentioned this at the very beginning of this podcast, I guess. Taking someone who has the right temperament, personality, and and more than anything, but wants to actually do what we're talking about, right? It's not asking someone who was hired to do one thing, having them do something completely that was not in their job description. It's this is your job, this is your only job, and this is what you need to do on a on a daily basis, and with every single patient. That's that's when things change and to bring it back home. That's what that office is experiencing right now. How did that insane growth happen? They have buy-in. They have a buy-in, they have a rock star in this position, and I don't, you know, it's it's it's infected the whole office. It's not just the doctors, right, that see what they have in him. He's now looked at as a as a leader of this office, yeah, which is just uh amazing, and actually creates other problems that we'd have to get into on another day, which is well.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Actually, I I think we're gonna get into that today, right? And we're we're gonna wrap up the whole show and and um we're gonna touch back on the original point, which which uh I said earlier, like damn it, we're we were right, right? We were right about everything. That's not true, right? We weren't right about everything. Uh our systems and our protocols, sure, zoomed out, they work and they work really well. And if you can implement them the way we say, it will work. I think where we were not necessarily wrong, but we naive a better word, right? So we didn't quite grasp, I think we have a new appreciation for how how difficult some of these changes are to implement, right? And so we are in full control, but you were just talking about it. It still takes buy-in. You can't just show up to an office and say, do it this way, because this is what I say. A lot of doctors try to run their office that way. We I don't run my company that way, right? So we can't do it uh at the local office level. Um, and it it is it is something I think that we we have learned. So it if we take a few minutes to just talk about great, there's all the stuff we learned that yeah, we know what we're talking about. What are some things that that we we thought we knew, or like you said, we were a bit naive on? I'll start. I think the first thing is staff culture. So at my company, Maxilla, culture is not everything, but it's a lot, it's a lot of what we do and a lot of what we care about. Um people might be a great fit for the company on paper, but when they get around everyone else, it's just not a fit. Culture is really important. Uh and what we have found is that when you're implementing new systems, especially new systems, yeah. Um, and you said it in the beginning, you ruffle feathers. That can be a very difficult thing to do. So I I will say humbly, I have a new appreciation for why doctors don't do the things we tell them. Because they probably go back, right, and do it. And there's they have a mutiny on their hands and the pitchfork mentality of like, we're not doing get the hell out of here, we're not doing that. We've we haven't done that for 29 years. And then they call us and they say, Well, Ryan, we haven't done that that way for 29 years, right? What do you think? Well, I mean, what what have you seen the the we thought we knew, but maybe we didn't?

SPEAKER_03 56:15

My goodness gracious. Uh when we're talking about making even I don't know, a simple change, right? Something that you I wouldn't think that there would be any like issue with whatsoever, right? Some kind of hey, so what we're gonna be doing now is um all calls that come into the office, right? Uh, we want them, if possible, transferred to the implant treatment coordinator. Like pretty innocuous, you know, pretty simple. How could this cause an issue, right? Right. Well, the way that it got rolled out was try to get the call to get to the implant treatment coordinator, even if they're in the middle of a consultation. Right. Right, right. Not take a message, not try to schedule them anyway, right? The rule is the rule is get it to them to the ITC. Get it to the ITC. Yeah. So uh this is that same office that I was just describing. Uh this person who's doing a really good job. And he's like, uh, you know, AJ, I I don't basically uh the phone is ringing off the hook at this office, right? The marketing works really well. And I keep like after I get out of a consult, there's like multiple people I have to call back, and I'm I and I'm calling them back, and I'm like, What the why did I have to call this person back? They're they're they're just trying to like schedule the next part of their treatment, or what does this have to do with me, right? And I realize like, whoops, something I thought was just super simple, yeah, right? Completely uh like whoa, okay, I've got to explain the why. And I also have to explain you there is no like yes, you must do this all the time. There is so little gray that you have to use, you know, you have to think.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

So, okay, so so it it requires a little bit of leadership nuance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be able to understand what it is that we're saying and what is the goal. We talk about this a lot, goal, not task. Right? The task is get it to the ITC, but but the goal is to maximize efficiency. Right. And so that's a perfect example of of that. I've I've also found that employee turnover is something we deal with in our offices that um, you know, it it in that I just don't deal with at Maxilla. And in um, I don't know that you deal with it at Denta Plant, we don't deal with it at Crown Dental Group. Um, and it's not to say that I think people, you know, a lot of people that leave us in our offices, they're not unhappy. I was we were just down in one of our offices and and I sat with two people at the exact same time they were leaving. They were leaving, you know, one of them was pregnant, and I was very happy for them, and they were like, hey, this is it. I'm just gonna go do this. And I think that's awesome, right? Right. Okay, well, now we have to replace that person, right? And we've spent months, if not years, training this person in our system. They know the office, they know the doctor. That becomes this major hurdle that for whatever reason, I just don't deal with this uh in at Maxilla and at Crown as much, like as much at all at the office. And so, so I will say plenty of things and probably meant for another episode. The issues that we run into. I'm sure we will do that. Chasen mark that down. Uh yeah, I think he's actually doing it. Quick word from today's sponsor, Care Credit. We use Care Credit in all of our own offices, and we recommend it to our clients because it removes one of the biggest barriers to treatment. Cost. Care Credit gives patients flexible monthly payment options while your practice gets paid quickly, often in just a couple of business days. When you're presenting implants or larger cases, having financing built into the conversation makes a huge difference in case acceptance. Take it from me, I see the numbers. If you're not offering it, you're leaving opportunity on the table. One of the things before we go is we wanted to try out a segment. I don't even remember what we're gonna call it, AJ's Adventures or something. You'll learn on this podcast that Chasen loves alliteration. So uh AJ's Adventures. Um, you're supposed to tell us a story because you're on the road as much as you are. Okay uh I'm on the road a lot, you know, but I'm not on the road as much as you. And being on the road, you see some wild stuff. Give us a story. I'm gonna require this of you each episode. Okay. Um, you know, some of them I'm sure I will be there, but give us a story of of one of the the crazy things you've seen on your adventures.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:41

I can think of a really funny one that is uh uh it's it's it involves uh dentistry and travel. So it's a nice uh blend of the two, which a lot of them probably will in the future, but this one I think is uh exceptionally just silly. So I want to say, I don't know, around 2012 I began working for a new uh dental company. Uh uh their headquarters is out in California. And I was on the plane and sitting in coach, uh a very crowded flight. You sit in coach, huh? Well, yeah, you know. I didn't have a high status back then. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. So I I had my laptop out and being, you know, uh someone who wanted to start off on the on a on a high note with this new company. Uh I was actually reviewing a lot of the you know pre-employment documents that they wanted me to review, or I shouldn't say documents, pre-employment. Like uh, hey, you're working for our company boarding. Yeah, yeah. My onboarding uh paperwork. And one of them, this company had spent uh probably a lot of money. Basically, they there's companies out there in the world that you can you can walk up to and say, hey, this is our company, this is what we do. Can you can you please like do research and tell us like what's the average person we're selling to? You you know, uh analytics isn't the right word, but like personal data about who our customer base is, right? Um, this is used all the time around us. Like, well, you know, like I don't want to advertise, I don't know, uh a brand new smartwatch to uh uh on a TV network that exclusively talks to people in their 90s. Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:22

So uh I'm sitting here and I'm and I'm reading through that that section where it starts talking about like uh and I'm please for for the record, I don't necessarily believe anything that I'm about to say. Profile. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's profile. Yeah, who who who your average customer is. Well, their average customer, and it started getting into like, well, what motivates a doctor, and like how how are they as a person, and what things do you need to do to win them over? And one section in particular was basically describing how, oh, well, you've got to be careful with a dentist. You want to make sure that you're always propping them up, you're always making them happy, and because they might not be the happiest person that you talk to, or they might not be the the you know uh the the the the the most, I don't know, I the most confident. Okay, that's a nice way of it. They need a lot of pats on the back. Yeah, right, right. Again, disclaimer, I don't necessarily believe this, and I did not necessarily, or I definitely didn't write it. But anyway, so I'm sitting there and I'm and I'm you know reading and I'm reading, and you know, we're about halfway through the flight, and the person sitting next to me who I didn't really notice, uh turns to me and says, You know, a lot of the stuff that's in there is wrong. Oh no. And I said, Doctor. What? Like, what what are you talking about? Well, I'm currently a fourth-year dental student, and I'm reading what that all says, and I don't know what this is or where you work or what this is, but a lot of this is wrong. I don't need constant, constant patting on the back. I don't need constant affirmations to to and I'm like, Oh my goodness. Uh I'm sorry. I uh I'm just reviewing documents sent to me by this company. I I like I uh whoops. I'm sorry. Uh why are you reading my screen? I didn't say that I should have. I just sort of panicked in the moment, and it's like, whoa, I I I have very much upset someone, and all I was trying to do was just read your onboarding paperwork. Yep, and then understand uh it was later in the afternoon this flight was uh I ordered a an alcoholic beverage, and uh then after it came, she also told me I was like uh an idiot for drinking so early in the day. So I don't know. Maybe she just hated me. Not of a is that a client now? That would be funny if that's how it ends.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:41

Well, because you did a lot of padding on the back of the house. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:43

I had to try to salvage the the entire conversation, but I mean I guess that's a that's a wacky adventure that I uh that involves dentistry, but indirectly.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

I'm sad I wasn't there with you. We we we could have taken her two on one. She's so angry at me. I don't know. I'm just reading. Thank you for the story. Thank you for doing this with me. I I can't believe Chasen finally uh got us to do it. It it's awesome to to be able to help out our listeners from the perspective of not only the companies that we own as consultants, but now also as owners. I think that's a really cool thing. And I can't think of uh a better person to do this with than than you, AJ. So thank you. And if if you are a general dentist and you want to grow your practice using implants, this is the podcast for you. Uh make sure that you subscribe, like, do all the podcasty things, and until next time. Case closed. Forgot to do it. Thanks for tuning in to Case Closed from Consult to Crown. New episodes drop every other week. If you're watching on YouTube, give us a like, leave a comment, and consider. Consider subscribing to catch all of our upcoming content. Click the notification bell and feel free to leave a review or share the show with a friend. We greatly appreciate your feedback. And if you'd like to reach out to AJ or myself directly, leave us a message at anothercaseclose.com. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you in the next episode.