New Patient Group Podcast

Avoiding the Biggest Mistake Private Practices Make When Selling to Corporations

• Brian Wright • Season 7 • Episode 95

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www.NewPatientGroup.com
At New Patient Group, we are more than just orthodontic practice consultants. We are a transformational coaching and marketing company bringing outside of healthcare expertise to orthodontic practices wanting to thrive in the new economy. We come from outside your orthodontic practice “bubble” with real expertise in all the non-clinical skill sets you and your team must have to succeed in today’s commoditized orthodontic industry. We are described by others as having an “underground cult following” with a client retention rate of over 98% and the biggest orthodontist names as clients while spending virtually nothing on advertising. 

Embarking on a journey of true entrepreneurial enlightenment, this episode peels back the curtain on the complex dance of selling family-owned practices to the voracious appetite of corporate giants. I, Brian Wright, with a treasure trove of insights as a former plastic surgery corporation CEO, lay bare the crucial mindset shifts and the embrace of coachability that can turn your business struggles into golden opportunities. Also in the spotlight is the resounding success of our MPG Iconic event, setting a new paradigm for orthodontic industry gatherings that you simply can't afford to miss.

The conversation then pivots to the future, where we're lighting the way with our new initiatives. I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Bob Skopek for our first CEO fireside chat, promising no-holds-barred business banter that you can catch on our podcast. With the advent of 'Thursday Thoughts', our digital marketing maestros will be serving up weekly wisdom that's sure to elevate your online presence. And for those craving to disrupt the status quo, my upcoming keynote at OrthoFi's Nexus National Event will challenge your perceptions on leadership and entrepreneurship.

In the final stretch, we get up close and personal with the trials that accompany business ownership. From my own trenches at New Patient Group, I recount the siren call of short-term fixes and the salvation that lies in delegation and trust. I underscore the significance of quality and consistency over quick, cheap solutions, especially when standing your ground against corporate takeovers. Concluding with a rallying cry, I advocate for the power of professional coaching and a strategic business approach that can transform selling your practice from an act of desperation to a crowning achievement.

This podcast is dedicated to orthodontists that own their own practice, their employees and their families. It is also followed by other doctors that include dentists and every other type of doctor there is. It is also followed by restaurant owners and many other types of business owners. 


Speaker 1:

Hey, new patient group and right chat nation. Welcome inside the broadcast booth, brian right here, and welcome into the second episode of season 7, episode 95 overall, the new patient group podcast. February is upon us. Man, january went fast. I don't know about all of you, but Chris and I were just talking and you know it's interesting to me. Some months, you know, it's the same time, the same amount of seconds, same amount of minutes. Boy boy, oh boy. Sometimes it goes slow and other times it goes fast, and January for us was a grease lightning month.

Speaker 1:

We are coming off an amazing MPG iconic event. It was our very first one and I very much believe MPG iconic will become the go-to event in Orthodontics and I will talk a little bit more on the other side About the events and we're launching another one in September and I'm gonna put the registration link it has begun in the description below. But, wow, lots of good things going on and have a good one for you today. February is upon us and we are rolling along into the biggest mistake that your private, family-owned practice is making when selling to Corporations. My former life being CEO of Shea, a very large plastic surgery corporation, we know we looked for practices that we're making, these mistakes that I'm gonna be talking about today.

Speaker 1:

The corporations love when you make these mistakes and I want you to stop, because it's not hard to stop this mistake. But you do have to change your mindset. You do have to become coachable and realize a lot of the problems that you're sick and tired of. If you just seek the coaching advice, those problems can become your greatest assets. So we're gonna talk about a lot today. Hopefully change that mindset. Let's have a great one before we get started. Let's fire up the music.

Speaker 2:

Welcome aboard the new patient group flight deck less chaos. Check less stress. Check less advertising costs. Check more personal and financial freedom. Check all right business checklist completed. Let the takeoff roll begins. Welcome to season seven of the new patient group audio experience, a podcast Dedicated to forward-thinking doctors wanting to learn innovative ways to run their business today so your practice can achieve new heights tomorrow. And now your host. He's the founder and CEO of new patient group, managing partner of right chat and a trusted motivational speaker for Invisalign orthophy and others, brian Wright.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome in. Piggybacking off of what I started on the intro talking about NPG iconic, shout out to all the new patient group family members and right chat family members that were there. You know I was going in. I don't get nervous easily. I get anxious easily because I care so much like I get very anxious going on stage and Everybody.

Speaker 1:

You're back when I was an umpire in professional baseball, the days I worked the plate, I'd probably go to the bathroom 20 times within the last. You know, between that, between the hour before you walked on the field leading up to walking on the field, that last hour I like lived in the bathroom, but the second I stepped foot on the baseball field I was fine, you know, and that for all of you out there, if you're a speaker or whatever you're doing, that's actually how you can determine whether or not it's nerves or anxiety. Is that whenever the baseball game hits, as an example, if you step out in the field and it's gone, it's anxiety. If you step out in the field and it's the same or worse, those are nerves. Those are two very different things and For a lot of people who speak on stage you know the nerves get in the way that they don't stop when you walk on stage. For me, luckily, all those things, they stop and they walk on stage. But the anxiety builds because of how much I care, how much I want to deliver Just amazing results for the audience and in this case, the it was more nerves.

Speaker 1:

I was very anxious going in in PG iconic, I knew we're gonna pull it off. It was gonna be great. We worked our butts off the whole team, you know, to carry out the vision that I have for that event and for the event moving forward. But I gotta tell you, you know, once the event started, I was still, you know, still had some rocks moving around in the stomach. Man, they went away, but I just the feedback was was amazing. I wanted that to go so well. You know so many of the family members as you listen to this podcast. It just means so much to me because you always you know you're already investing in a monthly Services with us and you wanted to come there and it just meant the world to, to myself personally, my family and then all of the new patient group team members. It was amazing seeing your faces and you did so well, you know. Kudos to To your team members. I mean, obviously leaving there and your testimonials said it all, but leave in there.

Speaker 1:

There is no other event like it. You know there's so many events in orthodontics that either have outdated speakers or or, you know, even if the speakers are halfway decent, the team isn't getting anything out of it. There's no personal attention, there's no practice, there's no role plays, there's no accountability, there's nothing that's going to ensure you go back to your practice and actually Get a return on the investment you made to go to the event. And this is a completely different Event and and everybody listening out there our next one. I'm going to put the registration link in the description of this podcast and I encourage you to go. September is going to be opened up to non customers as well as customers, and it will be unlike anything you've ever Attended and it's going to be something that you're going to want to attend, I believe, every year, moving forward, and it's just so different.

Speaker 1:

You know it's a life, career and business slash marketing event, because I'm a big believer and do have a podcast about this at some time. Is this at this? It's this parallel. You know, life Employees, your career out there, doctors, your businesses those things do not. They're not separate, they're all one. You know, if you are a, a person that is upset in your personal life Maybe your, your finances aren't in order, your upset at your wife or husband, whatever it may be that is absolutely going to affect your career. And employees listening if your career is is not going well and you're not thriving at work doctors, that's going to affect your business. And it also is the other way around. You know you can be perfectly happy in your life, but employees, your career could be going down the tank, you may not be getting the promotion, you may not be getting the bonus I'm making the money you want to make and therefore you take that frustration home and it can create relationship issues. So all of these things are intertwined and that is what MPG iconic is and and it was awesome and I am just so freaking excited that we did it and so excited for the future and I think it will grow and Become the go-to event Because it is flat out better than anything that exists out there and I'm just so excited For all the attendees and and thanks so much for for coming.

Speaker 1:

A couple updates for you. I'm just getting back from Fort Lauderdale, we did a nice workshop for Invisalign out there. So audience members that I met, a couple of you were podcast listeners already, but the rest of the room hopefully you've started to listen to the podcast. So it was great meeting you and having business chats afterwards and and always enjoy meeting new faces and that that was fantastic. As I do these updates actually have quite a few today already given a couple, but have quite a few today I want you you know I do these updates For the obvious, you know, just to let you know what's going on in our world. You know, our state of the Union is great. We have very strong partnerships going with ortho, fine, visalign and others right now, and I the other reason I do them, and I have not mentioned this on a podcast before, but I think now is a Good time because of how many updates I'm about to hit you with.

Speaker 1:

If you were, if you were sitting behind a microphone as the CEO of your organization Every 30 days, when you came on and did a contemporary radio show that we call up a podcast here, what updates could you give your audience, your employees, your, your customers, your perspective customers? What updates could you give? And and if you think about it in those terms a lot of companies you really realize how stagnant you are. You know, 30 days goes by, you're kind of in the same thing as you did 30 days ago. Another 30 days goes by. You're kind of in the same thing you were doing 60 days ago.

Speaker 1:

And if you notice on this podcast every 30 days and this isn't every time, but an example like today you know 30 days past and we have several new things that we are doing as a company to help all of you out there, whether you already are a customer, whether you are a avid podcast follower, listener, a Rep out there, whatever it may be. You know we want to always be pushing the needle, obviously for selfish purposes. We want to thrive, we want to grow, etc. Just like all of you want to do. But again, the real reason that we put our heart or energy, our souls into this stuff is creating new cool things, to always be advancing all of you forward. And Iconic was one of those. A perfect, a perfect example, like we had to go way out in a limb to launch that and and do it as quickly as we possibly can.

Speaker 1:

But some other ones for you. So I'm gonna be starting, so the very first one and when it's ready. So if you're listening to the podcast, you look down in the description. If it's not there yet it's just because we don't have a landing page for it. But I'll put the registration link on March 21st. It's gonna be our very first one. I'm gonna be doing it with dr Bob Scopac. We're gonna start kind of some CEO fireside chats. I'm gonna do a national webinar on Just every quarter, right in that kind of that time frame, and I'm gonna grab a customer of ours Whether that be a new patient group and right chat customer or one or the other, and where it's gonna go, we're just gonna talk. You know there'll be some topics prearranged, but for when? When Bob and I get together. We just the other day, on the phone, I mean, we talked for an hour and 30 hour and 40 minutes and you know when that conversation was done. I'm always like damn it, man, I wish we had a camera on us, you know, mic'd up, because there's just so many great business discussions that organically come up. And that's kind of what I want these fireside chats to be is. You know, there's gonna be a little bit of an interview and back and forth, but for a lot of the docs that get on there, you know we're close and we're just gonna shoot. We're just gonna shoot the bowl and I think it's gonna provide a lot of great value out there. I probably am going to to transcribe those into an mp3 and Put those up as a podcast as well. So there'll be some additional podcasts that are coming.

Speaker 1:

You, the new patient group flow has always been not always, but for many years now has been right around the first business day of every month. We come out with a new contemporary radio show, a new topic. I think what this will do is we're going to continue that, but every three months we're probably going to have two podcasts. That month or what I'll do is every three months that will be the podcast. In March most likely, either that will be the podcast or in April what I will do is launch that March fireside chat that I have, in this case with Bob. We'll launch that at the beginning of April and that will be the podcast. That's my way of bringing in and incorporating some more guests and really keeping everything really really fresh. Bob's been with us for years and just a great customer and a very close friend of mine. That'll be a really good one to kick off. Just surprising somebody out there. David Boskin, I know you listen. I'm going to be calling you soon, man, because we're going to get you hooked up as maybe our second one Plenty more. All you listeners out there, be ready for the invite, because you're all going to be coming on and being a part of that fireside chat. That's really cool. That's a new thing. A new thing we're doing too. It's called Thursday Thoughts.

Speaker 1:

For many years as a company, we very much branded ourselves as coaches. Accountability, role plays. Meet with you every other week. Be a part of your leadership team, not a consultant. Be like you've hired a basketball coach. Our team comes in with a playbook that combines with yours in a very personalized fashion. We work with you in all kinds of ways your life, your relationships, your business, how you train your team, and what 90% of their job is every day and has nothing to do with your practice. We're experts in those things. Through that over the course of the years, I realized that we've branded ourselves as more of a coaching company.

Speaker 1:

There's people that know us well that a lot of times don't even know that we do digital marketing. Because of that, we sat down as a team and our digital marketing team is so, so, so good. We have people flocking to us coming from all the big names that are out there spending boo-coos of money at boosts at these events. They have leaky holes out their back, which is great for us, because they do the advertising. They don't take care of the customer and what happens? The customer comes to us. When they do, they don't leave. Haley Jeffery and David Martin, who run the digital marketing side of things, are so, so great. I am so proud. There was a time I wasn't, but as the years go by, the vision is being carried out. Our culture is so amazing. They are so amazing that I proudly want everybody to know how great our digital marketing services are, how personalized they are.

Speaker 1:

When you come aboard, you are not going to leave because you are not going to get it from any other companies. The Thursday thoughts are going to be around digital marketing topics. You're going to hear from Haley, you're going to hear from David. Sometimes those will be YouTube videos, sometimes they'll be YouTube shorts. Other times they may be on TikTok, they may be on Instagram, facebook. Whatever it may be, they're going to come with their Thursday thoughts, with just digital marketing tips, their thoughts about the future of what digital marketing looks like, what the data is. Those are going to be really cool. They're also going to be launching some national webinars. You'll be able to find those after they deliver those. Those will be spliced up on our YouTube station, but make sure you make some time to come to those live national webinars.

Speaker 1:

When they presented at MPG Iconic, I was so proud of you, david, and proud of you, haley. You both have come so far in your careers. I can't wait to really really consistently grow this side of our business. You two are absolutely fabulous. You care so much about the customer. These new Thursday thoughts are going to be incredible.

Speaker 1:

Also, we're launching a brand new. We're kind of this is a lesson for all of you. It doesn't matter how long you've been in business. You're technically a startup for the first 10 years of your organization. What happens a lot of times entrepreneurs is they stop doing the things that made them successful. They get burned out. That is why 80 plus percent of businesses go out of business in their first five years, but the startling number is that number is even higher for businesses that go out of business in their first 10 years you may be thriving your first five and then your toast once your 10 comes around, you don't even make it that long. We're in year 11 and it's kind of phase two of our growth. We're reinventing ourselves in many, many ways, re-vamping a lot of the coaching options that we have to make it easier for people to work with us. Also, like I talked about with the digital marketing services and just proudly letting people know hey, we're here, we offer these things. One of the new things that we're launching are boot camps. The very first one is going to be launched in February and Coach Eric is going to have that one. It's going to be all around.

Speaker 1:

How you get and use the new patient phone call to reduce no shows and increase starts. Again, how you psychologically prepare people to be excited to show up to your doors, to be excited to show up ready to buy from you. And that is the job, as you know we talk about, of the receptionist. They are not a data collector. Oh, your dentist name and your insurance and your address and all these things that most of you out there use your receptionist as. And then you say you're a people business, yet you ask those questions and then send them paperwork that asks the same damn questions. If you're a people business and you wanna ask them 30 questions on the new patient call, why aren't you filling out their paperwork for them? That's a people business. And there's so many examples of that on how people say, hey, I'm a people business, yet run it like a healthcare practice and reinforce their healthcare practice throughout the whole consumer journey. Well, this bootcamp's gonna be awesome and, like I said, coach Eric, I'm gonna put the registration link in the description below, so make sure to check that out.

Speaker 1:

And these bootcamps are not intended we have no interest and they're being 50 practices signed up. That is not what a bootcamp is. You know, a bootcamp is intended for personal attention. It's intended to move your needle. It's intended to role play with your employees, hold them accountable, motivate them to do better, give coaching, feedback, make them role play again. So by the time you go through the first session, through the fourth session I believe the first one has four sessions your receptionists in this case, can actually go back and use what they were taught and actually execute it on the phone call. That's what a bootcamp is. And we're not again. We're not looking for a ton of people to sign up for those. We're looking for people that really truly want to improve and actually see a result from it. Those are the families, excuse me, those are the practices that we wanna welcome into our family with any of our services. And also these bootcamps that we're launching. The promo code to use for the receptionist bootcamp that's coming is ours and receptionist be, as in bootcamp 24. So RB24, and that will be put in the description below, so the podcast listeners you can get a discount on that bootcamp. Really looking forward. We tried these a while back but we didn't stick with them. The whirlwind kind of got to us. But they're here to stay now and I think we're gonna launch a new bootcamp, probably every quarter. So every three months we're gonna be launching a new one and eventually we're gonna have bootcamps on top of each other. So, as an example, while Eric's doing one, I might be doing one on a different topic, but for right now, probably every quarter we're gonna launch a new one. So be looking for those, make sure to sign up for those Happy to announce a new partnership with Smile for a Lifetime with Robin, and this is I have a company and unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to it, but it's called Right Sports and the whole purpose of me starting Right Sports was to help raise money for whether it be inner city kids or really any kid that their parents don't have enough money to be able to afford for them to play the sport of their choice and it can be any sport, doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

I could care less and I love looking into the eyes of these kids that get to play sports and it helps change their lives and a lot of times sports for some of these kids sports is an outlet to stay out of trouble Sometimes when I say trouble I mean stay out of jail and I really enjoy having an impact on those kids' lives and I wish I could spend more time doing it and focus and devoted to it, and just unfortunately I don't. But I bring that up because this partnership with Robin's company I'm a big believer in it, because they help bring orthodontic care to families that could not afford it for their kids and you all know I talk about this and on how much you all change lives and the domino effect of if you do get a patient and a kid, to start with you, how that can domino effect into. Maybe they're made fun of less right, maybe they're getting picked on because of their teeth and that goes away. They build confidence, they get better grades in school, they get into a better college, they get a better job, et cetera. This domino effect that I'm not sure all of you realize actually happens based on the work you are doing. I think a lot of times it's let's give the best clinical care, let's take care of the patient. Then they move on with life and you may forget it. The reality is is you change lives. So the way I look at it is you might as well learn every way you can to convince people to start with you. But with this partnership it's really amazing because of just the things they do. And the part of the partnership is is we're gonna be able to offer some right chat and some new patient group service discounts to certain doctors. But all of you out there listening, if you have interest, you can partner with us and them to be the doctor in your area that is giving back and doing these cases for kids that otherwise would not have the opportunity to get orthodontic care. So great opportunity, a great partnership with a company I very, very much believe in.

Speaker 1:

We've got the AAO announcement. I know there's a lot here, but this is what goes on in our world every 30 days. I mean, it's crazy behind the scenes and I love that craziness. And we got AAO coming and we've done this now for a few years. It changes every year a little bit. But the day before AAO begins, oliver from OrthoFi and I are gonna be doing about a four to five hour workshop. It's gonna be a really good one that we're gonna do together.

Speaker 1:

For those of you out there who are already going to AAO, just come early. Okay, come early. Let's pack the house for that workshop. You're gonna get a great. You're gonna get more from that workshop than you're gonna get at AAO. I can promise you that You'll get more hands-on attention. You're gonna hear much more forward-thinking stuff. So I will put once the registration link is available. I will get that registration link in the description of this podcast below. Again, if you hear me say you know the description link or a link in the description below and you do not see it, it's just because that link has not become available yet. So just check back and eventually it will be available and you can get registered. It's gonna be a fantastic one and I am driving.

Speaker 1:

On Thursday, the first the day this podcast has come out I will be on my way to Denver for OrthoFy's Nexus National Event. Gonna be delivering, unlocking your inner badass, becoming a better version of yourself to thrive with the business and the practice of tomorrow. We go on about 11.30-ish, I believe, saturday morning, so make sure audience members, you know, make sure to take a late enough flight so you're not out of there before I go on, because it's gonna be brand new content that I have not delivered before and it's gonna be really good stuff, certainly stuff that you would not have heard from other speakers at that event. All right, so the intention is to very much make you uncomfortable with what the future looks like and the mindset and leadership skillsets that you must have in order to reinvent yourself as a business owner, as an entrepreneur. So, wow, that was a lot of updates, to say the least, and sometimes I don't know how we manage it all, but we do it because we love all of you and we're here to make everything better for all of our listeners out there and family members.

Speaker 1:

Today, you know we're diving into a topic that the reality of the situation is many, many of you make, in fact, I would argue, you know, having kind of studied the industry for many years now and this isn't just this industry, by the way, the mistake I'm gonna be talking about today. This happens with restaurants, it happens with law firms, it happens with you as orthodontic practices, it happens with companies all over in every industry, and I think it really comes back down to you know, when we open up a business. And a lot of you have to remember because I believe a lot of you forget is that if you own your own business and you have to remember that that was a choice you made right you come out of school you could be in a million dollars a debt. You get a loan that adds to that million dollars a debt and, boom, now you're a business owner.

Speaker 1:

And we all have this story that we tell ourselves in our mind about you know what our lives should look like. You know what we want them to become and what we want our careers to become and what that should look like, and then, inevitably, what our businesses should look like. We have this story that we tell ourselves and you know, if, for whatever reason, those stories are coming true and you feel like you're accomplishing that, man oh man, that is such an amazing feeling. But when you're not accomplishing that and that could be in any one of those three areas, or inevitably it could just be one of those or in all of those areas it's not a good feeling. And we start whenever we fall behind where we wanna be and where that story you know that we're telling ourselves and that story could be about how much you wanna produce, how much you wanna take home, whatever the hell it may be.

Speaker 1:

As we're not making it, and as we fall further and further behind of where we want to be, we start making a lot of irrational decisions that inevitably just compound on themselves and make things worse and worse and worse and worse, and oftentimes I don't believe as business owners, we even realize we're doing it. We become so tomorrow and short-term focused that our vision goes down the toilet and we put ourselves in positions that whatever story we're telling ourselves, it doesn't become impossible, but it just moves further and further away from becoming reality. And I felt this, and I still feel this, not as much as I did back when New Patient Group was more early on. But and you can kind of think in your head if you felt this is that you know you open up a business and you go into it and there are things that you really love. Right, for a lot of you, what you really love is the clinical side. You know the practice side of the business and that is represented with. You know the majority of the CE you get is clinical focused and you put your heart and soul into being this amazing, amazing clinician because that's your passion, that's what you went to school for, that's what you truly love, and Meanwhile the business that makes up the majority of your practice a lot of times becomes a little bit of the redheaded stepchild. You're not really seeking as much CE and self-education over on the other things that you're just not as passionate about.

Speaker 1:

When I had New Patient Group in the beginning, you're the jack of all trades, you're the sales guy, you're the CEO, you're the COO, you're the coach, you're the digital marketer, you're the content producer, you're the organizer, you're the admin guy, you're like the everything, and many of you out there I'm sure you feel the pain on that is that you feel like you are everything, and a lot of times.

Speaker 1:

I learned over the course of the years a lot of times, if you feel like you're the everything many years into your organization, this is why, or one of the reasons, I did the first podcast of this season called the year you fired yourself is eventually you've got to look in the mirror and go okay, where the hell am I going wrong? Like I'm still doing too much. What's wrong? Why can't I find the right people to take over this? When I do find the right people, they leave. Why is this chaos continuing? At some point you got to realize, well, that's your fault, and I did realize that early on is that a lot of the things that I wanted to go well that weren't going well at the time? It's really because I was interfering too much and not letting great people really thrive and carry out the vision that I had.

Speaker 1:

Well over the course of time. Business owners, like I said earlier, a lot of them go out of business in five years, but even more go out of business before they reach 10 years and a lot of you have a fortunate situation and this fortunate situation is going away. And then a good example of what I'm referencing right now is Mark Cuban leaving Shark Tank, and I am going to have a more in-depth podcast about this exact topic. But Mark Cuban invested about 20 million over the course of his time at Shark Tank and lost money. You're talking about companies that had the publicity, the notoriety, obviously, that on the surface had a good product or service, they had the financial backing, they had the advertising, they had the connections, they had all the right things on paper and the majority of them still went under or are still to this day, not profitable and not making a nickel. And you say to yourself hell the hell is that? How is that possible? And I say is that's?

Speaker 1:

The world of being an entrepreneur is freaking hard Like. You work seven days a week, 24, seven, 365, you put your house up for collateral, it's nonstop and you may get that money back and you may end up making a ton of money and you also may not. But in all of your worlds, in orthodontics and a lot of other doctors and other types of professions that are listening to, you live in a world where you can run the business like crap and still walk away a lot of times with millions of dollars and then convince yourself you're making all the bright business decisions and you're in a very fortunate position to be able to get away with running the business like a redheaded stepchild. Because those days are coming to an end. You know orthodontic practices. There's people that are filing bankruptcy. They're going out of business. You know, in the past that has not happened and while I believe this is still the golden age for orthodontics I'm weird like that.

Speaker 1:

Most people would disagree with me, but I still very much agree with it is that running a business is freaking hard and when you get into it you have, like I said this story that you're telling yourself you're your gun hoe. It's like when you first get married, right, you're in this honeymoon phase. And when you first have kids, you're in this honeymoon phase. And as time passes, you know that honeymoon phase slowly but surely goes away. It's harder and harder to keep that honeymoon phase and it's harder and harder to do the little things that made you so successful as a relationship in the beginning. And you get tired and you get burned out and it's hard.

Speaker 1:

And for so many of you out there, you have not found a way to get rid of the things that you hate. The things that you hate and the things that are dragging you down, the things that are annoying you. This could be employee turnover, finding the right people, training, marketing, hr, you know, ambiance, advertising. The list goes on and on and on and on and on. That stuff is taking away from the fun of you being a clinician. It's taking away from you truly loving and enjoying what your passion actually is.

Speaker 1:

And for entrepreneurs out there and smaller businesses and other industries, one of the things that drives people out of business is exactly that is, that they have little time to do what they love inside their business because they're spending so much time focusing on just keeping the business doors open. And they are everything, whether that be their own fault, from not relinquishing control, whether it be in a budget problem where they can't hire the right people, whether it be a leadership problem, to where they do get the right people but they don't know how to develop them, or probably many other things. You get burned out. And as you get burned out and you're moving further and further away, like I said, towards the beginning of the story that you're telling yourself on what you want the business to be, your life to be, etc. That's when these decisions, these irrational decisions, come in and you actually are making things worse. You're making things harder on yourself and you're moving further and further away from you being able to show up to the business every day and enjoy doing what you truly love, because all the things that you either hate doing maybe you like doing it, but you're just not good at it, whatever it may be those aren't being carried out by the right people with the right systems, with the right training, and therefore you feel like it always falls on your lap.

Speaker 1:

And I see this, like I said, I see this in every industry out there, but it is rampant right now in orthodontics, because all of you are forced to be the entrepreneur that you made the decision to become, but at the time you didn't realize you were actually going to have to be a real business owner. At the time you thought you could go in, be a great clinician, enjoy it, have a little team that all operated beautifully and you were going to kick everyone's butt and make money. And it's just not the case anymore. And this is why I believe it's the golden age, because it's not the case anymore. The few and far between that actually run it like an entrepreneur and actually run it in a way that other people will not commit to doing it allows you to stand out so much in your community that it gives you the opportunity to really kick everyone else's ass without the chaos, without the disruptions, without the advertising dollars, etc. But as time passes, so many of you out there make the intentional choice to not get coaching around the things that can get better and what, inevitably, that you do is and this is where so was Shay. I said this in the intro we would actively look for practices that were just sick and tired of it all. They just were like screw it, I want out. I didn't know all this was going to come with it. I don't want anything to do with the business anymore. I just want to show up and be a great clinician and get rewarded for it. I want out.

Speaker 1:

And whenever we came across those situations, you know, as a corporation, we were like hell, yeah, because you know what we're doing is we're buying a stock at a very low price, knowing that that stock is going to rise under our guidance, and this is why so many people fail in the stock market and we've all been guilty of this, I know I sure have is you know, we go in and we're like, okay, we want that stock and we buy it high and then, as the stock tanks, we panic and what do we do? We sell it. When. What should we do? As that stock is tanking because we believe in it, we should be dumping more and more and more of our money in it and being patient and, as it drops more, throwing more money at it. And you keep investing on the downturns, because that's when, when it comes back. That's how you make money and do well in the stock market. But very few people do well in the stock market because we panic, and many people out there.

Speaker 1:

When we were buying plastic surgery practices, we were buying up and there was exceptions to this right. We also wanted ones that were thriving and doing great and they were maximizing dollars and they were growing every single year, et cetera. Of course, we bought those, just like the corporations, the bigger names and the smaller names do today. But what they're truly looking for? These bargain deals and what a lot of you are doing out there as your practice is stagnant, as your practice is in decline. Instead of investing in that decline, instead of getting coaching that will help alleviate the problems that you have, the frustrations that you have, in order to finally make those streamlined and work in your favor, to where you can go and do what you love to do, what do you do is that you panic, you make irrational decisions that make things worse, because your thought process goes as far as tomorrow, because you're trying to rush the comeback right.

Speaker 1:

The past doesn't define anybody. It's the comeback that defines us. The problem is, is a lot of our comebacks? The key to the comeback most of the time is consistency. Great people do consistently what average people do occasionally. Remember that line, because to truly come back, you have to be consistent. It's not what you want to hear.

Speaker 1:

So many of you out there want the quick fix. You know, okay, I'm going to do marketing and it better pay off in three months. I'm going to do some team training and what are the results going to be in six months. This is your mindset and I would argue no, your mindset needs to be. Here's the vision and here are my goals of what I want to become. Here are the things that I want to show up to my practice every day and be able to do. Here are the things I want no part of. So I'm either going to outsource those, even if on paper, it costs me more. I'm going to outsource those, or I'm going to hire better, or I'm going to train the people I have better to take those worries off of my plate. Digital marketing goes into this as well.

Speaker 1:

A lot of you think you know you're paying these companies that are quote unquote cheap, you know, and you hire them because they're cheaper than somebody else, maybe like us, and they do a crappy job. It's all template stuff. They're doing nothing on YouTube, they're not using videos and the power of video to help your compliance, reduce your appointment times, build a YouTube station, nothing on TikTok, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that is a decision you are making. That is creating difficult times for you to not get the phone to ring, but you make that decision just because on paper it's cheap. It's not cheap. It's actually more expensive because it produces a crappy return.

Speaker 1:

Like you're not going to buy a stock just because it's cheap. You buy a stock because of its quality. Right, if you go in and grab Amazon stock, amazon stock is not cheap, but you're doing it because you believe in the leadership team, you believe in their fundamentals, you believe in their innovation, you believe in their future. That is why people hire us. I don't want to be cheap, don't want it, want nothing to do with it. I want nothing to do with quantity, everything to do with quality.

Speaker 1:

But for so many of you, the decisions you're making is more around a quantity thing and you're trying to make the comeback so fast that you're actually making the comeback take longer. And these corporations are just loving your decision making, because why wouldn't they? They're coming in and buying Amazon stock the year that it's down and then for the next three years, the Amazon stock is going up while this company is dumping money into it. And that's exactly what you need to do. If you have frustrations and your practice is not growing, for God's sakes, get off your butt and get the coaching that will make it better. Don't give up and make irrational decisions and say, screw it, I'm out, just because the things that you can't stand you're fed up with and you can't take it anymore. And then you say, here, corporation, you take it thinking that that's going to solve it all, because, guess what? All that stuff comes with a lot of strings attached. Right, it's not like you just get to be the clinician, everything's okay. Right, there's a lot of strings attached when you settle the corporations and look, I have friends amongst the corporations.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, we used to have 250 plastic surgery practices. We were the biggest powerhouse in plastic surgery and I've said it on here before all the family-owned practices out there that follow this podcast. You are lucky that the big name DSOs in this industry don't run things the way I ran it with Shea, because if they did, the private practice would be in serious, serious trouble. But because of the way they run things, all of you will be fine as long as you stick to having the best food, the best trained waiters, the best ambiance, the best organic digital marketing content, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The things that you can control. Be great at it, invest in it and you're going to be fine In the plastic surgery world.

Speaker 1:

When we moved in next door to a family-owned practice, they were in trouble For all of you. If a DSO moves in next to you, you're fine and as long as you follow the things that we teach on here, as long as you hire help, I think it's and this is a sad stat. I think there's only about 20% of the entire orthodontic industry that uses consultants. That's a horrible number. Everybody that is a industry based on data that's saying I know it all, I'm going to do this myself, I don't need help. Meanwhile, 75% of billionaires have a coach. Do you see how messed up that is? The best entrepreneurs in the world? 75% of a music coach. Only 20% of the orthodontic profession uses one. That is crazy everybody.

Speaker 1:

And what it amounts to is these corporations coming in and swippin' up these family-owned practices on the cheap and then doing what they believe they can do to grow them, and then the stock climbs and then maybe they sell it, which is part of the DSO process. Right, buy cheap, sell high. That's how you're a successful business person, whether it be in an investor or regardless of what you're investing in. You never buy expensive and sell cheap. But a lot of you out there that's the mistake you're making. You have all this debt. You buy your practice whether you be five years in or 30 years in.

Speaker 1:

I see a lot of very seasoned orthodontists saying screw it, I'm out, all of these things that I hate doing. That's taking away from the passion that I love. I can't take this anymore and I say to all of you there is a way to get your business streamlined to where you can enjoy doing the things that you love to do while making sure the rest of the crap doesn't get in the way of that and drive you nuts. But you have to change the decisions that you are making. You are creating the problems. You are creating the problems and you could call this a little bit of a piggyback off of the first episode the year you fired yourself. But if there's chaos in your office, those are decisions you are making, whether it be your high share to share with braces. Braces cause chaos. Braces cause training problems. Braces cause a packed schedule, a packed waiting room. When you lose somebody, you got to hire somebody. That's what braces comes with. You're making the decision to be high share to share with braces.

Speaker 1:

Well, brian, I can't get my patients to be compliant with clear liners. That is your fault. There is a way to get patients to be compliant with clear liners period, but you have to seek the coaching in order for it to happen. You can't have the bias of well, patients just aren't compliant with clear liners. Well then, why are there so many practices that are high share to share with clear liners? Matter of fact, I mentioned Bob Scopak earlier for the fireside chat. I think, bob, he's basically 100% share to share with Invisalign. There's exceptions. I think it's probably 96% there's exceptions. So why are his patients compliant and yours aren't? I can tell you why it's because of the environment, the culture, how their appointments go, how their assistants speak, how their TC set people up for compliance, and the list is obviously much more than that.

Speaker 1:

And what does non-compliance do? It creates chaos. What does chaos do? It creates you not having fun as a business owner and wanting the hell out. And I go back to if you just seek advice and get a real company that will just help you exceed with the digital marketing. A company that will help you exceed with the culture by being a better leader. Exceed with revamping all your processes and job descriptions to reimagine how it's always been done. Train your team in a way that every consumer interaction exceeds expectations. You can come out on the other side in a couple years smiling when you show up to work every single day. But if you wake up every single day thinking this is just the way it is, I can't take it. And you sell to corporations, the corporations win.

Speaker 1:

It's very ironic to me listening to the complaints that the private-owned practices have, and this is in every industry. The restaurant industry does this, the plastic surgery industry does this. Every industry complains about the corporations. But what's happening, like in orthodontics, is you're the ones, the family-owned practices, the ones creating them because you're selling to them. And, like I said, there's nothing wrong with I don't think there's anything wrong with corporations. It's people that have dreams of having multiple locations. I don't agree with the way most of them are run, but the reality is that the family, privately-owned practices if you wouldn't sell to them, they wouldn't exist, and I understand why you do, but the reality is the way you sell to them. I'll take Jeff Pascal as an example. Hey, jeff, I've used them as examples multiple times in this podcast of, I believe, out of any customer that we have ever worked with as a company, and then me personally.

Speaker 1:

We took that practice to a level higher than anyone else has ever gone, and it goes back to how coachable he is and how coachable his team is, and whether it be on the digital marketing side, the culture, leadership side, the mindset, all the way to training the team. They are amazing and for I guess four years, coaching them every year was significant growth. And as you experience significant growth as a practice, you do reach a point where significant growth becomes very difficult, like you do reach a point where what you really want is to keep things non-chaotic, smooth, efficient, enjoy showing up to work every day, refining the processes, role-playing things you're already doing well to make sure it doesn't go backwards, and you start to look for 5% growth and you start to really hunker down on any lost opportunities and really refine things where you keep growing and over the course of time, jet Pascal maximized his success at his two locations, then decided to sell to a corporation. That is how you do it, everybody. You don't do it out of desperation. You don't do it because you're sick of all the crap that comes with being a business owner. You don't do it because of the chaos. You don't do it as an out. That's how the corporations win by buying you cheap and then they own you.

Speaker 1:

What Jet did? That's the way you do it. But what did they do? They sought out coaching. They committed to a vision of two, three, four, five years down the road. Right, they sought out a digital marketing company on us that just flat out does it better with more personal attention, and they made the decision to say it doesn't have to be this way. We're going to grow like crazy, spin less advertising, less chaos. We're going to kick butt in the community and we're going to sell for high. That's what all of you need to do. All of the stresses, all of the disappointments.

Speaker 1:

So many of you have the quote, unquote failures. I say that with quotes because I don't believe there is a failure as long as you're learning from it and changing. It's not a failure. Unfortunately, a lot of people in this industry you fail and you keep just repeating the same things over and over and over again. That made you fail the first time, thinking you're going to have a different result. Definition of insanity. You don't sell for low everybody, just because you want out, because you can't take it anymore.

Speaker 1:

Seek the advice of coaching and the right digital marketing expertise. Combine the two together and you can fix the things that are driving you crazy. But you have to make the intentional decision to seek help and if you do, you're trading a few years of your life and that will set you up for the rest of your life. Don't be short-minded making rational decisions to try to come out of this in three months. It will not work. The quick fix run from that as fast as you possibly can. For those of you out there who are stagnant, for those of you out there that are in decline which, if you're stagnant, basically you are in decline that's a red flag that you're about to go and go into decline. Seek help. You can come out the other side just fine and you will look back on the effort you put in for two, three, four years and go.

Speaker 1:

My God, I have the rest of my career, the rest of my life, the rest of my business journey to kick ass, without advertising, without the chaos, getting to show up to work and do what I love every day, because I've got the right people, the right training, the right outsource partners in place to handle all the other stuff that would otherwise create the chaos in the office. You can all do this and I see this too. There are people that are growing and they're growing, which a lot of you out there would give anything to grow. But if you grow the quote unquote wrong way now, you have mass chaos and problems while you're growing. And I see those people selling too and that's not as bad as selling at when you're stagnant or in decline, but that's still bad because, again, that's like selling a stock when it's at 50% of its high but it has another 50% to go Right. Again, just because you're growing, it doesn't have to be chaotic. If it is for you out there, that's because of the decisions you are making as a business owner, as an entrepreneur. That is why you are feeling those pains. Get help. That way you can grow even more and you can work even less.

Speaker 1:

Stop making this mistake, everybody. Stop giving up your business dreams. You opened a business because that was your dream. Don't give up on the dream just because it's hard and just because you're frustrated. You can get the help to get you through that and you will come out on the other side very, very happy that you did it. Hope everybody enjoyed today the biggest mistake that you are making when selling to corporations. Just a quick summary is you are selling low, right when you bought high. You are getting out to avoid all the chaos that comes with a business every day. That drives you nuts. Get help, get improvement, start growing. Then, if you want to sell to a corporation, sell at top dollar and you will be so, so thankful you went through that process. Thanks everybody. Look forward to seeing so many of you at the OrthoFi event. We'll see everybody soon. Thanks for your partnership. We'll see you back here in March. Bye-bye.

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