New Patient Group Podcast
"We believe a business that operates at its finest, places their employee and customer experiences ahead of their product and/or service."
Brian Wright, Founder & CEO of New Patient Group and WrightChat
A podcast dedicated to improving the lives, careers and businesses of Orthodontists and other doctors that own their own practice, their employees and their family members. Learn fresh new ways to improve your leadership skills to create a unique culture. Learn innovative ways to create an online marketing presence to increase new patients. Learn forward thinking ways to increase production, collections, treatment conversion, profit and more. Learn how to lessen advertising and marketing costs to increase profit. Learn inspiring ways to improve your life and career. Learn mind blowing ways to improve customer service, hospitality, presentation skills, verbiage and much more. New patient phone call skills, patient experience, treatment coordinator presentation topics and so much more. This podcast is listened to by orthodontists, dentists, plastic surgeons, reps, executives and anyone else wanting the most out of their life, career and business. Topics that dive deep into business, marketing, advertising, culture, leadership, and hundreds of other topics.
New Patient Group Podcast
Blue Ocean Orthodontics - Creating a Business that has NO Competition with Guest Dr. Bob Skopek
AAO MasterClass Registration https://startmoresmiles.com/aao-2024-masterclass/
NPG Iconic Registration page https://newpatientgroup.com/npg-iconic/
www.WrightChat.com
We answer your new patient phone calls, speak just like own your own employees, remote into your management software and schedule new patients according to your protocols. We can answer all your new patient phone calls or the new patient calls you are missing. We are a fully personalized new patient call answering concierge. All agents are USA based, highly trained and once you experience our service you will never go back.
www.NewPatientGroup.com
The Future of Online Marketing and Practice Consulting. There are three essentials to operating a practice and a business at the highest of levels. We include them all under one roof to help you streamline them all. They include: 1) Leadership and Culture. 2) Team Training. 3) Online Marketing. Leadership and culture services all include business coaching, life coaching, career coaching for your team, and much more. Team training focuses on training your team on skill-sets that include sales, hospitality, customer service, verbiage, presentation, consumer psychology and more. We then teach them how to apply those skill-sets to the new patient phone call, new patient experience, digital workflow, treatment coordinator exam, doctor exam, financial case presentation, pending treatment, observation and also every consumer interaction they will have with patients that have bought treatment from you. Online marketing services include a fully personalized approach that customizes everything according to the vision you have and the business you want to be. Services include custom website design, search engine optimization, social media marketing and management, youtube video marketing, logo creation, professional blogging and more!
Trusted by the Best: WrightChat and/or New Patient Group customers include:
Dr. Stu Frost
Dr. Drew Ferris
Dr. Alyssa Carter
Dr. John Grahm
Dr. Regina Blevins
Dr. Jep Paschal
Dr. David Boschken
Dr. Bryn Cooper
Dr. Jamie Reynolds
Dr. Donna Galante
Dr. Bob Skopek
Dr. Sean Carlson
Dr. Boyd Whitlock
Today's Podcast:
Dive into an ocean of innovation with Dr. Bob Skopak as we explore the transformative world of Blue Ocean Orthodontics, where standing out isn't just an option—it's a necessity. Our latest fireside chat isn't your average orthodontic discussion; it's a revelation of how a clear vision and strategic outsourcing can lead to a thriving practice and personal fulfillment. Hear about the journey from conventional methods to a tech-empowered, team-oriented practice that still honors the essence of healthcare provision.
Orthodontics is evolving, and we're here to guide you through its tides of change. From amusing tales that lighten the mood, we navigate to serious talks of overcoming financial strain and leveraging technologies such as OrthoFi and Dental Monitoring. Experience the candid account of embracing digital tools and fostering patient relationships remotely—proving that care isn't confined within four walls. This episode is packed with real-life lessons and the unwavering spirit needed to cultivate a successful and gratifying practice.
Looking towards the horizon, we cast our vision on the future of orthodontics. We discuss the nuances of aligning business models with consumer trends and share strategies for enhancing patient experience and practice profitability. Embrace the synergy of efficiency, unique branding, and remote monitoring as we dissect the blueprint for an orthodontic practice that n
Hey, new Patient Group and Right Chat Nation. Welcome inside the broadcast booth, brian Wright here, and welcome into the sixth episode of season seven, episode 99 overall, the New Patient Group podcast. Hope you're doing great out there. As part of our new format if you've checked the last two podcast episodes we're doing them more frequently. We're really going to shake it up with more guests. We're going to be doing more Once a quarter. I'm actually going to be doing a national fireside webinar and we just had our first one a couple weeks ago and what I'm doing with those is I'm going to incorporate those into a podcast. Those will be a little bit longer because those are national webinars and I'm going to repurpose that in the YouTube station for New Patient Group and for other company, rightchat. But we're also going to be doing those as an audio experience audio podcast as well. So today what you're going to be hearing is our very first one. That we did a couple weeks ago with Dr Bob Skopak and myself. He and I have been through a long journey together, both him and I personally, but also just obviously the companies he uses is he's a longtime new patient group and RightChat customer, and we talked about something called blue ocean orthodontics. If you are not familiar with the blue ocean book, it's a very interesting book. It talks about how to create a, an environment, a business within a commodity or any type of business for that matter, whether you're in a commodity or not. And how do you, how do you create something that has no competition? How do you attract a consumer that otherwise would never buy your product or your service? And how do you bring them into your business when other practices, other businesses, other environments can't? We also talked about just achieving a vision.
Speaker 1:So many of you out there there's going to be lots of podcasts over the course of time about the importance of a vision, how you achieve a vision and what happens to you when you don't have a vision. And so many of you out there, as business owners, you struggle with this short-term thinking. You go to an event, you buy 10 things and then you come back, you go to another event, you buy six things. You hear one speaker on stage talk about something that, when they may not even run the business model you want, they may want something completely out of their different, out of their business, their life, et cetera. But you go and you grab and you do what they say, it's because you have no vision, and you've always got to be able to relate your decisions back to the vision. You've got to be able to have a vision and then go out and find the companies and the tools that are going to help you achieve that vision. If those companies and tools do not help you achieve your vision, you should not buy them, right. If they do help you achieve your vision, you should buy as many of them and invest in as many of them as you possibly can.
Speaker 1:So we talked about the importance of a vision. We also talked about the journey of outsourcing, because it is a journey. There are some pain points along the way and even once you get through it, there's some more pain points. But the pain points are significantly different than how so many of you run your practices. Now, with the unnecessary chaos, the turnover, the staff headaches, the HR headaches and also in terms of growth, does not have to be as difficult as a lot of you make it. It was a great webinar and I'm so glad that we repurposed it into a podcast and happy to get this rolling. So let's get started with the intro music and then we're going to fire up that podcast and that webinar following the intro. Hope everybody enjoys it. Have a great day.
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. Ah, check, All right. Business checklist completed. Let the takeoff roll begin.
Speaker 4: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 RightChat and a trusted motivational speaker for Invisalign OrthoPhi and others, brian Wright.
Speaker 5:My name is Brian Lewis. I'm the VP of sales here at RightChat for what is sure to be a really fun and insightful conversation and candid conversation between two really incredible, incredibly successful, innovative and forward-thinking minds Brian Wright and Dr Bob Skopek. For those of you that know Brian Wright, you know that he's truly a visionary in every sense of the word. He's the founder and CEO of New Patient Group and the managing partner of RightChat, and I know that I can really speak for our entire team when I say that he's an amazing and inspiring leader, and his passion and dedication for our clients is really unparalleled. I know we have a lot of clients that are on here with us tonight, so thank you for being here with us. A lot of non-clients as well, so that's awesome. I know that you know carving out time from your day, and so we really appreciate you being on with us. If you've ever, you know, listened to his podcast or heard him speak at, you know, the AO annual meeting, or Orthopreneurs, you know OrthoVise Nexus meeting, or whether it's for Align Technology, dental Monitoring, henry Schein or really any other countless industry meetings that he's spoken at, you can't help but be inspired. He's incredible passion for helping practices, create a vision and then execute that vision by really creating an environment that makes your practice unique and really truly stand out from your competition. So I'm excited. He's, you know, close friend of mine, known for a really long time. I've known Dr Skopak for a long time as well and I'm excited to be here tonight and excited to have you guys on here with us. So you know, brian, I'm going to hand over to you to introduce Dr Skopak and get us kicked off here.
Speaker 5:So if you guys have questions, we are going to field some questions. So submit any questions you want during the. You know, again, this is a pretty candid conversation. So if you have questions, submit them into the chat or the question box that you'll see on Zoom and then we'll field those questions kind of throughout the, you know, throughout the webinar, and if we can't get to them at the end we'll obviously make sure that we use them in some follow-up with you to get any questions answered. So definitely, you know this is, like I said, really candid, kind of engaging conversation. So submit questions. You know grill these guys, you know they have if you have questions on how to run your practice or what they're doing or their vision. You know, fill up that chat box and the question Q and a for us so we can use it. So over to you, brad. Thank you guys again for being here tonight.
Speaker 1:All right, thanks for that great intro, b Lewis, and welcome everybody into the first fireside chat. Ceo fireside chat that is, and I'm going to be bringing in the great Dr Bob Skopak here momentarily. It's going to be great. This is the very first one of several that we're going to be doing about once every three or four months and just bringing in different forward thinkers, most of the time ones that we currently work with in some form or fashion, and that way we know that they're on the same page with us and vice versa. And tonight one's tonight's going to be great. We're going to dive into a very unique topic, uh, that probably nobody on here has heard before. Uh, so really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:I want to first give a shout out. So ortho fi. They sponsored last month's new patient group podcast and they're also kind enough to sponsor this first fireside chat tonight. So I want to say thank you to OrthoFi. We're going to be talking about them several times tonight, just organically, and how they have impacted Dr Bob Skopak's practice and different ways that he utilizes that one tool to help him carry out his vision. And on a vision, we're going to be talking a lot about the importance of having a vision tonight and important how you have to first have that in order to know what tools work for you or what will work for you, and OrthoPhi has been a great tool for Bob Skopak's practice and so many of our other new patient group and RightChat customers. I want to announce there's a onboarding customer offer that OrthoPhi has for all of you tonight and that is $3,500 off your onboarding. Just make sure that you mentioned that you heard about this offer excuse me that you heard about it through Dr Bob Skopak and myself from this fireside chat and what you're also going to get with that is one month free of RightChat. That is a service that answers your new patient calls for you. All of them are as a backup, so you'll get a month free of that and a free full online marketing audit from my other company, new Patient Group. So I really want to say thank you to OrthoFi. I'm a big believer. Dr Jamie Reynolds, their founder, is a customer of New Patient Group and RightChat. We just have a wonderful relationship. Dave, their CEO, I believe in heavily. So thanks again to OrthoFi.
Speaker 1:And then also we'll have this is going gonna go on our YouTube station and we're gonna have a pre-AO course. So the Friday before AO starts, oliver from OrthoPhi and myself are gonna be doing about a four hour workshop and I very much encourage, if you're already going to AO, get yourself signed up for that, bring your whole team. There's gonna be a lot of innovative talk there and look forward. There's going to be a lot of innovative talk there and look for that's something we've done the last few years and every time they've gone really well. So click that link that we'll have in the description of this on our YouTube station and we could put it in the chat forum as well, maybe throughout, so you guys can grab it and get signed up for it.
Speaker 1:So all that homework is done and I want to introduce a good friend of mine and somebody that gosh. We've been on a journey together for a very long time in various formats and my personal favorite thing in this business I'm not a big fan of the sales part convincing people to buy but I'm a huge fan of the relationships and getting to know people's families and just the stories and everything. So I'd like to introduce a very innovative thinker and a good friend of mine, dr Bob Skopak. Welcome in buddy.
Speaker 6:Thank you, appreciate it, it's fun to be here, cheers.
Speaker 1:Now what he's not telling you. He still has patients in the clinic, so he's going to have to be leaving. Going back and forth here. Only two more, all right.
Speaker 6:Only two more All right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's no big deal, but cheers everybody. You know these fireside chats are meant to be engaging, obviously, but also relax. You know, if you want to have a cocktail, pop, open a beer and join with us. Every three months we're going to be doing this, but welcome in, man, let's, let's dive in. You want to share your? You want to share your screen?
Speaker 6:I would love to.
Speaker 1:And I've got a. You know I was talking about the AO pre-course there, and so a few years ago, bob and I did it together and I'll never forget this the rest of my life. And and welcome in everybody to the blue ocean. Orthodontics and uh, if you see in red there, uh, the, the WTF. I have no idea what that means. Bob, could you tell me what that means? Yeah, no it's bullshit.
Speaker 6:You're lying. You know what that means. Do you want to say it or do you want me to? No, I'm going to say it because I got to tell this story.
Speaker 1:So a few years ago we're doing this pre-AO course together and I go and I say my thing or whatever, and then I bring him up on stage and the very first slide am I allowed to tell this, the very first slide he has and it was Jessica, right Pulling on your plant, your pant legs.
Speaker 6:It was both of them, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was both of them. Yeah, so both his daughters are pulling on his pant leg and you know he basically apologizes to the audience in the beginning and says you know, I kind of cuss a lot and you know, the first time I found out about that was, you know, when my daughters were three or whatever they were, and they were pulling on my pant legs and I looked down, I said what? And they looked up at me and they said daddy, what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 6:that's. That's close enough, that's pretty close, but yeah, yeah right so I did, I taught my, I taught my kids the f-bomb, without trying to teach my kids the f-bomb yeah, I just do it so I'll apologize, I guess first because I probably will drop a couple. It just happens. I don't mean to, I don't mean to offend anybody, but yeah, Well, that's just.
Speaker 1:that's just the way it's going to be. I think it makes you a real person. That's why I love you. So dive in, let's talk about blue ocean orthodontics and let's get this baby rolling.
Speaker 6:All right. Well, yeah, I mean today. Today we're going to talk about blue ocean orthodontics, which is a concept and a principle, and it's the concept and the principle behind ClearCut. We opened ClearCut Orthodontics a little over a year ago, separate from Scopec Orthodontics. Clearcut is 100% Invisalign, remote monitoring and outsourcing, and I always, always want to say this before I ever talk anywhere is that Brian and I love talking with Brian.
Speaker 6:We're going to use the word profit, business sales all night long, but the fundamentals and first and foremost, we need to be doctors. We need to diagnose, treatment, plan and execute orthodontics better than any other entity. And please don't misinterpret me that I've lost that. That is our foundation Now being an orthodontist any orthodontist that complains ever about being an orthodontist, I wanna smack. It is the best profession ever. It's a phenomenal life, it's a phenomenal career for us, for our teams and for our patients. And I'm going to give a very quick shout out to these two and I'm not going to give their names, but I know they're watching right now and they're probably not going to speak to me for putting their pictures up. These two are getting together this weekend and they've been in orthodontics for nearly a century between the two of them. They don't look that old, but they have spent. What did I do? They have spent nearly a century.
Speaker 1:Your internet. Okay, you there.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 1:Got it we good. Yeah we good we can see it.
Speaker 6:And it's a phenomenal career again for all of us. It's great, so hang on. I lost.
Speaker 1:Am I allowed to say their names?
Speaker 6:You can, if you want.
Speaker 1:Well, are they going to yell at me too? Oh yeah, They'll be, oh yeah.
Speaker 6:They'll yell at you Carla, hello, yeah. So the other slide I feel is important to put up is, I think, anyone that gets in front of you and says anything, you need to know if we're getting paid for this or not. I consider myself a KOL for these two companies. They're both my companies Started Scopec Orthodontics in 2000. And again we started ClearCut in 2022. This is sponsored by OrthoFine RightChat. I'm not getting a cut of that sponsorship and I think I paid full price. I don't think I got the discount when I onboarded with OrthoFine 2018. So I am not selling you anything. I am not biased, but I'm happy to talk about companies that I use and are important in my system.
Speaker 6:So the absolutely short version of my life and my career, my practice this was me in 2000, when we were a startup. I was Invisalign certified in 2000. I got myself in the business section, which was very cool, and we went from that to this in 10 years. So this is me 10 years later. We had a nice, busy, successful practice, lots of team, lots of patients, and this is 2015. And we're starting to reduce the team a little bit. I'm ramping up the technology, I'm ramping up the share of chair with the aligners and we're cutting down on the team a bit. This is us heading into the pandemic and Madison, who's in front, I think, was 19 at this point, so she was just starting out. So it's basically two, two and a half of us, and we had more than double the top line revenue with these two and a half three guys than we did in 2010, with all those people in the red shirt in the red shirt.
Speaker 6:And the point, the only point of showing you guys those pictures and that evolution is that you have to figure out what you want. I spent plenty of years at lunch at AAO meetings, pounding my chest because I had a big chest or because I had a big staff. I was busy all day. It was crazy. But what do you want? I never wanted that.
Speaker 6:I wanted to have a very efficient, very lean, very low stress practice in business, and the key to that is, once you figure out what you want and what your vision is, the first step is creating a business model to support that. It's not buying widget A or widget B or company X or company Y. The first step is creating a business model to support what you want and what your vision is and the three big changes I've made to my business model the last 10 years. I consider myself a clear aligner. Orthodontist Clear cut is 100%, invisalign. Scopec orthodontics is 97%. We provide our patients with Scopec remote, which provides convenient communication channels, remote monitoring Our big widget there is dental monitoring and I outsource everything that does not impact clinical care and does not impact relationship building. Now, in that OrthoFi, rightchat are key components of people I outsource to, among others. So, brian, anything there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. I want to talk about going back to the business model, finding the tools to support it, creating a vision, so one of the things so many of you and hello to the customers that are on. I didn't say that in the beginning. Thanks for being part of the family. For you, watching this isn't as much directed to as it is the non-customers.
Speaker 1:There is a real problem in orthodontics with people that own their own business and, honestly, this is a problem and if you went in and helped restaurants or a plumber, for that matter, it's a problem everywhere. But so many of you out there, you'll go to an event and you'll see some speaker on stage and you'll say, well, I like that idea, and you buy seven things at the event. Come back, it lasts three months because the speaker does not represent the model you want to create. And then what happens? You quit it and then you go to another event, another speaker, and you go and you buy eight things there and you're all over the place. And then you buy maybe a dental monitoring or an ortho-phi, as an example, and maybe it doesn't work and you say, yeah, that tool stinks, when in reality it's you.
Speaker 1:You don't have a vision and a created business model. First You're trying to go out and do everything he just said Pick the widgets, pick that, pick this and then just try to throw it into a practice on the fly. You've got to start with a vision and I want to talk about that here for a little bit because without it, none of you listening will ever stick with anything, if you don't have a vision and a defined business model. Talk about that.
Speaker 6:Me yeah, oh well, well, ok, so let's, let's talk about that a little bit while because, while you're pulling on me because there's been, there was so much time.
Speaker 1:I wish I had the picture of you and I, you know, cheering wine glasses in your basement, but, but he and I spent so much time and he was doing this well before me. But he and I spent so much time and he was doing this well before me. But, you know, when we came aboard and met each other I think in 2018, 19, right in there, we spent so much time redefining job descriptions and reimagining.
Speaker 6:Yeah, you back you good. Yeah, I'm back. I had technical problems. Yeah, I'm good, that's all right, it was that beer.
Speaker 1:So he told me earlier that every time he takes a sip he's going to turn off his camera. Yeah, the point is, is he worked his butt off to go through the struggles, the trials, the tribulations? Because when he talks about this and I go around the country talking about this it's not all roses. It's not like are you going to do it and tomorrow everything's great.
Speaker 6:So I want you to talk to them about the vision, the business model and some of the pain points that you had to get to the other side. Well, absolutely. One of the challenges is, first of all, you have to sacrifice your profitability and your EBITDA for a certain amount of time. Everything I've really done to get to here. I've had to take two steps backwards to take 10 steps forward, and that's the hard part.
Speaker 6:With the vision 2018, I started with ortho-fi dental monitoring and I ramped up from probably 30% to 70% share-to-share with Invisalign and all of a sudden, we had credit card balances again and my wife's like why do we have credit card balances again? We haven't had credit card balances for 10 years. Why do we have credit card balance? So, yes, there was a valley of death for me to get through this, but on the other side, I was starting to burn out after 15 years or so of seeing 80 to 100 patients a day sitting at the chair. You know, leaning over, gluing stuff on, re-gluing stuff on. So I just wanted something different at the end, and you're always going to have to sacrifice to get there, but if you have the vision to get there, you will eventually and you have to know what the end point is at least approximately what the end point is.
Speaker 6:Too many people, again, like you said, they'll buy this product or that product and hope it does something. But you have to know what that something is and where you want to go. But yeah, there's there's a lot of work to get there and there's a lot of turmoil to get there and there's a lot of days where I felt like an idiot and there's a lot of days where I wasn't sure if it was going to work. And it surprises me, more people actually won't just do that and get through that. Because, quite honestly, again back to the orthodontist thing, we're all orthodontists, we're all smart people. There's not, you know, 10 million orthodontists in the world. I mean, it's 10 million orthodontists in the world. I mean we can have whatever we want in this world if we know what we want with our business.
Speaker 1:When he said everybody, he took two or three steps back in order to move forward. 10 steps that's when so many in this profession and again, not just this profession, but we're talking to this profession so we'll leave it at ortho not just this profession, but we're talking to this profession, so we'll leave it at ortho so many of you quit. The second it gets tough. The second the Invisalign bill gets too high or a new patient group sends you a bill you don't like, or RightChat or OrthoFi, whatever it may be, and if you don't always have a vision and an end point that you can go back to, you will quit. It's almost guaranteed that you will quit. And he did a fantastic job constantly during those times where the credit card debt came up. And then you don't want Stephanie yelling at you, so I can attest to that. So you've got Stephanie yelling at you. You know it takes some you-know-whats to stick with that vision and know that it's going to come out on the other side and this model flat out works. But there's a process to get to it and I'd like you to talk. This is kind of off the cuff here, but one of the signs everyone listening that you have a good rep, invisalign rep, orthophy, dm, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:I have a podcast coming about. This exact topic is what's a true sign that you have a rep that really you can trust and it's a rep just like what we do. Is that, yeah, do I want to sell RightChat or New Patient Group? Of course, but if you're a practice that needs OrthoPhy today as an example, that's what I'm going to talk you into. If you're a practice that remote monitoring is a big need right now, that's where you start Everyone. You're all on your own journey and these outsource partners you have to strategically pick based on what you need today. Right, and it's got to go back to the vision and I think you did a great job. We met in what? 19, or was it 18? It was like 19. Yeah, it was at PDW in Chicago, right?
Speaker 6:Yeah, because it was right after I started with dental monitoring and ortho fine was ramping up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what? What was the order? So you went ortho fi and then DM, or you went DM and then ortho fi.
Speaker 6:They were basically the same time. I can't remember which was which, but they were within a couple months of each other.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then you, you went new patient group in 19. And then that's kind of when I don't remember the day, but that's kind of eventually in that relationship you're like screw it, we're going all Invisalign, Right. So Invisalign was kind of the fourth. You're already doing it, but it was kind of the fourth, I'm going all in.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we were 18, 2017, 2018 is when I had a big valley of death as we were ramping up, and that's part of the problem, I think, with the technology and with the aligners is. The hardest part for me was when you start to hit 50, 60, 70% aligners and that's where most people quit because you're starting to do a lot and it sucks. And my accountant started asking me what's this extra half a million dollar in lab bill on your P&L? That sucks, that's hard, but you got to get over that up into the 80, 90 plus percent. But no, that was, yeah, 2019, it was starting to come together and it was really starting to come together. Great when COVID hit together. Great when COVID hit, which helped me a lot, because what people tried to transition into with COVID and try to do with COVID, we were doing already. So we just kept perfecting it and keep doing what we needed to do with it.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, hey, b Lewis, I want to jump in here. We got a question from Nathan Hoffman. Jump in here with a. We've got a question from Nathan Hoffman. Do you think demographics affect the possibility for this aligner you know, remote monitoring business model and if so, what should the demographics be?
Speaker 6:All right, here's a very interesting answer because I've thought about this and looked at this for a long time. My main office, scopec Orthodontics this for a long time. My main office, scopec Orthodontics, is in. Well, brian, you've been there. It's a upper middle class to affluent suburb. It's a beautiful suburb and we've had a great practice there. I opened Clearcut in a far Northwestern suburb of Chicago. That is solid middle class. We treat a lot of teachers, nurses, police officers and there's no big presence of an Invisalign orthodontist in this area. That's why I picked it demographically. You can't. Obviously you need people that can't afford at least to fix their teeth, but I believe teachers, policemen, nurses have plenty of money to afford that if they want it. The key is getting them to want it and the key is becoming the right fit for them, which is what we'll talk about with the blue ocean stuff. But I think solid middle class areas where there's no big Invisalign presence that's my demographic I'm going after.
Speaker 1:Let me touch on this, too, from a different angle, because I agree with what he just said 100%, and the question may have been so. There is a reality and the stats prove it. If you're in a Hispanic population African-American let's take them too for a second. They very much want braces. I have several friends and customers that are an African-American. Let's take them two for a second. They very much want braces. I have several friends and customers that are an African-American orthodontist that may have. The majority of their patients are Black or a Hispanic orthodontist, that kind of thing and they very much want braces because it's a status symbol and they want people to know that they had the money to pay for orthodontics. That's just a statistical fact.
Speaker 1:However, and whether your question was related more to that or what Bob just answered, you still have to understand that there's a process, that there's somewhat of a scam not a scam, but there's somewhat this deal where it's like, okay, I want to be an Invisalign practice or whatever the heck clear aligner you want to do. You think it just magically is going to happen, and that's where you've got to go back to. There's no instant gratification, right? Your digital marketing, first of all, your culture and your leadership in the office to set the direction has got to be in place. Your digital marketing has got to have a message. Your receptionists have to have a message. The patient experience, the digital workflow.
Speaker 1:There are ways to get people who want braces today and flip them into Invisalign or another type of clear aligner. But it's not just a magic click of the button that's going to happen tomorrow. It's a process. Like Bob and he can attest to this I mean his digital marketing was completely redone. We worked our butts off together inside the practice on the sales and all the aspects that it takes to get people to do clear aligners. And yes, in certain areas is it easier Absolutely. But I think you could have this type of practice anywhere that has any kind of money whatsoever, as long as you have that consumer journey set up in a way that's going to drive people towards clear aligners.
Speaker 6:And let me add this to that question Within the last, probably two years now, we charge more for braces. We've become so efficient with the aligners, with the remote monitoring we add an extra $950 for braces. So given that that has also helped us in honestly every demographic has also helped us in, honestly, every demographic.
Speaker 1:Yep, how many times do you get the old and everyone? Hopefully? You just heard what he said. Because, at minimum, braces should be priced the same as Invisalign. Invisalign should not be more expensive. I get the whole. I got to cover my lab fee. But that's a backwards way of thinking, because when they come to your practice, what do they already think? They already think aligners are more expensive than braces. Why? Well, that's because their other two opinions, that's how they have it priced. So they already have that in their head. So you've got to be able to be the practice that surprises them. You know whether it's your first, their first opinion, or you're their third, and the aligners have got to be at minimum price, the same or or, in what he just said, less, and you'll have a surprising result if you do that.
Speaker 6:And back to the pain part of it. Now, when I do that, I get such a big discount now because we're the top level provider. When you're not the top level and you're working your way up, that's more difficult because your lab fee is quite a bit higher. So it does get easier over time because of that too.
Speaker 1:And this again goes back to you have to have a vision to come back to, otherwise you'll quit I actually and then we'll dive into the blue ocean. Align has me in Salt Lake in April to talk about this exact topic. But the reality is everybody, you can't run an analog based practice and make money with aligners. You can't have, and that's why I think sometimes the 40, 50, 60% share-to-share range is so hard, because you still have to have a large team to support the braces that still exist, and that's a lot of you out there. You're analog-based. You don't scan with the iTero. You've got a huge team and then you try to take this clear aligner journey and you give up. And you, you try to take this clear liner journey and you give up and and you've got to reimagine everything that goes on in your practice for this to be successful.
Speaker 6:Right, you want to share you want, you want to dive in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do, I'm chomping at the bit to dive in on this. You should just leave that slide up all night, is it not working for you?
Speaker 6:no, it's working fine. It just sucks because I have to go between things. Um, yeah, all right. So blue ocean again. The blue ocean. I'm starting to call it that just because it's a concept and, um, it really honestly, it was inspirational to me.
Speaker 6:Blue Ocean Orthodontics comes from this book. This book came out about 20 years ago. It's Blue Ocean Strategy. It talks about, as the tagline says, creating uncontested market space, making the competition irrelevant. It's not about competing with the guy down the street by doing stuff a little bit better. It's about creating an entirely new market, and that's what I want to talk about is kind of the inspiration and now how we're executing that. A bit in Clearcut, because this 100% liner concept is really blue ocean stuff. I'm not competing with anybody on this.
Speaker 6:Some obvious principles Did you guys lose me on my camera? No, you're good, we can hear you. All right, good. Some obvious principles from this that made sense to me. You want to maximize your opportunity, minimize your risk. That's obvious. This one's obvious to me. I'm not sure it's obvious to everyone else.
Speaker 6:But value innovation does not equal technology innovation. This is again where people go to a meeting. You listen to a KOL or you listen to a rep about all the bells and whistles and all this cool stuff, but you really need to figure out how you're going to make your customers' lives better, how you're going to give them value, how you're going to make your customers' lives better. How you're going to give them value. How are you going to make it simpler, more convenient, more fun and that's not the same as technology. What incredible value do you bring to your customers?
Speaker 6:And the worst words ever in business. I think we've always done it that way. But there's this whole concept of value curve and there's other names for it, but they talk about value curve in this book. And what you want to do is look at industry standards, look at how everybody else does it, how is everybody else doing everything out there? And then you either want to reduce things you can reduce, you want to raise parts of that that should be raised. You want to get rid of that that should be raised. You want to get rid of stuff that you don't need, and then you want to create new components to that. And if you look at your industry with these four concepts in mind, it can be life-changing for what you do to the business.
Speaker 1:Well, a few things on that. Your camera's off.
Speaker 6:I don't know if you, if you know I was just yeah, I was, I'm gonna try and get you taking another sip?
Speaker 1:no oh you know what we forgot to do we forgot to say hi to john white? You're gonna give a shout out, hey, buddy I hope he's hot.
Speaker 6:It's, yeah, yeah, um, it was funny. This morning john sent me a little pep talk. He texted me a little pep talk and which was awesome. I love john, I he's. Obviously he's one of my my heroes with invisalign. He's, he is the pioneer with invisalign, so he texted me this morning. He goes, so I'm gonna listen to you guys tonight, so make sure you don't fuck it up and I'm like okay, that was your first f-bomb. It relaxed me, it made me feel great, you know. So thanks, john, that was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for thanks for the surprise he used to talk to me all the time, but I don't know he doesn't talk to me, so I don't know. Thanks, buddy uh, and that was your first f-bomb and you can blame. You can blame that one on him.
Speaker 6:So you're clean clean.
Speaker 1:You're still good, let's chat about a few things. So there is a real problem in this profession. Again, if you went in and thankfully I've had the opportunity to help restaurants and other businesses too and I think it brings a unique perspective inside the ortho industry, because the majority of what goes on in a practice is the same that goes on in a restaurant and every business has a. Practice is the same that goes on in a restaurant and every business has a. What is the guy down the street or the girl down the street, what are they doing? Problem?
Speaker 1:And in this industry, if you spend so much time worried about the person down the street, the business down the street, that if you just spent that same attention and you looked at yourself as the only competition and you were constantly trying to improve things for the customer or the patient, bettering yourself as a leader, training your hourly employees who are in a sales role I know that may sound dirty to some, but the reality is you can't hide it anymore.
Speaker 1:When people shop, your hourly employees better damn well know how to sell and hourly employees do not come with those skill sets. And if you have a kick-but butt digital marketing presence, your culture is amazing and you train your team in a unique way and you create a business model that is unique to really any profession obviously still in the ortho world, you have nothing else to worry about. Is there going to be times where you have down years? Of course. Are those down years going to hurt? Yeah, but your down years are going to be less than other people's and your up years are going to be way more, and that's something he's talking about with the blue ocean concept. Is worrying about yourself and creating something that no one else would even think of to capture consumers out there that want it but they're not going to buy from the people that exist now. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 6:Well, yeah, and it's so cool Orthodontics. There's so many opportunities in orthodontics and there's not going to be one great successful model, there's no question. I mean, there's going to be the corporate 100 patients a day, 200 patients a day model that's awesome. There's going to be the little guy that wants to have two or three chairs and do a few starts here. That's awesome. There's going to be people that love braces and they just want to do braces, whether it's digital braces, whether it's indirect bonding, you know, self-flaggating, whatever that's awesome. There's going to be this whole customer segment that wants aligners and if you create, I'm creating that brand. I don't want to be the jack of all trades and be everything to everybody. If you're everything to everybody, you're competing with everybody. If you have your own distinct brand, you have your own blue ocean of this whole customer segment. That's not going to go anywhere else because they want to come to your brand.
Speaker 1:Steph, we got a question. You do have a question from Dr. Reid.
Speaker 3:It says can you tell me the frequency you see Invisalign patients throughout treatment? I do 15 to 18 stages before seeing them again. Do you tend to go longer than that because of dental monitoring or do you do something similar while using dental monitoring?
Speaker 6:We give patients all the trays we have. I did these numbers about a year ago. We see our average number of appointments per patient is five and a half in-person appointments. So we will give them. There's literally people I don't see for a year. We'll give them the whole box. We watch them on monitoring, we communicate with them. But the key with that is is again, like Brian, you talked about a little like the verbiage and and the whole mindset. I mean, when we get people going in Invisalign, we'll say and we're going to have you. We have this really cool app we call Scopec Remote and we have them scan it and we we check up on them once in a while. And we have them scan it and we check up on them once in a while. So even though we don't see them in 12 to 15 weeks, we're sending them videos, we're sending them texts saying hey, you're doing awesome, we're watching your stuff, but we will give people up to a year's worth of stuff without seeing them back in person.
Speaker 1:So this is a good topic and this is one of these audience out there when he and I get going. This is something that we could do a 25-part series and still have more to talk about. So a couple biases that exist in this profession that have no factual basis. One you are not ruining the patient relationship by using remote monitoring, so how he just described it. You are not ruining it as long as, whenever they do show up, your team knows how to build and keep the relationship. Your thoughts on that one.
Speaker 6:Okay. So, if I can interrupt you there, not only are you not ruining it, but I feel that we are enhancing the patient relationship and that's our goal with it. You know, when we onboard someone, you know we do the Invisalign start. We've now our scripting is at the end. Somebody will say you know and remember, my name is Madison and if you have any questions you can, you can contact me directly through the app. You know it increases that connection. We make every effort we can to have whoever started that person communicate with that person so they have a relationship with us. And that's something I don't outsource. I do not outsource the people that are going to do the monitoring of the treatment. We do the monitoring, we build the relationship and I think it enhances the relationship if you use it and if you do it correctly and consistently. Yeah, and that's one of those. You got to use the tool right, everybody.
Speaker 1:And I know he agrees with this relationship if you use it and if you do it correctly and consistently. Yeah, and that's one of those. You got to use the tool, right, everybody. So I mean and I know he agrees with this we view DM and others as a communication platform. Right, really, nothing more, nothing less. It's a communication platform that allows you to enhance relationships and improves the clinical result blah, blah, blah. But you got to use it, you know.
Speaker 1:If you're just letting people rot there for a year, of course it's going to hurt relationships, but it's a way to communicate. And this goes into the how do you reduce the headaches? And again, it's not about firing anybody, but people leave, right, and sometimes you do have to fire them too. But unfortunate things happen. If you train your patient to communicate within that platform, guess what happens? The receptionist isn't up front doing this crap all day long. Or if you have an emergency and they end up showing up and it's not an emergency, you end those and you streamline so many things at the front desk. This is how, why every aspect of your business, your practice, nothing stands by itself. Right, your existing patient experience affects your new patient experience, vice versa. The list goes on and on and on. Everything you do and touch affects and dominoes into other areas, and it's a communication platform that absolutely builds relationships.
Speaker 1:And the other piece that I want you to hit on is that there is a huge bias in this industry and I know some of you out there are thinking it right now. Oh my God, you give them all the clear aligners up front. What if they don't pay? And there is zero data in orthodontics that says one. If you extend payments beyond treatment time which we're going to touch on affordability versus cheapness here in a little bit but there is no, no data that if you extend beyond treatment time or give them all the aligners up front, that they're not going to pay. And in fact, orthofi's got data that says that people default after paying about $2,400 down, and I think it's within the first four to six months of treatment. So you have no fear of giving them out all the aligners extending payment plans. If you do, it's pure bias. Your thoughts on that?
Speaker 6:Yeah, and it's interesting with and one of the things with OrthoFi is it's very easy to track the data and track the numbers. And I just I've spent some time with Oliver in the last month or so and I still, honestly, don't exactly understand how it works. But I know it works for me and he tried to explain where I'm at and how it works for me. But we literally people can construct their own payment plan.
Speaker 6:There's literally an infinite number of payment plans. When I give the fee to the TC, she hands the tablet to the patient and they can choose down payments. They can choose their monthly, whatever they want to choose. Now, my average down payment is about one and a half times my Invisalign fee, and that's without asking for it or without demanding it. That's just them choosing what they want to choose. So we really don't have a problem getting that, you know, and our collections are 99% and we can check that again. That's the whole orthophyte thing. I let their stuff work. So we really put the patient in complete control of what they want to do. Again, we're in a middle-class area, a solid middle-class area. If anybody's going to ask demographics, again, we're not in a poor area, but we're not in an affluent area out here. It's solid middle class and we get plenty of down payment and our collections are fantastic and I just let the system work.
Speaker 1:And the key, what he just said at the end was let the system work. You know whether you're using. We'll just use RightChat as an example. We have so many customers that try to control how my agents are taught to speak and I tell them all no, our agents are going to speak the way I teach them because that way it's going to work for you. Right, you've got to let us do our thing. It's the same thing with OrthoFi.
Speaker 1:The reason why OrthoFi works so well in so many practices is because those practices trust the system and let OrthoFi do what they do. They do not manipulate the payment slider, they do not change a bunch of stuff that OrthoPhi wants to do. And this is the same way with MPGs, the same way with Invisalign, same way with DM. If you don't use it right and many of you have this problem you'll go to an event and you'll buy dental monitoring and you'll say, okay, I just want to dabble in it, I want to try. You're going to fail. And one of the things he did as good as anyone I've ever seen is that he went all in with all these companies OrthoFight, dm, invisalign, new Page Group BrightChat. He let the company do what they do best. It doesn't mean that he didn't pay attention and he's not involved that's not the case at all. But he didn't try to mess with it and he trusted the system. And the system works unless you screw with it.
Speaker 6:Your thoughts on that. And here's where I'd say, yes, I trust the system as long as my vision and my big picture goals are being achieved. So I give away the minutiae and I don't worry about the minutiae, but I do have my big picture goals very well defined and I do look at my vision very clearly and I have fired companies more than once if that's not getting achieved. But that's for the right reasons.
Speaker 1:If you fire a company because it's like a basketball general manager owner hires a basketball staff and they have a job for as long as the vision of the owner and the general manager are being carried out year after year, and for so many of you out there, I don't know why you do this. You work with a consultant for a year and then you work with another one for a year, and then you work with another. It doesn't make any sense. You've got to find the pieces of the puzzle that help you carry out your vision and you've got to stick with it. And the stickiness is the hardest part, because it's not instant gratification. B Lewis, steph, we got a question.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so we got a question from Grant Duncan here. This question is about in-house monitoring, likes the idea you know they do some outsourcing but is it your clinical team member doing the treatment, the one who also does the communications? So, like, how does that process work? Like, is it clinical doing communications to the patient? You know what's your process at Clearcut and Scopec.
Speaker 6:Yeah well, first of all, I'm honored that Grant's on the call, so thank you yeah, hey buddy, how you doing, dude?
Speaker 6:Yeah, we, we make every effort, again, that whoever spends because our we, we don't skimp on the time with an Invisalign start, we spend a good hour placing attachments, giving instructions, getting them onboarded with dental monitoring. You know we do not rush that and yes, we make every effort that that person builds a relationship with that patient, parents, whatever it would be, and that they follow up with it. Everybody can do dental monitoring. Everybody can, can take care of it and follow it up. I mean, if somebody is on vacation, everybody does just fine with it, but we try to get that face with it.
Speaker 6:And the thing that's really helped us with dental monitoring is now the videos. I think that's only been six months or a year. You can do videos.
Speaker 6:We found that we had so many patients falling through the cracks that are doing everything right, that are doing everything right, you know, because, again back to my other answer we'd give people six months or a year's worth of trays and if they're doing great and the artificial intelligence is just giving them all goes and green lights and they're kicking through it, so all of a sudden it's like geez, it's nine months and we haven't seen you.
Speaker 6:So now we actually we mark in the chart if we're going to give them that many trays say we're going to give them nine months worth of trays we send them a check-in video, like at three months, six months, you know, saying hey, you're doing awesome. You know, every time it sends you to the next one, keep it up, You're doing great. It's a 10, 15 second video but it builds that relationship and we always try to put a face in that video that they've seen before and that they can relate to. And that's where I think it enhances the relationship, because whoever was taking care of them is still taking care of them.
Speaker 1:My 100% favorite thing to teach now is the existing patient experience. So I kind of want to paint a picture for everybody as quick as I can here. You know, you imagine if patient Joe buys Invisalign or whatever, how many different faces he sees and different communications and things like that. And then if you start having emergency appointments and you know, maybe brackets falling off, you know different type of model, whatever it may be, it's hard to ever relate things back to one assistant and assistants are very hard to create bonus systems for as well. So the ortho coach model is hey, we got Joe, he bought, he's going to be assigned to Susie, make-believe assistant, right, susie is going to be in charge of making sure he's compliant, he shows up to his appointments, hygiene is scanning going to be communicating with that patient and what happens is a couple of things Susie ends up taking more control than she ever has before in your office because she's got a set of her own 30 patients, right, and you have visibility.
Speaker 1:Is that patient show? Are they getting done in 18 months, or they go on six months over, or we have an emergency. You can tie a whole world that you can't tie now back to that one person. Is there an art? Is it hard to implement? Is there a process? Absolutely. But if they're seeing one face, like he's talking about little selfie videos checking in, it becomes so impactful to your practice, but also to the customer you serve.
Speaker 6:And amazing things happen whenever you assign an assistant to that patient and when the team is small and that is a simple thing to accomplish. For me at this point, with three people, it's simple. When I had 16, 17 people, that's hard because they don't know who they saw or what's going on or where anybody is. When you have that small team now we all kind of do everything. I mean there's, you know, like Carla is a financialist, has more financial expertise, she works more with ortho. You know China is more the clinical expertise and she does know more about dental monitoring. But we can all do everything. You're not just an assistant anymore, you're not just a receptionist and not even just a treatment coordinator anymore. It's changed. And actually today we we worked on job descriptions a little bit, because what I did two, what I did two years ago, is obsolete already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, was it two years ago? We sat down with them? Is that when? When I was there and we sat?
Speaker 6:that's probably more like, that's probably more like four years ago Was it that long. That's probably more like four years ago. Was it that long? Oh yeah, Jesus.
Speaker 1:Christ oh wow. Yeah, oh good, well, good for you that you're keeping that. Hey, steph, we have another question.
Speaker 3:You got a follow-up from Grant Duncan, just he was saying, as I say, he likes the idea, but or us, it's the cost of clinical staff. So do you have any metrics on how many Invisalign starts a year? The staff member can treat or manage.
Speaker 6:I look more at my dollars per FTE and I don't know exactly how many they manage, but we're pushing a million bucks per FTE. So not quite there, but I think we can do in a line of practice. You can do a million in production for each full-time employee. I really believe that Now there's a big technology fee with that and big lab costs with that, but we're doing whatever that would be. How many starts per million? If it's, I don't know 200, 250-ish, so I'm guessing, Grant.
Speaker 6:I would say that each person probably takes care of about 200 or 250 starts a year.
Speaker 3:And then Nathan had another one that they wanted to know what are your business hours for patient time and digital monitoring? Invisalign ClinCheck time.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and that was a huge evolution. I haven't taken homework home for at least a couple of years now. It's all done in between patients. You know I have plenty of time throughout the day, but you know, five, six years ago, yeah, I was taking home stacks of stuff on the weekend and at night. But we take very few phone calls. Even our exams the majority of our exams contact us through text, email and if it's a phone call, rightchat takes that phone call, so our phones are not ringing.
Speaker 6:We check rhinogram, the texts and the dental monitoring. It's a little bit on the weekend. Somebody will start to check it for half an hour and send back some things. We check it kind of till the end of the day. There's really no set hours but we don't. You know we're not checking it at two in the morning. It's mainly during office hours and we still have an emergency. There's still an emergency number that comes to me. I think I've got two emergency calls in the last year and a half that really weren't emergencies, but so no, we're pretty much during business hours. Now we get stuff done and we make that attempt to do that. But again, it was a process Five years ago. I would have answered that very differently.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that for again, for so many of you out there. You complain about the chaos, the stress, the. You know you're tired. At the end of the day you're bringing ClinChex home. This industry likes to complain about it and it's true. Like that that is somewhat of a nightmare. That's a miserable being, but there is a solution. But the solution is you go through the process and it's gonna take time. If you want to not bring ClinChex home with you, there is a way to do that.
Speaker 1:But running a huge team, analog-based practice, not outsourcing you're not going to get there. It hires an associate, so where the associate does the work, you know, if you're high braces and you got a huge team, the only way you're going to make more and work less is if you hire another doctor. That's it. But the outsource model. Eventually you get to a point where you grow and you work less while doing it and all the other crap that comes with the business, the other companies that you're outsourcing it to, they're the ones that have to do it.
Speaker 1:I joke, I go around teaching outsourcing for a living and reducing your headaches. Well, guess what? Now I'm stuck with the headaches. I've got the agents with right, I've got the big team that I tell you not to have. I mean it is, and there's a lot of headaches, a lot of stress to keep it running at a high level. You got to care a lot, but there is a process to get there. All of you can get there. But you can't complain about the chaos and bringing ClinChecks home. You don't get to complain about that when you're unwilling to invest in good companies that can actually help move your needle forward. You can't do both. If you choose not to do that, then you can't also complain about the chaos that goes on inside your business, inside your practice, that is, your own business, decisions and clinical that are causing that.
Speaker 6:And the other thing again I'll say, like you said in the beginning, is the work that goes into it. And I don't know the nuances of like an ortho fire. I don't know dental monitoring software, any of that stuff. I use it. But you know, I've spent a lot of time learning how to move teeth with plastic. I've spent a lot of time. How do we interpret this dental monitoring scan? What should we worry about? What should we not worry about? So we still have to know how to work that tool, and if you don't know how to work the technology, you can outsource it to a technician that's not going to do it as well as you are. So there's still the work that goes into it that way.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite lines. So Regina Blevins I don't know if Regina's on tonight. If she is, hey, regina. One of my favorite lines is when people come into her office and she says we're doing this with Invisalign and they say, well, the guy down the street said you couldn't do this with Invisalign. She says, well, they're right, they can't, we can. And here's why and it's all about the CE.
Speaker 1:I've run into so many people that have heard Bob speak, have heard me speak, and they come up and they say braces, get better results or you can't do that case with aligners, whatever it may be. And I've had the very. I don't know how this has happened, but just from the John Whites to the Grant Duncans to the Bob Scopacs, whitlock, paschal, the list goes on. Regina Boshkin, like the best of the best, have trusted us and it means the world. But I've been around some awesome orthodontists that all knock those cases out with aligners when the other guy says it can't be done. Talk a minute about just the commitment to the education in order to make this happen.
Speaker 6:It's a huge commitment and the story. I won't take too long on the story, but years ago I met a guy in Chicago. He was an older guy, phenomenal orthodontist. This guy was like an icon. I met him at a Panky meeting or something. I'm like, I want to be like him. He I had him at a pinky meeting or something. I'm like I want to be like him.
Speaker 6:He used speed brackets. If anybody remembers speed brackets, they were kind of the first self-ligating you know Fort Damon. So I'm like I got to be like Dave, I'm going to use speed brackets. I couldn't straighten a tooth to save my life with those braces, I just couldn't. But he did phenomenal work with it because he knew how to use that tool. It's any other tool but.
Speaker 6:But the concept is you know the future of orthodontics. I think clear aligner orthodontics is going to go through the roof. People want clear aligners. So I think it it's. It's it's behooves us to learn how to straighten teeth with plastic, because that's what people are going to want and it's been a pretty smooth journey since I've learned how to do that. But yes, you have to learn how to do that and pick your tool. And if you don't believe in clear aligners and if you think, say, digital braces is the way to go, great, pick that tool, become an expert at it, do your best work with it, do it most efficiently, do it most profitably. Best work with it, do it most efficiently, do it most profitably. That's awesome. I just have always been enamored with clear aligners. I've always studied my ass off to learn how to move things with clear aligners. I've always watched people like Blevins do stuff and learned stuff from her and watched her webinars over and over, and that's my future.
Speaker 1:Well, what he just said is what we're trying to teach everybody is again, the tool is up to you. It it it's the vision and your business model that must come first, and then you may decide Invisalign is not for you and that's fine. I mean, I'm faculty for Invisalign and I'm still saying that's fine. I would never shove that down your throat if it's not going to help you achieve your business model. And before we get back to your slides there, I'm going to give everybody an exercise and write this down, because I'm going to forget if I don't do this right now. I want you to use an exercise. We put everyone through and on the surface it's kind of simple, but when you really start writing things down you realize it's actually kind of not and there's not very many people that would put you through this exercise.
Speaker 1:Draw three columns on a piece of paper life, career, business, all right. Now the career piece is more for the employees, right, and the life and business is more for you. So life and career for the employees, life and business for you. And you've got to write down what you want out of all those right. What do you want out of life? What do you want to be remembered. For what do you want? Are you a car guy and you want eight cars? Or do you just want to travel, whatever it is, be greedy? And then, on the business side, write down everything you want to accomplish in the business and then you've got to look at what in life is holding you back from accomplishing that in your business. You've got to write that down and then you also have to look at what in your business is keeping you from accomplishing what you want out of your life.
Speaker 1:And you will find there's obviously there's a lot of times very big disconnects. Now I'll tell you one we see all the time is the one that says I want more freedom in my life, I want to spend more time with my grandkids and be on my boat more. And then you go over to the business and it says I don't want to do aligners, I want to do more braces. And that's a perfect example of a disconnect, because it cannot happen doing more braces. You are not going to get more freedom out of your life if you aren't willing to hire another doctor.
Speaker 1:And this is the disconnect in so many of your lives and it's why life, career, business they're paralleled. One interconnects with the other. Your employees' careers are shit. Well, guess what? They're not going to be very good and happy to help your business. Right, they got life problems. Their career is going to suffer and your business is going to suffer. They're all intertwined whether you like it or not. But you've got to define the vision, define what you want and then go grab the tools that are going to help you get there. You want to pull your slides back up.
Speaker 6:Keep going yeah, let me make. I'm going to skip a bunch, but I want to make one more cool point out of that book, so let me find it. There's some very contrary principles in that book that really got my brain cooking Okay and okay, good. And one of them no, this isn't it. Hang on, I got to go forward. That was a good one. Okay, no, let's do this because we're running out of time.
Speaker 6:It talks about where you don't want to focus on your customers. You want to focus on your non-customers. When I first read that, I think you know that's just dumb. I mean, everybody knows you treat your customers great. You have to focus on your customers. So to me, I read this the first time and I'm thinking you know it's dumb. You ignore your existing customers, take their money, do as little as you can do, and then you just go find more new customers, don't worry about your existing ones. And that's absolutely not what it means. It's all about thinking about who's not coming into your business and why they're not coming into your business. So who's not coming to your practice and why are they not coming to your practice? And that was a pretty, pretty cool, profound thing that I got a lot of ideas from drinking a lot of bottles of bourbon on my patio.
Speaker 6:You know why? Why aren't these people coming? So when we develop clear cut, you know the untapped segment that we went after and the people that are not coming to us. And I say us as orthodontists, traditional orthodontists you have those people sitting at home who is like I want to fix my teeth. You know I get in braces on Invisalign. My dentist keeps bugging me to do it but I don't trust them. They're a dentist. I heard his mail order stuff doesn't really work, so I don't they get confused. I don't know what to do. I'm not going to go see the orthodontist because they're going to put braces on. There's no way I'm doing that and they just do nothing. They sit there and do nothing and there are non-customers. They're the orthodontic customers that never come in to see us.
Speaker 6:So again, with ClearCut, we've tried to create that brand where we are orthodontic specialists who have chosen to micro-specialize in clear aligner orthodontics using Invisalign and using remote monitoring, and we want to get those people that are non-customers for the traditional orthodontic practice. And some of the actual comments now we've heard after a year we've been open a little over a year is back to your point about the guy down the street. I did my research. Figure, if you can't do it with Invisalign, nobody can, because that's our brand. We are the expert in Invisalign. If you come into Clearcut there's no braces in this building. There's no braces in this building you are going to get Invisalign.
Speaker 1:That's called being known for something.
Speaker 6:Exactly, it's the brand I mean and we get you know. It's interesting because dentists are starting to become one of our bigger referral sources for this indirectly. Dentists are starting to become one of our bigger referral sources for this indirectly because people are coming in and say my dentist has been bugging me to do this and they want to do this, but I don't trust them. I'm coming to you, I don't trust them and it's weird. There's a general practice 200 yards up the road with Invisalign stickers all over the windows. We're starting to see their patients every week because they keep trying to sell it and trying to push it. You should do Invisalign, Let me do Invisalign. So they come to us. They don't think the dentist is qualified and they're not even sure who's responsible.
Speaker 6:You get a lot of this mail order now, the remote orthodontic associates, all this other stuff. People want to know who's treating them. There's a whole segment out there that says I want to know my doc, I want to know who's doing this stuff, but I'm just getting Invisalign, I'm not getting braces, and that's, I think, a very, very untapped market segment for orthodontics. It's 100% and I don't think the orthodontic practices that are 50-50 are ever going to get that Agreed. People are doing the research on their phone now and they're not going to get that. So that's what we're hearing out of Clearcut and I think the whole non-customer concept is very interesting and it can change your business a lot if you think of it that way, 100%. And just to clarify, because we're going to wrap it up, change your business a lot if you think of it that way 100%.
Speaker 1:And just to clarify, because we're going to wrap it up here in just a minute, but there's a couple more topics I want to hit on. Just to clarify and he brought this up, but I want to bring it up again. You know that book is not telling you to treat your customers like crap and unfortunately that's how most companies right. You call the 800 number, nobody answers, but they sure as hell will answer when you hit the sales prompt. Most companies treat their customers like crap because they're so obsessed with sales no-transcript and they're always saying next year which, by the way, a lot of you do this with your business you want to do new marketing, you want to train your team, you want to become a leader, and it's always well, I'll do it tomorrow or I'll do it down the road, Like you just got to jump into this stuff and instead of putting it off and I want to talk about two more things I'm going to put you on the spot with one of them here in a minute. But let's hit on. You have the slides and I think this is very important for everybody to understand, because I know a lot of people that immediately, immediately, think how the hell do you ever afford the lab bill Right? Or you know I've got to. I've got to get the lab fee as a down payment. So they'll require $1,800 down or 1,500, thinking that's somehow going to help.
Speaker 1:And I want to talk about the open choice concept with OrthoPhi and how that allows. So Carla's this TC, hi Carla how it allows Carla to just remove herself Because, look, we all have bias right, when I present money, there's a way I like to buy in my personal life. That bias is going to come into my presentation. Carla's the same way. Every other treatment coordinator and human on the planet is the same way. And treatment coordinators drive down your cash flow and also requiring a certain amount down drives down your cash flow. There's all kinds of reasons we can't dive into tonight, but explain how that open choice has made a difference in the down payment cash flow part of your practice.
Speaker 6:Here's the thing with open choice is you put the patient in control, the customer in control of what they're going to pay, no matter what they pick. They then own it and if they own it, chances are they're going to pay it and chances are it's something they can do. Now our down payment has gone up I think it was 20% since last year just allowing people to pick whatever they want and we don't require them to do that half down or do that lab fee down. And again, I honestly don't know the guardrails. Oliver always talks about the guardrails and gives me all this.
Speaker 6:You know MBA financial stuff that goes in one ear and out the other. No offense, oliver, but but it works. I mean, you put them in control, let them do what they want to do. I think that increases your starts. You know our conversions are somewhere mid 80s, you know. So we have pretty good start percentage. We're not going to start 100, but we have pretty good start percentage and the down payment is about one and a half times what my Invisalign lab bill is. So I have no problem doing what we're doing.
Speaker 1:And what he's talking about to everybody is not about being cheap. There's a way to be six, seven grand when the other three opinions are four and five grand. But if you extend out eight months or you let the patient choose how far out to a certain extent they want to pick, your monthly now becomes more affordable than what those other practices are requiring. It's not about the total all the time, it's about fitting it into the family's monthly budget and that does not mean going cheap. Go ahead.
Speaker 6:If you have wowed them in that exam, then the total price does not matter, as long as they can make it affordable. So it starts with that whole experience, with the exam, right from the first contact point.
Speaker 1:While you are speaking my language, you know that I mean. What he just said is a three-day seminar everybody. But I'm just going to say it flat out three-day seminar everybody. But I'm just going to say it flat out the Ritz-Carlton requires 250 hours of training before anyone's allowed to speak on the phone or in person to a customer. I would challenge all of you when is the last time you really trained your hourly employees on verbiage present from real experts in those things, not inside your bubble from real experts that would be hired by the Ritz and installed that into your world? And when you do that, amazing things happen.
Speaker 1:And Stephan B Lewis, hold up one second for the question I'm going to, because this is a RightChat webinar. I want to talk and this is a perfect transition point because you talked about the experience inside the doors, which a lot of you think about. Right, that's a big. We got to train the TC, our patient experience has got to be good, but what you forget about is what happens before they come through the doors and I want you to give me your perspective and how it's been with the concierge model you now have up front and letting my company, rightshot, answer your new patient calls. Talk us through that on how that's helped reduce the no-shows, increase the paperwork being filled out. Just changes the whole flow once they do come in through the door.
Speaker 6:Well, the whole flow from the first touchpoint. Part of it's orthophied, because again orthophied on boards, with the health history, all the insurance, so all that's done. And again we used to have receptionists up front answering phones all day. We either wanted two things Either you guys take the call and I love when you guys take the call because first of all, they don't know who we are yet, they have not met us. See, that experience I will outsource. I will not outsource the monitoring experience once they know us, because once they know us I want to increase that relationship. But they don't know us.
Speaker 6:You're making a great initial contact. You're taking your time, you know. You're you're edifying us. You're you're edifying orthodox, you're telling them what we do. You're giving them a great phone call before they even meet us, which is phenomenal. The other way they come in again is text or email. Now, that's awesome for us, because then we call them back when we have enough time and then we do a phone call, like RightChat does because we have the time. It's not the upfront answering the phone quick, two people standing in line, rush it, write them down. So the whole experience of that first call, when it's not rushed, when it's educational when it gives a lot of information. I mean that's huge to get them pre-sold, basically before they come through the door.
Speaker 1:And that's the key is pre-selling people, it's persuasion and I'm just going to shout this out because for those of you who know me out there, I don't go around being Mr Salesy, but the call when our agents answer it is going to be even more personable than when your own because that's a concern of people is that you do not lose and you actually gain the whole personability and personalization, and it sounds literally like you're sitting at that front desk. It's a huge piece. When you outsource, you can't lose the relationships, right. So a lot of people are afraid of that and there's a way to do it and actually enhance the relationships, just like the communication part of DM we were talking about earlier. But you've got to pick the tools that match your vision. That is a huge, huge thing you all need to take away from this and then create the time by outsourcing. How many hours do you spend a week just getting to work on your business, meeting with the team, role-playing, creating new things?
Speaker 6:Oh us, I would bet we spend 25% of our work hours working on the business, not working on patients, not doing the tasks. Today we did it A couple hours. We sat there and I call it basically just bullshitting, but it's more brainstorming, and you know how is this going to work, what can we do with this? How can this get better? So we probably spend, I would say, a quarter of the time I pay people to be here. We're working on the business, not just doing the tasks.
Speaker 1:And this is why everybody you cannot say OrthoFi, rightchat, nupi. You can't say these companies are expensive, these are not costs, these are investments to make them do the work so you can work on your business and grow it. If you're stuck in the eight to five chaotic situation, there is a reason, and it's because you won't invest. You look at that as the same thing, as a cost, and they're two completely different things that we can talk about. Actually, I talked about it in the last episode of the New Patient Group Podcast in 2022. And it's how your accountant is sabotaging your success. So check that one out. Steph B Lewis, we have a question.
Speaker 5:Yeah, this is kind of. We have two questions. They're kind of related, so I'm just going to ask them both here. First of all, great comments from everybody so far. They're really enjoying it. So again, thank you for everybody being on. Um debbie, some excellent and genuine content. Um, for clear cut, ortho, how many annual treatment starts and what's your total in-house staff? And then also, is clear cut profitable?
Speaker 6:yet we clear clearut is profitable. It's built from the ground up to be 100% clear aligners. My fixed costs are minimal. I need one and a half starts a month to cover my nut. Literally my build out at ClearCut was about what my plumbing cost me in Scopec Orthodontics during my build out. So the fixed costs are so ridiculously low because, again, there's no braces. We have one working chair to place and remove attachments. I will work it with one or two people generally Now sometimes there's more here if we're again meeting or brainstorming. Monday Madison and I were in by ourself two of us, just this her. We came in for about an hour and a half, did two starts and then they went home and she did dental monitoring and rhinogram. So hour and a half we started two people and we went home. So it is profitable because the fixed costs are so low. The projection this year is we should be about a half a million in revenue this year, which is our second full year. Good for you.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. And everybody just before the follow-up question B Lewis, everyone starts a practice differently. Blah, blah, blah. If you need guidance from an A to Z, if this type of business model intrigues you, get off your hump and hire somebody. Whether it's new patients, a big part of what new patient group does is walk you through this to where you can come out on the other side. If it's somebody else, it's somebody else. But start somewhere and get help. The smartest people in the room say I need help and oftentimes in this industry you're scared to ask for the help. And I get it. You were the best in school. You were best in dental school. You're badass in orthodontic school. I get it. But billionaires 75% of them dropped out of college or never went. And the number one trait of a billionaire the smartest business people on the planet, is they have a coach. So if a billionaire has a coach, why don't you? Is my question. It's okay to ask for help, to get guidance to walk you through this journey. It's okay.
Speaker 6:And if I can add to that and if I can plug one thing just a little bit, it's as orthodontists, there's more and more of us coming together. I had this conversation with John this morning we were talking about so anybody is heading down this road or is heavy in aligners, heavy and Invisalign wants to go this way, looking to figure it out. You know, get a hold of us. I mean, we're all looking to get together and share ideas and make this better, because we're all just kind of figuring it out as we go. This is new kind of weird stuff. So yes, on that vein of getting help, you know, contact some of the big Invisalign providers like myself or Blevins or White or any of those guys, because we all want to get together and we all want to start sharing ideas.
Speaker 1:Awesome, you guys have a follow-up question.
Speaker 5:No, that's all we got. If you guys want to wrap it up there, you go, take it from here. But again, thank you guys all so much. This has been awesome. Really enjoy the. You know the candid conversation and I appreciate you guys. You know the candy conversation and I appreciate you guys. You know blocking out the time to do this with us. This has been great.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you guys.
Speaker 5:Thanks for coming on, man Not that we don't talk enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean yeah absolutely yeah, it was good seeing your face.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Cheers, you know, here here's a you know that the location he's in.
Speaker 1:I remember going in there cause, because we were, would we go to four or five different places on on the location. Yeah, we're, yeah, yeah, and then, and then he doesn't invite me back once he opens. What's that all about?
Speaker 6:you know the doors are open, you know, you know where I live I'm just gonna walk in there and surprise carl. Everybody says that I hear more people saying I'm gonna come see you, I'm gonna come do that. I mean, blevins is always telling me she's going to come look at the office. If she's on, you got to come look at the damn. She says that to me too.
Speaker 1:She never comes, it's okay. But hey, everyone, the family members out there, customers really appreciate it. The right chat and new patient group customers. Everyone that took the time to hop on. Look, you know, pick your vision. If you need help finding a vision, I can help you with that. We can help you with that. Somebody can help you with that. So don't sit around. Find the vision. Define what you want out of your life, career and business. Run your employees through that as well. One of my favorite things to do is help the employees. A lot of times, hourly employees can get stuck in their career, maxed out. That's a crappy place to be and it absolutely will affect the way your business functions. Love doing that kind of life stuff with the employees, but do something. You know, pick a pain point and outsource it. Do something. Get off your bun buns and go do it. Thanks for being a part of our first Fireside Chat, everybody, and we look forward to seeing you again. Hey everybody. Brian Wright here Hope you enjoyed that fireside chat with Dr Bob Skopak and myself.
Speaker 1:We've been together for many years now working on different marketing and business fronts with his practice and so proud of his success. And look whatever issues you have out there chaos, stress, cashflow, conversion, new patients, culture, whatever it may be those are all fixable problems. But you've got to remember, like we talked about, stick to that vision. If those are all fixable problems, but you've got to remember, like we talked about, stick to that vision. If you don't have one, you've got to come up with one. We can help you with that. But then you've got to train the team. You've got to have your digital marketing pieces. You've got to have all these things in place to allow you to carry out that outsource model that reduces the chaos. All right, but take action. Find some companies that will help you. They're out there new patient group and right chat both of both my companies. We can help you. They're out there New Patient Group and RightChat both my companies. We can help OrthoFi, which thanks again for sponsoring, and remember what that offer from OrthoFi is is $3,500, $3,500 off your onboarding fee, your onboarding investment, if you will, and you're also going to get one month free of RightChat. So we'll onboard you month one and then we're going to answer your new patient calls as your backup so you can test out that service and then decide if you want to move forward with it, with RightChat, and then also, we're going to give you a full online digital marketing audit with my other company, new Patient Group, and we look forward. That's an amazing offer because that's an incredible savings, to say the least.
Speaker 1:But again, start somewhere. You've got to find an outsource partner that can start plugging these holes. Okay, and you only have yourself to blame If you complain about the leaks. You complain about the problems, but you don't go invest, and it is an investment, it's not a cost. Those are two different things. Go and invest in the right companies to help you and OrthoFi, new Patient Group and RightChat all three. We look forward to you coming aboard and there's so many different ways we can help you. All right, hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for joining. We'll talk to everybody soon. Bye-bye.
