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, Dentists and other doctors that own their own practice. 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. This podcast is also for Treatment Coordinators, Receptionists and other employees wanting to advance their career and help the practice they work for thrive.
New Patient Group Podcast
Welcome to 2025 - The Year you Reimagined Growth & Redefined your Success w/ Dr. Bob Skopek
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Book Suggestion: Tim Ferris - The Four Hour Work Week
Welcome to 2025! Watch our Founder & CEO get the year kicked off with long time New Patient Group and WrightChat customer, Dr. Bob Skopek. This episode encourages listeners to redefine their understanding of growth, focusing on efficiency and quality rather than volume. Key topics include tracking important metrics, identifying personal financial goals, seeking mentorship, and pursuing continuous education to enhance business practices for a healthier work-life balance.
• Reimagining growth as working smarter, not harder
• Understanding your personal magic number for financial freedom
• Importance of tracking earnings per hour rather than just volume
• Differences between being a business owner and an entrepreneur
• Benefits of outsourcing non-essential tasks for increased efficiency
• Importance of mentorship in developing professional skills
• Role of ongoing education in staying effective and current in the field
What if you could redefine success by working smarter, not harder? Our latest episode promises to transform your approach to business as we explore the flourishing possibilities of 2025, a year brimming with innovation and resilience. Discover how the entrepreneurial mindset and strategic efficiency can outshine traditional growth metrics and help you thrive even when the economy takes a downturn. We unpack the pitfalls of conventional advertising and shine a light on internal business inefficiencies, as we embark on a journey of continuous evolution, buoyed by the new season's transformative spirit.
Join us as we venture beyond mere numbers to redefine entrepreneurial success. The conversation pivots to exploring how fewer working days and heightened hourly productivity can lead to unprecedented growth, both personally and professionally. We unravel the intricate tapestry of key performance indicators, the nuances between being a business owner and an entrepreneur, and the critical concept of your "magic number"—all essential components in maximizing earnings while living your ideal life. This isn't just about financial success; it's about reclaiming time for what truly matters.
Our exploration doesn't stop there. We cast the spotlight on the orthodontic industry, underlining the pivotal role of mentorship and continuous education in shaping the future of young orthodontists. With insights from industry experts like Jeremy Emanuele, we delve into the creation of a legacy Dental Service Organization focused on clear aligner orthodontists. Through this narrative, we underscore the importance of long-term vision, strategic decision-making, and embracing a collaborative mindset to navigate the complexities of modern orthodontic practice. Prepare to be inspired as we reveal how diverse mentorship and strategic innovation can redefine success in any field.
Hey, new patient group and Right Chat Nation. Welcome inside the broadcast booth, brian Wright here, and welcome in to the very first episode of season eight as we get 2025 rolling. Happy New Year to everybody. As this is coming out on January 1st, 2025 is here. Crazy. It sounds so futuristic to me. I don't know what it is about 2025 that is so different than 2024, but for some reason I don't know what it is. It just sounds very futuristic. Next thing, you know we're going to be remember Back to the Future, part Two, flying cars and everything. It just feels like we're getting day by day closer to all of the flying taxis and cars and just seems futuristic. But I hope everybody had a great Christmas. I know our kids are still in Santa mode, so it was amazing here that our household here in Colorado Springs and boy oh boy, am I ready to get season eight kicked off with a bang.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be talking about reimagining growth. Now, there's several things that go into reimagining growth and several things and I'll be bringing in the great Dr Bob Skopak here shortly there are several things that we talk about today, so it's not just a one simple thing or one thing we want you to do, but this is something you know if you're a rep out there. You run a corporation out there, so you work for one and or run one. This is not messaging that you're going to get excited about, but it is important. Reps out there because we have a huge rep following Listen to this podcast. You will become a better rep the more you understand and get into the brain of what it's like to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:But what I'm going to talk about today is not something a corporation is ever going to look at it and go, wow, our numbers on paper are down, but we made more per hour, we worked less and we hit our magic take-home number to where we could live our dream life. Right, that's going to be a huge messaging today and so many of you out there, you're never going to go to an event and have people talk about. What you're going to learn on this podcast today New ways to track stats stats that you're probably not tracking, but you should be All right. We're going to dive into that and much, much more on the very first episode. So let's kick off season eight with the brand new intro music and we'll see everybody on the other side with the brand new intro music and we'll see everybody on the other side.
Speaker 2:The time for real change is now, when tough times test us, we overcome. When hardship hits us, we persevere, we innovate, we transform, we transform. If you're ready to achieve something special, buckle up and get ready for the ride of your life. Welcome to Season 8 of the New Patient Group Audio Experience, a podcast dedicated to revolutionizing lives, careers and business. So you, your team and your practice forever flourish in the new economy. And now your host. He's a husband, father of two, a founder and CEO of New Patient Group and RightChat faculty for Align Technology, and a trusted speaker for Invisalign and OrthoFi, brian Wright.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody, welcome in. I get asked a lot how do you come up with the intros and things like that? And hey look, I designed, I wrote that one. And the guy this is actually pretty cool the guy that does the podcast for me I've used for years and when I went to hire him on Fiverr is where I hire him every single year when I went in there I always listened to a couple intros. You know some of the new ones he's had since I've, since I've last used them and the very first one he had on there was the Ben Shapiro show. So the guy you know he's really moving up. The guy that does the podcast intro that you just heard, that's who Ben Shapiro uses on his show. So he's really moved up in the world. He's becoming more and more successful. So props to him.
Speaker 1:But I designed this podcast intro for season eight and I'm thinking about it. It may change throughout this particular season, but I like it because so many of you out there are hurting so many of you out there and you're hurting. A lot of it's self-induced, but a lot of it also is just look, the economy sucked. It's going to affect people more in certain areas of the country than it has others. You can't force people to have. This is why the dumbest thing you can do when the economy's down is advertise. It's ridiculous, and a lot of you out there you know you. Unfortunately you do it. You spend money on pay-per-click when you can't force people to have money to spend on orthodontics. So what you have to do dentistry beyond. So what you have to do is double down with all of the holes that exist inside your business and man. That is so hard to get people to do. But I designed it because I know the people that listen to this podcast New Patient Group Right Chat family members out there. I'm so proud of you because you persevered during this time.
Speaker 1:You know, great leaders are not created when times are great. Great leaders are born when times are difficult. Right, they innovate, they persevere, they transform, just like the podcast intro does. And I'm so proud of all of you out there because you keep reinventing yourself. You keep understanding is that the way you're going to grow this year is not the same as next year. Right, the, the team that gets you to your initial goal this year may not be the team that you, that you have the two years from now, because you're trying to reach new heights.
Speaker 1:You're always evolving and that is what a great leader does, make no mistake about it. That is what a great entrepreneur does, make no mistake about it, and so many of you out there you have to understand the days of going to dental school, ortho school, coming out making a ton of money. They're over. Some of you are still getting lucky out there, but the majority of you understand you have to know different than a chef. That's commoditized. It goes way beyond your food. So that's how I came up with that intro for season eight and hopefully everybody likes it out there because the messaging it's true. I want all of you, when times are tough, to just love the journey, that all of you fall into right. The journey needs to fuel your fire. It is going to be different that journey every single year. The journey is going to be different for all of you and you have to love the entrepreneur side of it All. Right now let's bring in the great Dr Bob Skopak. How'd you like that? The great?
Speaker 3:Wow, I didn't know if you were talking about me or somebody else. That's, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Did that make you feel good? That made me feel good. Yeah, we got our matching black shirts on today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, you don't want me to go change, I could go change.
Speaker 1:It's too late now. We already started.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're here. We're here, Ready to go Match and everything Should take a survey and see who they think looks better in the black shirt.
Speaker 1:All right. So in the YouTube description below, after you all thumb this baby up, you can make some comments on whose black shirt looks better. Should have made you wear a hat too. We could have put that out, yeah, but hey, man, how was Christmas?
Speaker 3:It was good. Kids were home. Kids were home for about a week Um, and uh yeah, it was just relaxing, just hanging out Um. The only family now really we have is my mom, who's local now at this point. Um so, yeah, it was. It was good Just four or five of us hanging out, relaxing, and now we're getting ready for new year's.
Speaker 1:Nice, so the girls are gone yeah girls are gone. Okay, so back to Chicago. Chicago, where'd you say Chicago?
Speaker 3:and Memphis, Memphis, that's right. How'd she end up in Memphis? She worked for Smith Nephew, which is a they do like orthopedics a lot of healthcare, wound healing orthopedics. She's a biomechanical engineer, Okay, so she's worked with knee replacements for them. Now she's more of a product engineer. So, she sells or not sells, but she educates the docs on how to use Smith and Nephew's products. And they're big corporate headquarters in the States. One of them in the States is in Memphis.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, does she like it? She loves it, like Memphis, yeah, yeah, cool. Well, I got a question and for a lot of you out there I mean you know we teach a lot of different things on here and I thought this would be a good one to kick off season eight, because a lot of you I said this at the top a lot of you are hurting out there. I've got all kinds of data saying the industry's down 15 plus percent conversions, dipped into the high forties, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:So the messaging today is you know, we understand some of you may look at this and go, no, I need to go beyond this because I'm not even close to hitting my magic number. So we're going to dive into more of that and I'm empathetic to it. But the main point today is is redefining growth and and this will this would be a great way to kick it off, because I'm going to ask I'm going to ask Bob here in just a second did he grow? And when you hear the response, you're going to what most of you are going to think is is the answer's no, and he's going to, he's going to re change your mind, to redefine your mind around this. So let's kick it off. Did you grow last year?
Speaker 3:Um, I feel, I feel that I, yes, I grew tremendously. However, now my production, my production, is going to be down about one and a half percent. Starts are going to be down maybe 6%, um, but I feel. But I did grow tremendously because I work 19 fewer days. We've cut some hours, so we're not working, we're not starting as early, we're not starting as late. So, from that perspective, I'm making a lot more money per hour, per day than I was in 2023. So, yes, I feel like I grew tremendously. I got a lot more efficient, but I'm not doing more cases. I'm not spending more money with my labs. I'm not spending more money with my monitoring companies. I'm not spending more money on employees because I'm adding days and I'm adding patients per day. So I'm working a lot more efficiently. But if you wanted to look at my numbers the way most people look at numbers now, I'm down about a percent or so.
Speaker 1:Well, this is what I want to talk about for a minute, and I also mentioned this more towards on the on the intro, mentioned this more towards on the on the intro. So this is not an episode that you know. We we have a huge rep following on this podcast, from from Invisalign to OrthoPhi to Dental Monitoring to tons of others, and this is an example reps listening on. The more you learn about what it's like to be an entrepreneur, the better, because a corporation whether you work as a rep for a corporation or you run in Invisalign, align Technology, whatever it may be you are never going to look at numbers this way, because you're never going to look at a data sheet and say we were down a percent or six percent, like Bob is describing, yet you grew. You're never going to look at it that way.
Speaker 1:But the idea for all of you out there business owners, that is is how you can set things up in a way that every year, you make your magic number. So let's say, your magic number is 500 grand. Just throwing that number out there for now is how do you hit that take home number every single year while working less? And the data he just gave you? A lot of you out there and you're never going to hear this stuff in an event. They all teach you how to do more new patients, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, but they don't teach you how to do more with less. And a stat all of you need to be very into is a stat he just gave. He knows it is how many working days did you have this year versus how many working days did you have last year? If he doesn't know that number, correct me if I'm wrong. If he doesn't know that number, there's no way he could sit here and tell you he grew, even though the numbers on paper are down. Make sense.
Speaker 3:And that's. You're exactly right and that's a very easy, simple thing to track, simple KPI to track. The next level of that, which has taken me time to really get there is how much you make per hour. Tim Ferriss's four-hour workweek book was very impactful on me and he talks about how business owners and entrepreneurs should look at how much money they make per hour. Now I'm not punching a clock, I'm never going to punch a clock, I'll never know exactly. But yes, it's about the day's work. But you know, if I'm working a four-hour day and I'm starting five people and doing four exams, you know that's a lot of production and that's a lot of efficiency per hour and that's a lot of efficiency per hour. Now, if I'm working a 10-hour day and I'm doing three starts and three exams, that's not as efficient of a day. So you're right, the number of days you work per year is a very simple, easy KPI to start with. But the next level is how much you make per hour, how much you produce per hour.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you a follow-up question to that in just a second. But this is, you know, for so many of you out there, you chose to own your own business, so you're an entrepreneur. Now, there's two different things. I'm going to be doing an episode, probably this season, about the difference between a business owner and an entrepreneur. Those are two very, very different things and, unfortunately, many of you out there run your business as a business owner, not an entrepreneur. Now, one of the examples of that is what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:As a true entrepreneur, you do not open up your own business and risk everything your house and have student loans and millions in debt to make a little money and have no time to enjoy it.
Speaker 1:The goal for all of you out there is to be make as much money as you can in the fewest possible days, every single, every single year, and a lot of you do not set that up and, like we said, the number changes.
Speaker 1:If you're opening up a practice next week and you're a single dude, as an example, your magic take home number that you need to hit is going to be far less than when you have three kids and a wife, et cetera. So this number is an ever going, ever evolving number that all of you should know. You should know to live my dream life and do whatever I want in life, this is the amount of money I have to take home this year to do it, and this is how much time I've got to have to be able to do it, because nothing worse than making a ton of money and not being able to enjoy any of it because the business is sucking you dry. So how do you the KPI, like we said, like the number of days work? That's an easy thing to track. But when you take it to which all of you out there need to be tracking that when you take it to the next level and how much money you're making per hour, how are you tracking that?
Speaker 3:I, it, it. It's always going to be an approximation because I don't punch a clock and I don't think any of us, as business owners, are going to punch a clock. But what I will literally do is I go through every month and I look at how many days for that month that I worked and I approximate the hours that I spent doing that. Now there's also hours like this. I mean, now I technically I could count this as a working hour. I generally don't, because I do this because I choose to and I enjoy it and I'm having fun doing this and I'm not making money doing this. So I track more the hours per those days that I spent making money in quotes, and that's how I do it, and I just approximate it and I write it down. And I write it down every month.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the things that you said and this is something everybody I track myself and it's a little bit hard. You know, new patient group is not a company that can really grow without putting more hours in, at least for me RightChat, another company, is right. That company can grow and it can grow without me having to do all the work. So I look at data differently for both of those companies. Now, for most of you listening out there, you don't have multiple companies. You have one. You have your practice, even though it may be multiple locations or a single. So you've got to look at things differently.
Speaker 1:But the one thing all of you need to do and this is not really what today is about, but at the same time it is in this reimagining growth is you have to design the business in a way to do things that you love.
Speaker 1:I have talked to so many chefs throughout the years that hate what they do because the business completely sucked all the fun out of being a great chef, dealing with the people and the HR and all this crap that all of you have to deal with as well, and I view you all as the chef right and a lot of you have the fun sucked out of the practice because you don't get to do what you love to do. So the point is, what I want to talk about here for a minute is how you design things in a way that allows you to do what you love and outsource the other things and make them do the things that you don't love right, and take a lot of that pressure off and I want you to talk about that for a minute and you have two different business models with your practices as well.
Speaker 3:Well, and here's the first thing I think that we all have to realize and we just had this conversation a while ago it's like if you look at, say, engineers, for example, or chefs, let's put engineers and chefs in the same category. They're very good technicians. They know how to do their task very well. Most of them don't know how to run a business. Very few engineers and chefs will run a successful business. Most of them work for somebody else, doing their task and doing their craft. That's the same thing with orthodontics and dentistry. We are trained as technicians, we are trained to do our craft. We're not trained to own a business, but yet most of us do own a business. That's the difference. Most dentists come out they don't know anything about it, but they do go run a business.
Speaker 3:So the first thing is to just really educate yourself and read on the minds of some of these great business people the Steve Jobs, the Jeff Bezos, all these guys that have been entrepreneurs and run the business, because you have to think differently.
Speaker 3:None of these business models have come about really, because I'm an orthodontist Now, the first step to each one of them is clinical excellence and knowing my clinical craft with whatever tool or technique I want to use to the highest level. But then the whole business model has nothing to do with what we learned as a dentist or an orthodontist or as an engineer or as a chef. I mean, it's a completely different skill set. So to do that, I think you first have to do a lot of reading, you have to educate yourself and you have to think very differently, because there's different steps for each of us. I mean, and the steps that I went through to kind of develop this model is, first and foremost, I became an expert at the technique I do, and I'm a clear aligner orthodontist. I'm 97% clear aligners. I'm 97% Invisalign. I consider myself a clear line orthodontist. Now I was Invisalign certified 24 years ago and I sucked at it for a good 10, 12 years.
Speaker 3:At least you can admit it. Well, I can, and quite honestly, I think the product sucked, and I sucked initially. Now I don't believe that. But so, first and foremost, I got myself, I got myself educated on that clinical skill set. Then you have to learn how to work a P&L and run a P&L. And if nobody knows what I mean by P&L, just go out there and learn about a P&L and a profit and loss statement. I think it's one of the simplest yet most impactful financial statements you can have.
Speaker 3:You look at the P&L what am I making money on? What am I losing money on? What do I need to change in there? From there, I worked on my workflows and my operations and my systems and what I needed to buy or what I needed to get rid of, what I could outsource, what I couldn't outsource, and I think a lot of people make the mistake of starting with that, when you should really start with. Here's how I want my practice to go. Here's the technique I want to use. I'm going to get great at it.
Speaker 3:Okay, now I'm going to figure out am I making money, am I losing money and why? What do I change so I can make money or lose money? And then what are the important KPIs that I need to track after that? And those are things. I think that's a little different order than most people will go through. For sure it is Because most people will go listen to that KOL get up on stage and say, go try Brand X because it's a game changer. Well, it's not a game changer unless it fits my P&L and unless I can use it to the highest level. So that's what I've figured out. With what I've done and the way I've looked at it, you got to get your clinical craft to the highest level with whatever you want to use. You have to look at your P&L and work the P&L and run the P&L to create profit in there. Then you modify your systems, your workflows, your operations, your outsourcing, your products, wherever you're going to buy, to make that P&L profitable and then you determine the KPIs you're going to track.
Speaker 1:Well, a couple of things that you the reason I said, at least you can admit it is, you know, after being obviously I'm not a clinician, but I've had the fortunate being of being around really the best of the best in this industry. I mean, they're all our customers I don't know how we did it, but they are. And looking at Jeff Paschal, you, rob Schaefer, boyd Whitlock, I could go on and on. I'm going to leave out a ton of Marco. I'm going to leave out a ton of names, can't name them all and the cases they're knocking out with clear aligners are just insane.
Speaker 1:But then you look at so much of the industry still and this isn't what today is about, but it is about those four steps that Bob just mentioned are absolutely critical, because there's so many of you out there still that are convinced you can't do some of these cases with aligners. And I think and I'm just going to say it, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that's an ongoing CE problem. If you know, you've got 10 orthos knocking out an Invisalign case that another 10 say you can't do it with, and you're knocking it out like and it's just insane, in five visits or something, what else could it be other than a CE problem?
Speaker 3:Well, and you're right and see, that's where I think number one with everything we talk about or we preach about is a CE problem. It's like and I'm going to use the MARPI, Sarpy, SFOT, surgical expansion stuff as another example I don't do that, I'm not good at that, I haven't taken CE on it. But I'm going to give a shout out to Jeremy Emanuele, who's in Vegas, who I've met, who's phenomenal. He's a brilliant dude. I love that guy. That's his thing and he does that to a very high level and in his practice that's a big part of his business and his practice. That's great. He knows how to do that.
Speaker 3:I don't I have a CE problem with MARPIs, SARPs and SFOTs and I choose not to do it, and you're right. Other people will have that CE problem with clear aligners and that's where, again, it gets back to number one, where you have to choose what do you want to do and what's your modality of choice and then learn it and be great at it. But, yes, 100%, it all comes back to fundamentally that CE and learning how to do that at a high level.
Speaker 1:Jeremy, if you're listening, I want you to know that he's never called me brilliant and never said he loves me, so I just wanted to make that clear for the record.
Speaker 1:You're a special guy, clearly. The other piece to that is and I see this all the time and it drives me nuts and I think that just people don't. They don't know what they don't know, but they will go to an event, they will see a KOL and it could be from a remote monitoring company, it could be whatever the hell it is, and therefore they go and they buy it, instead of realizing that the modality, the remote monitoring, right, chat, whatever it is, invisalign ClearLight, whatever it is has to fit the model that you're trying to run and what you're trying to get out of your life, your career and your business. That has to come first, and then you go and you pick the companies that fit into that model and then that absolutely goes into reimagining. That's why so many of you are all over the place, like you'll try this remote monitoring company for two weeks and then say, ah, it doesn't work and you'll throw it in the trash when, when it works, great, it's you. And and I mean what are your? What?
Speaker 3:are your thoughts? What are your thoughts on that? Well, a hundred percent and and that I discovered a lot of that in my step number two, where you work the P&L and you run the P&L Because I can't afford to pay my dental monitoring bill, I can't afford to pay my ortho-fi bill, I can't afford to pay my right chat bill and I certainly can't afford to pay my Invisalign bill if I have my office staffed with those 16 people that I did in a traditional braces and wires practice. So by running the P&L and analyzing your P&L, you figure out what do you want in there? What do you want to do Now?
Speaker 3:For me it's like I don't need this many people. Other people will look at it and say, well, I don't need the remote monitoring, I don't need the Invisalign. But for what I wanted out of the practice and the efficiency that I thought I could gain, I kept the technology and I got rid of other things that we didn't need with the technology and the outsourcing we didn't need with the technology and the outsourcing. But it doesn't start with buying the outsourcing or buying the technology and trying to fit it in to whatever model that you have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point. Earlier, you had brought up Tim Ferriss's book and I think we're getting through to people more than ever before and it's becoming more of a norm. But as we do this podcast today, new Patient Year has been around 12 years. So we're in our we're about to enter our 13th year. So next November will be our 13th year, which is crazy, and one of the things I have preached forever is, whether you're a chef, whether you're an orthodontist, whether you're a dentist, whether you're me or whatever is, go outside your freaking industry and learn from just people that are badass at what they do, whatever. It is right.
Speaker 1:They've had seven companies and they could all be plumbing companies, whatever it is, and it is so hard to convince people and no one's telling you don't listen to another doctor, don't go to some of these events. You should. But where most of you cut that off is exactly what Bob was describing is those famous entrepreneurs that can teach you so much, which is exactly what really our purpose is inside this industry. They aren't doing dentistry, they aren't doing orthodontics, et cetera like they are, but it's just like the chef To make the restaurant extremely successful. It goes way beyond the food To make your life extremely successful. It goes way beyond the orthodontics. It's all of this stuff that we're talking about, your thoughts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean it's, it's, it's, it's interesting. You know it's always interesting. As you've been in your career for 25 years plus, you know, you, you, you start to see a lot of things. A lot of people talk to you and and and what we're finding now, because we're, we're now as a group, scaling um, what, what, what I'm doing with ClearCut, with the Invisalign only, clearaligner only boutique satellite model, and these young orthodontists coming out of school, they realize what you just said that we don't know how to run a business, we don't know what's going on and we need help and we want mentorship.
Speaker 3:The younger orthodontists that have been out say, less than 10 years, that we talk to say, well, what would you want to come into our system, into our network? You know, do this. And the overriding answer is mentorship. We want mentorship. We don't know how to do. This answer is mentorship. We want mentorship. We don't know how to do this.
Speaker 3:And, yes, you have to listen to people and learn from people that know things different than you do. And that's a different mindset than like when I came out, you know, 25 years ago. It's like all right, I got my orthodontic degree, I know it all. I'm just going to go conquer the world. Now they say I want mentorship, I want training. I don't know how to get out the real world will do this but I do want to own a business and I do want control over my life. Back to your point of what is growth and what is your number and what do you need? Most of these young orthodontists like no, I want control. I don't want to work for somebody, I want to own it, but I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I need mentorship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see a lot. I mean we have and this was not the case five plus years ago, but it is now so we have a ton of residents that listen to this podcast. We have tons of doctors that are going to become and open up their first practice as customers in the mastermind group, and we see it exactly what you just said and a lot of them. What they've told me is that, yeah, I kind of want two different types of mentors right, the orthodontist that's great clinically, you know that's one. But then also find a really successful entrepreneur and it may happen to be another orthodontist that's great clinically, you know that's one. But then also find a really successful entrepreneur, and it may happen to be another orthodontist, or it may be a person like myself. Whatever it may be is they want a business mentor and a clinical one, and sometimes that's the same person, but oftentimes that's two totally different ones and it's just becoming a niche that I have found that they truly enjoy from this podcast and you know, listening to people like you're, like yourself. Hey everybody. Brian, right here, I hope you're enjoying the first episode of season eight, certainly when Bob and I get together. You know he's a longtime customer, longtime friend of mine we get together. We can go on and on and on about some awesome things, so hopefully you're getting a lot out of it. I want 2025 to be the year that you took action. Become a part of my mastermind group.
Speaker 1:I'm going to put a link in the description below that you can click on that'll take and discuss what you get as being a mastermind member of New Patient Group. There are so many forward-thinking doctors and it's a really cool mix of doctors that are just opening up their business to ones that might be opening up in a year to the biggest names in the industry and people in between Unbelievable forward thinking clinicians. In the group you know we meet together every single month on Zoom. We have our spouse doctor in-person event. You also get a trip to my house to stay with me for some business and life stuff.
Speaker 1:And look, you is difficult when you decide to own a company. It is a really hard thing and we are here to guide you through that ever-evolving process. Click on that link. Learn more about it. There's gonna be a Calendly link as well. It'll be to Stephanie Solomon's Calendly link. Click that. Schedule a 10, 15-minute consultation with her to learn more. Become a part of my mastermind group and look forward to seeing you as a part of the MPG mastermind family. Now let's get back to today's episode.
Speaker 3:And I would say, oftentimes it's several people. It's really never just one people, right, it's several people. It's people that you'll actually maybe meet and see, and it's people that you may just read their book, it's people that you may just watch a YouTube video on. But I think it's a multitude of people that you need to listen to and need to evolve your mindset and evolve your skill set.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's a good point and it's like I said, the masses. It's hard to convince, but I think it's becoming more and more the norm. So I want to recap a little bit here. One, like I said earlier, this is not going to be. Obviously, bob's very involved with Align technology, so am I.
Speaker 1:This is not a message that is going to excite the corporations out there, but it is important for all of you as the corporations understand how our minds think, because and just like what you said earlier the down 1% and the down 6% a corporation views that and the board is not going to be happy. Those are not numbers and a corporation's never going to look at it. How can we set things up so our reps work less? Right? That's not the way your world works. It is the way our world works, right. That's the point of owning your own company is eventually make your magic number and work less and less and less every year. Easier said than done.
Speaker 1:A lot of people never achieve it. A lot of people never even achieve their magic number. They don't have the time to actually enjoy it. And, like I said, I do understand a lot of you out there. Your magic number may be X and, because the industry got their butt hammered last year, a lot of you may not even be close to it, but I still think a lot of this applies to everybody out there, because even if you're not close to it one, you have to identify it, and I don't think a lot of people even have their number identified. I mean, you could probably go and ask an audience of a thousand and the majority of them are not going to know what that magic number is. And you got to know it, agreed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, approximately, approximately. I mean see, I yeah, I mean I've I've never stressed myself out with stuff like that. But but part of part of the reason I don't is and you know me well enough I mean I have the mindset that you know I don't know if I'm the richest guy or the poorest guy in any of these rooms, but I feel like I have more money than I could ever spend in one lifetime, and you know a lot of that maybe is you know, I'm the first one in my family to go to college. I grew up in a house that's literally the size of my kitchen right now, so I have more than I could ever use. So it's somewhat that with the mindset too. And my car is now 10 years old, but it's a Porsche, so I mean I'm not going to complain about that.
Speaker 1:No, you can't complain about it, but also you'll get a new one if you wanted to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so some of it with the numbers. I've never freaked myself out with the numbers and I'm a little different that way, because every financial guy we've ever had is like what's your number, what's this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I guess we know approximately. But you get to a point where it's like you just you have enough.
Speaker 1:That's all you need and I don't worry about it. Well, and that when I talk about, I mean you know me well enough to where I'm very weird when it comes to looking at numbers. But all of you, you don't need to stress, but you do need to know the digits. You know, if you're a person that and Bob's a relatively simple guy when it comes to this, right If you are somebody that wants eight cars, a boat, you know, three homes, a plane, things like that, your number's going to be different and I think it's important for all of you to still know it.
Speaker 1:But really, the point of knowing it and this is just what Bob has done is there's no point if your magic take home numbers around 500. Like I said, it changes right, next year it may change to 550 or 450. The number is always evolving, because you should be always evolving. But there is little to no point in working harder and longer hours, et cetera, et cetera, to try to bring home 600 grand when 500 grand gets you everything you would ever dream of getting. There is no point. The point of that is everything above the 500 number you should outsource, you should make things easier on yourself and work less Makes sense, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and that's and the biggest commonality I see, and the biggest problem I see is people will want it. It will go from 500 to 600, but they'll work three times as much.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:And it's not worth it. It's not like it's not like they work an extra hour a week to go to that. They work an extra two days a week and it doesn't make sense at all.
Speaker 3:Um, but it's interesting. If any reps are listening or companies are listening, can we go back to that for a second? Sure, because here's where it's coming, because they are Okay, because here's where it's coming with that, because we've. We now there's a group of orthodontists we're organizing into. It's technically a DSO. It's a legacy DSO. It's not a private a DSO. It's a legacy DSO. It's not a private equity DSO.
Speaker 3:But we consider ourselves clear aligner orthodontists. We consider that now a subspecialty and we're creating a network of aligner-only, invisalign-only practices as orthodontic specialists. Now we're having conversations with people that you know and I've spoken for these people, like Dental Monitoring, orthophi, invisalign, because I don't want to do more cases and I'm not going to be a bigger customer for them. But we are creating a very scalable, very efficient model. By doing that we're able to train, mentor, young docs that can own their own practice, have a very efficient, high profitability practice and then they use those products because they need to use those products to make this efficient. So I'm not and the other you know the Regina Blevins and John White and the other people in this group they're not looking to spend a whole lot more money with these companies. But as we train and mentor these young people coming in, these companies will thrive because there's more people using their product in a more efficient way and we're really trying to create this next generation of orthodontists that do it efficiently and are doing it in this modality where they don't have to work their ass off all week. So that's where it's coming with the companies and we're getting pretty good feedback with a lot of these companies because, again, I've been fortunate I've got to meet a lot of the CEOs and a lot of the higher ups in these things just from doing some talks for them.
Speaker 3:But you're right To your point. It flies in the face of what they do and especially with their reps, it's like sell, sell, sell. Get them to do more next year. Well, maybe not, maybe. Just let them scale this, let these senior docs train these junior docs. The senior docs will get a great exit strategy without selling their life away and this creates a whole generation of younger docs that will use that company's product, whatever that company may be. And that's where I think the big companies need to get to to see the future.
Speaker 3:Now the challenge with that and every CEO, every executive, every major company will admit this. They're worried about next quarter, absolutely, you know. I mean, we're worried about the next three years, five years, 10 years. They're worried about the next quarter and I'm not going to help them in the next quarter, but three years from now, when we have a network of these offices, that's when we help them For sure. So some of it's that long-term versus short-term vision too, and a lot of what we're doing and a lot of Brian, what you and I have done is a long-term vision. We don't necessarily sit down and say we're going to do this, this, this and next quarter it's going to go up 20%. This is more of a long-term vision. We're playing the long game with this.
Speaker 1:Which is hard because of so much instant gratification. Now I mean, I see this with with customers that may. Usually what happens with us when people come aboard is year one, um, and this varies, but the majority of the time year one, they grow, whether they want to or not they grow. Year two, it happens again, and then sometimes year three for all kinds of different reasons. It kind of stalls out for a while and that could go year three for all kinds of different reasons. It kind of stalls out for a while and that could go year three and four. And if they get through it and make the right changes in year three and four, they skyrocket in five, six, seven, etc. Six, seven years down the road not tomorrow. And that is so hard especially the younger doctors listening.
Speaker 1:You grew up in an instant gratification world. The reality is to get it on autopilot is hard and it takes time. It absolutely takes time. And if you can be looking five plus years down the road and make the right moves to get there, you're going to enjoy it. But it's hard for some people. The moment they stall out year three and four, they freak out Even though things are still going great. They just can't see it because the paper a lot of times doesn't show it to you, right? It's even like what you described. You know, down 1%.
Speaker 3:You said you were down 1% on what and then 6% on the other what was that Down like 1% on production and like 6% on starts, which means that we raised our fees. Okay, and we did. We did some very strategic um fee changes this year. Um. The other book I always talk about is blue ocean strategy. We, we had a we talked about that on something Um, and we we raised some of our fees um, um, and we, we raised some of our fees um pretty nicely, and I lowered some other fees Um, so I strategically changed the whole fee structure in there. Um, but um, that keeps the production up, um, even though the starts are down.
Speaker 1:Right, yep, I love the idea, and I mean also, for all of this is, again, not what today's about, but I I think it all goes into this. Reimagining growth is. Bob fully understands that. You don't just wake up one day and say we want to jack up our fees because it's going to allow me to work less, like, if you're going to raise the fees and for some of you you know you're in higher income areas than others, blah, blah, blah. But if you're going to raise your fees, there has to be at least what I teach. There has to be at least what I teach. There has to be an enhanced experience along the way to do it.
Speaker 1:And this is the other thing that drives me nuts about this industry is you'll get people up there on stage saying raise your fees to an audience of a thousand. They go back and raise their fees and everything goes to hell because there's nothing from a people business first standpoint. That improves with it. And it drives me nuts. And he gets me what are your thoughts? Because this does I mean. That improves with it. And, and it drives me nuts. And he gets me what are your? What are your thoughts? Cause this does I mean. That's why it could go into a million things in this re-imagining growth.
Speaker 3:That's. That's an extremely important point that you just made about raising fees, um and and, and I'm seeing that in the last year, year and a half or so, the corporate cause I've I've always been within a few miles, five miles of corporate offices and I've seen now people coming in, you know, second, third opinions and all of a sudden now corporate's charging more than me and they'll look at it and they'll start making comments like, well, but you're even cheaper, why wouldn't we come here? And it's like, it's like from the numbers they're showing me and the quotes that they bring in from some of these other offices, you know they're they raise, they must have raised their fees a couple thousand dollars in the last couple of years and they still have the different orthodontist every year, different staff every six months. So to your point.
Speaker 3:That's a very important point because you can't just sit down and say, look at my P&L, I'm going to raise my fees. You have to go and you have to change that whole workflow experience. You know the techniques you use, the technologies you use. You have to have that whole structure in place, otherwise they're going to look at that and say why would I pay that there? Because? So that's an extremely important point, because people will tell you to raise your fees and if you have a half-assed practice that can't support it, it's not going to work.
Speaker 1:Well, and this is if I wrap it up on this, but you get this. I mean, you've heard me preach this a thousand times, but it just goes back to you. All are people first businesses. And people do not understand why you're 2,000 more than their other opinions If your people are not trained on sales and hospitality, communication and verbiage and presentation and psychology all these things that we go around all over the place teaching every business, and we just found a niche in the orthodental world.
Speaker 1:That's how you raise your fees. Now, obviously you got to be a great clinician, just like a great chef. That's part of it, part of the bundle, but it can't be the only bundle. Your team has to be trained on this stuff from experts and how to happen to apply it in the ortho, dental et cetera world. So I see it drives me and I feel bad for a lot of the doctors. They go back and sabotage their business just because they hear things from some guy or girl on stage. They go back, do it and it's you know. The one on stage runs a totally different business model, wants something totally different out of their life. Their magic take home number is different and yet they're telling you to run your business the same way.
Speaker 3:It drives me crazy, it doesn't work and you're 100% right and also, to that point, what we're attempting to do with this, with our Vanguard group and our Vanguard DSO, is we provide the mentoring for what you exactly said. It's training with people like you, but it's also mentoring from a senior doc that understands that.
Speaker 3:It takes all of that, because there's, you know, people will go to meetings all day long and probably 3% of the people in that crowd will actually ever implement anything. Maybe, maybe, maybe, exactly. So the future is, yes, training on that so you can actually raise the fees, but also the mentoring on that. I mean, as orthodontists, we don't get that, we don't know that, and there's a relatively small group of us that understands it and does it, and that's what we want to scale at this point and that's what I think the future of orthodontics is. I mean, if we're going to remain a specialty and if we're going to remain one of the best specialties out there, we're going to have to do stuff like that. Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I love it. Good stuff, man. Yeah, yeah, I mean I just the whole. We knew this. We talked before we, before we recorded the podcast on how this topic, while mainly about tracking how much you're working, finding out how much you're making an hour, you know, finding your take-home number it was really the the the main message, and re-imagining growth, but it's everything that we're talking about today. Every single thing goes into all of you re-imagining growth.
Speaker 1:And so many say the new patient group customers. I think 80% of them were up last year, which is something we're really proud of. I think 30% had their best year ever. I think that's the data, but there are still some that we're hurting. But if you just do, the point is is, if you just do these things, you will be fine. You will have more fun, maybe not every year, but you're going to be fine. You don't have to fall into this trap that a lot of you fall into, that if the industry's down, you're down, the industry's up, you may be up. It doesn't have to be that way, but you do have to reimagine how you're doing. Things. Period, things, period, agreed, yeah, agreed. He agrees with everything I say.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, and can I wrap it up something really quick? A quick point we talked about. I just wrote a book. I can't remember what the book was, but it talked about like the internet and um, and it said that way too many people think of the internet as a noun. It's not. It's a verb, it's not a thing, it's a process. It's an ever-evolving thing. And when we talk about growth in an orthodontic practice, that's not a noun, that's not a two or three tangible line thing, that's a verb. That's something that changes all the time and evolves all the time, and I think that's an important way to look at it.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a brilliant point and it's see, I called you brilliant, yeah, thanks. But this is among many other reasons. One of the reasons I started this company 12 plus years ago was every year it evolves. And if you're just hiring company A and this is how, unfortunately, I think, a lot of you do it If you're just hiring company A for this year and company B and C and D, and you're just all over the freaking place, you don't have a consistent messaging within your office that's going to help you evolve as the times change and et cetera. So that's why I like being a part of the practice, because next year is different than this year and et cetera, et cetera. So, thanks for coming on, man, thanks for having me. This should have been a good way to kick off season eight. So we're doing some different things this year. I'm going to bring in some more guests than we normally do and things like that. So good stuff. All of you re-imagine growth. Is there anything else you want to talk to him about?
Speaker 3:No, not that I can do in under three hours. So no, I'm good, we'll have you back on. We'll do it, okay, cool.
Speaker 1:Because I think about 10 things we talked about today is a podcast in itself for sure, so we can spin this off in a lot of different directions, but appreciate it everybody. Until next time. Appreciate you all. Following the podcast, please thumb this up on YouTube, make some comments, give us a five-star review on whatever outlet you're listening to the podcast on, and we'll talk to everybody soon. Bye-bye.