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Dentist2Dentist
Join Dr. Mike Miyasaki as he talks dentist to dentist about the trends, products, and clinical applications in dentistry today.
Dentist2Dentist
Thriving in Dentistry: Embracing Change and Innovation for Future Success with Garrett Caldwell
Unlock the secrets to thriving dental practices in a rapidly changing world with insights from Garrett Caldwell, CEO of the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum and Core Dental Lab. This episode promises to revolutionize your approach to dentistry, shifting from a necessity-driven focus to a desire-driven strategy that creates opportunities even during economic uncertainty. Discover how expanding into areas like aesthetics, implants, and TMD treatments can enable your practice to not just survive but thrive as we approach 2025.
Garrett Caldwell joins us to explore the intricate dynamics of navigating dental practice opportunities amid rising interest rates and shifting consumer priorities. We delve into the transformative power of strategic planning, collaboration, and education in turning potential setbacks into growth avenues. By examining past economic recoveries following global crises, we highlight how leveraging collective expertise and strategic differentiation can empower dentists to make informed decisions, whether they're considering joining a DSO, dropping Delta insurance, or inventing innovative independent strategies.
With marketing in the dental field becoming more complex, this episode emphasizes the importance of networking and mentorship to stand out in a competitive market. Gain insights into designing a balanced lifestyle that accommodates both personal satisfaction and professional growth. As we look forward to the future, we invite feedback and participation from our audience to shape upcoming presentations, ensuring that dentists continue to enhance their clinical performance and work-life balance. Join us on this journey to success, supported by a community of industry veterans and peers.
Hey everybody, how you doing. This is another episode of our well. Now we've kind of morphed from a podcast to a YouTube program or YouTube channel, and it's all based on the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum's education program and, of course, that's backed by the Core Dental Lab here in the Sacramento, california area. And today we've got Garrett Caldwell, who is the CEO of the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum, which is all really about education, and the Corridone Laboratory, which is a provider of the restorations, and what we thought we would do today is discuss how do you prepare for the future? So we're about a year and a half into doing these programs.
Speaker 1:The first little over a year was all podcast-based, so I'd encourage you to go back and listen to the podcast. Really easy to do. You can listen to it in your car, you can listen to it while you're working out, but recently we've moved to YouTube, because YouTube gives us a chance to actually for us, for you, to see who's actually doing the talking, and we're making it into a podcast so you can listen to it at your convenience too. But, um, garrett, welcome. It's good to be with you again this international uh discussion, since you're out of the country yeah, mike, how are you and how's everybody out there in the youtube audience?
Speaker 2:we we're finishing another year of education and webcasts and our podcasts and we just finished our live patient hands-on course for the last 10 students that we had and that, I think, went really well, and I guess today we're going to go over a little bit about what we've been talking about over the last 12 months, which is how to manage and grow your of notes and learning a lot ourselves and trying to apply things that we probably all know or have heard in the past but, over being busy and, over time, forget about and hopefully get a chance to revisit and reapply.
Speaker 2:I know myself for our businesses for Core Dental Laboratory, for the Pacific Aesthetic Laboratory Group and for the PAC. I know there's a lot of things we need to do to continue and improve and evolve our business as well, and I think a lot of our guests have really helped us. So I would just encourage all of our guests that are joining us for this podcast to really take a moment and take a look at some of the last podcasts we've done and listen to them, and there's really a lot to gain from some of the experience from some of our guests have brought over. So I guess, with that said, I guess today we're going to review a little bit of that, mike. So where do we start?
Speaker 1:You know it's a little bit of a review, but I think it's a lot of what we're talking about. I think, as we end this year, this podcast will come out in December, january and December 2024, january 2025, just to let you know if you don't know when this is being recorded. I think one of the things as we go into a new year, there's always some excitement and some trepidation because you don't know what the economy is going to bring in 2025. We know there's going to be a new administration as far as the country's leadership, and that can bring about some changes. And even Garrett's based out of California. I live in California and so we know in California we have a very interesting political climate that we never know what it's going to do to business.
Speaker 1:But I think one of the things that the messages and Garrett mentioned, we just finished our live patient treatment program, so we spent a lot of time with our doctors during that course and just in the time that I've spent in 2024, kind of traveling around the country as we did education programs, I'm really stressing that we all, through education and knowledge, bring more value to our practices. I think that's bringing more services to our patients that we could help them with. Because if a patient has a problem that they can see and identify and we have a solution such as aesthetics or implants or TMD or airway so many different areas today in dentistry we can go that our practices will survive and do well. And I think one of the things and, garrett, we can talk about this is you open up well, we don't open up newspapers anymore, but we open up our text or our whatever kind of social media we have and it's feeding us either good news or bad news. And you know, I think one of the things that we have to remember is, even if you open up the, your social media, and it says the world's coming to an end because the economy is going to crash one, you know it's probably social media hype, but I I talk about there's a mic, a macro and a microeconomic area that we work in. So if it says that the economy, let's say in California, is not going to grow, then I think a lot of us think our practices are going to have a hard time in the coming future. But what I always like to remember is we control, kind of our microeconomics of our practice and we can take our practice and, as long as you know, dentistry is one of the most recession-proof professions because people need to see the dentist no matter what the economy is doing. So we're sheltered a little bit from that. But if we can bring value to our patients, I think we can all thrive, even when the rest of the economy is flat or maybe even shrinking. And I think, garrett, that's one of the points that you and Stephanie have tried to bring to us during the last year and a half is that we really have to run our businesses like a business and not haphazardly.
Speaker 1:I think dentistry we've kind of morphed where dentists used to do well, I don't know. We've kind of morphed where dentists used to do well. You know, I don't know, almost 40 years ago, when we started practice, the thing was you, you just figure out where you want to practice, which was kind of basically where you want to live, and you hung up a shingle that said dentist and you were going to do okay for the rest of your life. Today it's a little bit different and you hang up that shingle and that just means I have lots of debt and I've got to get rid of that. So I think you really have to manage your practice, so your practice can thrive, so you can pay off the debt. Once you get rid of the debt, then your life gets a lot better. I don't know, garrett, what do you say?
Speaker 2:No, I agree. I think that you brought up some good points, mike. I think every year things change and we've had, politically and economically, a lot happen between 2023 and 2024. And I look at that really as we can call. Some people call it a paradigm shift. I think it really is.
Speaker 2:I think COVID 2019, everybody thought the world was going to come to an end, with business and so forth and so on. All these delays and, ironically, if you really take yourself away from the fear for a minute which ironically I did it was a rare moment of clarity for me and I wrote a letter to my business colleagues. I said this is a change, this is going to be a new chapter, but if you take a look at what really should happen, this could be and should be the biggest economic opportunity we've ever had in the last 20 years, these next three or four years. That's what I said. I actually said that to Stephanie and I sent that letter to my colleagues that were kind of they were afraid. You know what's going to happen. Businesses are shutting down, everything's going to collapse and very quickly. Within six to seven months, we entered into a micro economic uh explosion where there was a lot of extra cash, the highest technical unemployment the world has seen since the 20s. Everybody locked down, yet the economy was booming, so there was an opportunity there when things looked the most bleak. And now we come fast forward between 2023 and 2024, and it's been rough the last year, with interest rates increasing from 3% to 8% from that ability to access credit. Have confidence in your house, appreciating. All those things have changed and people are not spending as much money.
Speaker 2:Folks, if we're talking about dentistry, they have to go to the dentist, but there's a difference between need-based dentistry and want-based dentistry, and we know that. I don't want to get too far off my thought process, but we know that if you have a dental business now, you're not just doing want-based dentistry. If you're successful, you're doing a whole variety of services that are far beyond just a filling or a toothache. And I look at 23 to 24 as a lot of fear and a lot of concern about what's going to happen in the future. And now I look at that as entering a new chapter, and I think we're entering a new chapter that's going to really be exciting. Just like in 2019, everyone's a little bit afraid. I always ask this question were you more afraid in 2019 during the lockdown, or are you more afraid now? Way easier now, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:Way easier now because we're dealing with some things that we can specifically target Maybe some spending and buying habits of folks out there that concern us, maybe interest rates, maybe how to get new patients concerned about insurance. But there's a lot of exciting opportunities to change your dental business now, and what I wrote down here is every new chapter brings opportunity, and so I tend to get excited. That's just my DNA. I tend to get excited when we see these big walls go up, because that means, mike, we just did a take a step back, we just did. Mike just did a follow-up lecture a week ago with our dental students that graduated and Mike talked about the 10% of doctors that do something different versus the 90% that do everything the same way. And, mike, you can talk about that a little bit here.
Speaker 2:And if you take a look at where we're headed now in 2025, with dental insurance, there are a lot of exciting ways to avoid and not only avoid the negative part of dental insurance, but also to change and implement a new strategy in the dental practice, which I think we're going to talk about the upcoming podcast um to address insurance and actually make more money. We have doctors that have taken that negative subject and in six or seven months they've turned that fear into profit, predictably, predictably, um. We look at the dsos and what's happening with them. There's a lot of change there and because now we have some experience to look back in the rearview mirror on the DSOs, I think doctors can make a more educated decision whether it's right for them, instead of the question mark am I missing an opportunity they can now talk to their colleagues about. Is it working for you, not working for you? What are those pitfalls? And is there another way to take my dental practice versus leaving it where it is or a dso? Is there a third option?
Speaker 2:And there is a third option, mike, and I think you and I have talked about that. So, for every fear, I look at it as an opportunity, a real opportunity. Sometimes it takes time and some planning to figure out what that opportunity is, but I think what's great about the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum specifically is you have a group of colleagues within the pack that have varying skills and expertise, such as yourself, mike, and some of our instructors that are involved in DSOs, telling us whether they're winning or losing or what they would change. We have doctors that have gone independent away from Delta and doctors that are in Delta. Some are winning, some are losing. We can take all that information and share that with ourselves so that you can make great decisions for this next chapter.
Speaker 2:So, I'm excited about. I'm excited about where we've been and I'm looking at 2025, specifically with all the questions that the doctors have and say, man, I really believe there's a solution, not just a guess, not just this could happen if you work hard, but specific things you can do in your dental business today, whether you're an associate, or whether you're a 10-year dentist practicing for 10 years or more, that you can increase how fun it is, do the kind of dentistry, like Kathy Jamison said, you want to do, live the kind of life you want to live, and have a strategy that supports that, that you can have confidence in. And I think that's really what we've been talking about.
Speaker 2:In my mind and, I think, the doctors, mike, that we've been talking to, there still is a lot of fear about what do I do. Do I go DSO? Do I drop Delta? How do I plan my business? Do I get bigger? Do I get smaller? So, hopefully, hopefully, some of what we covered in the past addresses that and hopefully, going forward, we can talk a little bit about that Now you're right, you know I did the same thing back.
Speaker 1:If you Talk a little bit about that, no, you're right, you know, I did the same thing back. There's recordings when I did podcasts and just videos back in 2020. And when we were all locked down during COVID and I was doing webinars and things, I kept telling the doctors the same thing that this is the biggest opportunity we're going to have to do well in our practices. And I was urging everybody during our lockdown in 2020, that's the time to really get the education. I know we all went to webinars and things like that because that's the only education we could get, but I was really telling the doctors that was the time because, just like in the 1920s, as you mentioned, with the Spanish flu, after that was done, the value of our economy doubled over the next 10 years, and we've seen that again, because whenever you have something that's a negative, like the Spanish flu, and then the government comes in and pumps in all this money, that money has to go somewhere. So that's the best time to capitalize. And I think where some were concerned, you know, were they going to survive and all the different thoughts that we had in our head. Again, if you take a very positive outlook that, okay, we're going to get through this. And when we get through this, I'm going to expand my practice, because after something bad, something good usually happens. You know, life kind of goes in this ebb and flow. I think you would have been well prepared. So I think the last couple of years hopefully those that are watching and listening did well, because hopefully you took the advice that we were giving and you expanded.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that we've discussed before too is one the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum. When you look at the programs, we talk about aesthetics, but so much more than aesthetics because, as I mentioned before, 30 years ago when we talked about aesthetic programs, people were teaching us how to do veneers. You know, and it was you had to learn bonding, because bonding, even 20 years ago, was kind of controversial what techniques, what materials and everything do you use, whereas today bonding is kind of a common thing. You know, prep, design of a veneer prep is still a little bit different. I don't know many dental schools that are teaching veneer prep. So having that postgraduate education is important.
Speaker 1:But I think aesthetics is so much more now, because now, if somebody is missing a tooth in the front. You may not just do a bridge there that's what we used to teach in aesthetic programs but you might place an implant. So how do you place the implant? What implants you use?
Speaker 1:If somebody has a tooth in the front and you're gonna do a veneer or maybe a crown on that tooth, but they've got an abscess there, well then that's where endodontics comes into play. And because now we're trying to be minimally invasive and there's been articles published about minimally invasive dentistry Instead of prepping a tooth, we might just move a tooth and then put a veneer over it with a very conservative preparation. So today to do aesthetic dentistry, you almost have to be that super generalist. And I think that's where the education that the PAC offers can really expand, that the pack offers can really expand, because if you can do an aesthetic case where you can place an implant, do a root canal, move the teeth and do a veneer prep, that's going to impact everything else you do in your practice. And now you're going to go from and we talked about this to our new grads that many of them had not done 10 unit cases before. Well, now they've done a 10 unit case and the next level we're going to go to 14 units and then the next level, after that we may go to 28 units, and once you can do 14 or 28 units, doing a three unit bridge or doing 10 units seems like something that's relatively easy, and so one of the one of the books I'm reading on the EOS life I think they summarize it really well and I think in the in the coming year, we'll try to get our members and our graduates kind of focused on this. But they define it as life doing what you love with people you love, while making a huge difference, being compensated appropriately and having time for other passions. And I think when you take that sentence and that lifestyle, that's what we're trying to help our members create and you know we talk about. You could have information, but if you never implement that information, then your life's never going to change and I think, coming that we're at the end of this year.
Speaker 1:The beginning of next year I mentioned during our meeting is we had our team meeting with our staff in the office where we planned out what we want to accomplish in 2025. And it's not just what we want to accomplish, but how we're going to accomplish that and fortunately, in our office I told our team we've got the basic building blocks, we don't have to make any big changes. We have all the information we need to implement airway TMD, aesthetics, implants, endo and all that. But there's just little tweaks we can create, like even case presentation to our patients to build the value of what we're providing to them so they see that value in the service connected with the cost. And again, if the value is greater than the cost, then patients don't have a problem. But if the value looks greater than well, if the value is greater than the cost, then patients don't have a problem. But if the value looks greater than well, if the cost looks greater than the value they're going to receive, then that's where you have the problem.
Speaker 1:So a lot of that's communication and a lot of what we're trying to work with our members to appreciate and just get those finer points. And, as you mentioned, we're getting through this together because many of us in practice, even if you're in a group type of practice or a DSO, you know many times you're just so busy you're working kind of by yourself and what we're trying to do is we're trying to create that strong community and we've got some great doctors that we work with now, both as members of our group and as educators within our group, and I thanked everybody when we had our last meeting last week, because getting together with everybody has made me better too. So it's really a fun way of kind of expanding what you think is possible and then seeing you know, when you see somebody else who has a practice that you've dreamed of but you never thought you could achieve, and then you have a chance to ask them what's it like and you envision yourself being there. And then you ask them how did you get there? And then you think, okay, I can take those steps, and then you can achieve that life that had everything that I was talking about. So I don't know, I think you know myself. I'm blessed We've got.
Speaker 1:This year is probably going to be one of our best years, you know again after COVID, and I'm looking forward to 2025 as being an even better year. And people ask me well, when are you going to stop? You've been doing this for a long time. I go, I'm just having too much fun. So no one didn't cite yet.
Speaker 2:No, I think, Mike, you hit on all those points. We don't have Stephanie on today. I invited her but she's holding the fort down. She couldn't be in the meeting today.
Speaker 2:But we talked about all these things can get overwhelming, all these different elements. All these things can get overwhelming, all these different elements Offering the services that are distinctive, that patients are looking for. Right, we talked about. You talked about in the past what differentiates you from the other practices in your community and how important it is to differentiate yourself as a practice, having a positive internal environment. That means your team and yourself and practicing the way you want to practice and having it be profitable and doing all that in a predictable fashion. And that falls back on blueprinting or planning your business strategy and finding that balance that we talk about, that we all talk about.
Speaker 2:But dentistry has become much more complicated. It used to be put a graduate, go to the bank. I remember back in 1993 or 92 when I started in this business. I remember um Kevin Dillon from Leach and Dillon, a metal company, sitting down with me and he'd been in the industry for 40 years and his son is still in the business today. Kevin and I talked a lot and just tried to get some information from him. And he told me back then if you're going to be successful in the laboratory business or any business in dentistry, you have to differentiate yourself. And he kind of held his finger up and he said that one want you to figure out what this is. And when you figure out, that is call me, but I'm not going to tell you. But basically what he was saying is if you're just going to sell my tooth hurts, come into practice and I'll fix it and that's my business. You're not going to make it. If you're just going to make, you know if you're going to do crowns, make crowns for dennis, and you're just gonna make. You know if you're gonna do crowns, make crowns for dentists and you're gonna be the best price in town. You're not. You're not gonna make it. You know it's. It's more it's I want to say it's more complicated out. But it involves more than that. And you said earlier, mike, you know, used to build, just put a sign up dentist.
Speaker 2:Remember Kevin told me that the doctors he worked for it would graduate, they would go back to their small town. The bank would usually call them, they would close the bank down and have a little party and say Dr Miyazaki just graduated dental school, congratulations. Everybody from town would be there. They would have some champagne and then they would ask Mike how much money he needed to open up his dental practice in town. And that was it, and you were successful. That was what it was 40 years ago and now today it's completely 180 degrees from that.
Speaker 2:You're graduating, you're working for institutional company most likely you're trying to. You're investing a million dollars, probably in a dental practice, or you're buying buying an existing practice and you're carrying debt from school, possibly debt from the bank. It's difficult to qualify. There's a lot more risk. So it truly is a career where there is high risk involved and high money at stake and a lot of experience of debt to get up to the plate.
Speaker 2:So it's overwhelming and I do think that it's nice to talk about how positive things can be, but I think, talking about wanting to have Stephanie here, I think it's so important to have a plan and understand specifically your plan whether you're practicing now and you want it to be better, or whether you're just getting into the dental business and you want to in your dental first dental practice and you want to think. I just really think that, as Kathy said, really defining how you see yourself living your life from here forward and then moving backwards from that and saying this is how much time I want to practice, this is where I want to practice, this is how I want to practice, and what am I missing in my basket to be able to accomplish that? And then how do I go out and get that? And we, stephanie and I, are excited about 2025 because we're evolving. I think one of the things we have to offer as a dental laboratory and as a company in general that manages several businesses is a directive coaching, meaning, if you're not sure how to do some of these things, you can call myself, or you can call Mike and say hey, mike, I want to do all these things, but I'm overwhelmed. I'm not really sure what kind of services I should be offered and what should I go learn first? And what's the most important? That's a million dollar question, mike, if you're just starting out do I learn implants first, or do I learn orthodontics first, or do I go learn occlusion first? What do I learn first?
Speaker 2:A lot of doctors want to learn what they want to learn and they want to jump forward, but I think it's important to get some real consulting to understand clinically what is most important in the queue and then from the business side, to be able to contact somebody like Stephanie to say, hey, I have an existing practice, it's working, but I don't really know if we're doing good or doing bad and I don't really understand each of my departments and where we should be focusing and not pushing. So I want to let everybody out there know that. You know, seeking directive consulting is more important now than ever, not just for marketing although that's the third leg on the milk stool and I want to talk a little bit about that today, mike and not just about business and not just about the opportunity but marketing has changed completely and we focused a little bit about that on that in the last year. But you're there, you know how to do these fundamental services. You have some expertise and doing implants and ortho and some anterior aesthetics and your bonding.
Speaker 2:How do you get the word out? Is your website relevant? Are you sending the right message? Social media should you? You know it's no more put your name in the phone book or go to Toastmasters. That doesn't work anymore Now. It's a completely different strategy and that's specialized, that's a specialized department, just like your services. So, mike, those are the things that I think that I want to make sure that our audience is thinking about is about you know, understanding where they want to go from here forward, understanding, really, what patients are looking for, how to differentiate themselves, things that you've talked about, and then how do you put that all together in a profitable bundle and in a plan and market it. So we haven't talked about marketing so much today, but you know, that's the other thing. Like, what are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 1:no, I think you're absolutely, but you know that's the other thing, mike. What are your thoughts about that? No, I think you're absolutely right. You know, I think one of the the the podcast that we did it wasn't a YouTube, but the podcast that we did on reducing your dependence on insurance whether you stay with insurance or or or let insurance go we talked about one of the big points is your insurance is often your main marketing arm and that's why we stay with insurance, because if you belong to ABC Insurance Company and they have a lot of subscribers, then those subscribers are going to seek you out because you take ABC Insurance. And if you ever decide to not rely so much on insurance, then you've got to develop some other type of marketing.
Speaker 1:I actually look at it as a lot of fun today, because today, using social media is probably the biggest way of doing it. It's fun to create content. You create legacy. Your great great grandkids someday can watch a video you put out there. So I look at it as kind of something that's fun. But I think you're absolutely right, you really have to focus on marketing. I think no matter what business you're in dentistry or selling hot dogs I think you've got to have the marketing thing down, and that's something that I hope we can talk about more, you know, in the future programs coming up. I think a couple of things that you said that are right on is like going back to the endo example. Last week I did an endo webinar and you know the whole thing was doing your root canal and your crown all in one visit, and it wasn't that you always have to do it that way, but just showing how we dentistry has changed so much. We can become, be so much more efficient than we used to be, as long as we have kept with the education on the new techniques and everything. So that is the exciting part. I think it's taking the education, the knowledge, implementing it and then just having fun. You know we've talked about this, but it's really designing the life that you want.
Speaker 1:So back, you know, almost 40 years ago now next year will be 38 years in practice for me when I got out, you know, as a new grad, you kind of let the excitement carry you and the profession kind of takes you wherever it may. Then quickly I learned, wow, dentistry is a lot of work, and so I was working four 10-hour days and I thought, wow, four 10-hour days, that's amazing, I don't have to work four days a week, which gives me three days off. And I thought, wow, four 10-hour days, that's amazing, I don't have to work four days a week, which gives me three days off. And I thought, well, that's an amazing life, and you're young and doing dentistry is kind of fun and your body's a little bit better able to take all the stress of practicing dentistry. And then, I guess seven years after that, I said, wow, what choices do I have? And so I went from a 40 hour a week and we went down to a 24 hour a week. And you know, one of the things I always share with the doctors is is now I had more time to enjoy family, the other passions in my life that I had.
Speaker 1:But what I noticed was my production working 40 hours a week and my production working 24 hours a week stayed the same, you know, and part of it, I think, was just, I was more rested and we just. You know, it's one of those things where if you say I've got this project and it's going to take me two hours to get that project done, so you schedule out two hours in your daily schedule, it's going to take you two hours to get that project done. If you take that same project and you go wow, you know I've got to squeeze it into the hour opening that I have, you'll get it done in that hour. So I think you actually work more efficiently and you get as much done in a shorter amount of time and your body feels better and you get done, used to get done with. We used to start at seven in the morning, work till one and then take off the rest of the afternoon, or we'd work from one to seven, which meant we had the whole morning. So we'd alter our schedules and it was a way we designed the practice that could support that and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:So I always tell the doctors that I meet. You know they'll say well, I can't do that or I can't do this, I go. You know you can do whatever you want, because in dentistry the privilege that we have been in this profession is we can design the life that we want. And you might say well, you know the corporate structure that I work within won't allow me to do that, which is probably true, but you always have the option. You can start your own practice your own business and practice the way you want.
Speaker 1:So, you know, I hope we use this time that we have during this program just to expand the thinking, because if we teach you something, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to implement what we teach. But being around us, hopefully you're going to learn a different way of thinking and I think that's really the value. You know, it's being around all my entire life. I think I've professional life, I think I've been very lucky because I've been able to be with people that were those that thought differently. You know, in aesthetics it was the Larry Rosenthal's, the Bill Dickerson's, the David Hornbrook's, everybody that thought differently. Those are the people that I was hanging around with when it came to occlusion I, you know I was hanging out with Peter Dawson or Bob Jankelson and they were these pioneers in what we learned about in occlusion. And so through all that, I think you know my thinking has just always been dentistry can be what you make of it. So I would really encourage people listening to this to.
Speaker 1:Dewey said so. We're in a business and many times we feel the pressure of that business and it's just like brushing us and we don't know what to do. Who do we reach out to. So you brought up a good point. Turn to Stephanie. If you've had a chance maybe not on the YouTube yet, we haven't had her, I think, on YouTube, but we have her in the podcast Turn to Stephanie.
Speaker 1:Stephanie can look at the numbers of your practice and give you an idea of where you are and really crunch those numbers down and you might see that your supply bill's too high or there's another area that's too high that you can control.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's your payroll. So it gives you an idea of where to make corrections in your practice and as you start to make those corrections, things fall back in line. It just puts you back in control and the stress begins to ease. And when the stress begins to ease, I think your clinical work improves and you feel better. And all you have to do is just trust somebody and say you know, can you help me? And I think in dentistry we don't say can you help me? Dentists, you know we're many times we want to be the ones that fix things and rely upon ourselves. And so I think what you've brought up is reach out to Stephanie. You know, reach out to whoever. You know that we're just here to to help and I think that's going to be a game changer for a lot of people in 2025.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mike, I agree. I, if I look back at you, know the influences that that were profitable in my life. They all, a hundred percent, 100%, relate back to education and people I met in that world For me not so much on the clinical side but on the business side meeting Bill Blatchford, meeting Kathy Jamison, meeting Gary you know a lot of these different guys that were there that were doing the consulting, the business consulting side and the marketing consulting side, and then hanging around really world-class clinicians. We used to say I used to bring work back to the laboratory and my partner back then would say hey, caldwell, you're playing in the NFL and we're a little league over here and we're trying to deliver these spectacular results, but we don't have the capacity. So what really helped the lab get better and elevate its expertise was the demand of hanging around the best of the best. And so when you are in education and you're around people that are teaching, you're around generally the more successful clinicians and they're always willing to share. So I thought one of the most important parts, the most important part, and if you talk to larry rosenthal or to to you mike at lvi, or to to david hornbrook, they'll all tell you the same thing. There's a lot of great things to learn in education, but the camaraderie. Everyone wants to come back for the camaraderie and the reason is that everyone's got issues and problems and when you're around people that have the same challenges, you're not only able to talk to people, because dentistry is a lonely business. We always talk about that. You're there alone. So if you're involved in a group in education, you have people to go hang out with that are involved in the same thing and generally people that are experiencing success.
Speaker 2:You can just copy that and you know there's a guy doing this and it's not working for you. What are you doing? You're copying it at work so you don't have to wait. You know the 10,000 hours principle. You know you don't have to wait 10,000. That's why they call it a dental practice, because it takes 10 years or 10,000 hours before you're really good at what you do. Well, we don't have that kind of time anymore. You know the rent is due, the lease is due, the bills are high. You need to really be able to try to pick this up, especially if you're a sole practitioner paying the overheads. You want to be able to be profitable as quickly as possible. I don't know any other way, any other way.
Speaker 2:One piece of advice forget consulting, forget going to the ADA or go somewhere where you're getting education with a group of colleagues, whether it be Rosalind Paul's program, whether it be the PAC. When you go to those places, you have those experts in a casual environment for usually 30 to 40 hours for the program and everything's there. The problems you're having today, the direction you want to go, people you can pick up the phone, the call, you make new friends and I always say everybody kind of knows this but you always want to be the least successful person in the room. Because when you're hanging around really smart people, if I'm the dumbest guy in the room, I'm going to probably be the smartest person of the other 90% and that's good enough for me. I don't need to be number one, but if I can be in that top 10% of people that are happy, successful, making money, investing my money wisely, having a successful personal life, that's what happens when you get into.
Speaker 2:Even for you and I, mike, when you get around successful people in these programs, we may be putting the program on, but all of a sudden you get exposed to so many new things from people that you're hanging out with and you're teaching with. So I just encourage, I just want to reiterate what you're, I think, saying, mike, and if anybody has to take anything on, I think it's sign up for a hands-on course, get into a study group. Study groups have kind of fallen away because you know everything's become online. But jump into an online study group. Jump into one of Mike's lectures. Mike, I don't know, I think we're going to be posting more next year where you're speaking and what you're doing, so other folks can take a look at it. Join. But it's great to learn the knowledge, but it's more important to develop the relationships.
Speaker 1:I think, and I think that that's more important now than ever to be around a group of doctors yeah, no, uh, and you know we're talking about education, but we talked about the dental lab side of things and I think it's really important because, uh, today you know talking about the numbers a lot of times as we're feeling that financial crunch, we'll look for alternative services or items to buy. And so what's one of our biggest ventures? You know, every month you get that lab bill and that lab bill could be a couple thousand dollars and you think, wow, you know, if I could cut a couple thousand dollars off of that, that, you know that would help. And so I know one of the things is I choose to use CORE as our dental lab because one they're used to doing these larger cases for educational programs. So you know they've we talked about this in our program.
Speaker 1:When you deliver a tenient case, typically you have fewer adjustments on the restorations when you place a 10-unit case than you might from a regular lab. When you place a single unit crown Many times that inexpensive crown that you get from whoever you're going to adjust the contacts a little bit in approximately occlusal. Maybe the margins fit, maybe they don't, maybe the aesthetics is good, maybe they're not, and there's all these variables. And so I've taught to doctors that use other labs and you know they just feel like they have to because of the financial restraints. Yeah, they've got to find the cheapest right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know what happens is they get patients in and they try a crown in and it doesn't fit. Well, the margins or, um, you know the color's not right or there's something that's off. And so what do they end up doing? They, you know they may have none the patient up already to take the temporary off. They do the try-in, something doesn't fit. Now they've got to take that off, maybe take a new impression, you know, depending on why it didn't turn out the first time, and then to put the temporary back on. Then they got to get the patient back.
Speaker 1:And I just think of all that time. And you know, in a dental office today, I would say every hour we need to be generating about a thousand dollars of of revenue. And if that appointment takes 15, 20 minutes, that's like a 400 appointment right there. And so if and I think core has very affordable crown fees, right so. But let's take an extreme. Let's say, from that core experience, I could find a crown for $50 less or whatever. I think it'd be hard to find any greater difference. But that if I had to deliver that crown and I had to adjust mesial, distal and occlusal to get that crown to even fit, and then it was just okay. I mean, you know, we're trying to deliver the best we can to our patients and if it's just okay and it's not, let's say, a core restoration, there's no pride that you take in it, it's just a crown, right. And so I think there's so many areas where that hurts, but just financially. I look at paying for a crown that's made in the US, where we know what the materials are, we know that's gonna be non-toxic to our patients, that's gonna fit, you know, provided we have a good prep and a good impression. That just takes so much weight off.
Speaker 1:And I just again, you know, through education, you would look at education and say, well, I can't afford the education. The education can basically be paid for by either the lab if you participate with CORE, or by the patients, like in this last course the patients were basically paying the tuition for the doctors to attend the course, but then the patients got a great deal on their new smile. I would just again, it goes back to the value and the cost, right. So if the value is greater than the cost, and when you look at education or you look at the quality of the lab restorations, coming back from the lab. If it's saving me time, that's going to make up for any cost difference.
Speaker 1:If I send it overseas, to a place where I don't even know who it is that's working on my restorations, I don't have that personal service. I don't have somebody that I can call up and say, hey, can you manage this? Because some cases are very difficult and we've all dealt with cases like that. I just don't want the doctors to short change themselves and make their life more difficult in trying to take shortcuts. So again, it goes back to develop your life, develop the partners you want to have in your professional practice, which includes the laboratory, and if you design all that well, then I think you can have a life that has less stress than the average life of our colleagues and of anybody in any profession.
Speaker 1:So I just want to bring that up because I know sometimes I run into colleagues and they're using a lab and ask them well, what's your experience with that lab? And they go. Well, you know, sometimes they fit, sometimes they don't, but it's a lot less expensive. And I go. But do you really understand what the cost of that time loss is to you? And you know if you and the stress because nobody wants to tell the patient, hey, this doesn't fit, I've got to send it back. And you know it's just, it really becomes lose, lose and we want every experience for you to be win-win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, mike, and now more than ever, I think realistically. 15 years ago you could see a crown fee at $135 and one at $75, and there could be a $50 difference. But now, with the changes that we've had to invest in as well, because of the big impacts of insurers, because of the DSOs, because of milling and technology I should just say technology in general that has come in, prices on crowns have dropped and the reality is probably between the least expensive crown you could buy now and our most expensive crown is about $14. $14.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about a monolithic posterior restoration.
Speaker 2:Okay, Just you know, obviously you can do hand later. You know veneer and you can spend more money. But there you're not as you want to have. I don't want to say you want to have a high level, but you better be using a lapis charging. You're probably not getting the aesthetic result and if those things don't fit, look beautiful.
Speaker 2:First time it's you're sitting on the hot seat with base. So anything discretionary will take off the table in terms of pricing. But we're competitive with all the other labs in that sense. But if you look at the restorative part, most of the lab fees are very similar. So if you're sending a crown to China for $37, and you're going to spend 70 bucks sending one to me, then there's the $30 difference. But I don't know what you're getting back. I don't know how long it's taking and probably you're not getting a good biocompatible material. I can promise you that.
Speaker 2:However, if you're using a lab in the United States or in Canada and you're paying $57 for a crown and you're paying $65 for a core, my argument is there's a $14 or $15 difference there from Cora. My argument is there's a $14 or $15 difference there and you can be with a laboratory that, not just trust that the crown fits and looks good and doesn't need to be adjusted, etc. Etc. But what else do they offer you as a partner that brings value? If Cora only sells you a crown that's the same, no better than the other crown, then I would encourage you to go use the other lab. But when you have opportunities to have access to financial services, to professional service counseling, to education at no cost, and all the laboratory is asking you for is 14 or 15 bucks a crown, to support them in something that's returning you value, whereas 10 years ago in order to take a hands-on course, you paid nine to $10,000.
Speaker 2:You took four courses. You were minimum in for 50 grand at occlusion. Go to John Quoise so you can really understand function and you're 150,000 into your education. Just for fundamental restorative not ortho, not implants you had to invest 150 to 250,000. Am I wrong? Tell me if I'm wrong to get up to get up to the plate.
Speaker 2:I always tell doctors Mike, if you got, if I gave you all the money that you spent on education back, could you buy a nice yacht, Could you buy a nice airplane. Now we're offering these doctors the opportunity to reinvest that money in themselves and we'll support them With that. We'll reinvest our money into them if they support the laboratory and the difference in the lab fee is minimal. So the lesson here is leverage your relationships. Go to a study group to leverage your relationships and the camaraderie to find out what your neighbors are doing to solve the problems you're having. It doesn't cost you anything. You don't have to hire a consultant for $60,000 every 18 months to teach you're having. It doesn't cost you anything. You don't have to hire a consultant for 60 grand every 18 months to teach you these things.
Speaker 2:You can get a lot of the information directly from your colleagues. If there's a place to go and if you have a laboratory that has this expertise and CORE does and is willing to help you, all you gotta do is pick up the phone and CORE says, hey, if you use the lab, send me something. I don't care if you send all the work and CORE says hey, if you use the lab, send me something. I don't care. If you send all the work, Send me a couple thousand bucks. So I break it down this way to our marketing team at CORE If you can't have that kind of a discussion with your doctor to say, look, if you do 20 crowns a month times 15 bucks, you're going to spend $300 or $400 more a month at my lab If that has a major impact on your dental practice.
Speaker 2:Something else is really broken and the laboratory is going to be able to provide you access to Dr Miyazaki, to his programs, to the PAC, to education, to all of these other colleagues. How do you get off of Delta? How do you become independent? Is the DSO a right decision? Is my practice making money or not? What would you spend with a consultant? For that 60 grand? I can promise you 50 to 60,000 for an 18-month contract. Or you're going to spend 10,000 for each module where you can get it here and keep that money and reinvest it.
Speaker 2:So I've gone on and on and on about this. But I get excited because if I go into a dental practice and look at what they're spending and my question to the doctor is why are you doing this? Just tell me why. Why are you milling and what is the return for that? The cost of the machine is $100,000. You're paying this much for that, this much for the materials, and you're doing 14 crowns a month. Could you take that money and invest it somewhere else and send to a lab? Or do you really need a milling machine? Yeah, but it's quicker for my patients. So what's the return on that? So answering all these questions now becomes really important to be successful. So my argument with your lab is is, if your lab is only providing laboratory services, that you should find the cheapest lab that provides a crown that fits and just delivers what you need delivered. But if your laboratory is offering you something more and if you're leveraging your time around people that are successful that can help you grow your business I think that's my message for this year is hang around people that can move you forward.
Speaker 2:Don't hang around people that are doing the same old thing. Move you forward. Don't hang around people that are doing the same old thing. And it kind of comes right back to what I said at the beginning of our presentation today. Mike is what you said in our lecture the other night is that you have to differentiate yourself and if you're going to hang around the 90% of docs that are doing the same old thing, you're probably not going to be successful. You have to hang around the 10% that are moving or dynamic and doing different things, and then it's likely that, even if you're unsuccessful, you're going to be very, very way ahead of the game and probably very profitable. You might not be doing 3 million, but you might not be 700,000 either on your month.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of my message.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. We talked about in the last programs too, or over the last year that you know when you get out of dental school, the knowledge that you have getting out of dental school will make you a living. You know you can. You can find people that need fillings and crowns, but what you learn after you graduate and you know many years into your career, that'll make you the fortune, that will give you that light that we're talking about, where you can enjoy your other passions, and I think that's what's really important. I think a lot of dentists today they feel like they can't enjoy the other passions because they're working so hard.
Speaker 1:I talked to doctors as I travel again around the country. Some are working Saturdays, some are just working just crazy hours and you know're they're making a living, but I just they're. They're trying to manage their work. That's stressing them out and taking up so much time with their family. You know that's should be the most important thing to them. They understand that and it just creates all this stress in their life and it even stresses me out. When I talk to these doctors and you know I I tell them I go, you know, during the, during this time when you listen to this, use it as inspiration to sit down and figure out if you could design the life that you wanted.
Speaker 1:How many hours would you work a week? How much does it take for you to support your life and your lifestyle? Could you adjust anything there? You know, is there anything that's way over the top, extravagant, that maybe you can pick up later? But if everything's kind of in line, then look at okay, how many hours do you want to work? In those hours, what do you have to produce or collect in your practice or whatever your working situation is, in order to adequately take care of that lifestyle that you have, take care of your family, and then you know.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things is that if that number is, you've got to do $1,000 an hour. Well, through education and all the different things that we talked about it could be root canals, it could be doing implants, more aesthetics you could increase that hourly production from $1,000 an hour to three to five, or $10,000 an hour, you know, depending on what you're doing. And what that means is, instead of having to work 40 hard hours a week, you might be able to cut that in half and do the same amount of work, as long as you can do that work and that's what we're really about through the education that we provide through the PAC is how do you multiply the value of your services? And if you can do that, then again you design the life that you want to have. And as you talk to your colleagues, you'll run into doctors that have that lifestyle and if you really look at what they've done is they've spent a lot of time learning how to provide higher revenue producing services and they've gotten very good at that. And now they lead a life that you sit back and go.
Speaker 1:I want that life and so don't accept where you are. And if you are one of those doctors that has everything kind of figured out, then hey, come and join the group and share those thoughts and how you got there. You know, with our community, that we have within the pack, because that's really what we're all about, as you brought it before, is everybody helps each other to get ahead and you know, for some I think about this too it's not working 20 hours a week that some want. Some want 40 hours a week or more, because they just love the, the, the dentistry that they do. So we're all we're all. That ideal life or that ideal balance in life is is different for many of us and there's not a right or wrong. But that again that's the beauty of dentistry is we can live the life that we want. So don't let it just happen to you Design that life. I guess that's my message.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, mike, I agree, and again, I think you can get it all by. I think it's more important now than ever and that's really my message it's more important now to take a look at the people that are influencing you and that you're hanging around. Like you said, if you're hitting on all eight cylinders and you think everything is going great, then come join us and share how you've gotten there, what you're doing and what's working. If you're not, come join us and learn, like we do every day, what we can change and make our lives more fun, easier, and realize how simple it is. I think, really, one of my other messages is Stephanie and I always talk about this. We sometimes finish up a consultation and we go man, this is, you know, when you're cutting, when you're in the diamond business, there's the guys that dig and filter and they find the diamond, and then there's the guy that cuts the facets and polishes it, and that job requires years. We're not talking about that. We're talking about, usually, just the washing of the rock to find the diamond. Most of the issues we see are that the fundamentals, the simplest things that we observe that we can help change, the easiest things, will have the biggest impact for the majority of doctors we consult with. So I guess my message is this sounds like a lot like oh man, implants and this and that and my business and structure and tracking no time out. The real message for me is, if you call up and let somebody like Stephanie take a look, she can tell you hey, here's where you're doing great, here's where you're not doing so great. Where you're not doing so great, these things really don't matter so much. This one could be a big impact, or none of these things are a big impact. You're doing pretty good. You don't need our help. You know, you just focus on maybe just introducing different services, but having that opportunity just to be able to be around people that can help you define that.
Speaker 2:I had a consulting client here where I live out of the country. Consulting a client here where I live out of the country somehow find me. Mike I don't know how she found me, I think referred and she said I run a business Bed and Breakfast. My books say I'm losing money. I seem to have money. I bought a condo for cash after 12 years, but my books show I'm operating in the red and I'm working 14 hours a day. I need help. I don't know what I'm doing. I mean I don't.
Speaker 2:It seems like it's working, but is it really? We really have the same thing with the doctors. They really don't understand. They're working hard, they're providing great, great clinical dentistry, they're passionate, but they kind of really don't know where they're at, and most of the time it's little changes. But it requires somebody like Stephanie to be able to analyze all that and deliver it in a simple way. And I think the same thing with the clinical when you come to the PAC and you go through our lecture process, you realize there's a lot of different roads you can take.
Speaker 2:But talking to somebody like you, mike, and saying, hey, mike, you know I don't have any of these, these services, what do you think? Where do you think I should start? Well, you've already paid the dumb tax we call it. You've already made the mistakes, so you're willing to share that. So how valuable is that?
Speaker 2:So I think really, my message is hang around, people that can help you without reaching into your pocket, start there first. But you got to make the first move. You've got to step out. You've got to just say I'm going to. No matter how good I think I'm doing. I'm going to step out and check that, because I think we have to look in the rear view mirror once in a while and say, well, how good are we doing, how good are we really doing? And let somebody else give you the answers for that, and then you can decide whether you want to apply them or not, if that doesn't cost you anything. I would say that that's the first thing you need to learn in business. Hang around people that can help you, because those are the people that are really going to give you the best advice, in my opinion opinion and that's what the pack is all about no, I think you're right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. Going back to the diamond example, then I'm the guy that pays for the diamond, overpays the diamond.
Speaker 2:I have to work forever just to pay that diamond off well, you know, my, you know, you have, you know, yeah, well, you make all that money. So you had everyone, everyone in your family's, in your pocket. So yeah, you've already got the diamond mind. You've got the diamond cutters working for you.
Speaker 1:That's right. I wish, well, I think, um, I think you've given us about at least a half a dozen messages, so we'll, we'll, we'll, uh, we'll call the day here. But, yeah, I hope there's some takeaways within this and I hope everybody has a great 2025. As we jump into it, I think we should be excited, not fearful. I think we should take control, design our futures and then just execute, and we're going to have a good time. Please hit subscribe to the YouTube channel that we have now.
Speaker 2:Go back. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go back and hit the share with your friends. Go back and listen to some of the podcasts. If you haven't had a chance to listen to the podcast, and we do hope that many of you will join us on the programs that the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum is doing Again, you can go to thepackorg and look up some of the information, schedules and things like that at that website. But, yeah, we hope to see everybody more. And, garrett, I think we get to wrap up 2024 now.
Speaker 2:We did it, mike. Yeah, we want to. I just would like to encourage also give us you know, tell us what you'd like to hear, what you want to know more about where the holes are in your practice, what we can do to help you, and we'll incorporate those into our YouTube presentations. Looking forward to a great 2025, mike, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, everybody, you guys take care Okay.
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