Building a Local Dental Brand That Stands Out in Any Location | Dr. Chaz Vittitow | 604

when I was first leading up to my opening of my startup, is this pepper cell of people like, "You want to be a mod VIP list? "I've been wanting to first you what I call "when I come to open as opposed to me saying, "Hey, do you need a dentist? "Can I call you when we open? "You want people to feel like they're a part something." (dramatic music) - Welcome to the Dental Marketer. This is your go-to podcast for diving deep into the world of business, marketing, self-development, and dentistry. From startup secrets to real talk with the pros, we've got it all. So whether you're just starting out or you're deep in years in running your own practice, join us for a mix of success stories, a few learning curves, and loads of insights from the brightest in the industry. We'll chat, learn, and grow together one episode at a time. (dramatic music) What does it actually take to build a dental practice people choose? Even in a saturated market. Well, in this episode, Dr. Chaz Vidital breaks it down step by step from naming and branding your practice so it stands out to using local partnerships and community positioning to become the first office people think of when they need a dentist. But more importantly, you're gonna get the exact playbook behind his growth. For example, this episode's gonna include how he went from startup to 2.2 million while working nine to four and taking 10 plus weeks off. You're also gonna get the ground marketing and referral strategies he used early and still uses today to drive consistent new patients. The real numbers behind PPO's, including 500 to 600,000 in annual write-offs, and how to exit them without losing your practice. A clear, repeatable timeline, around two to six months to drop insurance the right way and keep 70% of your patients or more. The exact scripts and language shifts that increase treatment acceptance and build trust instantly. He also talks about how to use price stacking and storytelling to help patients say yes without feeling sold. Why your team's communication, not your clinical skill, is the biggest growth lever. The hiring philosophy that changed everything went to hire people before you're ready and when to let people go. And then the monthly training system that keeps your entire team aligned and dramatically improves case acceptance. Chas also gets real about what ownership actually feels like. Uncertainty, pressure, and the moment things finally start to click when you dial in profit, people, and systems. So if you want a practical real world blueprint, not theory for growing a practice that's profitable, scalable, and built around your life, this episode delivers it. So let's listen in to Dr. Chas Vittetow. Chas, how's it going? - It's very Michael. - Yeah, happy to be on the show. - No, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate it. Right now, let's dive into it. What's been taking up most of your mental space lately? - Oh man, I mean, how much practice on her? You know, I'm three years into my, after my story of practice. I've got four kids in council. Yeah, I think just life would bring them to family, you know, trying to manage our business, be a normal guy on the way that enjoys living in the Northwest as this takes a blow on my town. - Yeah. - I have a quick question. The name of the local dentist, you just decided we're gonna be called the local dentist practice, right? - Yeah. Well, one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Blaschard once upon a time is sometimes it's better to be different than good, you know? And so when I was going to pick my practice name, when I was starting my practice, you know, I was like, do I name it myself? Do I name it something that's kind of PNW vibes and up here in Bellingham, Washington. There were one of my friends was like, Chaz, no one of you like, you should just call it the local. And I was like, do I'm from Kentucky originally? I'm not even from this area, you know? I've just seen kind of ironic, but I think that when it came down to it, I was like, you know, I kind of like that. It's kind of a brand that feels just a little bit different. It's not ever green dental or bit of toe family dentistry or whatever. And it kind of goes along with the vibe of like our matriots. We want to be the best and serve the least, you know? And we want people to think of us when it's like, okay, we need someone to help out this person who's in need or we need someone to help us find through this community event. We want people to think of us first. And they just kind of let into some cool branding because we call it, you know, it's like, hey, here at TLD, you know, the local dentists and we know the partner with a lot of other local businesses, like in our, you know, we call our lounge or a lobby. We have a screen of just like all our patients who own small businesses and we just kind of highlight them and help promote them. And so yeah, just here to serve the community and just to be the first officer we'll think of when they need something. Yeah, I like it though, the local dentists. I don't know, it sounds like something where, is that in the works where it can like grow to more locations, more spots where. Yeah, I think that's part of it. But when you pick a name that's not so tied to that town or that street or your name, it makes it easier to be like, well, hey, everyone have a second location or would have common offshoot for, I do the airway stuff that we're there. And we can be like, they have the local sleep in D&J or some found out, like kind of create some avenues for that. But I'm not, no, that's necessary. So in my long term goal, did it could be an option? Yeah, interesting. So when you think about ownership today, what feels fundamentally different compared to earlier seasons? Yeah, well, I may be having a little bit of a look back into history because my dad was a dentist. You know, I grew up in Central Kentucky. He was a dentist there for almost 30 years. And then obviously I've been a dentist for 10 years now and now as a dentist, maybe for a period of time, I was an associate. I think dental prejudice ownership now, you know, comparatively, I mean, I think you just have a lot of, most people I talk to you like staffing is the big issue. Dental insurance companies, everything else has gone up and cost but dental insurance companies kind of staying the same or even lowering. And I think that, you know, you come out with student debt. I mean, there's a lot of barriers in place where it is my dad, you know, when I hear his story, and he comes out of dental school with like $10,000 in debts and hangs his own shingle and signs up with some insurance that works in the four you know, he's busy in a year and making money to provide for his family. So I think the industry is really different than probably most challenges just like things that are going to college are coming out with degrees that they can't use and jobs that don't pick them enough to buy their own house. And I think that you just have to be different. I always say like success or money would ever follow value. And you can't create value and ownership and it's not just automatic, you know, that it's going to be so much more lucrative or easy for you. What did you start doing at the beginning to create value as opposed to like looking back now, like let's just talk about year one to now year, year three, right? You started doing things that create value looking now you're like, man, good thing I stuck with that as opposed to like, man, good thing I didn't stick with that and I dropped it like in the first couple months. - First and foremost, you know, listen to Michael's tips, you know, that's a good, that's a good daddy version. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when I decided to do a startup, I think that one of the really good tips that a buddy of mine that the chiropractor gave is, you know, I was like, here's a lot of chiropractor in town. What does that mean? Because he did a startup chiropractor job this. And the thing that he said to me was, you know, Chad, when you see a lot of chiropractor offices, it means that it's a high value service in that area. Like there's people that want to do that service then. So that's nothing as people will be willing to be willing to go to Washington to saturate the area. There's a lot of dentists there. And as opposed to me being like, oh man, like I'm not going to be able to make it is instead, that's not well, people value this service. And if I do a scratch start, they're going to come into my office and be like, this thing is brand new. This is awesome. I want to stay here. I think the things that I did in year one was I really attacked hard on like, and just had a growth mindset on marketing. And not just like, oh, I'm going to put out a bunch of Facebook ads, but along the ground marketing or guerrilla marketing strategies that you talk about, like I just kind of said, well, I could have the embarrassed to go to the door and do this thing or I could actually just go for it and build a VIP list on our first open and ask for referrals and that sort of thing. And so some of that stuff we still do today, even being free years in and being a startup practice, I was working part time somewhere else. And I was probably a month and a half in and I thought, I'm not doing this anymore. Like I just got to go all in on myself when I committed to do that. You know, that's when my growth really took off. I mean, it's scary. And then I think for me, like I'm free years in now, so I didn't do this year one, but dropping insurance networks. Like that is such a huge, you're just fitting your wheels the more that you're writing off and taking patients really don't value your care and leading more into like the membership plans, things like that. That's something that I would encourage to us to do earlier on because you want to create space for growth. You know, way too you're maxed out and burnt out and made your own or you have to create space to grow. - I like that. It's interesting. Dropping, do you wish you would have never accepted it or looking back now, you're like, no, I think I did it in a good way, slowly drop it, trickle down. - Yeah, I think I did. I mean, when you're first opening, like you need leads, right? And so it was the way to get leads early on, but here a marketing guy like, if you think about insurance right off as a marketing cost, you're thinking to yourself, that's enormous, right? Like, I mean, you're one, I started in December of 2022, 2023, you know, we did like 1.1 million in collections, which is great for the first year, but I think we wrote off like five or six hundred tape. I mean, something crazy. You're two was better, but if you said, hey, you're gonna have a $500,000 marketing budget, I'd then also be like, that's insane. I can't afford to do that. And so I think that you have to kind of give people in and you want people to come in your office and see it and love it. And then when you drop it, hopefully you'll only lose 23% of it on mesa post, like 50%, 70%. But I think I'll like the idea of kind of giving people in early and then dropping the city, you can kind of build systems, build flow. If I would have never taken it from the first place, [BLANK_AUDIO] how much lower birth period? - When you dropped it, what was the percentage and the expectations as far as like, "Man, everybody's gonna drop me, they're gonna leave." Did that really happen? And what really did happen as opposed to like, "Okay, not many people left." - So I was a networker-thite, I think it was five or six. So it wasn't a huge number of insurance networks. The first one I dropped was kind of a smaller one, but I did use some research beforehand and I saw that most of these playing against having decent out-of-network benefits. So we tried to stay ahead of it because if you just drop it cold turkey and then they get a letter from their insurance company, like they're gonna leave, right? So we took a few months, we sent out letters, we very much detail explained why. We wanted to get in the highest quality care, we didn't want to be restricted about third party. It's important for us that we get paid and sometimes they take forever to pay us the main still deny and I want to try to, I mean, demonize them a little bit to kind of get patients on our side of like, "Hey, we actually care about you, this people don't even know you." So honestly, the first few we had lose that many, I was kind of shocked. I think before the big one, which is Delta, we would never lose more than like 10, full percent. You know, so it was okay, that's pretty good. With Delta, that's the big one, right? Because they're gonna make it really hard for you, they're gonna be like, "Well, we're not sending "the doctor any more checks, like, "patient has to stay everything out for us." And so when it came time to drop that one, everyone's like, "Oh, you're gonna lose like 50% minimum." Probably up to 70, like, they're gonna send the NASSYS letter, you know, all these things. But again, we stayed really ahead of it. We took plenty of time to tell the patients in the chair, "Hey, this is what we're doing at. "This is what we have to offer you. "Have a membership plan. "You know, you can still be seen here "perceum of filing for you." So without one, we ended up losing like 28% or something. So it was almost 30. I was trying to keep it under 30. Well, I was able to stay and then we even had some that have left and come back, you know, because one of the things I always say is like, "You're gonna do a service then, you can get it good, "you can get it fast, you can get it cheap." That's your only thing too. We may not be the cheapest in town anymore, but if you want it to be good, like whichever one wants with your NASS, well, they might go somewhere else and they're like, "Oh, if you want, "can I get in to see a high genus?" They're like, "Oh, we can get you in like a year and a half, "you know, or a year or whatever." And for us, we're like, "Hey, we reserve space "for people so they can get in quickly." And there's a lot of people who are willing to pay for that. And once they realize the value with that, then they'll stick with you. - Nice, man. Okay, interesting. - Yes. - You mentioned you have to get really ahead of it. Can you get like specific on the timeline? So let's just say someone's looking to do that, right? They're like, "Oh, but Chas said I need to do right now." So would you say plan out six months? Or what does that look like? - Yeah, I will give a little shameless plug for my channel, The Dental Jumpstart. We talk a lot about dropping insurance networks on our channel because I just think that you guys have a really good reason. If you wanted to stay in network, there's people who are like, "Well, I don't want to drop a certain insurance "because that's what all the school "and all the firefighters and waste house "ers in my town have." And I don't want to make it any harder for them on a continuous serve them. Like, that's a great reason. But if your reason is, I don't want to drop them because I don't want to lose all my patients. Like, I just think that we don't give ourselves enough credits for the value that we bring to our patients. And we let this kind of third-party referee dictate the value that we bring. And so I just try to encourage doctors like, "Hey, you can do this without losing everybody. "You just have to create value and show your value." But, and then we walk through like exactly how we did it. But yeah, I'm happy to answer the question. Basically, before I was getting ahead of it, I mean, if you want to be super safe six months because you're gonna see people at all their recalvisants, right? And you're gonna have a letter drafted, have it ready. You're gonna get you and your hygienist, and your team on board and say, "Hey, it's what you know, the next visit "where you're gonna be coming in." You know, this is a change that we're making. But the good news is, you can stay here. We're gonna help the user benefits. The reasons why we're dropping them is 'cause we don't want to sacrifice quality. And we have just been compromising this and they're putting all these restrictions on us. And we're gonna use the best lab. So we're gonna have the most highly trained staff. We're gonna put the best materials in your mouth. We don't want you to get the best care. I think trying to avoid certain verbiage like out of network instead of out of network, I would say non-restricted. We're a non-restricted provider. Instead of we're dropping your insurance, like we're changing your relationship with your insurance company. Meaning you can still be seen here, but we're not gonna be limited by the procedures of the fees that they set on us because we want to give you the best. So this always reframing it to be quality and service. But if you wanna be really saved you to six months 'cause that way you can tell them all in the chair, right? Face to face like you can give them the emotion. Like, hey, I know you, you know me, and you know that I care. And this is what is happening. I think you can do it in less time than that. I think when we finally decided to drop Delta, we had a hygienist that was moving and I was like, we just do not have this space for these people if they don't want to be seen here. Like if they really want the diet, we're gonna provide. So we gotta make a move now. So think about when we did in like a two or three months, you were sent out letters and invited into calls if they had questions. And then we kind of noticed I'd been sure it's gonna forget and dropped it. But I would say six months, no more than six months, but you can do it in less time if you really are motivated and re-care it actually. Running a practice comes with plenty to think about. And supply ordering does not need to be one of them. Net32 simplifies the process so it becomes one less thing on your plate. Clear pricing, easy ordering, no pressure. It quietly supports your day without demanding extra attention. And sometimes the best tools are the ones you don't have to think about. And that's exactly how net32 works. So make supply ordering one less thing on your plate with net32. Save time, save money, purchase smarter, and order risk free with their 30 day money back guarantee at net32.com/dentalmarketer or you can go on the show notes below and click on the first link in the show notes below. And it will take you to the net32.com website. - Yeah, that's interesting. I like how you mentioned the reframing of the verbiage. Is there anything else outside of the realm of insurance? Maybe marketing or treatment acceptance where you are using a specific type of unique verbiage or you're reframing it? - Yeah, one of the good micolino's my second value is when I was first leading up to my opening of my startup, these are some of the people like you want to be a my VIP list. I can be one of the first people that I call when I come to open as opposed to me saying, hey, do you need a dentist? And I call you when we open. You want people to feel like they're apart something, right? This is a little bit of insurance but like when someone calls and they say, do you take by insurance avoiding things like I don't know where we're saying non-restriction but usually people want to know that they are valued or they want to know that they're gonna get really good tear and they want to know that they're not the only one. They want to feel like they're a part of a group, right? So just by saying like, hey, we are a non-restricted provider with your insurance, meaning we can still provide you the best care that we are capable of while still using your benefits and maximizing every dollar that we can. Just to let you know we have a lot of other people that have the same care as you that have been really satisfied with the treatment that we've been able to provide and still utilize whatever that little benefits they have. So that's another one is just like tying them into, hey, like you're not the only one that gets this or if someone has a crack to you and you're showing them the picture or whatever and you're gonna recommend them all later or crown and you just say like, hey, I've done this hundreds of thousands of times and we've had people in the same exact situation as you and we've had really good success with the treatment that we're gonna look at under. So I think just tying up those things back in but I'm really big on the verbiage. Like we try not to say X-ray and that sounds very invasive. So we just say imaging or we have to get technical like radiograph, we don't use the word lobby, we use the word lounge. We try to use the word cleaning because then you know, the hygienists are like not really providers are just like trainers. We just say hygiene therapy. You know, we have a comfort menu used so we just try to like offer them like, hey, is there anything up to comfort menu? You need at any point during any of your visits if you ever need to think of this, like please let us know. Yeah, there's a bunch of things like that but the one thing I would say about dentists is we get really into like the nitty gritty of our clinical work, but we don't really think about our communication and we can't really convert people to actually get the wonderful work that we can provide if we don't work and rehearse on how our presenting our communication. So I think communication and verbiages is a huge industry. Interesting. Do you continue to receive training on that? Like what specific training or courses or anything like that besides when it comes to front office or anything like that, that you took that you saw where you're like, I can now see the trajectory or it made a pivot moment. Well, when I first opened my office, I had coaching for ideal practices. I don't practice those as like I started at coaching company to just help stockers that are starting specifically. And so they help lay one of the foundation for that where like in someone calls and I have this question, this is how you answer it, let's build your SOP manual. So if people come on, you can train them. So that was really foundational. You know, most of the time if you're gonna go take a course, you know, you're gonna learn some clinical things but picking up on like little nuggets of information like for me the co-center was huge. I mean, those are some of the best in us in the world after co-ees obviously is the legend. So he has these little terms like, but we'll say to patients like, I don't wanna give you a solution to a problem you don't have but I wanna tell you what I see. And it kinda like, well, was the tension a little bit because if people like everything feels fine. I mean, you're about to tell them we have a couple teeth that look cracked and need work done. Then it's like, hey, I don't wanna give you a solution to something that you're not having a problem with but I wanna tell you what I see. And then another term that he uses is like, changing the word of like, hey, let's go over the cost. Let's go over the investment. Like you have to see this as an investment in your health. So now the term that he would use is, how would it make you, how do you make a small investment now than a larger or a huge investment later and it's likely gonna happen in the opportune time and you like they chew your vacation or whatever. So they're kinda creating that sense of urgency and just again relating through stories. You should have a story. for every procedure that you recommend. So if it's a crown, you know, that's always kind of easiest one. I, hey, you got it cracked on this tooth. I just want to take a quick story. I had someone with almost the same exact thing. We recommended it. They were kind of like not sure because they were having a problem. And the tooth cracked on Thanksgiving morning when they went to Barbados to visit their family, you know, or something like that was a legit story that I had, right? And turns out they didn't not just a crown, but they had a crown in a rig now or the tooth was unsavable, right? And it went from a $1,000 procedure to a $6,000 procedure after the implant and traction or everything else. So I think just having stories for whatever you recommend of like, hey, this is why I recommend it. I don't feel bad about it because I've seen how this plays out when we do nothing. I like that. So right now in your practice, what's the procedure that you would say like maybe not your favorite or it could be your favorite, but what's the one that you feel you do the most or you want to do the most? Yeah. Well, I would say two things. I probably order my practice as treating people with sleep apnea and TMJ. Those are great just because it's like changing. I mean, if someone has sleep apnea and they're having issues with that whether they're keeping their spouse out or they're just tired all the time and you can help them and they can't tell their life or see that or whatever, you know, they get them in a real fine so they can sleep better. It's great. I mean, it's not super back breaking labor like some administrators and it's very staff driven. They get really behind it and then people come back a couple months later and they're just like, I'm like, I'm using fall asleep in my way to work. It was a 20-minute drive and I just drove eight hours to California and I never fell asleep once. That was such an amazing feeling because we take from Brandon. So I would say that and the other thing is once I invested in some milling units doing kind of these partial coverage restorations, I do a lot of like inlays and onlays. It's just such a great procedure. It feels very artistic. I love that we're saving so much too structure and then it's, you know, we do it all same day, you know, in the fishing use it and I caught myself the other day. I was like, every time I do one of these, I'm showing them the before and the after. They're just so excited to show them. They're like, look at this. Like, like how much too structure we save. They got sealed up. This is, it's great, you know, and when I'm excited, the patient gets excited about it. But I just think, you know, we oftentimes jump from a filling to a crown too quick and to circle back to insurance, you know, like a lot of doctors, if they listen to this, like, oh, yeah, cool. I want to do more onlays, but insurance doesn't cover it. I think you can use it to reframe it for the patient to be like, hey, you know, I'd rather you spend a little bit more now to save a time of tree structure and not have to go to this really invasive crown. Because once we do that, as kind of our last resort for the tooth, you know, like if anything happens to that, we're in a tight spot where something happens in this onlays, you can always go to a crown later. So I think, yeah, onlays has been a really new kind of rewakening for me in dentistry to just really enjoy the work better. So then for the onlays and also for the other procedure, what is the story you say for those? So for sleep apnea, I mean, it's kind of easy. What I tell people is that okay, the whole point today is to make sure that I can help you. I want to listen to their, their wide, right? So if you're coming in Michael, I said, hey, you know, you're coming here to talk, what you're talking about sleep. What's the one thing in your life that I use sleep is affecting your life right now. Typically, you're going to say, I'm tired all the time, or my wife is mad at me because I'm so worried too much or my primary care physician said I have hapholic pressure and it's likely caused by airway constrictions and I got the sleep study done. So I remember that and then I'll tell them the story. I'm like, okay, you've been diagnosed with sleep apnea. So you kind of got a couple options. You can go get sleep ap, right? Sleep ap can be great because typically your insurance will cover it and they'll put it on your face. They'll just turn the pressure up until it works, right? The hard part about it is it's difficult to comply with. I mean, the compliance rate is 40% or lower and that means you wear it for a mid to three or four hours at night. It was a lot of hidden costs along the way because you had to get new roses and new vows and new masks. There's more invasive procedures. You can go and get jaw surgery with a breakage job move forward and you kind of open your airway up or they'll get a little narrow simulator in your chest. They kind of wires up to your child. So it kind of zaps your child when it's falling back. These are pretty invasive procedures probably running tens of thousands of dollars, right? Or you can do a roll of blind start with me, which is a little bit like worth a balance because we're going to custom fit it to your mouth. We're going to titrate and adjust as we need to to kind of open your airway up and then we're going to sort of maintain from there. So with your goal of not wanting to start your spouse while you're sleeping, you know, and not snoring as well as getting rid of this disease, I want to let you know that you're in the right place. I can help you out with that. A roll of blind therapy is going to cost you anywhere between 500 to 3000 depending what your medical insurance is going to cover. And so it's kind of set them up where I got this option that insurance covers and as plus expensive that it's hard to deal with. I've got this really invasive and really expensive option. Then I say it's kind of like worth a down next to the probably thinking, okay, we're looking at maybe four to six thousand and then when we say, okay, it's going to be a thousand bucks or whatever after insurance then they're like, okay, and you can help me. That feels great. So that's kind of the, hopefully I wasn't too long-winded, but that's kind of the the steel that I give with Airway staff for all of them. You're going to go ahead and jump into that one too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's kind of a similar model because in our office we call it the preet with an acronym, okay? So you want to confirm first what they even said that are coming here for. Usually it's, I want to be healthy, right? Or I want to stay ahead of things or I just want to get established, right? So you could firm that. You offer that they've made the right choice, right? As once you know, after seeing you, after meeting you, you made the right choice and think you're in the right place, I'm looking forward to having you as a patient. So then you tell them what you see, right? I say, well, here you got this crap tooth, then you got an immogable filling with a crack on it. Now, the third step is you price stack, okay? So you say, hey, I could do a filling on this. You know, it's going to be kind of bigger. It's going to be probably the least investment of anything. It might be a few hundred bucks before insurance or discounts, but the risk you run is it could leak or crack or create a big issue down the road. You can go with a full coverage crown. That's sort of a lot of the necessary recommend. Full coverage crown is going to take a lot of two structure way all the way around all about the top. You're probably looking at each 100 to 2000 bucks for a crown. Or you can go with an option that I would do and you know, we do a sort of partial coverage. So we're going to have to maybe cover this one cuss tip that's undermined. We'll take all this old filling out. I have some pictures to kind of show you of similar situations before and after. You can do not only it's going to probably run you at 1400 to 100 bucks and we can do it all one day. It's going to be great. So you sort of price-sacred it. You recommend it. What you want to do. You inform them of the investment. That's kind of the eye and then you close. You still like, "Boy, you should do it wrong forward." People like to know that there's an inexpensive. There's more expensive and there's a middle road and people like that middle of the road option. It looks like so. That's my spiel problem. Do you normally do this or is it like a treatment coordinator who does this? So a little bit of both. I kind of like to do it because again, I want to have high case acceptance and I want to be able to answer their questions. And again, where I'm not like a heavy PPO office, I kind of want to create the value that way. So I do typically go over it, but we do train because like my hygienists will do that same kind of approach if they're going to recommend SRP or period treatment or something, right? And if I'm in a little bit of a rush, then I'll kind of give like a abbreviated version of it and say, "Hey, my assistant's going to kind of go with you the different options with filling versus crowns and it's kind of a middle road option of onlay and and everything." So I'm a little bit high touch that way, but I just feel like it's my responsibility to help them get forward and you know, it's not, I'm not the cheapest in town. So I just want people to say like, "Okay, he's actually taking you to the finish line." You know, and I feel good. Yeah, they say it increases the percentage right of treatment acceptance when you do it. And I was thinking like, "You're taking it." So new patient exams, how long are they normally? Yeah, so we kind of have a few different ways, you know, if you're just like, "Hey, I want to get established. I'm coming in. Can I give him to see the doctor in the hygiene SBIR. And we'll try to ask them certain questions like, "Hey, when was last time you were seen? Do you have any previous images or x-rays that we can get from your other office?" And if it's like, "Hey, they're a 30-year-old. We've got x-rays from a year ago. They just moved to town. We'll usually get them in for 30 minutes, but just the assistant to do all of the x-rays, digital scans, photos, things like that. And then they'll go straight to hygiene." And I kind of color, like, you know, we're just trying to shoot our shot a little bit and get them in quickly because I do feel like if there is anything restorative-wise, and the hygienist gets a minute, and kind of can tell them, "Hey, you know, this is what I'm seeing. Let me kind of give it to this." And then we can kind of do a little bit of cold diagnosis. If it's like, "Hey, I have a problem," or it's been a couple years since I've been in. And if you're going to come in to see me directly, it's usually an hour to hour and 15 minutes to do the full comprehensive exam. The good thing is, I mean, for us with with our dental software orgs, it does make it super simple to do a really comprehensive exam and a brajada time. They just kind of have like a very simple checklist model to do everything from the T&J to T-thing Gums to even the airway exam. And we can usually do it in like less than 10 minutes because our hygienists are pretty well trained and can kind of go over that with them as well. Then I don't feel so bad. If it's someone who's been seen pretty recently, to get them in through it through hygiene, I kind of have to blow them up out of use. They'd be like, "No, everyone's got to see me first." Okay, well, we can kind of three screen and get you going to hygiene. So, there's a little bit less friction and less mononex. Interesting. So, you've kind of adapted that, or you've adapted your software to that process. Yeah, I mean, with orgs, I kind of found out about them through the COIST Center originally. They were used them before us or in my practice, which is a little bit counterintuitive. Most people say, "Hey, start your practice with the software that you're used to because you don't want to learn a new language while you're also building a practice." But for me, I knew that I wanted to do a very systemic or holistic approach to our exams, and I knew that I wanted to do more airway dentistry and TMJ stuff like that. Orcs just made it super simple. It was really easy for my staff to pick up because it's all just to check with SforM. So, I have to sit there and type a million things out like all the hygienists and assistants for able to pick that up very quickly. And then, the more that we're talking about it, the more they're going to talk about it with patients with all the things that we're going to cover. Was there ever like in the startup process? I might go with Orics or I might go with this. Like, why did you, was it just because of the Quay Center? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, the Quay Center kind of introduced it to me. And then as I was sort of pre-sfreeing, I was really used to Dintrix, which is great because what we had on the Navy, that's what I had in my associate ship. But after I kind of did some walkthroughs and, you know, one of the ones with Orics, they kind of showed me, "Hey, we have dedicated trainers. We have like a really full-time support staff. Like, you can emote in and help you out with things, even how they do like they're invoicing for patient doing purposes and things like that." Yeah, once I kind of walked through it with them, I was like, "This is a no-brainer. I'm just going to switch out then." And they just hit her from they won. This is where I wanted to go. So I'm one of the tools to kind of get me to her. You know, something Chaz said here really stood out. He talked about how growth didn't come from just doing more. It came from taking control of the message, the systems, and the patient experience. Because here's the truth, a lot of practices don't struggle because they lack patience. They struggle because everything behind the scenes is fragmented. You're scheduling as one system, you're billing as another, your communication is somewhere else, and your team is trying to hold it all together. And that's where things start slipping, not clinically, but operationally. That's exactly why I want you to check out Orix. Orix is built specifically for practices that want to grow intentionally, not just faster, but cleaner, simple, and more controlled. Think about this. What would change in your practice if your systems actually worked with you instead of against you? And here's the part that makes this a no-brainer if you're thinking about growth. Orix is completely free until your practice reaches 200 patients or you've been live for 12 months, whichever comes first. So go on the show notes below and click on the first link in the show notes, below and check out the deal on what other colleagues of yours are saying about Orix and how they're utilizing it. There's literally zero pressure when you sign up with Orix. It's free until your practice reaches 200 patients or you've been live for 12 months, whichever comes first. So do a demo. Take a look at it. See what your practice looks like when everything is finally aligned. Yeah. Interesting. Nice. I like that. Anything specific where from day one to now that you're like, it helped me get off the ground, but I needed to switch this software or this agency or anything like that in order to continue to progress. I have a big believer in the concept of like, who, not how, what you're trying to think of, like how to do something. That's from a book by Dan Sullivan. He's an entrepreneur coach that anyone who's owned a business knows that the people are huge for that. And so when you start up, you don't really have a very big staff. You kind of hire people and you're looking for certain skill sets and things that one of the things I realized very early on is like, you don't want to keep being seed players around if they're not going to kind of convert into eight players. So some of the people that helped me start my practice, you know, I'm super grateful for and a lot of ways have really warm feeling stores. They weren't the people that were going to take me to where we really need to go. And once I have to keep evidence, I kind of adopted the philosophy of like, Jocco Willink in his book, "A Shroom of Rorship." He says, you know, as a leader, if you keep someone in a position that they are not thriving in, it's actually very selfish of you to just like, kind of string them along, but they're not really performing at their bests. If you've given them the tools and given them the boundaries and the things they need and they can't progress beyond that, it's all more selfless to set them free and let them go throughout somewhere else. And so I think that early on, I probably waited too long to let people to move on from our practice. They really weren't the right fit to help us grow long-term. But at the same time, there was a mithensis where I think I did make the right move to just be like, hey, you know, we really need to hire this person. One of the things I did was I was six months open and I was looking for a hygienist and I came across two hygienists that were both amazing. And everyone's like, oh, you don't have enough patience for two. Just put one in, pick one. And I thought, these people are too great. I don't want to hire them both. I think that we can grow into that. And so we hire them both. And probably three months after that, I thought, I don't know what we would do without them both. We would be drowning. So again, Canada goes back to you. You don't like wait till you're burnt out or maxed out to make a move. You make a move to grow into you. That's always the best way to do it. And there was times where I did that early on in my practice. There were times where I didn't. But I always like to follow like the four Cs, you know, and they're going to do something. This is how I have said learned anything. So if you're going to start a practice, start a podcast, bring on a new two-member, you know, whatever you need to do. But the four Cs are you commit, then you just have courage. Then you start to get some capability. And then you get the confidence, right? So you think about how you learn to run a bike when you're a kid and you didn't sit there and be like, well, let me study how a bike works and kind of think about it. No, you just commit it. I'm going to learn to run a bike and you had to have some courage because it's scary when you get up, like the training wheels off. And then you start to feel like, okay, I know I'm doing a lot of sudden you're biking downhill at 30 miles an hour. Yeah, or something crazy. So I would say that when it came to people in getting our people on board, I think there was times where I didn't and I see a lot of them. So they don't bring on people before they need them. They're waiting till they're maxed out and they're scrambling. And they really don't make the best hires. You should be looking for hires in the positions that you're going to need a few months in advance. Are you still looking right now for hires? Yeah, well, I've been looking for a second dentist for a while. And I have one that I really feel confident and it's going to be starting in May. Yeah, I mean, it's scary, right? I mean, it's a whole nother provider that you have to feed. But I just feel like this person's, you know, a local guy really high value just a wonderful person. Yeah, I think we're like, yeah, we're going to have to make some marketing moves and things to help him get started. But I also think that once people start to meet him and work it around, then they're going to grow it up. It's a sure to really well. Yeah. I think you should always be hiring in some ways. Interesting. And I like that a lot. How you said make a move you grow into. You've heard how like people still keep their associate ship until they're like, okay, we can break even, right? I mean, were you already breaking even when you quit your associate ship or no, you were just like, I don't know. Well, so you made a move you grew into when do we know when we're ready? As far as like, Chaz, I got a great associate ship. They understand my process. What I'm doing and everything they're super forgiving. I don't want to let them go because I need to pay and feed myself. Do I still let it go? That's like question, Michael. I mean, I think I like the philosophical concept of like, you have to be your future self now. You know, wait to become your future self. Whatever that person is that she want to be, you need to start actually like them now. At the same time, if you're like, dude, I got no savings. And unless I have this associate ship, I'm going to like, go into massive debt and go under my family's going to starve. Like, you have to kind of plan ahead. But I would say, yeah, if you've got six months of savings that you can live off of and you're like, I don't want to be a associate ship long term because I want to build my own business. Then if you're going to wait for like, dubs to come down to tell you, Michael, it's time. Go ahead and do it. Then I think you just had to decide like, I would say, my answer to that is like, if you could lead your associate ship right now, would you? If you could do full time in your office, they'd make the same or more. And if you're interested, I was like, yes, I would 100% do that because my associate ship, even though it's great, I got to drive 20 minutes or just feel weird knowing this isn't really my thing that I'm building out. Well, I want to be here. Then I would say just go ahead and commit. If that's what your future self needs to be because as soon as you start acting like it, I think people would be amazed once you do commit, how things are to fall into place. And when you have a little bit of some desperation or some urgency, you get after it, whereas like if you're kind of cushy, because all my bills are covered, like I don't have to really think about marketing that way or I really need to think about hiring this next person on. It's just going to make it slower. And so I don't know, everyone's different, but my advice would be if you didn't want to be there in a year or two years, then just commit. Because you know what? If your associate ship understands you and everything that much, if you were three, four months on the road and you had to go back, they probably would take you back. And even if they did it, someone else would, you could always kick up a job, especially for them, just so I think that most people don't realize that is like they think, oh, if I sever the relationship that's gone forever, and you'd probably be welcome back if you really wanted to, if you really need to. Yeah. It's a really good point. I never thought about it like that. So if you can, take us back to a season where ownership felt heavier than it should have. What was going on? Yeah. I mean, I think that you can get really bogged down with it all, especially when you're first starting out, when you talk about breaking even or even not making me money, like living off of your reserves. I think that sometimes you forget that your business exists to profit. And without any profit, you can't really have any purpose. One of the big things for me was that I just was like, man, I could just pay myself enough to live, you know, and just to feed my family and everything else. Then I would just feel so much better about all this work, knowing that it's hopefully going to grow. And for my accounting team, I have Tom and visor, he really advised people in the whole profit first model of an old book called profit first. The basically just kind of reminds you, like you start this business to make a profits. If you just start this business, just like give away, repair, like provide jobs for people without, you know, yourself. And so I think that your profits not where you needed to be or you wanted to be, the neck had feel really heavy because you're like, what am I doing now? I've been better off with staying an employee in a job or at least it was consistent. Right. So I think that when the path is unclear, things feel very heavy. And oftentimes as human beings, we take a lesser path than what we really want because it's more clear. I'm not saying that being an employee is bad. Obviously, I have a lot of employees and super grateful to them. But being an employee is a very clear path. You understand, okay, I'm probably going to make around this much I'm going to get, you know, I'm going to have this in the And that's it feels very clear, even though when fish comes to shove or the businesses having troubles like employees are the first to go, right? As an owner, the path can seem very unclear the times or am I even going to work out? Does anyone going to show up to my scratch dark practice? Right? I think that's when it feels heavy. When things are unclear, the profits stop there. You can't find the key hire that you really need. There's a lot that's running on you, but I would just encourage dentists who are practice owners. A lot of people who have been in your semi-sex shoes that have come out on their side. And you don't ever really lose that. Like, heaviness is always going to come. Right? There's going to be times where the wings that you're back, there's going to be time when the wind is at your face. But everything comes to pass as long as you stay consistent and you have a mission that you're oriented towards. Right? I think that we're very mission based at our office. You know, like we have our mission. We have goals, but goals have a beginning in an end. And oftentimes that end can feel like a screeching halt. And then you don't really like, well, I'm going to keep going forward when it gets hard. And so that's kind of a long answer to your question. But I think that when the path is unclear and it's not rewarding you, that's when hiring, marketing, and your bills, all those sorts of things feels very heavy. So then when did it start becoming more clear for you? Well, I think once I started doing the first model, like, hey, I'm going to pay myself, like that's a non-negotiable. Right? I'm going to pay myself a business number. And if I look at it every month and my account balance is going down, then I got to make a change. But I'm not going to stay away from that number. You know, I think at the time, Massam and I would need like $8,000 a month for shunting. There's still like a row of bases. I was like, I can just know that that's going to come in and have like a consistent plan off of that. And I'll feel much better. So what it did was I kind of said, okay, well, I'm not cutting that. Well, if this cost is getting high, the reason for that cost is to create more value or that cost is to get cuts. So I think what you have that consistency, then you kind of like ways or lower other things. So that feels a lot better. And then once I brought better people on like, well, I brought those two hygienists on. It took so much off my plate. They were doing the hygiene that I was not willing to do. And actually, we're doing restorative because in Washington state, hygienists can do selling. So I said, and I was like, I'll float or naps. And all of a sudden, I had space. And we were seeing a revenue grow. And I had space to do owner fencing. So we're more doctor things. So I would say consistently paying myself and bringing on the right people and getting rid of people that were drains on our practice energy. That's when it was like, okay, this is what it's supposed to feel like. This feels good. I'm excited to come to work. We got Brett Feature Head. We're making progress, which I think that's a key to a lot of happiness in life is just a progress towards something. Yeah. Interesting. So the team you started off with is not the team you have right now. I started off with two from desk and assistant. Yeah, they're no longer with me. I hired another assistant pretty early on and she still with me. The first had you know, so I've hired first year with me, but there's been a few people along the way that came on and, you know, again, just worked the right fits. And there was some I kept on too long. There was some that I just tried to say early on like, Hey, here's a severance. Here's like, I just something to the right fit. I'm sorry. I'll still be a positive reference for you. But this is, there's only supposed to be and it will be selfish and even to be here. That's the reason, I guess the severance is it mainly because like the personality or they were asking for a high rate or what was the reason? Yeah. I think they really kind of come us onto mindset. I'm big on both mindset, meaning like, it's okay to be uncomfortable when you're learning something new again. We're going to commit. We're going to have courage before we develop the ability. So if like we're talking about verbiage, right? So I had a high chance that I hired that when it comes to fluoride, right? Hey, do you want fluoride? Well, nobody wants fluoride. You know, like, is that going to be good for them or not? And just tell them, Hey, do you hear you have a lot of versus? And grounds and buildings on, I'm sure we help keep those margins safe. I'm going to recommend it. Your little benefits cover it or no, they don't cover it. It's 49 bucks. You know, whatever it is. So if they're not willing to change their verbiage on that, I was like, Hey, I don't only want to say like this. I want to say it this way. And so we give an office tool. And it was just kind of like, Okay. I mean, she wouldn't do it. Hey, were we talking about this? Oh, okay. But she wouldn't do it again. Otherwise, she was fine with patients, but I just think like there is a standard that we said, I'm like, Hey, we are going to talk in a certain way that's going to make us stand out. If you're not willing to listen and adapt with their information, and I have to follow that too, as the doctor, but then if you don't have a growth mindset in that way, then I ain't just, you're not going to make a year. Did you ever ask why? Like, why can't you just say it? Why can't the verbiage super simple? Or no? I don't remember if I was like, what's your problem? Yeah, but in a nice tone, you're like, Hey, what's the issue? Why? Right? The third time that you're like, Hey, maybe try one more time, right? It almost seems like deliberate. They really don't want to do it. Yeah. The funny part was what this specific hygienist, I mean, there's been some other things where I'm like, Hey, there's an owner. You try to sometimes kind of come as a person to be like, What's wrong with you? Why aren't you doing this? It's more so kind of come along side of them. They're like, Hey, let's look at this together. So this is something I've kind of laid out to you. It feels like it's not getting done. What do you think is going on with that? That's the way to approach it. With this specific hygienist, it happened probably more than two times. I was just like, Hey, like, this is how we're going to do it. She came over from an existing office that I acquired the charts from. So there was a little bit of some uphill battle with that. But she finally just kind of came to me and was like, Hey, you kind of keep bringing this thing up. You keep telling me about how you like to have things done. And it's just like, have a new slow in time. I love how I'm going to be able to do all these things. And then that was kind of the point where it's like, Well, okay, well, I think it'll be better if you just want somewhere else. And she was like, Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. So that was how the situation with that building people was like, Hey, why isn't this getting done? And a lot of times they're just kind of like, they don't really have an answer. And I think it probably is a little bit deliberate. And it's probably a little bit neglect. Yeah. Just like, Okay, why I decided to desire to do that. Yeah. And I think that maybe admit that. No, no, that's interesting. It's probably the best case scenario. What happened where you're like kind of guided them or you almost coached them out. You agree, she agrees or they agree they're like, Yeah, I don't. I think it's the best fit to leave. Real quick, some spitfire questions. If we can dive into your business a little bit more, what did you go with for your loan? Huntington bank. Huntington bank. How much was the loan? 650,000. We're paying to bank. We were able to do an increase with me to 725 because I was wanting to expand from kind of three operators to five. And then I did take out another loan through Bercardinal supply, reuse the US bank for that to find some things like my combing beam, my visual scanner. And a couple of things that didn't quite sit into that initial practice loan. So did you kind of get things open that first year? It was about 50, they hear 70 case like that. Wow, what kind of interesting. And then when it came to your realtor and finding a location, how did that go? Yeah, there was car reality, which is a health care specific, realtor. Honestly, I can't say not about that. That was fantastic. I love my location. I would have had such a nightmare and if you were sitting away, you slip that. And the cool thing is you don't pay any thanks around. They get paid through the landlord. They can get all that type of care for you. But they help me negotiate a lease on my space. It's like a three thousand square foot space. And the landlord gave me like 350K and a pretty good allowance to help me build out my space. So that was pretty awesome. The car helped me really negotiate. That's really, really good. And then right now, how many employees do you currently have? At 13. Wow. Yes, that's like from two to 13. That's a big job. That is overhead is how much percentage? I would say it's anywhere between 65 to 70. Okay. How do you structure bonuses and benefits and things like that? Yeah. So I kind of have two systems. I have a system for my whole team. So we just kind of have a set number. And this is kind of where I tell them like, I want you guys to think like owners now, like employees, meaning I want you to be sort of intro pineryl. But if you guys go up and beyond, then everybody wins, right? So we live in an expensive payroll state in Washington. They basically have a set number. So I just say, hey guys, our goal is what I try to do around 200K a month. They think that you guys do over that. I'll give you a percentage of because we want to keep our payroll around 25%, you know, which is so why I say I have two highs and I don't say it's impossible. But that's a lever they have to pull. A lever when it supplies. They want to keep supplies at 6% or lower. Well, we look at it every quarter, anything that you got to tell us reduced in our supply costs. If it's 6% or lower, then I'll give you guys 25% of that as well. Interesting. When it comes to supplies, do you sit down with like your lead assist dinner, anybody like that and do it together? Or is it just one specific member that does it? I offer Spanish and the assistance in charge of ordering. They look at it every single month. And they kind of base their budget off of our last two weeks. Over two weeks they look at the collections and they kind of close down where we're on the top of the first system where okay, we got these two selections. This percentage is going towards profit. This percentage is going towards payroll. This percentage is going towards owner compensation. This is going towards taxes. And so it's just kind of like when we do the everything up. And so they base it off of that. And they look every quarter to see if we came in under budget drop. That's interesting. So right now, elections and production looks like hey above 200K a month or. Yeah, it kind of depends. I mean, we hit it a lot of months, but they always say like, hey, Chad, you're the biggest bottleneck is when you take vacation like the old. There's much revenue. And I'm like, well, you know, but again, it's all kind of tied. I every quarter, I look at my okay, well, if you guys didn't work at 10 hours, like if our payroll percentage was 25% and we always collected 180K, then we can kind of offset it off that. But just to kind of make it super clean and easy for them, I just try to say, hey, this is our goal for the month. Okay, interesting. And right now currently, how many new patients are you getting a month? We average about 40 a month right now. Oh, nice. And then for marketing and advertising, what's that looking like? What are you doing? - Yeah, so for like SEO, all digital ads, things like that, we spend about four to 5,000 months. - Yeah, so it's SEO and digital ads, like social media. - Yeah, I don't do any mailers. We try to do a lot of internal marketing where it's like, hey, this was a generating patient. We love having you here. Do you have anyone that you could refer just like you? They're hard. They really made a lot of tests if you set them our way. We're very on Google reviews. We have 700 and 70 free started reviews or something. And so we try to get reviews that way and drive our people in. But yeah, so it's kind of a few different ways that we market. - Nice, okay. And then right now, do you have a marketing agency with you guys or is it just you who's doing SEO in that? - Yeah, so I have a marketing agency. It's just, I had like a big box company that was doing it and they were great when I was first starting. I'm gonna go to my website, all sorts of things. But now I just have a local guy and we meet every month and he's kind of like, hey, this is working. This isn't, we should change here pivot there. And that's not a saving rate for me because he's very, has a really good pulse on like our county and he shows me the age breakdown. I kind of sell them, hey, this is not ideal clients. You know, coming market towards them directly and we're getting really good feedback, you know, from them. He's paired up with the SEO agency. And so it's all kind of their one thing. And so we really try to focus on the keywords who are a rank four and things like that. But yeah, when someone went with a local guy, you know, just a local marketing guy, we actually saw a lot higher quality of the patients we were doing. - Nice man, that's fantastic. If someone is listening and they're one step behind where you were, what's the one move they should make this week? - That's a great question. They hear one step behind me, like, I think the biggest thing that I see with them just is like their communication. Not just the dentist to the patient, they're like, is your whole team in alignment are your assistants being consistent? And when you leave the room what they're saying to patients are your hadgenus being consistent with their looking forward and how they're talking to the patients. If you can come in to an exam as already been said one or two times, and then you're just kind of bringing it home, it's like a bowl we're going up the hill and it's the pose of you having me, the one that pushes it all the way out, you just kind of get to go in and like get it to the last little bed and to build it. But this actually changed everything for me when I started implementing this, which was the advice of a mentor of mine, was you should be taking an afternoon a month and a day, a quarter to just train. Block the schedule, buy your team lunch, just train. Okay, that's where you really dial in that sort of communication stuff. That's where you really keep your culture in alignment because when you can sit down and be like, you can almost twist them, how do we communicate when we are going to recommend or add to somebody? Okay, I was talking about, are we all on the same page on that? But if you get too caught up in like, I just got to stay busy and you don't ever stop. But it's just like the analogy of the two lumberjacks that are chopping down a tree, right? And the one who just like hacks away all day, you know, and just wearing himself out, and he looks out or he keeps seeing another lumberjack sitting to rest on a stout. And he's like, what is that guy doing? He's not even working. And the guy that was resting like the chop down the tree and half the time, right? They asked him like, what were you doing? I kept seeing, he had you already chop it down and you were sitting down the whole time and he's like, no, I was sharpening my axe. I don't want to knock it down. And I really chop his down with the bill axe. So if there was a behind me, just trust me. Take an afternoon, your team will love it. Especially like, you buy them lunch, buy them all too much, have an agenda, things you want to go over and just train. They're going to still be dying because you're taking time or you could be producing then you're actually going to help them, right? So to give you a little snapshot, like, I mean, last year, our practice, you know, we dropped our last insurance in March of last year and we did almost 2.2 million in revenue. We only worked from nine to four and it's like a six to seven hour day that took over 10 weeks off. That doesn't happen without some intention. It happened with us taking that time and train too. So when you actually sit down to sharpen your axe, that's how you actually move the needle up and just tack it away at the tree. - No, I said, love that man. That's really, really, really good advice. So one of the last questions we wanted to ask you is our last guest left the question for you. This is Dr. Jess Breitgale from countryside Smiles and she asked, how are you not falling a slave to technology and still being the human in your office? - Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, again, it really comes back to the people in your office, right? I mean, a lot of doctors, dentists, but physicians, car parkers, whatever, their whole business is built around them, right? People want to come and see them. And for me, I want people to come in just to see us because they love our approach industry and they love my team. So I think that constantly evaluating, giving feedback, both positive and constructive to your team is gonna help you stay away from that whole technology trap and AI. And I think that, you know, what you'll see is the same thing with corporate dentistry, right? The coronation moves in everyone's concern. No cop issues, and it's a roof and they're in drown us and they're marketing budget. And there's always gonna be a place for people that provide a really high value and a really high level of service. And so if anything, all this AI stuff, it just brings the middle of the rounds down lower and allows the people that are really going to excel to rise above. And so investing in good people, and training them and having them on board with your vision is gonna be a different share between the website and technology and them up. Nice, I like it. And before we wrap up, what's one question you'd like to ask for the next guest to answer? - Take my question out of part. I just wanna ask them is, I'm really thinking of stoic philosophy, okay? So, and stoic philosophy, you contemplate death because that's how the one filter that is gonna like, eliminate all the other waste in your life, right? So if you knew you were gonna die in five years, that thing also gonna change, you're gonna be perfectly healthy, but you knew you're gonna die of fountains. - Well, and you do differently. If you still had to stay in your practice and work, what would you do differently if you knew that was coming? - Okay, meditative question, I like that, man. Interesting, cast. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure, but before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you? - Yeah, it's okay, we did my call, I'll send you a link tree. So you can find me on most social media channels. Like I mentioned, we have the little jump start, which is a channel built towards dentists to either one to start from scratch or even just jump start. They're prudent there and now whether you're a military dentist, like I used to be or an associate or you're a current practice center that is built stuck. We talk a lot about leadership, communication as well as bringing yourself, being less insurance dependent. So you can contact me, you can build those channels. For my Instagram, things like that, it's shooting me a message. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about my interview at Michael today. And yeah, I'm all about empowering dentists because I think we chose a wonderful career where we deserve a lot of people and success is not an accident. So I think we should be intentional with our town. - So that's gonna be in the show notes below. And Chaz, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. - Thank you, Michael. - Before we wrap up, I wanna bring this kinda like full circle. A lot of it is about control. Control over your time, your patience, your systems, your future. And one of the biggest mistakes I normally see is waiting too long to build the foundation that actually supports that. Because once growth hits, whatever systems you have, good or bad, get amplified. That's why tools like Aurex matter early. Not one things are breaking, but before they do. So if you're in that phase right now, start up early ownership, or even just feeling like things are more chaotic than they should be, go check them out. Again, it's free until you hit 200 patients or 12 months. So go on the show notes below and click on one of the links in the show notes below that say Aurex and it will take you to the website where you can see what all your colleagues are saying about Aurex, those of them who do have Aurex and also you can check out the deal and go to the website and see what else you can benefit from Aurex by utilizing it. There's no pressure, no risk, just a smarter way to build your practice from the ground up. And honestly, if you're serious about building something that lasts, this is one of those decisions you'll either make early or wish you made earlier. So thank you so much for tuning into this episode and do me a favor wherever you're listening to this episode. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast on that platform. Thank you so much for always supporting the podcast and I'll talk to you in the next episode. (upbeat music)