Why 90% of Multi-Location Practices Fail & What Scott Dudley Did Differently

Your best salesperson or your best person is very rarely your best manager or leader. And so I think the really big challenge is teaching leadership to other people to be leaders. It's that next derivative that's so important because if you can't teach leadership down the chain, things are gonna get lost. And that's a very difficult thing.

Good day and welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Bob Gauvreau. It is a pleasure to have you here today. This is the place where we dissect the elements that contribute to entrepreneurial success, from mindset and leadership to profits and revenue. Today I've got a special guest who is from the dental space, someone who's founded multiple entities, has exited successfully, and is now rebuilding and recreating a new entity along the way across the country from where he started. So today I'm delighted to bring in Scott Dudley. He's the founder and CEO of Brannon, a dentist-led group of practices built on the belief that clinicians, not private equity, should lead the future of dentistry. Really excited to hear some of the feedback that Scott has during this podcast. Really high-energy guy, you know, someone that many CEOs and founders can relate to. And you know what, if you're not in the dentist space, that's okay because we can learn so much from people who are in other industries sharing their insights, challenges, and some of their strategies along the way. So I think there's a lot that people are going to be able to take out of this conversation today. So today we're diving into what it takes to build a healthcare organization that balances clinical experience, operational scale, and long-term value creation. Without any further ado, let's welcome Scott Dudley, the founder and CEO of Brannon, to the podcast. Hi, Scott. Scott, thanks for joining me, my friend.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. Great to be here.

Yeah. And you know what? It's interesting, guys. So for all of you maybe not aware of how podcasts sort of work, Scott and I have been connecting here sort of behind the scenes. We've already had a fantastic conversation and part of it I wish, raw, we had been recording because I think there was a lot of good information that came out of there. So really excited about this, Scott. You know, excited to hear a little bit about your journey because, and I intentionally didn't ask you some of that offline here because I'm very curious. You know, it seems like you've created something that's pretty special, something that has a lot of momentum. So maybe take us back to how things got started for you and share your journey.

Well, the first thing is my father was a dentist and I swore for the first 20 years of my life that there's no way I'm going into this industry. You know, it just did not seem, Super sexy. So I pretty much avoided it as much as possible, but ended up— I went to a college in upstate Vermont, Middlebury, and somewhere through my junior year decided consulting with some physicians that, you know, maybe dentistry wasn't so bad. And at the end of the day, there was more likely that I'd be able to own a business in dentistry than I would probably as a physician. At least in the traditional sense. So, I ended up going to dental school. So, I give dad a lot of credit for that, even though I bucked it for a very long time. Fast forward, ended up going to University of Pennsylvania for dental school and enlisted in the US Air Force while I was in school. So, I did a residency program and then 3 years active duty and then— came out, ended up in Washington, DC, where I had done my residency initially. Typical dental route. I started as an associate and after a couple of years of doing that, opened up my own shop from scratch. And that was 2008. So anybody old enough to remember that year was a rough year to open. I think we opened the doors in March of '09. How I think most folks who go to dental school, you know, I thought I had kind of hit the pinnacle having my own dental office in Northern Virginia and figured I'd have a small team of, you know, 4 or 5 and I'd be the local dentist for the community. And that was what was going to happen until it didn't happen that way. I think the most important interesting thing, I played football and baseball in college and I realized that, The dental office or any small business is, is really a collection of team, teammates, you know, and I really still to this day think of, of business as really just a team sport. Honestly, I think of a lot of things through the lens of sports, but I saw what it was like to empower folks that I was working with to have better lives, and those folks were making the lives of our patients by extension better. Healthier and they were kind of following my lead almost like, you know, a captain on a baseball team and then everyone kind of gets behind them to win some games. And so that was, I realized that building something more than just around me, more than just around a few folks was really exciting and rewarding. And so fast forward, that business grew up to maybe, 7 or 8 doctors in about just as many years and, and maybe 30 team members.

It's a solid practice for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. It was two, two ended up being two offices and it was certainly much, I mean, it was 5 times larger than my dad's practice had ever been in 45 years. And of course with the scale and with the different challenges than dad's practice, right? So I kind of use his as the classic, you know, model of having 4 or 5 people on his team. And he, he did that for for his whole career, which was fine, but it was very different than trying to manage 7 or 8 doctors and 30-odd team members. Right up until the point where you get to the point and you realize you have no idea what you're doing and you had just gotten there through, you know, a little bit of luck and maybe some common sense.

And some hard work. Let's not discount that, Scott. I can just imagine how hard that was. Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of hard work. You're— look, you're grinding, right? You're grinding many, many hours. Anybody who starts a business is going to just do basically whatever it takes attitude and mindset. That is the mindset, you know, in my opinion, it's the only one that works. So yeah, you sacrifice a lot of other things, but you're also kind of getting a little worried 'cause you're seeing this thing grow. But I got to the point where I realized I didn't really have the skillset. I didn't feel like the skillset. I mean, I was 39 at the time, and so I ended up selling that company to a private equity-backed DSO. And it was really a relief at that point because I kind of realized I didn't know how to take it to the next levels. I was kind of studying along the way, but it was a challenge and you realize, wow, this got really big. But I had all associate doctors at that period of time, meaning they were all W-2 employees basically. And so I really felt like an island trying to run and manage and lead and do all the hats and everything. And I'd say burnout was probably the thing that I think most people in head positions can identify with. They just get to a point where you're just like totally maxed out in all aspects. And so I took a step back basically, and I went back to business school at the University of Virginia on the GI Bill, thanks to the Air Force providing those kind of benefits. And then I had an opportunity to reinvent myself, and I had gotten married a little bit later. Had two daughters at the time and we thought, well, we're still in DC. And so we took a one-way flight to Boulder, Colorado, which is where I am now. And from a professional standpoint, it was to kind of reboot, if you would, kind of the 2.0 version. And then personally, it was just a great opportunity to change scenes a little bit. And a lot of dentists that, I don't know, 40 years old don't exactly move their whole career, but You learn a lot when you start over again.

I can tell you that.

You learn a lot.

100%.

You may be armed with a little bit more knowledge and experience and stuff, but starting over again is also quite a challenge. So that's it in a nutshell.

And they talk about that too, right? And it's true. Anyone who's sort of built some element of success or built something, for them to go back and recreate it could do it in a fraction of the time because of what they've learned and experienced. And done, whether it's right or wrong, you learn a lot along that journey. Um, and interesting, right? I, when you talk about hitting that sort of limit of, hey, I don't really know what it is that I'm supposed to be doing right now, like with your original practice, I, I had a similar reflection. We were around 55 people and thinking about what the next level looks like. I didn't take— Yeah. The pause where I didn't take a one-way trip ticket. So some days maybe I regret that, and other days I'm satisfied with that. But I remember having to have that real conversation with myself to say, am I capable of being the leader the team needs to get to the next level? Because I don't know what that looks like. I just— am I committed to redefining who I am to become that leader? And I got a piece of advice from a friend of mine. He's a business coach. His name's Mike Aguilar. And he said to me one time, he said, you need to become the leader that the team needs for where you're headed before they will follow you and before you can get there as a team. And I, you know, that really stuck with me. So I can appreciate that moment. And it's, it's really heavy. I don't know if you had any insights on that, but yeah, that, that one hit me really hard too.

Yeah, I think also, I mean, I've always, and I was speaking with an attorney, corporate attorney said, honestly, the industry doesn't matter, but the scale in terms of revenues, what's consistent throughout the businesses that he worked with. And so I like to talk in those terms because it frames whether, you know, you're selling golf balls or dentistry or whatever your industry, you know, and for me, After we got over $5 million in revenue, I really felt like I was underprepared, but also this, you know, what got you here won't get you there kind of thing. And so I realized the systems that I had in place at that period of time weren't really the systems that I was going to need or was going to— they were the wrong systems if I wanted to have any sort of quality of life and if I wanted to scale, right? And I alluded to it in fact that we had all these associate dentists, which were very good dentists,, but no one had skin in the game. And, and that's probably what, what was the big turning point for me was I, I kind of, I, I could either go back and try and get all of these doctors to, to have skin in the game, or I could reboot. And I, I chose to kind of take that step back, learn a little bit about myself in, in graduate school and, and then use some different systems on a go-forward basis. And I think that's, that's worked out well.

Okay. So tell me about the newest version, the 2.0 version that you've built. And I know you're 5 years in. Tell me a little bit about that journey and where you guys are today and what you do.

Yeah, so Brannon, we operate 5 Brannon Center for Dentistry here along Colorado's Front Range, general dental practices. In coming out, when I first started, back up, when I first started, I just wanted to be a good dentist. I wanted to be a reputable dentist in my community. I wanted to provide great dentistry and it was really hinged on me. When I came out, to Colorado, it was bigger than that. And I think that's the big difference. So I had a very clear vision and how to execute it. And that vision was basically to create a Starbucks for dentistry. It was to provide great dentistry and great dental experiences, period, full stop, in a place where people could identify with a brand and they could go to there, whether it was me treating them or any doctor, any team member that we had, and they were going to have— kind of that Starbucks repeatable coffee, that repeatable experience, that repeatable environment. And so that was really the vision. It was very different. I didn't have any vision at all from a vision standpoint when I started 1.0, but 2.0 had a very specific vision and also the means and executables, the how we were going to execute it. And those things were all written format and I, borrowed that actually from some folks at graduate school that were working with Marriott, and they had these things called brand standards, which I had never heard of in dentistry. There was no brand standards in, in dentistry, but we wrote, or I wrote a brand standards for the vision, how we were going to execute all of these sorts of things. And, you know, 55 pages later, there was kind of this document that we could all follow to great dentistry and great dental experiences. So I think that was probably the, the major difference having, getting the opportunity to do it again.

100%. Ah, good for you. You know, like a lot of people would've on that exit just taken a little bit of time and eased off, but like a true entrepreneur, you were like, I'm not done yet. I got something bigger to build.

As you know, we're generally not wired that way, you know?

No, I know.

You know, my mother used to say that I don't idle well, and I think my wife now would say doesn't idle at all. So you just either wired that way or you're not, you know?

But yeah, I've had some leaders on my team where they're like, "You're just built different." And I'm like, "It's true." Where, you know, entrepreneurs are built different. It's a different mindset, it's a different focus, it's a different vision. You know, it's not a job, it's a building something.

Yeah, it's a, you know what it is? It's really a constant, wherever you are, you wanna make it better. You wanna make your life better, you wanna make your, your business better, you want to make those around you better. And so whether you're at the gym, you're at a game, you're always kind of in the back of your mind, something hits you and you go, oh, I can make something better. And if that's your mindset, then you're never really off, right? Because there's always the opportunity mentally, and then you can go back to the office or workplace and implement. And I think that mindset is why you get tired sometimes too as an entrepreneur, right? You're never really off. And even when you're not in the office, your, your, your mind's still going. So, but it, but it, but it does work out. And eventually I think if you can stick with it long enough, it will, it will pay dividends.

So let's talk about Brandon. So, so your 1.0, you essentially exited, sold to a PE-backed group that sort of took it to the next level as you indicated. It's like, hey, you know what, I'm not sure how to do this. Let's, let's go that direction. Now with Brannon, you've— you're more of a dentist-led alternative to a PE-backed approach. Walk me through the advantages of having that dentist-led alternative leading the practice.

You know, the industry has clearly kind of bifurcated. You've got the solo model and you've got the DSO model, basically. A lot of groups champion doctor autonomy, but I think there's more layers to that question. What does doctor autonomy really mean? Clearly a non-dentist or non-medical person cannot, you know, do medicine, practice medicine. That's obvious. But I think that the things that are in some ways missed, maybe misleading, you know, Who controls the schedule, who controls the budget, and who controls hiring decisions, right? Those are the 3 things that somebody who owns a business would probably want to control. And I don't think the dental industry is any exception to that. But yet those are the 3 things in medicine that really can shape the way medicine is practiced and also the experience that— that patients have, you know, the delivery of that medicine. So, in our group, you know, those decisions rest with myself and our group of doctors who basically serve as a board. And there are no non-dentists that are making those decisions. And I think depending on the organization, depending on how it's structured, depending on where their values are, you know, budgets, scheduling, and that's everything from staff scheduling to to patient scheduling, those things really dictate patient care and experience and then hiring decisions. So those are the things that in our group we hold very high and super important to us. And those are the blurry lines, I think, in the legalese that can— outside influence can creep into that, whether you have 2 assistants or 1, or whether you see to, you know, a patient every 30 minutes, patient every 15 minutes, a patient every hour, clearly you can see how that may influence the quality of care. And that's where the lines of business and management.

Yeah. And it's important specifically in the dental business space that you understand or that people understand the metrics related to this as well, right? Because as you can see, you get into, you know, the compromise of scalability, efficiency, and care all at the same time. Like efficiency and experience don't always hit hand in hand, but if you can find that perfect mix, super powerful because, you know, like you've identified, it's very easy to go into a dental space and say, you know what, we want to cut down the dental supply costs. You know, we're going to focus on that, you know, maybe a lower-grade product or tools available. We want less staff. We want less, you know, so that it's a more high revenue per customer experience versus the cost. And, you know, a lot of people focus on that and it compromises the integrity of the experience. How do you focus on optimizing this while also continuing to look at scaling?

You know, it's a matter of priorities, right? So if priority one is quality, And if we're gonna execute on our vision of great dentistry and great dental experiences, there is no compromise to that. That is priority number one. The problem with priority number one is that that means that you have to hire the most expensive, best assistants and front desk people and everything, right? And so now you start getting into this little bit of a quagmire because if you're gonna practice what your vision is, you need to also pay for it. And therefore you need to also have a certain amount of revenue to be profitable enough so you can pay your bills. And so I think it's a matter of priority, but we set out from day one that we're, our goal, our, the whole reason we exist is to provide great dentistry and great dental experiences. So that becomes priority one, non-negotiable. Everything from our systems to our culture is then built around that vision, which means our budget is large. You could do it cheaper, but you wouldn't be able to provide the same quality. So that wouldn't fly. And so that's the flywheel that's constantly going. And that's the difficult piece is continually to find great people to execute that vision. And that's— there lies the challenge, but you can't It's not an either or, it's a this and a that, and then you just have to solve for the that.

Interesting conversation that I constantly have. You know, we talk about pricing strategy a lot in how we do things. Now, depending on, you know, state rules and whatnot, I'm sure that there's some restrictions on price increases and pricing for dental services. I know, certainly know there are restrictions in Canada. But one of the things that we, we talk about often, Alex Hormozi wrote a book called $100 Million Offers, and in there he talks about relaying the value proposition of the value that you are creating for the customer in their experience. And he really talks about putting that value stack together to demonstrate, hey, you know what, the value of what you're, you're getting is here. This is what you're paying. We want to also raise the price right up to the point where the customers are feeling like they're still getting a deal. And at that point, you know, people will continue to return. They want the experience, they want the quality, and they want to pay the least amount for it possible, but they want to know that they're still paying less than what it is that they're getting in return. So I hear exactly what you're saying and you're creating that experience. How do you demonstrate that to the clients? Hey, you know what? You're coming in here and we've actually got the best assistance. We don't compromise cost-cutting techniques because what we're trying to do is build the best dental experience that you can possibly have.

It's a fantastic question. I think there lies to know exactly who your patient is and what niche do you fulfill in the industry. We're very clear, we're not trying to be all things to all people, right? And you hear all these clichés about being the best or being the cheapest or being the fastest. Exist and can't have any of all of them at the same time. But we, for example, believe to be available to the maximum number of people. So we participate with PPO dental insurances, which gives us access or anyone with a PPO dental insurance can come to us. We're in, we're in network, if you will. But then we also try and be the absolute best in any particular person's dental insurance. That shows up in Google reviews and that shows up also the video testimonials, for example, that we do is trying to convey that high level of results and that high level of experience that our patients get. And dental insurance is unfortunately, they're, it's very difficult to raise revenue. because we're under contract and they set the bar. And so the challenge really becomes how can you be efficient and also provide great dental, great dentistry and great dental experiences?

So let's talk about the hiring side because I think this is important, right? If you're positioning yourself as, hey, we want to create this Starbucks-related experience, we want consistency, and we know we have to bring in the best assistants and the best dentists, how are you attracting those people to your organization knowing that everybody is really looking for them?

To your point, even about your organization, if you create a culture very intentionally, I think that's an important word, to intentionally create the culture, because the culture's gonna happen no matter what, whether you're intentionally creating it. But if you intentionally create a culture that is, that is fun, that is rewarding, that gives everybody in the organization hope and a possibility of advancement. If you're paying at the top tier, you now can expect a lot out of those folks because they're very happy to be in that environment. And when you've created an environment like that, that flywheel starts coming back around. And so now people on the outside want to be part of that organization. It takes a little bit of time, of course, to build up to it. But once you become recognized like yourself as being a preferred employer in Canada or preferred employer in the state of Colorado, like if you're in the dental world and all of a sudden word starts getting out, whether it's social media or otherwise, listen, this is a great culture. They value your time. They value you. They respect you. You're paid very well. you have opportunities to continually grow, really what you're painting a picture of is hope for folks. And if you can paint a picture of hope for folks, now people aren't leaving a job, they're being attracted to your opportunity in your group. But I think that's a very nuanced thing. And so now the recruiting and retention part totally gets flipped on its head. Well, we're not pulling people into our group, they're kind of coming in by osmosis almost. And that's a That's a great place to be. It doesn't obviously start that way, but over years of culture building intentionally, I think you can develop that. And if you pair that with your systems, you get to a good place with people and with the hiring process and then retention, of course.

For sure. And I think you nailed it. The one piece that I would add for anyone who's listening, who's talking about how you bring in these top talent people is that recruitment becomes a marketing Effort, you know, and we think of marketing and bringing in new leads for customers and, you know, you create the know, like, and trust factor for new customers that are coming in. We now focus on creating the know, like, and trust of candidates to, one, know who we are, two, to identify with the core values and the purpose of what it is that we're creating within our organization. So that they can identify and see themselves there. And then, you know, lastly, sort of share the experience of what it looks like. And I would say too, and I'm not sure specifically about the dental space, but as a generalization of new people coming into the workforce, one of the biggest things that they, people are focused on right now from my experience is that people are looking to make sure that they can really enjoy their life while they're also working. Yeah. And we talk about that as being, you know, the work-life integration and how can they be really successful, you know, know what opportunities are available for them, have career advancement, but also live their life and enjoy their family and their friends and the time away from work as well, but be excited to go back. And that's truly what we're trying to create for our people. It's not the same maybe grind that you would see with the large for organizations, but we do work hard while we're here. And I think that's important and transparency of what that experience looks like so that when people come in, they're like, yep, this is exactly what they told us it was going to be. We're getting the people who appreciate the culture and who want to stay. So yeah, Scott, it sounds like you're building something pretty incredible over there.

When you think about any industry, people are attracted to being on a great team, right? No one wants to be on a lousy team or an average team because they know they're not going to win as many games and everybody wants to win games, and that manifests itself as pay raises, right? And as opportunities to improve your career. So if you can paint a picture where, and show other people who have gone before and said, well, this person got raised up, this person got raised up, this person got raised up, you provide an opportunity. The next person who's coming in looking at your organization and says, wow, that's the all-star team. I want to be part of the all-star team because I want to have those same opportunities. Of course, you have to show that you can provide that, right? You can't be just smoke and mirrors. But if you can, I think you get a lot more people by osmosis coming in the organization. Everybody— pick your favorite sports team. Who doesn't want to be on that team, right?

You want to be part of the experience of a winning team, without question. You want to learn from the best. You want to play with the best. And you know what? If you don't, then you're likely not a great fit for an organization like ours. As well, right? So we want the people who want to be part of that. And I think that's the main piece for me when I'm talking about marketing. It's like, no, we're going after and telling you, hey, we want these people who like this. If you don't like this, totally cool. Respect you, appreciate you, but like, don't apply because this may not be the best fit for you. We're looking for the best fit. And yeah, again, super powerful when you're trying to grow your team. For someone like you and I, Scott, now we realize, you know what, a lot of what we do is make sure that the environment is there for the team to succeed and to ensure that they have the direction and strategy they need to maximize the experience for our customers as well. And when we can find complete alignment with the two, things could never be better.

Yeah, it's constantly a kind of a sifting, right? It's constantly a sifting to make sure that, I think it's more important that you don't have the wrong people. You have to have the right people and they talk about bad apples or however you want to describe it, but really it's getting any potential hiccups out of the way so that your best people can do their best work and then they can have a great life outside of work as well. And I think that's really, really important. Obviously, you hear about hire slow and fire fast. It's a cliché for a reason because it actually, you know, you got to get you gotta get people who don't align with your organization. You have to get them out and you have to get them out quickly. And I think that's something that's learned sometimes over time. A lot of us, when we started off, maybe we didn't do it as quickly or realize how quickly we could do it. Now all of a sudden it's like you're either on this ship or you're off, but you're not gonna be like in the middle.

Yeah. And you know what, it's interesting that you say that too, because I somewhat agree with that, you know, the hire slow, fire fast. Part of the reason I somewhat disagree is that it's the culture that we've created is one of support and training and mentorship. So part of it's like, hey, listen, if you're not able to perform at the level that you need to, there's two ways that we look at it. There's performance and then there's cultural integration. Cultural integration is a no for us. That's gotta be a fire fast situation, right? If you're not fitting in with the team, Great. If you've got performance issues, we're going to give you a chance and we're going to help support you to get back on track. And we're going to give you some time to do that because we're here to support you and it's our job to support you. But that's just the culture. And that's, you know, again, when we're recruiting people, we're like, hey, we're mentoring you, we're helping coach you, we're helping guide your professional career. You know what? If things aren't going directly as, as we had hoped and maybe as you had hoped, let's regroup, let's find the path, and let's help you get back on. Now, if you can't get back on, we're gonna have to go in a different direction, but you know what? We're gonna provide you that little bit of flexibility and time. So I agree, you know, in concept that works perfectly because our culture somewhat says, hey, this is some of our responsibility too. We're gonna give you a little bit of time to make sure that we're doing our part. And to make sure that you're doing yours. So, but love this conversation.

How much batting practice do you give before you make a decision is really the question. That's the biggest challenge. A lot of people who are employers or doing things, they always have to, you know, do I train up or continue to invest in? To be clear, we don't just, you know, we don't just, hey, you're out, you know, but that's where I think that, You know, the speed of those decisions sometimes gets faster, I think, as you get further along, you know, you, you let, you're on the fence less and maybe that's because you set your expectations properly initially.

Totally. And let me clarify too, on the back end of this, the majority of time where we give people the time and space to get back on track, they don't. Right. So, so should we have fired faster? Likely in that situation. So we give that grace period, but The majority of time people can't get back on track because it's just not the right fit and we probably should have removed them earlier, but we're just, we're giving that time to say, hey, we wanna make sure that we're doing our job too in this case. But yeah, in many of those cases, you know, we, we sit back and we go, okay, reflection time. We should have moved quicker on that performance issue than we actually did. And you know, again, 18 years later, Scott, you know how this works. There's been a lot of situations where that's happened. So we go, you know how much we've spent reinvesting in that time and the energy and the lack of performance where, you know, we could have brought somebody else in who was performing at a higher level. So there was some expense there that we could have not incurred and we're going, That's okay. We understand that this is our business model and this is how we approach the relationship and we're accepting that, but financially, not the best decision.

Makes me think of, I don't know if you've read it, but Certain to Win by John Boyd, who is a lieutenant in the Air Force. He talks about just the speed at which decisions are made becomes really important. He was relating it to dogfighting and cockpit decisions in F-4s at the time, I think. I always think about that to your point, like what is the right cadence to make those decisions? And it's interesting as you start off, you want to give the benefit of the doubt constantly, constantly, constantly. And that's great. And then as you move further along, you get better at setting your expectations and also being available and setting kind of benchmarks. And then it becomes a lot easier so that you can get to those decisions Faster. And again, you, you know, you want your cream to rise at the top. You want to continue to empower your best folks. And you have to assume that not everyone's cut out for your team. And that, and that's okay too, because you want to put them in a place that they're going to be happy. And I always have seen when people depart, let me help you. Let me help you find a place that is a better situation for you and your family. It just so happens that whatever we're asking is, you know, is not, is not a right fit. Doesn't mean anybody's right or wrong, it's just not the right fit. But let's, let's set you up for success. And I think that's always important to kind of go to bat for people assuming they, you know, have integrity and there's not any other issues, obviously.

All right, let's, let's change lanes here and let's talk about valuation. 'Cause I'm very curious how you think about valuation knowing that you've gone through an exit situation. How does a valuation Looking at acquisitions in the future and exit strategies, what does that look like for you now versus where you were before jumping in with the PE-backed organization to take things to the next level?

Interesting you bring that up. Now you get to these inflection points and, and Brandon in 5 years has kind of gotten to that. We just, for reference, we just crossed over about $11.5, $12 million in revenue. And so we're kind of approaching this next inflection point. And traditionally, dental is evaluated on an EBITDA basis and tends to be trailing 12 months, right? So that's historically how things have looked. For our group, our same-store year-over-year growth was 56%. So the problem with that growth trajectory, it doesn't really look like a dental industry. It looks more like a little bit of tech type of situation. Even I think we were 16% quarter over quarter. And so the traditional model valuation is not working well for us at the moment because our business today is not, doesn't look very much like it did 9 months ago. So in our perfect world, you know, we kind of keep going down the road of debt. Problem is that, debt when you start having all of these offices. Everybody wants to kind of cross-collateralize everything and it gets kind of messy and difficult to do, not impossible. The other thing that's going on in the macro environment is AI, of course, and dental is not really the hot button shiny object at the moment, and it may not be for a long time, but the reality is people are still going to have dental problems. So it will be kind of, a ballast, I think, generally speaking. So it's always going to be there, which is good. But yeah, we're not the shiny object at the moment. So we've got a little bit of a quagmire at the, you know, sit right now. In my perfect world, we find the, you know, a VC or somebody who's thinking like a VC and they'd say, wow, we can make this Starbucks dental industry. You can do what coffee industry did 35, 40 years ago. And we'd take some sort of investment there and we'd run with it knowing that we don't want to compromise too much on our budgets, on our scheduling, and on our hiring process because that's what's gotten us to where we are now. But I don't know what the future exactly looks like, but I certainly understand how the valuations are traditionally done. I kind of see how we're maybe a little different in this moment of time and also you know, what are the things that maybe a potential owner would want to influence that we'd have to come to some agreement on how we were going to work through those things.

That makes sense. And you sort of touched on it, you know, thinking of the valuation model, what, and not being a shiny object in the dental space right now. I would say that the accounting world where I am is a little bit more shiny object because of our use of software and tools. Right? Where it's like the automation of our industry is being looked at a little bit more closely, not necessarily for investment in the accounting space, but how AI and solutions can maybe take over some of our space. So it's kind of nice that you're away from that a little bit, 'cause our space is a little bit more tricky, I would say. But what do you think the competitive landscape does look like in the dental space? moving forward?

I think we're, you know, a lot of people will talk about the people who are really operating well. And question I think always is, what is the opportunity for future growth? And I think of it like this. We have dentists and dental staff members and hygienists who want to be part of our group, which is a fantastic problem to have because we don't have a place to put them currently because we've kind of built this reputation, which we're proud of. We need more cash to be able to provide more space so that we can hire those folks who can service more patients at the level that we've kind of set out to do. And so I don't think a lot of organizations are well positioned to be able to do that, but very intentionally we have this brand of 5, and I'd like to make it 25 or 55 or 105. Offices that are providing this level of service. And so I think the DSO traditionally, it's a lot of splintered brands, right? So a DSO may have 50, 100, 200 different brands within it. The name brands, Aspen as an example, you know, may or may not have the greatest reputation. So that therein lies our— our niche. That there's our advantage. You know, we have a great reputation and we're scalable. So think of an Aspen, but that operated or had name recognition like a Ritz-Carlton, like a Weston, something like that. And so I think that's our opportunity. And I, I do think from, from all the bazillion of patient interactions, it's, it's really, people would love to know where they can go in a community and just know if they go to this place. Just like if you know to go to this Starbucks, you're going to get a good cup of coffee or at least a predictable cup of coffee. You go to a Brannon Center, you're going to get a predictable dentist who's very capable and at a higher level in an experience because that's what we're basically founded on. So I think that's our niche and I think the competitive landscape is, I think we could take very advantage of the amount of splintering, how splintered it is. And the fact that we're all under a single brand name.

Makes a whole lot of sense. I was gonna go back down the difference between, you know, a PE-backed space versus, you know, a dentist-owned space and focus on quality. But I think you addressed that pretty clearly. You know, I think the differentiation factor is part of the strategy and the focus on the experience is part of the strategy that will continue to allow you to grow. And 16% quarter-over-quarter growth, my friend, is pretty impressive. So congratulations to you. That's pretty amazing.

Yeah, we feel good about it. There's still a lot of work to be done. And in our group and in most dental spaces, the economies of scale are going to come from having the N, N equals whatever. There's going to be economies of scale there. But I think where a lot of groups miss the mark is in advertising and marketing. Well, if you have 10 different name brands or 100 different name brands under your group, there's no economies of scale in your marketing. There's no economies of scale in your messaging and your branding. And I think that's a huge opportunity that brand and centers for dentistry have is that we all have the same name and there we can take advantage of, you know, we don't have, you know, there's, I don't know how you could possibly market a DSO that had 50 brand names. I mean, it's just, there's no economies of scale there whatsoever. You have to have 50 different websites, you have to have 50 different billboards, you have 50 different logos. We just have one of all those things. And so I think there's a humongous opportunity there for us.

For sure. And then recruitment, you know, 50 different recruitment plans for— All of it. Exactly. You know, all of it. Yeah. I've got some fast questions for you. We're going to call this the rapid fire round, if you're good with that. The first question, biggest mistake dentists make when transitioning into business ownership?

They don't study leadership enough.

Exactly. Couldn't agree more. One system every multi-location dental group must have to scale successfully?

Their onboarding process.

Yeah, the systemization, consistency across the board.

Yeah, when people come in, what are you coming into? An orientation. Traditionally, they just throw them in and they have no idea, how their, how their organization is different than the last 5 they've worked for.

Absolutely. Growth or control, which one's harder to maintain as you scale?

Control. You know, in my opinion, you can go as slow or as fast as you want, basically, right? So you can just slow that down in order to kind of regain control if you need to. But the control mechanism I think is, is a little challenging. But I, again, I refer always back to like the Disneys, you know, how have they been able to do it across the Ritz-Carltons? How have they been able to do it across, you know, different, different continents, different, you know, groups, different, you know, different verticals. It's quite impressive.

Yeah. And I think back to your point about the biggest mistake that they, they make, business owner or getting into business ownership is not focusing on leadership. And I think the understanding of leadership, when you combine that with control, it's not about control. It's about, you know, the delegation and setting standards and consistency of expectations. And then holding people accountable. It's not controlling anymore. It's, it's making sure that everyone's being held accountable to, you know, the standards that they've become accustomed to, right? Like as your team is growing, everyone knowing exactly, hey, this client-focused experience is what we're, what we're here to do. And these are the minimum requirements and the expectations that we need to set. And I'm going to hold you accountable.

Your best salesperson or your best person is very rarely your best manager or leader. And so I think the really big challenge is teaching leadership to leader, to other people to be leaders, right? And so it's that next derivative that's so important because if you can't teach leadership down the chain, things are going to get lost. And that's a very difficult thing because a lot of people, you know, aren't spending their weekends and nights reading leadership books and trying self-identify and see how they could be a better person. A lot of time, you know, I mean, I mean—

Doesn't everybody do that?

I, I just feel like the weirdo here now.

All right, well, join me in with you, I guess, for a couple of weirdos reading business books. You know, it's funny, my wife will say to me, she goes, what are you reading? And I'm like, oh, you know, this, whether it's leadership or it's, you know, some sort of strategy or something. She's like, "That's not fun." And I'm like, "That is fun for me." She's like, "No, no, like, get, like, read a story, get, you know, get out of your comfort zone." And I'm like, "You know what? Reading that and spending time on some fictional story is actually stressful for me. Where I have this time to read, I can become better." I'm like, "That is fun for me." But again, that puts us back, Scott, into that weird sort of— entrepreneurial identity, right?

My Audible account, my wife would be like, "What?" And I just sent out my top 70 books to our entire organization. It'd be shocking if anyone read any of them because for them it's the most boring thing. For me, I can't get enough of them. I'm asking AI to give me more books that are more similar to the 70 I just read. And most people would rather watch paint dry on a wall, but But yeah, but I think you're trying to pass that down. You're trying to, in any way possible, allow the people that are under you, for lack of a better term, to be able to then teach, you know, teaching teachers to be teachers and better teachers. And I think it does resonate in the organizations that have figured out how to do that.

You know, it's interesting too, one thing that we introduced a few years ago and we're super proud of this, but it's only half working so far, Scott. We introduced this professional development budget for every individual on our team to allow them to invest in personal growth. But what we did was, you know, first year we did this, the investment that we made was so nominal because people were just not looking out to see how they could grow. We were like, well, that's disappointing. You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna incorporate that question into your performance evaluation. So if you want to continue to be a leader and have advancement, we want to know what you invested in with our money, right? We're paying for this. You're not having to invest anything aside from the energy of looking to see how you can become better. And so when we start looking at compensation adjustments and promotion opportunities, we go, well, what did you invest in this year in getting yourself to the next level?

Nothing.

Well, how do you expect that we, are going to want you to move into a leadership level if you can't even show yourself leadership in your own development, right? So it's, it's interesting. And to your point, it's like nobody's going to read those books.

What were some of your best answers?

As to why they did?

As to what they did.

What they did. So a lot of them— so it would be like your dentist and my accountants, they would focus on PD on becoming a better accountant.

Right.

And a technical skill would be like, oh, well, we focused our PD on, you know, getting really good at this. And you're like, yeah, that's, that's really good. And we appreciate that as a technician and as someone who's doing the job, that's really valuable. If you want to get into a leadership role, you have to turn your focus away from being the technician and leading the technicians. And so if you don't have, you're not taking our dollars that we're giving you and investing in it, how are you going, how can we expect that you're going to invest in becoming becoming that leader on your own as well. So those are the conversations that we're having. But you're right, it's, you know, fairly consistent across the board. People are here to do their job. They're not— the entrepreneurs are showing up differently where it's like, hey, I actually want to learn how to become the better leader of the leaders so that I can teach you what I know and you make you a better leader. It's just a different conversation than those for people who want to work somewhere. And that's okay. Yeah. But if we're trying to build the best team with the best leaders, we need people to step in and embrace that a little bit more.

Yeah. Did you find any courses that your folks took on leadership that, that were— that outperformed? Were there certain places where you're like, this was really fantastic, that they really got a lot out of it?

Yeah, there were, there were a few that I really enjoyed for them. One of them was a how to be a better manager, and I believe it was Cameron Herald. Has got a manager program. Part of the challenge that we feel is that managers have never really been trained how to be managers, right? They get promoted into, hey, help, help these people do what it was that you did to be successful in that role. But it's, it's less of teaching them how to be accountable and how to have difficult conversations and stuff like that. So Cameron Herald's course was really good. We put all our managers through that one. And the other one that I really liked, and I'm looking it up in my Audible right now as well, is Radical Candor. Radical Candor, and it was more so a book with a little bit of online training, is more about having difficult conversations, but making them positive, making people understand that it's coming from a place of care and trust in supporting them, in growing them. versus it being a, you're not doing this right, you're not doing this right, and being more of an attack. So how can we as managers and leaders have those conversations so that they're welcomed by the team to continue to grow each other? And so those two have been really positive for us, Scott.

Wonderful. You just added to my boring list.

Well, I know you, you added to my list. Certain to Win is now on my list here too, so you cost me an extra Audible download, but that's okay.

Oh.

Listen, Scott, this has been so excellent and thank you for sharing so many insights and wisdom and, and even just hearing about your journey. I know there's so many takeaways for so many people aspiring to have some of the success and growth, whether it's exit or continuing to scale an organization. Last question I'm gonna leave you here is if you had to go back to day one when you were thinking, through dental school and you went through, you were an associate and then you were looking at starting your own practice. What's the one piece of advice that you would give yourself that you know now that you would provide yourself back then?

I think it would be the peace of mind that all of the investment that is not tangible will pay off in time, right? I think when you're going through it, you're always asking yourself, my gosh, is it worth me to do this course or read this book or Should I be working 70-hour weeks? Like, is this wor— I mean, you second-guess yourself constantly. Is this worth it? Is this— and I would just tell myself that yes, it is worth it, but you've, but it, it, you can't give up on the race, right? You've just gotta keep, keep going and keep pushing. And it may be years before they're realized, but with that discipline and with that commitment, with that grit, like it will pay off. And I think it's really hard to tell somebody like, yeah, you're not getting paid this month, or you're not getting, you know, might not get paid for a quarter, or you might not make as much as your friends are making after the first year. But if you stay true to your north at what you're trying to achieve, it will pay off. It's very difficult to accept that in real time. But the hindsight of me would tell myself, just put your best foot forward constantly, understand there's small steps, but they end up to be becoming significant when they're added up over time.

Excellent. I love that. So Scott Dudley, CEO of Brannon. Scott, how can people get ahold of you, reach you, understand more about the movement that you're creating?

Yeah, you know, our brandoncenter.dental is our office website. But, you know, my Gmail address is Dudley, my last name, D-U-D-L-E-Y, S as in Sierra, B as in Bravo, @gmail.com. And my cell phone's 215-353-6654. Go Phillies. And so yeah, happy to take any calls or questions or thoughts or advice or anything actually. You're always learning, right?

Awesome. Scott, thank you for your time. I appreciate all your insights today.

Thank you. It's been awesome.

Guys, this has been the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Bob Gauvreau. As you're aware, our intention here is to empower entrepreneurs with the financial confidence they need to succeed in their business, to continue to grow, because I truly feel entrepreneurs are making the greatest positive change in the world. So let's continue to keep that movement forward. Scott has shared a bunch of insights today. Leave a comment, drop a like. If there's something that he's shared that you feel like, hey, someone else really has to hear this, grab this, share this out. Again, our intention is to empower as many entrepreneurs as possible along their journey. Make sure you give us a follow. We're releasing an episode every other week, so you can see other great founders like Scott and hear their story. So for everybody, thank you once again for joining us, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Thank you.