165: New! Get the Full Story on Why DSO Secrets is Now DEO's Growth Secrets

I just. I love the name change because I like how growth is in there. Because even if you're initially a little bit shy about that word, we all ultimately want to grow.

Hi, I'm Emmett Scott, and just like you, I've had my ups and downs in the dental industry, but times are changing. The DEO has built a map of how to succeed in one of the most challenging industries to navigate. On this show, we talk to dental industry leaders, solve problems, and get you the answers you need to face these challenging times and thrive. Welcome to DEO's Growth Secrets PodC podcast for dental organizations. Now let's get started. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the last episode of DSO Secrets and the first episode of DEO Growth Secrets. And I'm so excited to have Jake Poole, CEO of deo, and Ken Kaufman here with us, a regular host of this show and just talking about this transformation. You know, just before the show, we were talking about when this first started, really, I just wanted to kind of get the DSO concepts out there. And frankly, you know, Dr. Evans and I had started putting together support services, and I wondered if what we were doing was evil, if I needed to change something. And I thought, man, if I title it DSO Secrets, people who think DSOs are evil are going to come listen to what our secrets are. And those who are trying to figure it out might give me some good feedback. Then we had this awesome Facebook page that's grown to thousands and thousands of page of people. And it's been such a great evolution because I think people have continued to consume the data, build on the data. Of course, Ken's done an amazing job of building out that financial perspective that's so needed. And Jake, of course, with deo, all the different parts. And so as this, you know, evolution continues, and, you know, the last thing I'd say is the evolution's gone so much faster with COVID I think all of us thought we'll kind of grind through this. The other side will be, you know, back to normal, so to speak. And this new normal concept has been way different. You know, we thought maybe we'd be wearing masks more often or something like that, but, I mean, it's changed business. The inflationary environment, we're not done yet. You know, we're still trying to figure out what this new business model is going to be. So with all of that, we just felt like it was time. And with what DEO is doing in the marketplace and all the different ways that it's serving the marketplace, we really needed something bigger than DSO Secrets. And so now it's all around DEO growth secrets. And I would say growth has happened for all of us over the last 24, 36 months. So, anyway, Jake, great to have you on. And, you know, I'm curious. Here you are with hundreds of groups that are in DEO representing billions of dollars of services that are provided. You know, curious your thoughts on this change and then just what you've seen in the marketplace.

Yeah, no, I mean, I love thinking about the history and where we've all been. I mean, a lot of us kind of have grown up together in the Dent Group space starting in 2017 when the DEO started. And I'll never forget that a lot of us met you for the first time and you were wearing this black shirt with white letters that said DSO Secret. So if you're. If you remember Emmett in that comment, in the comments here, or even, you know, just go on the Facebook group, let us know. But that was the first time I met you, Emmett. There's this guy who was, like, just so happy and like, everyone's like, was that guy. He's amazing. And it was where this DSO Secret share. So, actually, Emmett, I went back into the closet. If you're on Facebook groups, you guys can see. I think I put on a little tighter than I remember. So I don't know what's happened, but. But it was. It was. So that's how I met you. It was. Was wearing this shirt. And. And so, yeah, we. We met then. I'm curious, can some of your memories as well? You started kind of helping us out inside the deal. You started helping out a lot of the groups that we were. That we were helping there. You're on stage. You were helping kind of just coach on your own. Just like, just out of the goodness of your heart. Anytime I called you, you were like, I'm there. I was like, you know, hey, you want to come to this event? And you're like, I'm there. You don't even know where it's at or what the date is. And so you started helping out under this DSO Secrets umbrella. Of course, you were the CEO of Community Dental Partners at the time. And we started working closer and closer together. And then Covid kind of happened and everything got insane. And I called you up, I said, I think I need. I need some help. I need some really big help here. And we decided to kind of talk and see what we could work out. We negotiated where the D E O actually acquired DSO Secrets. So some people might not even Know that back in 2020 and it's 20, the deal acquired DSO Secrets. So.

And I'd say all through 2020, like every other day, we were doing webinars together, trying to help the industry out. Right. So we were already like hand in hand from PPE to PPP to every other nuance possible. And, you know, Ken was there with us helping dissect all of this stuff.

So true. And what I remember, Emmett, is Jake literally said, hey, you guys are doing like one or two podcasts a day right now, trying to help the industry figure out how to navigate this. He's like, how about we start helping with some of the back end post production? Which, you know, you and I were like, that would be so great to get some help there and all of those kind of things. And that, that ultimately, you know, led to this amazing partnership.

Absolutely.

And you had to wear that T shirt once or twice, didn't you?

Oh, yeah. I was remembering Jake as you did that. The very first DEO Grow summit I ever attended, Emmett wasn't going to be there. And he somehow talked me and JD into wearing the DSO Secrets T shirts while we were roaming around. And he said, you know, you're going to feel a little conspicuous, it'll be a little bit weird, but don't worry about it, it'll go eventually. And so we were wearing our T shirts all through the conference. And anyways, it was a great time.

Yeah, I think what's been cool about it, Jake, is the goal, I think from my perspective was let's kind of bring the elephants out of the closet. So, like, let's just have authentic conversations. And, you know, I think we've built so well from there is these are just dentist entrepreneurs doing this idea. Dentist entrepreneurs doing this idea. And there was so much friction and lack of trust. And I guess part of my vision was like, if we could just all get in the room, see that we're all humans trying to solve a problem for ourselves, for the patients, and maybe we're doing it the right way, maybe we're not, but we're actually. I think the heart and the intent of everyone was actually good. And as I've seen that within deo and you've built a great culture of openness and vulnerability there, that's been so helpful. And then when I became president of ads, all during this time as well, and what we've been able to do to link up the various associations, including ada, it's just been awesome to see dentists coming together. And now I think what we're building towards with DEO growth secrets is how do we just raise the industry and bar to the next level? How do we continue to leapfrog on each other's ideas? And I think within DEO now with DEO map, how do we take some of the best ideas we've learned over the years and really bring it into a curriculum? You know, I think we're past the days of Emmett getting on a podcast, trying to just capture what's possibly out there and much more. Now we know what's out there. We know best practices, we know what's worked, what hasn't worked. So whatever you want to title it, you know, we've seen everything from DSO to DLO to dmo, whatever it might be. There are principles within this that I think we're all ready to be organized around, standardized around. Right. We just don't have, frankly, the financial means to just be throwing dollars at different concepts anymore. And I think the timing for DEO to bring all these concepts together so that people can do the most efficient. The thing that's already been proven, you know, the path where someone's already goes, I've been down this path. I know it works. By the way, I did the six other paths too. I spent the money back when we had money, I spent money on those. This is the path. Right. So I think those kind of things, and then people can stack their own culture on top of that. That's what I'm hearing in DEO growth secrets that I'm so excited about. It's that next evolution, that next maturity within the industry for best practices.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean that during that time, we kind of just shared, shared, shared, and we were just served, serve, you know, serving as much as we could. And it was kind of like the snow globe got shaken up and we just led. And then from then we realized as. As the do in particular, got so many voices that were showing what works, what does not work, how to save time, how to. How to really make these dental organizations successful. We realized that the best thing we could do is really start to form these ideas into cohesive ideas and cohesive frameworks that are going to help people grow faster. And that's the kind of the idea of a framework, right? Is it. Is it saves us time. So in moving from DSO secrets to DOS growth secrets, you can expect just a little bit more of us coagulating and really synthesizing these ideas so that they're a little more easy to implement. So it's not so many Ideas coming from different spots. It's like, you know, here's a. Here's the best practice, and then here's how you can implement it inside of your business.

So.

So, Emmett, that's what we can expect with. With the DEO and with deo's growth tickets. Here on this podcast is a little more intentional. Intentionality. Intentionality around, you know, taking these ideas, making them easy to consume and easy to implement.

Well, and I think, Ken, you've done a great job of taking one of those ideas. So, you know, I started off with the DSO Secrets book and then your ability to peel that and say, all right, now let's go deep on one of these subjects. Like, let's really build this out. I think you've really set the example of what we want to do across the industry for these different executive leaders.

Yeah. Thank you.

It's been a great journey. It's been a lot of fun, and I've appreciated all the feedback and comments on what we created there in the book. One thing I want to mention about the name change, I like the fact that growth is in the title. And what's interesting is sometimes that's off putting to people, right? They say, well, you know, I don't necessarily want to grow. I just. I want to be a solo practitioner in my one practice. I've come to learn especially with the way that do thinks about growth and the way that the members all coalesce around. This word is it can mean you're a solo practitioner in one office, but having a growth mindset is a total game changer across the board. Or you can be thinking, I want to grow to 10 locations or 20 locations. But it allows you to focus on yourself as the leader. You building your team and helping them grow and then ultimately building up and growing your company to whatever it is you know, your vision is for it. And the most amazing part of it all is, is that as leaders, we get this chance every day to change and to reinvent ourselves and to try to grow and become a better version of ourselves. And it's a. It's a theme that I just have constantly on the forefront of my mind. It's an abundance mindset that says all of us are a day away from a better version of ourselves, or a week away or a month away from being better than who we were. We are better serving patients. We're better leading organizations, and so that's it. Our human spirit and our human nature wants to try to get better and be better.

Yeah, I'll talk to Entrepreneurs and they're like, we're not growing this year. I'm just redoing my executive team and internal structure. And I'm like, that's growth, that's growth. All of that is growth. Right? It's personal development growth, it's new team, it's new org truck structure, et cetera. Yeah, it sets you up for external growth, but that internal growth is so critical. You know, one other thing I want to hit on is, is I look backwards. When this started there were so many different like pop up organizations, if you will, that were happening. And one of the things I've noticed is there's still some of that happening, but there's a couple key players now are clearly providing high levels of value. You know, I think Adso is doing a good job on all of the legislative front and getting these associations aligned. DICOMA today doing a great job providing a conference around all of the legal components. And there's several others. And what I would say is most of them are vendors who are helping to drive towards specific products, et cetera. What I'm really proud of, what DEO provides is the most holistic curriculum. Right. It allows you to come in at that executive level, see the entire org chart. So each of these I think are very complementary to what is happening here. But what you're going to find with DEO is it's going to be the place that kind of has it all right? It's going to be the place that's going to say, yeah, that conference was really great. Here's what our takeaways were, here's what we built out as a curriculum for your team to implement. And I would add to that, Jake, that one of the evolutions I'm seeing within deo, it started off as, hey, if you're a dentist owner, we've got resources for you because you're lost and there's no resources out there today. It's now evolved to you've got a team and that team needs resources. And frankly, if you've been following Emmett, you're doing the same things Emmett did, which is, I don't want to learn all of this stuff. Like when you really can try to consume all of D E O, it's too much. It's like trying to consume every executive position within an entire industry. It's too much. So now what you're doing is now there's opportunities for that marketing officer to join D E O. Just by your organization being a part, they can be participating in it. That CIO that CEO, the finance, the compliance. All those different people now have a single place to go, Which I can tell you, when I started 13 years ago, there was nothing, you know, of that degree. So that's. I'm excited about that. As we evolve, this podcast is being able to hit on all those different executive positions, tie those into how they work within DEO Map so people can see everything from how to develop out their vision, how to develop out their operations, and then each segment, whether it's marketing it, you know, finance, et cetera. So it's finally kind of coming together. It's fun to be part of a consolidating industry.

Yeah. I mean, we've watched the industry kind of mature and we've been really at the epicenter of that, bringing people together and really helping guide the evolution of the industry and bringing the smartest people around to kind of share thoughts and ideas. And I think we've seen a really common evolution with leaders in dental organizations, which is when we've all done it ourselves, right? We'll go, we'll be educated, we'll get excited. We'll go to this seminar or learn this. And we have to go back to our offices or to our team and just regurgitate the same exact thing, right? You take all these notes. You're like, I don't remember exactly how they said. It's like my team says, I said to my students the same way. And what we realized is that it's way better just to train the team, your executive teams, your leadership teams, along with you, the leader. And so that's where we've moved a lot of our focus is how do we level up the team around you so that when you're growing, it's not just the revenue or EBITDA or bottom line, it's actually growing. The impact you're having with your. The people that you're. You're working with, and the time that you have as a leader as well. So, I mean, just to kind of COVID some of the things that we talk about within this Deal Map, Deal MAP is distilling down the most important parts of. Of growing. We talk about vision, setting your vision. We talk about setting your strategy. Are you de Nova? Are you acquisition? Are you hybrid? We talk about building your org structure, making sure you have that. That really dialed in. We talked about KPIs and scoreboards. Then you've got to get a meeting rhythm and a communication rhythm going. Then you have to look at culture and to build systems. And then while you're doing that you want to make sure that you celebrate and rest and recover. And then there's this top level on our pyramid here, which we call peak performance and future planning, where when you get that all set, you have time to kind of look forward and start to be really, really proactive in the way you're planning yourself in your business. So that's kind of the formula. And we're just so excited to, like, put some names to it and make it a little easier for people to understand how to grow a dental organization.

The timing could not be better because standardization is the only way to win going forward with what has happened with inflation. It is squeezed all the ability to just randomly innovate or come up with, you know, new ideas. And Ken, I'm sure you're seeing this, but any general dentists are probably struggling more than most because we got into Invisalign, we're doing some endo and we're doing this, and we got these disparate and we gobbled up a couple practices here and there. And now with turnover and so forth, like, we don't have standard systems. And I got three new people here and 10 new people here and 100 new people here. And what I'm noticing is those groups that have really niched, that have been standardized, maybe specialists who couldn't expand out beyond their specialty are the ones thriving right now. And so I think if you're a general dentist, you need to start thinking like a niche specialist, so to speak. And you need standard systems throughout your organization. That's right.

I mean, that's ultimately the only way you can build a good, healthy organization is to have systems that are repeatable by, you know, whoever that next new hire is. We, we all are always afraid of hiring that, that employee that knows everything. And then when they leave now, nobody knows anything when. When they go out the door. Having process and system inside of our businesses allows it to repeat and scale. And it also starts to give you the information you need to know where are the biggest constraints? Where should you be focusing your time? Josie and I just the other night did a wet a whole webinar on the system of the patient experience clicking on a Google Ad or, you know, they're hearing from their neighbor all the way through to the patient has decided to accept treatment and they've paid for it. And how you need a whole system to manage that because there are holes that come up in every piece of that customer interaction or the PA as the patients are going through that funnel. And by having a good, clean, clear system. It means that what you're spending on marketing will be optimized as opposed to you've got dollars falling off the back of the truck, you've got holes in your funnel and patients are dropping off because you don't have online scheduling or there isn't a good clean link to that. There are so many pieces of the puzzle. That's just one example really. Your business needs systems throughout to manage everything that you do. And that's one of the things I love about how DEO has evolved over the years is everything is now a system, everything is now in a workbook, everything is now I can document, write it down and I can then go back and help my team implement that system and we can tweak it a little bit, you know, based on our business and our needs.

And it's such a good example because how many times have we seen practice owners who said, man, I'm just not getting the patient flow, I know what I need to do more money into pay per click. And they weren't looking at their system to say your conversion ratio on the phone is where all the problem. So throwing more money into here, you're just, we don't have the dollars to make those mistakes anymore, right? We just don't have the margins to make those mistakes anymore. And we've got to be able to be systemized enough to move to the holy grail, which is automation. And the only way you get to automation is if you're systemized. And it's similar. Technology can't go into 20 different ways of processes, right? It needs one. And having the experience of being with the billion dollar DSOs all the way down to those who are just starting in dto, I've been able to see the formulas and I can tell you that those who are performing the best at the top are all systemized, right? Yes, they've got great culture. Yes, they're taking care of the customer, but they're doing it in a predictable way so that when that new person comes on, they have an onboarding system that's actually the same across all of their different pract. Whether they have two or 200, it's the same because I just need to train them that in the left hand drawer in this operatory, this is where everything is and it's the same for all their different practices, right? So that's becoming where this industry is moving and there's a long way to go. So if you feel like, man, it's moved past me and I'm out of the game. And there's big players now. I'd say we're just getting started. Right. Like, in some ways, if you're new, you might have less baggage to figure out. Right.

I mean, I'll give you an example. So there's, there's a really cool organization that's just evolved or kind of popped up called the Dental Innovation Alliance. And it's a bunch of leaders in the industry that are getting together and looking for innovative technologies. And they're, they're seeing that the, the best place to implement these innovative technologies are within the smaller emerging groups just in, you know, you know, 2 million in revenue. 2 million and 10 million. 15. Because they're, they're nimble. Right? They can, they can actually implement change. And we've been saying this since 2017. It's like, if you're a little bit smaller than these large DSOs, you have a significant, you know, advantage in operation and the way you're operating and that you can, you can implement and execute things probably a little bit easier than a, you know, the huge ship that's, like, hard to change the direction. So I've heard it described as wave runners. Right. It's like a, like a cruise ship versus a wave runner. You're a wave runner and you can make moves. So. But I'm with you, Emmett, on that. There's like a massive benefit to, to even maybe not being as large as some of the others out there.

Yeah, the, the thing with massive changes like this which happen is it is disruptive. And you do have your Kodak moments, right? Where you go from, hey, we're all used to going down to Walmart and printing off our film or Costco, et cetera, to an Instagram account. Right. And like, how do you make those changes? It is easier when you're smaller or you just have to go into Innovator's dilemma here and start making new investments as a big guy, you know. So, anyway, it's an exciting time. I love where DEO is going. I'm excited about DEO Growth Map and this DEO Growth Secrets going forward, of course, continue to come to the same Facebook page, which has already been changed to DEO Growth Secrets. Continue to have the great conversations that we're having, but you're going to start seeing some of the curriculum. And if you're not part of deo, I would say check into it, get ready to join, because frankly, you just can't afford to experiment like we used to. You need the formulas. You need to be around at minimum. You need to be around people who've already made the mistakes the last 10 years, who've already got, oh, I went down that route. Oh, I tried that partnership agreement. Oh, I hired someone that, oh, we tried that. You know, not because they're the naysayers, not because they don't want you to succeed, but actually they want you to succeed to save those dollars because they want to see if you can get farther on the way they're going, figure out if you get ahead of them, then you can figure out what works and what doesn't there and then you can feed that back into, into the group. So anyway, any, any closing comments on this. This has been awesome. First DEO Grow Secrets podcast, we're already projecting where the industry's going. We're already giving great feedback on standard. Standardization is the new growth right now. That's one thing I would say, right? Standardization is the new growth.

Yeah, yeah. Piece I would add here. And just going back to what mentioned earlier is there's a power in stepping aside and saying, you know what? I not going to participate in a recession. And when I say that, it's not just paying it lip service, it's actually saying I'm going to do the things that my business needs to have done to it so that if times are going to get tough, if things are going to get difficult, my business is going to be ready to weather that storm. And there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle, obviously, in order to get there. And it takes a growth mindse mindset to step back and say, you know what? I, I need to do this for my business so that I'm ready to take on tough economic times. I'm ready to take on banks failing. Second largest bank ever to fail. That having happened here within the last week and a half, all of those things all come in my mind, all come together that it dovetails right into deo's growth secrets. This is the place to be and this is the place to learn how to grow yourself, your team, your organization. So you're ready to take on whether it's a recession or, you know, whatever the challenges. And it's getting your mindset right first. I'm not going to participate. I am going to beat whatever the challenge is because I'm going to build the right processes and the right systems into my business and I'm going to

be in the room with other people with those mindsets. Right. I'm not going to be in the room with the people who are man, insurance man, this man that you know, it's like, here's what I can control, and I'm going to go take that on if you want to be in the room. By the way, mark your calendar. June 8th through the 10th, San Diego DEO summer. A great way to come in and test and taste what it's like to be with those individuals so that it's in beautiful San Diego. Like, how could you not go to something like that? But June 8th through the 10th. Jake, any other final words as we close out this first podcast of DEO Grow Secrets?

No, I'm just. I mean, I've been excited since day one. It's. Well, you're totally right, the word growth. We use the word thrive a lot, too. It's. It's forward movement, it's evolution. It doesn't necessarily have to mean more locations or more revenue. It's like, how do we be better today than we were yesterday? And so we're always asking ourselves that, how do we serve this marketplace? How do we understand their needs? How do we give them what they need to grow? And this is the evolution of that, is we're going to come with a little more curriculum frameworks, distilling ideas just so that we can. We can help this market, you know, get to where they want to get faster and more efficiently. So I meant we're with it. We're not stopping. It's keeping going.

Well, with everything that's going on, bank failures. We're going to be talking about that at the summit, how that could be benefiting dentistry. We'll see. You know, and we've got chat GPT that's going to be a real player. And this might be the first leverage we get for how to handle this inflation. Right, because we basically have to superpower all of our employees. So great conversations we can have around that. Anyway, come to the summit. Come be in the DEO Growth Secrets Facebook page. And until next time, keep smiling. Thank you for listening to deo's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Continue the conversation on our Facebook group and meet other dental leaders. Get questions answered and the strategies you need to succeed. Plus, we have some free resources for you right there on the Facebook page. Remember, you're not alone. Let's do this together. Join DEO's Growth Secrets Group on Facebook. And until next time, keep smiling.