254: When Being a Great Dentist Stops Growing Your Dental Practice

I did want the business to grow, and I just thought it would magically happen. So just the different phases of what I wanted, what I was willing to put in, it didn't really take off until I really started working on the business.

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' Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations.

Now let's get started. Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of DEO Growth Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott, and today I got a special guest, Dr. Khopesh, who goes by Cap Patel. You were telling me a fun story that you grew up in West Texas or East Texas?

East Texas.

East Texas.

Yeah.

Nobody could say Khopesh.

They couldn't say it. They butchered my name when I was younger, so we had to switch alf.

So you went by Kevin?

I went by Kevin after my dad and I talked about what name we're going to go by. And Kevin Von Erich was a wrestler. I don't know if you remember him back in the day. That was my favorite wrestler growing up. And so we just like, yeah, that sounds good. We'll go with Kevin.

That is awesome. I mean, what was that like, though? Would that feel weird or just like this is part of integrating in?

It was just part of integrating in. You know, it just didn't. I didn't even think twice about it.

Yeah. Yeah. So now you go by Cap. Yeah, that's your initials. You're the CEO and founder of Active Dental 5 location. A doctor group. Crushing it this year. Like, all of us in deo. Crushing it and getting crushed.

Yes.

So we'll talk about both of those. You're originally drawn to dentistry through a college dental club. So was. Was the initial track not to go into dentistry and then you pivoted or.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we're Patel Asian.

Right.

And so we have to either go into some medical background or we're failures. Right. So I just started looking into all the different medical aspects of it. Right. And my family's in the hotel industry. We had a very small motel. It wasn't enough to really grow in that area. My brother went to pharmacy school. It sounded really boring, so I didn't like it. I didn't want to do that. And then I was medical just took a lot of years, and I didn't really have the passion for that. And so then I was just looking into. I went to U of H. They have the only optometry school in Texas. So I was looking into optometry, and I ran into some people for dental school, and I was like, I can do this.

That's awesome. And that gave you the confidence? It did. Were they, like, really dumb, or you just were like, they're like me, or. What was it that made you think dentistry is the way, like, I could do this?

Yeah. You know, it just. We just kind of relayed together. Right. And it was the culture. The culture vibe fit. And, you know, I just looked at the different careers, and I was like, I can do this. And I applied a year early, so I applied my junior year, and I got in. So then I was like, I'll just. We'll go.

It's awesome. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about after college. You graduate, you become an associate, or you go right into owning a practice.

No, I worked at two different jobs. I worked at one job. I worked at a corporate company for, like, six months. That didn't last very long.

Yeah.

And any skills, though, that you picked

up from being there?

Absolutely. You know, and there's things that. When I left on my way out, some of the things that I. The reason why I left, and now I look at it, and I was like, man, I really didn't know what I was doing. Right. If I had I known, I wouldn't have left. Right. So definitely pick up speed. Just culture, how they communicate, you know, how they process through that. So that helped.

Yeah. Did that for six months.

Did that for six months. I was recruited to. Through people there that I knew. Recruited to take on a practice in Fort Worth. And these two doctors, they had their own private practices. They joined together and partnered, did an expansion, and they hired me. So in that practice, I took over for a retiring doctor. We had to completely revamp everything. So it was just a doctor that was there. He was old, retired. Really was just kind of patchwork dentistry. And so at that point, I gained the confidence that I was really running a practice.

Okay, so you were the associate. Yeah. But you were really doing the acquisition transition.

We were doing the acquisition transition.

You lose all the staff?

I lost half the staff, yeah.

Yeah. And. And so you were hiring and training new people and just.

Yeah.

You have a strong office manager?

No, we lost them. We had to put in new protocols in. I mean, simple stuff. This is a really old practice, but none of their equipment supplies were sterilized.

Right.

They were just in a drawer. They're sterilized, but they weren't packaged together. They were just in a drawer. And so that was the first thing I instituted was like, yeah, we can't function like this. We need to start putting these in packages and stuff. So going through that process, they didn't. They got X rays, like, once every two years. So we had to change a lot of that. And during that change, I just realized I can do this myself. And I was.

You know, it's interesting. You've probably seen this, and we'll get into your practices, but when you see opportunity of like, oh, man, this practice isn't doing X, Y and Z at first. You kind of see, like, the dollar signs. But the reality is you realize quickly that that means that staff and that team is trained on that bad system. Right. So as soon as you go to implement something better, you lose half of.

You lose half your team. And, you know, because they don't buy in.

Right.

And that's something that I learned over the time just in our company growth. Right. And it's a cool thing. We have our leadership meeting today, and we were Talking about just two years ago, we probably had 50% of our workforce just came to work. Right. And I would say we have an 80 to 90%. You know, the buzzword around is culture. And I would say our culture is fantastic. And 80 to 90% of our people want to be here and want to help us grow, which is exciting.

Okay. We should talk more about that. Yeah. So you do this first practice, you're feeling confident of, like, okay, I'm the one doing most of the heavy lifting, if you will. Yeah. So at that point, you're like, I'm going to go do my own thing.

Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. And they actually offered to sell their practice to me.

Okay, your first practice, you bought or. No?

No, I didn't buy it. I started a new one. Okay.

De novo.

Like, de novo from zero. And so that was a challenge. It was definitely.

Where was that at?

In las cleanest.

Okay. So that was our first clean experience.

Definitely humbling experience. You walk in, you're like, you know everything.

Yeah.

Yes.

They are like, oh, there was actually someone on the back end that was making sure payroll got done, that was funding all this stuff that was, you know, like, all the stuff you don't think about when you're the associate, all of that stuff. Right.

You think you're Doing a good job as a dentist. And then patients will just come in. Yeah, yeah, no, no, we. We're learning that definitely the hard way.

Yeah. So how long did it take before. Or did it. Did it ramp up fairly quickly?

No, it didn't. You know, it.

It.

It ramped up. I think I just. My journey through that, I kind of phased in and out of what I wanted. Right. Because you. I always wanted to be in business and grow multiple practices, but at the same time, I wanted to live my life. So at this point, I started my own practice. I was, like, 26 years old. Right. Because I graduated really early, so I wanted my weekends off. I wanted to go party with my friends. I want to do that. And so I didn't really prioritize your business.

Aren't you? Yeah, yeah.

I didn't want to prioritize the business, but I did. I did want the business to grow, and I just thought it would magically happen. So just the different phases of what I wanted, what I was willing to put in, it didn't really take off until I really started working on the business.

And what did that end up looking like? What. What changes did you have to make for you personally or, you know, focus on within the business to get it to that next level?

Yeah, I think, you know, initially focusing on the business, it was more like what, you know, I think I built my practice around what I wanted. My lifestyle. Saturdays off or this and that. And then we realized we had to put the practice first, and the company comes first. And then so adjusting to that. Because what does a customer want? Right.

So that's the thing. You think of yourself initially as the boss, and then you realize you actually have thousands of bosses called customers.

Absolutely.

And to the extent that you align the practice with that boss, that customer, then things start to work.

Then things start to work, and then they start to grow. And then as we grow past that, my customers changed. Right. It's not my client. It's not my guest anymore. It is my team.

Mm.

Right. And so Now I have 40 bosses, right?

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

The part about becoming a dso, A dental support organization. Exactly what you said. Your customer becomes the associate, and the patients are the customer of your customer. Yes. And that's what you've grown into. So you decide, all right, I really do want to grow this business. I'm going to make some personal sacrifices. I'm going to work more. What did that end up looking like? Like, how many hours was this? Like, now you're, like, all in to get it going. Yeah.

You know, for me, it was hours

a week kind of feel or what.

It probably was 60 hours a week. You know, clinically, it was 32 to 40 hours a week. Right. And then after hours, conferences, podcasts, you know, different friends group, payroll with figuring out payroll and figuring out all that from the business side of it, accounting, all that stuff. So it was. But a lot of that stuff didn't

feel like work because you were passionate about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I often think, like, so much of life is about the meaning that we attribute to something. Like, if I was just sitting here and all of a sudden my heart rate went to 170 and I started sweating, like, we've got a problem, you know? But if I'm over at Lifetime Fitness in a gym, right? Then I'm like, this is awesome. Like, I'm pushing myself, right? And I think a lot about that, because sometimes what can happen in life is we're sweating and our heart rate's up, and it's like, so what context do I want to give to this? Right? So it sounds like part of the context you gave is you. And I'm curious how you did this, how you made that flip from being so lifestyle oriented to saying, I'm going to make these sacrifices, but I'm actually going to look at this as a. I mean, what was it? Was it a learning opportunity? Was it a personal development thing?

It was actually two things, right? One is I went to a dicoma conference, and those are amazing, by the way. And it just woke me up to what's available out there. The second one is my son was born. And when my son was born, he was in the hospital for a while, and I really started looking back at, why am I doing this? And so I think something that helped me grow a lot, which I didn't really do, is I never set goals. You know, I never. I. I set goals, but I never really wrote them down or followed them. Never looked out two, three years in advance. Just kind of looked at the next month, the next day, right? And looking out three years, like, what do I really want to be in three years? Really just helped me understand how much I need to put in today. So when my son was born, I really wanted to grow my business and grow my lifestyle. Still want my lifestyle, but I wanted my lifestyle to be with him and be with my family. And I realized. And part of it is he was in the hospital for five months. He was a NICU baby. So it just kind of changed perspective of why we're doing what we're doing. And I realized that I wanted more time with the family. And if I want more time with the family, going down the path of being a clinical dentist is always going to limit me to that because the patients want to see me, they want to grow that. So we had to adjust to see this. So I recognize that I need to set a three year goal, put some time and energy in now so that we can ramp this up, so that we can start converting it to where I can have the lifestyle that I want.

That took a lot of maturity change because to go from, I want to have more time with my child, therefore I'm going to not have more time with my family. You know, that was a big upgrade.

It was a definite upgrade. It was something I needed to talk with my wife about. And, you know, I was telling her and I was like, hey, I need you to listen. And she's like, you're going to do what you do anyway and you're not going to listen to me. And I was like, no, I really need you to listen to me here. Because this is what, this language? Like, yeah. She gave me, she told me, you have two years to get it right or you're going back to work like normal. So it puts a stress and pressure on to make sure it works.

Yeah. What was one of the first things from that new journey as your practice starts to build and you start, I mean, thinking about what, bringing in an associate or did you go do a second practice before you optimize that first one?

So we actually partnered. I have a partner and so I partnered with him and he had a second practice. But it always functioned like a different practice. It wasn't part of our group. It was, you know, we had the same name and everything, but the teams were separate. It never functioned as one pair. And then the next step was bringing on an associate. So I brought on my first associate and just kind of started handing things off. Your mindset changes because, you know, production for me doesn't matter as much. Right. It's not my paycheck. It's like, how's the company doing overall? So that mindset really helped grow where we are now.

That first associate is so tough because a lot of times you're an S corp, you're doing distributions. You haven't really calculated the fact that part of that distribution is actually your associate pay.

That's exactly right.

Yeah. So you bring that associate in, all of a sudden your comp goes down. You're like, wait, where did that happen from. And you realized that? Oh, yeah, I needed to calculate. So how did you end up making that transition? Was it additional? Like they had other patients and you still had all your patients? Did you adjust your personal lifestyle to match or did you. How did you have your.

Yeah, no, we definitely adjust our personal lifestyle. Right. We just didn't spend as much. We didn't, you know, live. We've come back on vacations and things like that that we did. So it's definitely there. And then really, because of the 60 hours, I kind of went back to getting a lifestyle right to where I put in not 60 hours, but 45 hours. And so I trimmed my clinical, gave that to the associate so that I could work on my business during the other times.

Okay, that's a big sacrifice. How did you start to build up for that second practice? I mean, how did that. Or that third practice? How did that happen?

Yeah, the third practice, actually, I was just sitting with a friend of mine that one of my best friends from college, and we were talking about how to do this. And so we actually picked up a couple of business partners and we didn't do just three, we did three, four and five within a one year span. And so we partnered with him. We have since taken them out. But that really.

Meaning you bought him out?

I bought him out.

Like, you said them off.

No, we got them off. No, no, we bought them out. That really just gave me the confidence to fully exit the chair. Right. And I talked to my wife and I was like, we're going to cut our paycheck all the way down to just minimal. Right. And so we're just going to adjust our lifestyle for a year. And, you know, this was me being the kind of person I wanted to be is like, I'm always saving money and if we're not saving half our money, then we're doing something wrong. And this is probably the one year that I was like, you know, we're just going to live kind of paycheck to paycheck, and we earned enough to live our lifestyle. Nothing extravagant, but most of it was invested back into the company.

What? Walk me through a crisis that happened in this journey that you had to navigate. What was one of the worst moments?

Yeah, I think the worst moment is when you open two practices and they're not producing. Right. And then you're not earning the money that you used to make because you're not practicing as a dentist.

Right.

And so cash flow crunch is a real thing.

Yeah.

Right. And then just figuring out how to

network locations doesn't magically solve it.

Right? It does not. And so I was actually talking to an associate today, a potential associate to bring on board and, you know, talk about our growth. And we're selectively growing. Right. And more specifically, targetly growing. And we'll grow slower than most DSOs, but for that reason, wisely.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you see. What do you see as your next step as, like, most important things as you look out for 2026.

Yeah. That's awes that you talked about. We talked about it today. So 2026, we're getting all of our departments. Correct. So I never thought I needed to be a platform or build that. And that's what we're doing. We started doing in 25. So just going through each of our departments and putting rocks in for them. Right. And developing each department up to a par. I want them ready to perform that. If I want to buy a practice, I can buy a practice, and I don't have to do anything specific. I can hand the keys to each department to my department, and they can take it and run with it.

What drove you to join deo?

You know, initially deo, I think I had a friend that was in it and Amit maybe, and he had recommended it, said he'd liked it, so we did that. DEO has so much resource that it was just amazing. It was almost overkill, though, right? Yeah. And so, like, with anything, you get really infatuated with it. You're diving down into everything. You're watching every video and all these things. Um, I got a lot, really, out of the seminars and the conferences you guys had. Right. I made such a good group of friends through that that I can text anytime I want now. So that really supported. You know, they're going through the same journey we're going through.

Yeah. So you.

When you talk to other dentists around and you have other dentist friends, they don't understand the same challenges we're going through as you do other entrepreneurs.

Right, Right.

And then I left because I wasn't paying attention to it anymore.

Yeah.

And I had my friends already. And so I looked at one point, it'd probably been six months before I logged into the EO app. And so I was like, you know, I'm not really using this. Let me exit.

Yeah. Yeah. And then what?

And then I came back. Right. You know, we had a consultant for our practice. And one of the biggest things. Lessons I've learned with a consultant is accountability. It's one of our core values. Right. It's that what the A stands for? I'm not accountable to myself. Right. I'm accountable to other people, but I'm not accountable to myself. Which is weird saying that. And then I had to realize I need to be accountable to our company. I need to be accountable to active dental.

Right.

And the coach and consultant really helped me with that. And our consulting period was ending. I was realizing that our company absolutely needs a coach. And so I reached out to Darren, and Darren had told me about how you guys changed everything now and your coach specific. Right. That's number one on your priority list. And so that guidance, that accountability. And so I really love that. And I loved being in the do at the beginning. So it was just nice to come

back on your departments as you get these organized. What's the. What's the department you think or the focus that will provide you the most leverage if you. If you had to prioritize? Right. Yeah. Say, all right, this is the one that I think is going to be most important for us at Pipe location.

So our number one thing is we're going to build a strategic scheduling center. Right. We have a few people outsourced that are answering calls.

Right.

And we have one person that's kind of working on that. But we really need to optimize our schedule. Right. And so it's going to be intake of calls, but also it's now going to go into outtake. Right. Outgoing calls. And then how are we managing schedule? How are we filling the schedule? And they're going to be in cahoots with our marketing department to say, hey, this is our hygiene capacity. This is how full we are. We need to ramp up marketing. Or, you know what, we're full. We can actually trim down the budget of marketing right now. So I do think that our strategic scheduling is going to be the biggest part.

Sometimes as you scale, you realize you get back to just the basics of things. Like, people think you're doing a bunch of innovative new stuff. A lot of times you're actually going, I just need to do the fundamentals better.

We just need to answer the phones and get people scheduled. Right. As simple as that. Right? Yeah.

I was going to say, you were talking to a single practice, and they're like, okay, when I get to five locations, I want to do what you're doing. What would you tell them to just start figuring out now that would provide, you know, or if you could go back to your original self.

Yeah, you know, I think my original practice, I think I was a doctor. And the Dentist. And I felt like I could make it work and make everything go right.

As long as your clinical capability kept going up, you were fine.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Right. And you realize there's a lot more to it. Right. Because the phone has to ring, so your marketing has to work. Right. But when the phone rings, who's answering the phone and how are they answering the phone? So just basics of looking at what the patient journey is. We call it our path to success. Right. But the, the lead generation that goes out there. But then who's answering the calls? And are they answering the calls properly? And are they answering the calls the way you want them? Do you have the availability to get people in? Right. The clients, they want to get in now. Right. They want to get in the next couple days. If you're scheduling them out two, three weeks, that's probably not going to work for you. They're going to find somebody else to go to. So I think that's where I would start is where's your phones? What are you looking at? And then looking through that process and just going down, what is the patient's journey when they come into your office?

It's interesting because, you know, we had 70 locations and we looked at the data. If there wasn't availability three days out, the show rate drop off was really clear.

Yeah.

I've talked to several different industries and I'll tell you, even for deo, if we don't have availability to talk to Darren or Daniel within three days, our show rate for doctors joining DEO goes down. You know, there's something about humans that like 72 hours is about all the tolerance we have, you know? Yeah.

We're. We're in it until we forget it. Right.

Yeah.

Move on to something else.

That phone answer. People get really excited about marketing strategies, but then it's just a leaky bucket.

It is.

Have you tried layering in any technologies at this point?

Yeah. So we actually use AI for our phone answering. Right. Because that's part of the.

Isn't that just for overflow? Are you using that to rate calls or using that for, you know, what's it.

All of the above.

Really?

Yes. So we've gone through some different companies just for calls, transcription and being able to get some data on it. Right. And then this year we turned on AI to answer calls. And so initially we were doing overflow because we're missing calls. Right. And we realized even if we capture 10% of what we missed, it's still better. Right. And then in times you know, we're patient experience company. Right. Well, if you want to deliver the patient experience, you have to. You can't be on the phone when a patient walks in to check in. Right. And so navigating that piece to it to where can AI help us? And so we're working with a couple of different companies.

Yeah, you can talk through a couple of them. I know they could change.

Yes.

We're working with.

We're working with Neurality right now with a couple of offices and they are answering all our calls. Right. And I've actually had friends that will tell me like they were fooled. They didn't realize it was AI. Right, interesting. We're also working with NEO outside of. That's inside of Voice Stack.

Okay.

Right. And I think they're launching theirs and they're. So we're beta testing it for them and it's working out really well.

You've been using Voice Stack for a bit.

Correct.

And what did you get out of that value? Because you layered it in pretty early on for them.

Yeah, because I've been a part of Care Stack for ever. Right. Like since when it first came out, we're probably one of the first 200 clients or 100 clients in Carestack. So we've grown with Care Stack as a software. And when they launched Voice Stack, it was great because we had other phone companies, but they didn't mix with Care Stack.

Okay.

And then being able to track the data on this, it's phenomenal. So that's one of the things, the first things I'm going to do in the first quarter of next year is dive into that strategic scheduling department because there's so many missed opportunities and things that it can give you that we're not even capitalizing on right now. So I know we talk about marketing and ads and new clients. There's clients on our phone call history that we're not even touching yet. So we just got to get better at that.

I remember I was talking with Bob Fontana, who, you know, founder, CEO of Aspen, and I think they were at about a billion now. They might be at 3 billion or more now, but they were a billion when I chatted with them. And it was right post Covid during COVID ish as ADSO president. So I got to chat with those guys and the conversation came up around integrating healthcare in. Right. That became a big thing. Should we put in healthcare in. And so you would think someone of that scale, he's all over that. And so I heard him and another CEO talking, said so are you thinking about putting health care, blah, blah, blah. He's like, still trying to get my phone answer back. And he's like, there's so many things that are just little things that get missed that we can continue to improve. Now they've, you know, if you've ever worked in that their system, like the amount of culture and layers, like these companies don't get that size by being terrible. And so I think it's just a good reminder to keep coming back to the fundamentals. I think it's one of the hardest things as being an entrepreneur. So again, really impressed how fast you kind of have this story of like mature, mature, mature. But most of the time practice owners at your scale are still really fascinated with like, I just want to open another practice. I just want to open another practice because the dopamine's there, the cortisol's there, and getting financials organized, getting the phone answer rate better, getting systems in process, the customer experience nailed down. It just doesn't have the same dopamine. Right. As I tell people, it just ends up making you a lot of money. But what do you think helped you flip from like being fascinated by all the shiny to be like, okay, I'm going to get to fundamentals.

Yeah, I think that cash crunch that I was telling you about, it gets you, wakes you up real fast, right? You know when we did that and it was like, okay, hey, I'm not making much money because I'm taking minimal pay out of this thing. And then now I'm having to fund it back into it a little bit and really wakes you up. And you know, it just made me realize like, why am I doing all this? So again, now I'm doing pretty good every year, having a three year goal, right. And then resetting that goal each year, right. And then strategically planning out what 2026 looks like. So I of did this the first time, really. We had these goals, but last year for 2025, we set these goals and it wasn't just a financial goal. It was like, what are we going to look like? And at the end of the year, we missed our financial goal. We definitely grew 30% so we still did really well. We just had an aggressive goal. But all of our other departmental goals, all of our other company goals have grown and we succeeded at those. And so when you're looking back, as I'm doing 26 goals, I'm looking back at 25 goals, you know, where you failed and where you succeeded. It's like overall we did A, we did a really great year this year, you know, and historically, I don't think I would have said that because we missed our financial goals. Like, oh, we sucked.

Yeah. You're starting to measure progress holistically as a personal development, as a company development. All of these different metrics.

Right.

Are becoming important to you.

Yeah. Each one of those become important. And, you know, this year we're going to concentrate on developing people. You're right. It's culture based. We're people based. It's not going to change that. As much as I can bring AI in to help support that, we're still always going to be a people first.

Right.

I don't see dentistry. I don't see a robot drilling on teeth anytime soon.

I think customers would be pretty nervous.

Still,

it's interesting, that transition that you've gone through again so quickly because in the beginning, it really is all about you. Yeah. It's all about you and getting better at your clinical skills, being a dynamic leader. You know, all of these things that it's like, me, me, me, and. And again, there's a lot of ego and dopamine to that. When the success is going to be driven by the team. Like when you have that click where it's like, actually, all my brilliant ideas have to be executed through someone at 15, 20 bucks an hour. Really, my constraint is how good am I as a leader? And then you're like, okay, I'm an A student over here. I suck at this part. Right. And so then now there's this. Am I willing to lean in and develop in all these things I'm not good at?

Yes, that's exactly right. I think that was the challenge. Right. And that's when you meet some people at the DEO and they tell you, and you look at them and you're seeing, you know, who is speaking, you know, and who's talking, and you start looking at how they're doing it. Right. And that's the part that pushed me. Right. You start reading different books, you're going through different opportunities and areas of growth. What I realized is the growth of the company is really reliant on my personal growth. Right. And when you. It's not my clinical skill growth. Right. And it was not a communication skill growth. Right. It is a little bit of communication is how you communicate with your team.

Yeah.

It wasn't a sales goal growth. Right. It was just, how can I be a better leader?

You were great with customers. Now you had to be that good with team members. Yeah.

And it's really easy to do. You just have to use. The same way you talk to your patients, you do it to your team, too. But for some reason, we get nervous when it comes to that point or we get more personal.

Right.

And, you know, a little entitled team.

A little entitled, because I think we're like, customers are paying us, we're paying team, you know, So I think we don't realize, like, well, really the team's driving that revenue, you know, So I think sometimes it can be really hard with associates that we need to treat them like customers because we're like. We're looking at the checks, we're paying them, and we think they should just do it.

Yeah.

But, yeah, making that transition to think of them as the customer that we're taking care of and we're developing into is a big.

Yeah, that definitely helped. You know, I brought in a really good director of operations two years ago, which just. It freed my mind of all the clutter. So I think, you know, I actually stopped practicing dentistry and then stopped running my business at the same time. Freed me up, and I think that's what helped me really get to where we're at now.

As you look at the tech side of things, anything other than phone answer and AI that you're excited about, are you using any X ray AI with the assertion.

Yeah, so we are using. What is it, Pearl right now? Yeah, we're looking into overjet. All right. And we're just gonna a B test them both. Again, here's a situation where I would have tested them both and picked the one that I like or whatever it is based on, you know, finances or money or, you know, how they work. And, you know, we talk about associates. They're my customers. Right. And so I'm gonna have them test it. I'm gonna have my team pick which one they like better, and then I'm gonna have them explain why they like which one better. Yeah, yeah, but we are. I am tech friendly. I am AI, like, nerding out over AI.

Yeah. Anything else you're excited about for 2026?

I think just our goals and how we're going to do it. You know, I don't know where the economy is going to settle in. Luckily, we're in Texas, so hopefully we're a little bit, you know, sheltered compared to other people, but just our growth for 2026. I'm excited about that and definitely looking to pick up a couple of locations next year.

Dr. Kap, thank you so much. Anything else you'd want to say to you know, somebody who's maybe at that beginning stage, single practice, trying to figure things out. Like, what advice would you give them?

Yeah, you know, I think I was thinking about this, and I think, you know, number one advice is know your limits. Right. And look at your limits and understand your limits. Right. And you can do two things with your limits. Right. You can build inside of the framework of your limits and just succeed extremely well there, or you can look at your limits and say, I'm not happy with that. And you can go out and research and figure out and lean on the coaches here at deo. Right. Lean on your friends and associates to be able to push you past your limits and grow with that. So I think knowing your limitations are going to be really key for what you choose to do next.

Yeah. There's a word for that called humility.

Yeah.

So, and then playing the long game in all of this, right, you. You've been willing to give up some of the instant gratification. This hasn't been like, all right, I'm going to get going if this doesn't get solved in 30 days. You've made some real sacrifices to get to this point, but congratulations on your growth. It's awesome. I appreciate you being so open and vulnerable and sharing.

Yeah, no, thank you. I love being here, so I appreciate it.

Good to have you on the podcast. All right, if you guys want more info, want to learn how Dr. Cap here has gotten where he's at, you can come join us in DEO at Deodental Group. 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.