34: Beefs with the Industry with Jake Puhl

Welcome to DSO Secrets. I know what it's like to be

an entrepreneur in the dental industry.

I've had my ups and downs just like you. There's so much opportunity to be excited about but so few resources to get answers. From here on DSO Secrets, we get you those answers so you can change the lives you're meant to bless and achieve your personal success.

When I was working as an associate rat at a school, I never imagined I could own these many practices with this amount of support. So thank you.

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to a whole new level. You have this natural talent, this unique ability. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott and I'm really excited to be with you on another episode. Today we've got a special guest, Jake Poole, CEO of Tech Dentist Entrepreneur organization. And Jake, thrilled to have you here with us.

Always excited. Yeah, very, very good conversations with you all the time.

All right, so right out of the gate we've got to plug the upcoming event in June. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that. And I hear your MC is going to be amazing.

Well, so our fearless host is also the fearless MC here. So Emmett, thank you. You're going to be the mc. I'll never forget. Well, there's a bunch of instances but seeing you on stage at one of our private member events twirling a T shirt around and getting that crowd all hyped up. One day I said the epiphany. I was like man, we got to Emmett and see these things. So thank you so much. And a special guest mc. Excited. But yeah, you know this is our annual event where we try to look into the future of dentistry from the group context and you know, talk about all kinds of subjects that are relevant to really I looked at. We got about 10 presentations and including socio ownership and teledentistry and medical dental integrations getting a lot of big hype. We got Dr. Evangelista who's gone from 0 to 40 locations in 10 year blockchain which I know you'd be interested in. Margaret McGuckin who was the former CEO of ClearChoice, she took them from a million to 130 I think million. Just insane talents, all kinds of really great people. Actually PDS is going to talk about their and their kind of spin off company about their payment solution that they're looking at. It's going to kind of shake the industry. So anyway, we're going to look at the future but I looked at all these, and most of these are happening right now. So the future truly is today.

Yeah. That's awesome. I do want to clarify one thing. When I was on stage twirling that T shirt, it wasn't the one I had been wearing. I just don't want to give visuals to people. Painful. Especially people who know me. They don't want to have that stuff.

Whatever it takes. It was good. I tell you what, the crowd was excited either way.

Well, that sounds like an awesome lineup. And it's true. The industry is moving so fast. And, you know, you mentioned pds. I mean, just taking on the insurance industry directly. I think they've got some big visions there that in the end ends up helping everybody. So it's fun to see the cutting edge and always great to see leaders. You know, we're in our businesses every day and just having that modeling and mentoring, you know, seeing leaders and how they solve things, you don't just go from one place to the other. Right. Like, there's a bunch of bumps and bruises and character learnings along the way.

Yeah. And the biggest feedback that we hear is that there's a certain energy and vibe at this event in particular. And I spend a lot of time thinking about why, and I think it's because everyone there is excited about the future where there's so much kind of in other parts of the industry, people are not as excited or they're kind of protecting the status quo. And you want to keep things the same. Everyone here is excited, looking for ways to leverage the future to their advantage. The ways the future is kind of leading to better access to care and better service to patients. So it's a great event. I'm excited. And, yeah, we're going to see. We'll be in together.

Yeah, that'll be awesome. All right, great.

So, sorry, I want to say we do have DSO Secrets coupon code for all of your listeners, so my team would be remiss if I didn't say that, because we went to all this work to put that together. So, yeah, DSO Secrets, if anyone listening wants to go get a little bit of a discount on the registration.

All right, there you go. Bringing value all over the place. Love it. So you and I were talking about what would make a great podcast, and, you know, we're both pretty positive guys, but we just thought, let's just go the other direction and just, like, rant on the DSO industry for a second here. What are our biggest beefs and frustrations that, like, if we had a magic wand, we would hit. So do you want to go first and then I'll hit one and we can go back and forth. I think my list is going to be pretty long.

I thought it would be fun. It's always fun talking about beats. I like old school rap, you know, there's always those rap beats. But yeah. So some of the conversations that we've been having a lot with our members, I've been having a lot. You know, we have members that come into the organization and we send them through kind of a 12 month program where they get to know about multiple locations and all the things that you know about the DSL industry and that's incredible. And then a lot of them stay on and continue with the organization. And in that time they will have added a location or two or four, I mean some 10 within an 18 month period was insane. And so the conversations that I had with them after that first, the honeymoon period basically is a lot about how difficult it is and it's. I mean it's not that they wouldn't do it again, but I think a lot about in my head, you know, are we doing enough? Folks like myself who have events, put people on stage and are we doing enough to talk about how hard it is? You know, I don't want to sell the dream ever. Very, very important to me. And so my beef is, you know, I don't know if we talk about the difficulty that comes with growing enough. I know we do a little bit, but maybe not enough.

So if we're getting real here, why do you think the dream gets sold, you know, so hard without kind of the realities? And this will be a perfect podcast because I think just the last couple have been on the dark tunnel, you know, and how tough it really is. So like we're basically now turning on the light within the dark tunnel and saying, you know, here's just a few of the things that are tough. But why, you know, you said you don't want to oversell the dream, so why do you think it does get oversold? Or do you?

Well, I mean there's always. I'm a kind of. I love capitalism, but also I'm a little bit of a cynic with it where, I mean, money is always the root of everything like that in my experience so far. So that's, that's one thing, right? I mean there's money involved. People sell programs and things like that. So that's one thing. But the other thing that I struggle with is how do you balance not selling the dream, but also not Allowing dentists to be paralyzed by fear and actually stepping into, you know, a brave space where they're overcoming maybe some fear. And, you know, so you gotta balance that. Because I do want to motivate people to do something that maybe makes them uncomfortable.

Yeah. I've been listening to Jordan Peterson a lot. I don't know if he's overly controversial enough, but I absolutely love the level of thinking that he does. And he was talking about, in one of the. Either a book or YouTube I was watching about the straight, narrow path. Right. And how oftentimes that's thought of as, like, doing the right thing. But he says his interpretation is it's actually the balance between the extremes and trying to find that balance down the middle. And I think you just named two extremes, which is nobody wants to really live in the negative of the past and that the future, you know, and kind of put their head in the sand and believe the future is not going to happen and the consolidation isn't really happening. So there's kind of those events, so to speak. And then the other extreme would be, oh, yeah, this is get rich quick, easy money. You know, just throw a few practices together and life is good. And I think. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like you're really trying to find that straight, narrow there. And with the deo, would you say that that's a big part of its mission, is, hey, let's get you to the dream, if that's in your goal and so forth. Let's get you out of paralysis and villainizing the world, et cetera. But let's also give you the tools and resources to take on what you're going to need to go forward.

Yeah. I mean, everything starts with kind of knowing yourself and knowing truly what you want. And so that's really where we like to start. But so many. I noticed so many dentists that come to us, they, one, they have a great life already. They've really nailed one or two locations and even three, I mean, that's. You can build a great life off of that, but sometimes they have bigger dreams and they look around at folks who have done it. Maybe even folks like we have on stage, even like yourself, they look at. They hear your pockets say, man, I could never do that. And to me, it's important that I think they can. I don't think anything separates them except for the way they're thinking about these things. So.

And my good looks.

And the good looks.

Don't forget about my good looks.

Yeah. The ability to roll T shirts. Yeah. So how do you balance that? Right. You try to bring people through their own self limiting beliefs while also being realistic about what they're signing up for. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we were supposed to like tell the beefs. Instead we're like, you know, chanting them forward. But while we're on this, you know, before the show, you and I were talking about defining success, so you brought it up. So I want to kind of dig into that because I think it's such a great place to start. Like, I don't think you should go to any conference and just say, oh, they're negative about the future, therefore I'll follow that. Or, or hey, it looks like the future's all roses. I'll sign up for whatever going forward. It really is internally a decision around how am I going to define success? You and I were talking about we're very appreciative of Steve Jobs and everything he did to develop the iPhone. I don't know that I want his life, though. I'm very happy with what's happened to me personally, and I'm very protective of that. And in building a dso, we've done it in a way that, you know, I can still spend that time with my five kids and frankly the same for my executive team and I can still be involved in, you know, spiritual and religious pursuits, etc. But not everyone's going to define success that way or even have that in kind of their success world. So do you think that there's just more thinking that, that people need to be doing before running in? Because, you know, what I hear you saying is they need to be careful because they're already have a pretty great life. Right. So do they put it all on the line or do they not?

Well, see, this is the thing, this is why I think it's so interesting, because from your perspective, 26 locations, 400 employees, roughly, right?

Yeah, we're at 500 employees and we'll be at 30 locations here. Yeah.

Okay. And so, so to me, that's a very substantial business to a lot of your listeners as a substantial business. But to Steve Jobs, maybe it may not be. Right. Right. But you're the department. Yeah. And so, you know, you're asking yourself the same question, you know, like, oh, do I really want to build a PDS or a Heartland and put all it takes, you know, it's, I want my lifestyle. But somebody with three locations will look at you and think that it takes, you know, sacrifice your entire Life and working 120 hours a week, you know, a week. But you've done it without doing that. I mean, you have maintained your life. Right. And then somebody with one location looks at somebody with three locations, and they think, oh, I couldn't sacrifice my whole life and do work as hard as it. So then I'm like, in my head, I say, okay, where is that line? Like, you've obviously built a business and kept your lifestyle into 20 locations, so what's to say somebody with five can't do that as well and keep their lifestyle? Right, right.

It's a question of are there natural laws that. That, yeah, you're just gonna have to put in the 120 hours, or are there mindset issues where if you're thinking about it the right way, then you can get there? Or, you know, as we're talking through this, are there levels of knowledge and experience that if you've. If you've had those previously, and maybe that falls into the mindset piece, but then you can navigate this a little bit easier. Otherwise, you may be putting in the 120 hours either way.

Right.

Because you're having to learn the mindset components in order to get there. I think velocity matters. Right. Doing 10 locations in, you know, 12 months is a different level of velocity. Especially when you're. When you don't have a team around you is a different level of velocity than doing one location every 10 years.

Right. It's so interesting. Yeah. And I think, you know, obviously, knowing how to do it is a big thing, but you have. Dr. Samson Liu was on stage with us in Dallas this past November, who's added 25 locations in one year. But he knew how to do it, and he had a. He's a former Heartland executive, and he had a full team immediately. But it's just. I kind of. My heart goes out to anyone who is thinking about growing. And how do you navigate all of this? It just almost feels impossible. How would I know? So that's why, to me, when on one hand, you know, you want to start with the why. You got to start with your why. You got to know why you're doing it. You got to know your vision. Right. But also, you also don't know what you don't know, and you kind of just make the next step forward and then reassess with the new variables that you've just uncovered. Right?

Yeah. This isn't gonna be a thing where you sit down, you read five books, and then you got it. Right. Like, life is more messy than that. Knowledge and learning and intelligence is more messy than that. So there is a matter of kind of taking some steps forward. I think, though, what you and I are talking about is it's just consciously making that decision. Right. And not doing it kind of blindly. And you'd say, well, no one does it blindly, but a lot of times we do. We kind of get excited without being overly thoughtful. And then. And then once we're in it, we're like, wait, what did we do? You know, so just being a little bit. I'm hoping through the DSO Secrets podcast, I can create some of that thoughtfulness. And I think that's the same thing you're trying to do with the deo. It's. It's not really even to encourage or discourage. It's simply to lay out the facts, and then if they want to move forward, here's the. You know, here's the resources they should be thinking about. Is that accurate?

That's a hundred. I mean, to me, everything starts with, what do you. What do you want? And knowing yourself, you know, what do you want? And knowing that you don't know what you want, and then just taking a step forward from there. But the resources and the camaraderie and all of that, that's kind of the easy part. For us, it's really about getting people to figure out what they want to start with.

Okay, great. So, so far, we really suck at keeping to our topic. Here's our first. Being to be supportive each other.

Well, the beef is with myself, you know, because I get. So here's. Here's a great example. One of one of my members, I was saying yesterday, we're talking, and he said, you know, Jake, this is just, you know, I ended up being a little bit harder. I thought, we're excited. It's making me grow, and I would never change anything. Kind of like kids, I guess. That's what I hear about kids. Right? Wouldn't change it, but it's difficult. And he's like, you know, at your events, I know we want to have the exciting stuff about growing DSOs, but maybe, like, behind closed doors, we could talk about how hard it is for people, and people might find it helpful. And in my head, I was like, no, let's make that not behind closed doors. Let's make that.

Just pull back the curtain and let everyone.

Everyone needs to know everything. You know, that's my favorite part about our organization is I think I've told you or we mentioned, but we don't take any kickbacks. Everyone that is financially invested in US is a sponsor and it's very clear. And so I try not to have any, but not beholden to anybody, behold any information not bought by anybody. So my goal is just to have real information out for people. I think that's the most helpful. I wish I had that always in business.

Absolutely.

That's what we're trying to do.

Yeah. Okay, let's dig in then. Let's, let's start talking about the dirty stuff behind the curtain and break down some of this dark tunnel components. So do you want to choose number one or did we ever get to number one?

My biggest beef is that we need to talk about it more.

Okay, great. All right, that's a cop out for number one, but I'll take it. All right, so number one is we need to talk about it more. All right, I'll go with one. Banking. I think banking and the financial industry is still trying to figure out how to support us. And I'm sensitive to the fact that there are different stages that have different risk profiles, but I absolutely think their buckets are completely screwed up. I mean, a dentist walking right out of school with debt they feel comfortable with. But once a dentist has opened up a few locations, they don't feel comfortable anymore. Like they need to come up with a checklist for underwriting that's better than it is now. One place that I do think that they, they have a lot of risk is when dentists or business guys are starting to add executive team members and they're borrowing money for non revenue producing items. And so, you know, I get that that's risky, but man, they're just too oversimplified still. Like the banking industry and the. I think that's why so many have to go private equity so soon. And maybe that's because the banking industry is so beholden to government regulation that they can't move their checklists fast enough.

But this sounds like coming from somebody who's been dealing with banks a lot lately.

Yeah, that's true.

You're working with somebody.

All my list is going to be everything that. Yeah. That I'm dealing with a lot, all

the time this morning. Yeah, okay, I will, I will throw one in there then. And tell me if I'm crazy because I, to me it doesn't make sense, but I might be crazy. So. Calling the emerging markets area DSOs. So a DSO is the legal entity, it's a, you know, the business legal structure that services the practices. But many, many of these groups of four or five locations don't have the Legal structure in print, they don't have a DSO in place. So we're calling this whole thing the DSO industry, when a lot of them will never actually and shouldn't or who knows, create a dso. It seems like a misnaming to me. Where. Where am I crazy with that.

Okay, good. We could do some back and forth on this one. So I think what we're missing then overall in the industry is some level of jargon for these different categories. Because, you know, I've said on this podcast, from a mindset perspective, the moment you hire an associate, you need to be start. You need to think like a dso. You're supporting another clinician. But from a legal structure perspective, you're absolutely right. I mean, you probably don't want to create that extra LLC and all your documents, you know, dragging up revenues or not revenues, but profits up to your llc, until you absolutely have to, because it creates, you know, 10 times the accounting work that's required. So what would you put that group in? Because I know that for a while they start calling themselves multi practice and group practice. My only beef with that was that the focus went from kind of a core issue, which is, guys, you're not going to grow unless you're supporting your associates. And it was focused on kind of the asset itself, like how many locations I have, which you and I have talked about, we think is a pretty poor indication of the complexity and realities. So we almost need like to me, another set of jargon.

Yeah, well, well. So I currently call them dental groups. I lean a lot more on multiple locations and dental groups. But Dr. Cooper originally started referring to all this as managed groups, managed group practice. So. And to me, I look at that as the most accurate and it kind of encompasses what you're talking about and what I'm talking about. So manage groups potentially. I don't. I don't know the answer.

Yeah, so why do you. Let's dig into it more. Why do you not like them being called DSOs? Because they don't have the right entity structure to. To be able to call themselves a dso.

Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't make. I mean, if you have four locations, even have that members have seven locations, like bunch of dock owners. And they don't have. And they don't. And. Because then I think they need to form a dso, actual dso.

Okay, so you think it's keeping them from really understanding what their next step is?

Yeah, just understanding how it all is structured. And so especially when you go to. The more you kind of look at the solo doc world and they're referring to everything as DSOs. And then it's, everything's corporate. And then if you have four locations, your corporate dentistry and it's just a slight cascade of misnomers and misperceptions, at

least do I think, okay, I can get, I can go along with that because then that will go to my next beef, which is everybody who buys DSO documents but doesn't do anything with them, right? They're like, yeah, I went to name that law firm, I bought my documents. But the realities are that you then need like a CFO controller that can actually make all that entity structure move. And so I think that gets underestimated and that might dovetail into your beef and that they say, yeah, I'm a, I'm a dso. Well. Oh, so you're doing all this accounting structure. No, no, but I bought the documents. You know, we just haven't implemented them yet. And so, you know, as you're saying that might underestimate what really needs to happen next to get there. Why would someone really need. If they are multi practice or group practice in these multi locations and they're all dentists, why in the world would they even set up that extra entity structure?

Well, I mean, so this is going back and forth many times and there's. For people that know there's like, there's certain kind of use cases, you know, if you have a non dentist that wants to be an owner, take investment later.

That's the only reason I can find is if you wanted a non clinical owner, whether that's private equity or you know, your buddy or an executive you're trying to hire that needs an equity piece, isn't that really when you should trigger that? Or can you think of another reason

if, I mean if you want top level ownership across the doctor, some kind of like, you know, ownership pool or shares or some kind of something like

that, like a holding company, pllc, you know, or something like that.

Yeah, well that's, I mean that's why our members who are structured this way aren't. And they've asked me a million times, I'm not the expert on this particular section, but they haven't created one yet because of this.

I did hear one from an attorney not too long ago I thought was a good one too. Is another reason to set it up is for succession planning. I thought that was pretty smart. So you have a spouse or children that don't have their clinical license or whatever, but you'd actually like them to continue to Maintain and run your business and you know, ideally they've been involved in it and understand what's going on. The DSO structure could actually be an estate planning tool, especially if you had multi locations.

Yeah, I mean, to me it just. I mean, I'm coming from the non dental perspective because to me it adds a lot of structure. It just structures the business in a much more understandable, clear way. So that's a bit attractive from when

I look at it, except for banks, they get all confused about it.

I talked to banks this morning.

All right, good. I can't remember. Did you go or did I go?

No, you went. So a quick one. This is one of my beefs about just the perception in general, which is that there's a right way to do things. So I just had a big conversation yesterday and somebody was asking me, so from what you see in the deo, Jake, what's your opinion about centralizing call centers? And I said, I can't even begin to answer that. I don't even know where you have to evaluate your situation. What kind of group are you building? Test it out at a location, see if you have the staff that can do it. You know, what's your future plan as far as exiting all these different things. But so many people want to know, like, when should I centralize my call center?

Well, when should I. And then fill in the blank. Right. Like when should I hire a CFO, when should I hire a COO, when should I. Centralized billing, centralized call center, etc. Almost hoping that, like, there's a checklist for scaling a business that goes in a very. Yeah. In an order. One, two, three. Yeah.

So you know what's interesting? Again, I spend a. Probably just an unhealthy amount of time analyzing the psyche of the dentist. Right. Because I'm trying to help as much as possible. I think the more I understand. And so I was looking the other day and I think a perception when folks go into dental school is that they've got to find a mentor and a mentor will help. I mean, that's really what you need is a mentor. And I wonder if that way of thinking is what kind of bleeds into like, oh, I just need. I just need somebody that has done it to tell me how to do it and then I'll be good. But for me, I look at it as more of how do you develop entrepreneurial skills such as decision making and prioritizing and forecasting? Because those are all what will lead to making the right decision about when to centralize who to hire, when to hire all those things. I just think we're focused a little bit on the wrong thing there.

I totally agree. And that would be its own podcast. But let me give you what I often tell people is it comes back to self awareness. You need to know where you're feeling the most pressure and noise, where you're feeling the biggest constraints, and you need to hire to that. Now I think another thing you bring up is, hey, I'm going to go hire the expert. But the dangerous thing, and I've done it so many times, but hiring the expert, that's not an expert in your culture and your vision. Just hoping that they'll be the savior to SOPs or to accounting issues or whatever and not fully vetting them on the culture fit, man, it's so dangerous, you know, so dangerous. So I think that's a scary path to go down is just I'm looking for the person. You know, I had somebody once say, all I need is a CEO and then I can get to 60 locations, no problem. Oh, my friend, I wish it was. If that was true, I'd hire a CEO other than myself to do it because that'd make my life a lot easier. Right?

Yeah. That's why I love, kind of the stuff that you talk about as well is we're just building the skills of an entrepreneur and a business executive. And I think that's, that's the biggest need is learning that. Which leads to my third beef. But, well, you got, you got your third. And I'll go my third.

And then, all right, my third. My third one would be around technology. So I get it. We're in a consolidating industry. But, you know, talk about making it hard for entrepreneurs, right? So you got dentists trying to learn to be entrepreneurs in an industry that's consolidating. So it has no enterprise solutions. And I know there's a lot of great entrepreneurs out there trying to solve this, but technology has been painful for me from the beginning and things that I would. I wish that were at my fingertips to be able to solve problems. And, you know, I'm completely entitled, by the way, because, you know, it doesn't take much for Apple to get me an update. Why is it so hard for any of these other, you know, dental vendors to just give me an enterprise solution that can give me my BI data and tie into my call center and help my billing team have workflow wizards and, you know, etc. So it's easy for me to put on the whiteboard. But, man, it's so difficult. I think I've told the story many times, but the first time I tried to run an AR aging report, and the software literally takes 12 hours to process that and then kicks it off in a PDF that you have to click through all the way to the end to get the summary. I mean, talk about putting barriers in front of somebody to, to scale a business.

Yeah, well, so I have heard people ask that same question. So I'm curious, what, what, what data would you like to. Obviously, AR aging sounds like you've encountered, but what. What data would you like to have that you don't have right now?

Well, today I'm fine because I've hired an entire programming team to solve my problem, you know, but I think what someone said in a conference five years ago somewhat still applies. And they said that the best software out there is the one where you can rip out all the data and create your own solutions. And, you know, I think that's. That's a beef. You know, I wish it. That's expensive. And, you know, now I have seven IT people with a programming team overseas. You know, I can get whatever I want for the most part. We're building our own doctor Apps, you know, so they can access data the way they want to, and we've got workflows and everything. But the amount of investment it took to get there, like, I just want to go down to Best Buy and, like, pull it off the shelf, you know. So anyway,

innovation. Yeah, that's. That's interesting. Okay, my last one here is

so

a focus you can tell I come from, you can tell the questions I get a lot about. Right. But from a focus of, like, the mechanical aspect of building a group versus focusing on the people it takes. And so at all the conferences that we have, a lot, if you look at the agenda, it's all the mechanics, it's all insurance, it's all systems and a lot of technology and law, latest laws and things like that. But anyone that's in IT right now knows that it's all about the people. It's all about hiring and developing.

Right.

And culture and all those things. But I don't understand the human nature behind people. Just they're not into that as much as the SOPs. You know, it's like, you want to know what an SOP looks like. People want to know exactly your SOPs are, but they don't as much. You know, I don't get as many questions about, like, okay, how did you develop Jody, who I know your COO. And you know, obviously very close to you, who's incredible. I'm like, oh my gosh, this person's probably been the key to so much growth. How did you. That person, you know, obviously different situation. But yeah, I feel like that's what we should be talking about more than half the time.

I think culturally we've kind of screwed things up in that we make leadership look like the James Bond kind of Persona, right? Like it's this alpha male, he has all the right weapons and tools. He inherently knows all the right answers. And if you can't understand it, then you're just off the team kind of thing. And I just don't think that that's scalable. I think that it's much more messy than that. I think it's much more intimate than that. I think the reality is we're a bunch of humans that are full of emotions, full of uncertainties, full of concerns and fears and frustrations. And somehow we need to start talking about that more because. And I think the problem is we're like, well, we don't want to get into that psychology stuff. I just need to know how to solve my billing and collections issue. So who's the right person that I need to hire and what's the software I need to buy to make that happen? But this especially this industry is so human intensive that, you know, unlike any other industry, if you ripped all the humans out, like you really don't have a business. Like when we say it's a DSO or it's a. We create this entity structure in our minds, but reality is it's just stacks of humans interacting with one another. So I think you bring up a really good point. Yes. How do we move the mindset from. This is some kind of tactical, clinical supply oriented machinery, equipment type work. And this is really in the knowledge worker type. It's really like industrial age to knowledge worker information age. And how do we get people excited about the realities of that? It's the other thing that's negative about it and it's just a reality is there isn't really a quick fix because you've got to develop yourself and then you got to develop another human being. And that takes time and a lot of interaction, you know.

So I have a question for you. How have you. So I see how you, this is the interesting thing, I think about your situation. For me, you, you have the most, one of the most sophisticated technological setups in or charge. I mean, you're running your business like my business brain would exactly Want to run the business, right? It's like you've done it and it seems like you've got the pieces in place, you've done the tactical things, all right, but then I go and I see how you interact with your team and your executive team and you are one. You have a way of interacting with people that gets them that you care and they're buy in and they feel valued and you create fun. All these things that doesn't show up, people don't see that. They don't know that that's how you. And so how did you, like, what is your journey been? To elevate yourself personally so then you can elevate the folks around you. Like, what is that your personal journey. We don't have a few more minutes, but I would love to know that.

Yeah, I'll give a short version. Lots and lots of pain. So I mean, the reality is I wasn't any different than everyone who asked me questions on shortcuts, right? Like, I wasn't any different in the fact that just I saw the vision, I whiteboarded it out and it was supposed to happen tomorrow. And I did everything I could to make that happen. And I burned through people and it wasn't working and I was frustrated. And as the analogy I would use is, I crashed a lot of Ferraris. Like I was going fast, mentally, emotionally, everything. I had no steering wheel and no brakes solution. And so eventually kind of carrying that metaphor out, I had to develop out what the steering wheel components were and what the brake components were. And there were places where you have to drive the Ferrari a little bit slower. And then there's other like open roads you could really go. But it was a humbling process. I mean, I'd love to say that just out of the gate, you know, I read a book and it told me that really most books messed me up, you know, because they were so much of like, here's the system, just do this and it'll all work out. Or you know, act this way and you tell people where to go and, and so forth. And I think the reality is it's much more personal relationship than that. It's a lot more self awareness than that. And there's a vulnerability I like. That's the part that I think is so tricky for people is they think it's about being super strong. And to me at least it's actually about being super vulnerable and then surrounding yourself. And that doesn't mean weak, you know, and humiliated, but being really clear on where you want to Go. And then really clear about how you don't. Where you don't have the skills to get there. Starting to test out different individuals and how they work. I will tell you, you know, just a quick thing. On some mistakes I've made, I tried to bring on people using that vulnerability. I tried to bring on people who were very much, I'd say opposite in how I think and opposed. So that was. And I thought that would be really helpful. So we didn't have group think and so forth. But you don't want to bring on people who actually oppose your vision. Right. They might oppose on the best way to get there, but not oppose your vision. So just like trial and error, right. Finding people who are cheerleaders for where you want to go. Totally believe in it, but believe in it enough that they're also saying, hey, there's a cliff right there. I'm very concerned about. And then being willing to listen. So it was through slowing down and figuring that out that I started going a lot faster. I mean, for the first 10 years of my career, I couldn't get an organization that I was, you know, and I've always been entrepreneurial in different industries, but I really couldn't get past five or 10 individuals, you know, and now we're at 500. And I'd say the biggest difference is my mindset on that. So we could have a much deeper podcast.

I would love to. I think this is this. I mean, deep down, I think this is what's going through a lot of people's heads and thought and they wonder all these things. So anyway, this is one of my beefs is we don't talk enough about this. It was really great to hear, to hear that from you. That's. The other thing is, like, there's a certain element of this is you just experience. Right. I mean, to grow past a few locations where you just. You have to burn through people and mess things up and learn and there's no other way around a lot of this. Yeah.

I think you have to go into it believing that the biggest part of your comp system is going to be the experience, because there is some luck and there's a large probability that it doesn't work out for you. And so I think if you go in saying my main reason I want to scale and grow is because of who I want to become personally, I actually think it increases your chances of success. I don't have any science to support that, but for me, it could all go away tomorrow. And frankly, there's a Lot of things in the insurance industry, regulation or whatever that could actually make that true. And I would still feel really happy because what can't go away is everything I've learned along the way and who

you are as a person now.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So you could put me in a helicopter, drop me off somewhere else, and I think I could prop back up to, you know, whether in this industry or somewhere else because of what you learned through the process. To me, that's the most exciting. I think that's where a lot of entrepreneurs end up getting a bad rap too, is everyone thinks it's about money and the best entrepreneurs actually it has. Money's like some scorecard and so forth, but it's actually pretty meaningless to what we're trying to accomplish. Like we're trying to bring value and we're trying to. Personal development.

Yeah, it's a path to transformation. It's the best path I've ever seen. I mean, to become that better person. I've never, I haven't found anything, you know, forging steel and all that. Like I've found any better way to make myself better than through this path, entrepreneurial path, so.

Well, good stuff, man. This is really good. Okay, so let's circle back around. If somebody wants to go to the summit, they want to hear more stuff like this. Give us like website and places where they go to get this.

Yeah. Deodentalgroup.com there's an event section there. D e o d eodental group.com and again we have the DSO secrets coupon code. And I think there's a lot of folks that you're from, your audience there. Last year, if you have one location, thinking about that second location or even if you're curious, you know, 10, up to 5, 10, 15 locations, tons of folks there in your same boat and just a great weekend and a great vibe and, and who can come?

Like who should I bring from my team or if I'm a dentist or I'm not a dentist, like, who should come?

Here's what I would bring my people that I need buy in from because likely people listen to your podcast. They are growth oriented, growth minded. Maybe they just want to grow their current locations, whatever. But you need your team to buy in as well. In order for your team to buy in, sometimes they don't just listen to you. They have to go and experience other people thinking the same way. So I would bring, I would bring those folks so you can get in alignment with them.

Okay, so the dentist who has like the practice manager that he's thinking he or she's going to scale with them and maybe be the regional or some kind of ops. That would be a good person.

Partners. Partners get alignment.

You all want to get on the same page.

Yeah, yeah. Looking into the future, it creates a lot of alignment and also it changes your strategic thinking. So what happens in these conferences, you can probably appreciate this. If you don't bring your people, you're going to be exposed to things and they're going to come back with all these great ideas. And all of your people didn't see what you just saw. And so it's completely uncontextual. They're not going to be bonded. So they have to see what you just said. You know, if you say, oh, dental, medical integration, like we should think about this, blah, blah, you're insane. I want to continue to just do my job, what I'm doing. So you got to get them to see what you're seeing. Right.

That's such great advice on multiple levels. Okay. And what about business guys who have dentist partners? Those guys should come.

Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things that are coming down the pipeline that are here that in order to form kind of where you're going in your business, you've got to be. Gotta be up on. Right. So now. So for example, we're gonna have a panel of three businesses groups, larger groups, who have established associate ownership plans. And I can tell you, they talk, they give the trials and tribulations. Here's what worked, here's what hasn't worked. Do what you want with it, but here's the information. And anyone who has more than one associate needs to know these things. Right? You need to know how to structure these things. So we're gonna touch on it all.

It's awesome, man. Okay, give the website one more time.

All right, thank you. Deodental group.com and you'll see the deodental

group.com the DSO secrets get some money off perfect.

27th through 29th in Phoenix. The emerging future of group dentistry. The EO summit.

Man. Thank you for everything you're doing for the industry and thanks for being on DSO Secrets today, Jake.

Thanks, Emmett. Always a pleasure.

All right, take care.

Thank you for listening to DSO Secrets. Join our community on Facebook @DSO Secrets and get answers and resources to some of your most challenging questions. If you want to get a copy of the seven secrets of any DSO, go to our website at dsosecrets.com and we will get that emailed to you. Remember, don't go at this alone. Let us be your team while you build your team.