Million Dollar Dentistry Masterclass January 2021: "A Day in the Life of Larry Laserguy, D.D.S."

Hey practice owners. I wanted to welcome you to the first installment of our Million Dollar Dentistry masterclass. It's really more of a conversation than anything. It's not, you know, not something you need to take notes for. You can watch it again tonight. I have reached out to my good friend Gary. Katie, Next level practice. How you doing Gary?

Hey Steve.

You've got the awesome studio. I just have stuff hanging behind me here. Gary. We have a long, long history with the magazine. Our readers know Gary very well. Our CE courses have always included Gary. He's spoken at many, many times our events, keynoted our events. The reason is a few years ago Gary wrote a book, Million Dollar Dentistry. And I understand this is like a first edition, right?

Steve, you got like the one of 100 that's worth a lot of money. Steve.

Oh, they're like two grand on eBay. I just checked them out. You can see how much I use it. It's dog eared. I got post it notes, all this stuff so you can see how much I turn to this.

It's really been the bible like when I wrote it. Steve, I was wondering is anybody going to read this? And what people were looking for was a step by step process of really running a successful practice. They wanted to be successful practice owners and really focus on the work. They love being a dentist, but they were frustrate because they weren't set up in dental school. They just weren't set up and they went out and it was like. So I just did the nuts and bolts version of the step by step process to get you to be free so you don't have to be like laboring over your practice. You can work one hour a week on your practice. So that's, that's how it came to, came to fruition.

Well, it really is. So it's. So what we're going to do in this masterclass fundamentally is go chapter by chapter through this book and we're going to tell the viewers at the end here how they can get their own copy. And if they want to have a conversation about specific things, they can do that too. But for the most part they can just get a copy of the book. It is 10 chapters and we're adding two extra add ons. We're recording this post Covid, so to speak, we hope. But through the struggles and trials and tribulations of 2020 that I think forced a lot of practice owner, a lot of. Let me back up a lot of dentists to be reminded in a very striking way that they are also the practice owner, something they could kind of fumble through for, you know, maybe for a career or certainly for a decade and, you know, still be okay. They weren't great. You know, they would have good years and bad years, but 20, 20 really made them realize they are the person who's in charge of staff, who's in charge of finances, who's in charge of taxes, who's in charge of all kinds of business things that they were hoping never to have to address. And they learned it the hard way. Some have thrived, some have survived. And I know you and I have talked before about your Next Level people. And for anybody who doesn't know, Next Level is probably the top coaching, consulting, practice management company in dentistry. And your clients, I think, for the most part, have thrived when others were struggling. And that's because I think they had, you know, this isn't a commercial for Next Level, but it certainly applies that they had somebody to turn to where I get hundreds of emails a week asking very fundamental, simple questions that you just said a while ago, Gary, they didn't learn in dental school. So that's kind of the foundation of where this masterclass came from, is you didn't learn this stuff in dental school. You're not, you know, you can spend eons on, you know, you can get a degree from the University of YouTube watching, you know, one guy's YouTube on collections and one guy's, you know, YouTube on new patients. And one person's, you know, one woman's going to tell you how to market. One woman's going to how you do SEO. And it's all disjointed and overwhelming and confusing. So that's why I reached out to you and about, you know, kind of to go through the book and. Which is, I guess, a good place to start. Chapter one, my favorite chapter, Gary, which is the topic of this episode, is about a day in the life of Larry Laser Guy, dds.

Oh, yeah.

Can you kind of tell the audience who Larry is? You and I have had this discussion many times over the years. There's a very common experience in practice ownership. Not the dentistry piece, but the practice ownership. And I think you nailed it perfectly with Larry. So I'll let you tell about Larry and his history and how it works. And for anybody listening, if you have a question, type it in. I see a lot of people coming in, filling up fast. We already have a few questions, and what I'll try to do is find the ones that are relevant and Gary and I will discuss those. Or Gary can answer those. And the others, I promise you, if we can't get to them today or on this, on this recording, it saves them. This platform saves them. And we'll follow up certainly by tomorrow with an answer to your question. So all questions are valid, you know, nothing's off limits. Specific general comments, whatever you want, make sure you put your questions in. And I promise they will all be answered, whether on this broadcast or certainly in a follow up. So with that, Gary. So who's Larry? Tell me about Dr. Larry.

Oh, Larry, I wrote this book in my apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, right, sitting there. And at that time, Steve, I probably did about a few hundred practices. Now it's 6,000, right? So it's been a long journey and eight iterations of the book are really interesting and it's still relevant today. I could still tell that same Larry Laser guy story. I would probably add, I would probably have the female version of Larry. But Larry represents the dentist who is, you know, came out of dental school, had this big vision, big, big hope and possibility, got married, had a family, and now they have the keys. They have the keys to their practice. And they're like, make this gooder, better, faster than the guy or gal before you. And then they throw the roller skates on and start cranking it out. And then there's all these circumstances surrounding this that come up. You know, all of a sudden you find out, oh, my gosh, you know, I'm not just a clinician, a technician who. My dream is to really be chairside and poolside. Like, I just want to be chairside and poolside, Steve. Like, you know, I really want to go in and do my dentistry, and then I want to have time to enjoy it with my family. Like, that's my picture, right? And the reason why most dentists really became dentists in the first place is they didn't want to be on call like MDs. And they, they also saw that, like, it was going to provide a lifestyle for them. And then, you know, all of a sudden, the lifestyle that they've defaulted into was not the one. Really. A lot of dentists come to me and they say, gary, this is not what I pictured, you know, when I.

Went to dental school.

You know, either they came from ancestors that were a dentist or they were inspired by their dentist or, you know, there's different ways that they became a dentist. Or they're the first who ever even went to college and, and became a professional. And they just wanted a full life. And then they realized that their Life actually got smaller, and they're working harder than ever. You know, Larry. Larry gets in there, and he has, you know, he's good at what he does. He's a good technician. He's a good dentist. He's great with people. And then all of a sudden, Larry builds this practice year over year. And then he has more team members. And it was okay when he had two or three or four team members. Now he has seven or eight. And it's like herding cats for Larry. And then, you know, they're calling in sick or they're hungover or, you know, they're quitting. And then, you know, Larry wants to bring on an associate, Charlie Chairside. He comes in. Now all of a sudden, Charlie Chairside's this arrogant guy who just, like, comes in and thinks he knows it all. And, you know, you know, there's like. There's a certain level of arrogance and, like, disrespect there. Meanwhile, Larry's mentoring Charlie, and he doesn't really appreciate Larry for what he's actually doing. And then the team leader, they walk into the morning huddle, and two people are missing. It's just this comedy of errors. But it's like you want to sit there, and you start losing your mind, and you get tired after a while, because what happens is, Steve, they walk into these practices, and there's no business model typically built around the structure. There's no control points. So they become controlling a lot. Larry tries to micromanage because that's how he got there. So, like, people like Larry, who was great at his craft, great at dentistry, he doesn't think he should be in this place in his life at this time. He's like, I should be way ahead, and I should have more money in the bank. I should have more money for retirement. You know, he's working his. He has full schedules, but he has money with wings, Steve. The money, as fast as it's coming in, it goes out the back. Now, he has constraints. He's got his insurance companies, you know, who haven't raised any fees, and they are actually paying him less. You know, he had a deal. Larry had a deal with, you know, a lawsuit where he's doing great dentistry, but he just had a cuckoo crazy patient who just, you know, throws a lawsuit at him. You know, there's a lot of that going on. Then Charlie takes half of his patients illegally and sets up down the street. Like, all these circumstances are all the things that I've seen in dentistry. And I wrote this, you know, fictional. If you will story about this guy who grapples with, this is not what I signed up for. I wasn't trained in dentistry to do it. And right now I'm frustrated, I'm stressed, I'm overwhelmed, and it really shouldn't be this way. And it's really not my fault.

So I got a. So here's this popped up while you're talking. So I've got here Dr. Ryan in Queens. He says he's got, like, a bunch of exclamation marks. I've felt like Larry every day for the past 15 years. Dental school didn't prepare me for all of this. Would it be a good idea to get an mba? And you and I have talked about this before. That is, I think docs think, okay, a little more education and shazam, all these. All these problems go away. So is it. So should he get an mba?

Hell, no.

I mean, right. You know, I agree.

Look, it takes however long to get it. And then here's where I would shift Ryan's thinking. Dr. Ryan, thanks for that question. Thanks for the exclamation points. See, your first, you know, move toward having a life that you love is like acknowledging what's so and then looking for the solution. Steve, you brought up a good point here. Like, dentists are overwhelmed by, like, dental economics and profitable Dentist and this podcast and that podcast, and it's fragmented content. And my suggestion here is find someone who focuses on implementation, who guarantees a return on investment, who has a business model that can be installed. You don't want theory and ideas and a system here and a system there and an idea here and an idea there. That's not going to work. And guess what? If you've been in practice for 15 years, Dr. Ryan, you want to just. You don't want to have to spend all these hours figuring it out. You want to find somebody lined up with your philosophy, and then that just gets this stuff implemented. And here's the good news about this, Ryan. There's people that will get it done with your team and mobilize them and engage them, so you don't even have to touch it. You just get to oversee it. Look, if you're spending more time than an hour a week of implementation or managing your practice, that's the benchmark that you should have in today's world, because it's been figured out.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I always. And I got in a lot of trouble for this in Indiana University School of Business, where, you know, I'm an entrepreneur and always have been. And whether Practice owning dentists realize it. They are entrepreneurs first. Because if you're not, if you're not good at the entrepreneurship, you don't get to do the dentistry you want to do. You can become an employee for somebody, or you can, you know, you can go work for a big dso and you can just be the dentist. In fact, you can do all the clinical CE you want. You can be a fantastic dentist, and somebody else takes care of everything. You take a paycheck and go home. 84% of dentists own their practice. So, you know, that's very, very unique to dentistry, which is one of the reasons why we're talking. But I always say, like accounting and finance and all of those skills are better left to the professionals. You know, I might know how I want my house to look and, you know, I might want to drill down deep and say, this is how the plumbing should work and the electric should work and all these things should work. But there are professionals who do that really well. Let them do it. And in your case, I know what you guys do is sort of the Gary I've always thought of you all. And, you know, tell me again, this is a little bit about next level. More than just. And maybe not maybe it's about practice management. I've seen you guys, what you do as more of a business partner, where I've had, and I know a lot of your clients, a lot of your docs just spent some time last week in Park City, Utah, with a bunch of great people, very successful practices. But I get the feeling they think of what you do as a business partner, even though you're not just somebody who comes in and says, hey, let me clean this up, and you know, three months from now, we're finished. But more of a you handle the business stuff. Something comes up, they turn to you. You know, like Covid, I know you did a lot of work there, which is not something anybody ever planned on, but suddenly, instead of overwhelmed, they now have somebody they turn to. So they almost think of you as a business partner. That's how I see the answer to this question here is hire those skills that you can't do, and some of that is the management piece of it. Does that make sense? Is that kind of.

Yeah.

I mean, here's the thing. You can train yourself, but if you don't default into some of these skill sets, why waste your time? If you had someone who can really find the potential of your practice and understand it, dig in and get it all implemented, and then you get to focus in on dentistry, step one, two, three, and you're done. And the beauty of that is you don't have to, like, learn it and then apply it. Somebody will listen to what you want, find out where your existing untapped potential is, and get it done for you. Right in the heart of the matter. See, a little, little personal story here, Steve, that I think is really important. Where I learned this, I. You know, my son was diagnosed with autism back in the day, and my wife came to me and she said, listen, party fresh. You know, call me party fresh. Add a little alcohol to this, brother, and I'm good. I am fun, right? But I'm 13 years sober today. I had to quit alcohol because I was using it to numb my feelings, because I was in pain about where my son was. And here's the deal. The thinking that got me to be an alcoholic, Steve, I needed to tap into someone else who knew how to be sober. I couldn't apply my alcoholic thinking to stop drinking alcohol. And that's the other thing. If you get an MBA and you apply the same thinking to it, you're going to get the same result. When you get that interruption, we can get people from zero to a million. We had, you know, you guys, you know these people, you were in Park City with them. You know, a million dollars in a year without working any more hours is not unheard of. You know, if you know how to grow it and you do it ethically, that's the other thing. A lot of people listen like, wow, I grew a million dollars. But did he do it ethically? Yes, because it's. The beauty of dentistry is you can make money and do well, Steve, without really having this. But if you really want to tap into and maximize your practice, it's really tapping into the fundamentals of business. And we, you know, you want to find a business partner that can walk you through. No one knew how to maneuver through a crisis like Covid. And we walk them step by step through. That's the other thing. The power of community, Steve. You know, you talk about us guiding our docs. We have a powerful community that are not competitive, but they're collaborative, and we find best practices and share that. And then we got everything done, and everybody closed. They opened. And by the way, they're not going to be available for the next round of PPP because you have to be 25% down. I don't have one client that is 25% down. They're either equal to or greater than with the PPP that they put in that's that's, there's not coincidence on that. You know what I mean? It's not going to well.

And I think the key is you just hit it there. It's, it's the business piece of it that you didn't learn in dental school that you don't need to feel bad about. But the answer is not, you know, like, the answer is not go get an mba. And if you don't know how to do, I don't know, an atraumatic extraction well, or you're not comfortable with implants, that is what you do. You go take an implant course. And that's the clinical mindset. This is not that business. Your business is you. And I always tell docs there's a different business. You can have a model that works, but fundamentally it has to work with you and your mindset. And if you like to work late and work Saturdays, it's a different approach than if you like to take Fridays off and go to the lake. Both work, both can be profitable if you manage them profitably. The problem is, you know, you're not profitable and you want to take off Fridays and go to the lake and maybe Thursdays, half a Thursday, and leave early. And, you know, you wonder why you can't pay the bills. And, you know, like Larry here, you know, Larry has the new Mercedes and the new Rolex and adding onto the house and all those things. And you can do that when you can cash flow that. And that's where your business manager or business partner, so to speak, says, yeah, we have enough cash flow for you to take a big chunk and expand your house or take a big vacation. But what I see is a lot of docs get into it and they do that without having that cash flow.

Yep. And we design lives. You know what my suggestion to our listeners tonight, Steve, is to design your life. Don't default your life. Reverse engineer and create what you want to create and then figure out how to do that on a daily basis. Right. So this way, you back into the life that you want to have, the amount of time, the amount of money, versus trying to, like, just spread the money around from a finite amount of revenue that is coming from the default systems that you and your team have in place. We're not saying that. We're saying there's so much untapped potential in every single practice. I've not found one practice that I can't pull this lever, that lever, this lever, and, and really transform it and get the doc to be where they want to be. I've never seen this not work.

Never not.

I guess that's a good way to say it. It's the only time it doesn't work is if you're unwilling or you don't take the actions. I mean, it's pretty simple. It's all fundamental business. It's fundamental human interaction. It's all the universal principles, Steve, that Larry doesn't know about. It's not that he doesn't. It's not that he's not smart. It's not that he's not a good dentist. He just doesn't know what he doesn't know. That's a key element for most doctors. They just have blind spots, and then they don't have implementation, structure. And those two things, really, once you get them in place, it transforms your life. You'll never live the same way ever again. Once you know, forget it. It's over.

So I have one of my favorite questions here. Gary, you're going to appreciate this. You and I have talked about this a zillion times. I think it says it's here. It is, Dr. Barbara. And she says, I love Larry. My schedule is always busy, but I'm constantly struggling to pay bills, payroll, and myself. Another exclamation mark. Where's the best place to start looking for new patients? So that's my favorite. It's always the question, isn't it?

I love it.

The answer is always, new patient, your overload. I'm slammed. I can't see anybody else. I'm struggling to pay the bills. But the answer is, Let me find 20 new patients.

Yep. Yep.

Well, that's just the default mechanism. That's the textbook logic in dentistry. Every problem, you throw new patients at. And that. That's been proven over and over, Steve, but it's, again, it's the definition of insanity. Keep throwing new patients. That's my answer. That's my answer. That's my answer. And it's like the key is, is that though there's so many opportunities in dentistry, and there's always three ways to build the practice. That's what they miss here. It's called. We call it the CARE system. It's. CARE is an acronym, stands for ca, which is case acceptance. Most people are not looking at their case acceptance numbers. We plug our dashboard in, you know, I'll ping that. And you know what the national average of case acceptance is, Steve? 28% to 8. We have 10 million treatment plans in our database, and we can see that 28% of the overall conversions, treatment presented and treatment accepted is 20%. Now, this is not like, how much like, dentistry is actually presented accurately for, like, what's healthy and what's not. The number is astronomic. If you look at the number of, like, if there's, if there's a benchmark for what's healthy and what's not, and you present that amount, it's going to even be smaller, which is insane. And then the retention. Do you know what the average retention is? Patients coming back twice through hygiene. What do you think that number is nationally?

Practice that I owned, I would Hope it's about 75%. I'm guessing it's a tad lower.

Well, when I asked that question, it's people either give me 75 or 80%, and the real number is 22%, Steve, 22% of people come back twice. And then, especially with COVID here, you know, this, this pandemic. If you didn't reinvent yourself where dentistry equals health, you have to be selling health inside your practice. And that helps you overcome the issues around case acceptance and retention. And so when you focus in on those two things, the numbers are exponential. And see here, think about the inadequacy of a practice model. Steve, check this out. Costs 3 to $500 to attract a new patient. You drop them in, 28% accept treatment, and 22% come back. That is a horrible machine. Once you fix that, you'll have a practice that runs inside of the hours the way you want it to run. You don't need to get roller skates on and crank because you fix the source problems. And you're not trying to solve the problem with throwing new patients at it.

I just wrote down here you've got. So for say I spend a bunch of money And I get 100 new patients, and at 22%, that means, you know, 22 of them stick. So next month, I've got to get another hundred new patients to keep 22 and another hundred to keep 22. What if I just worked on the back end and kept 44% or 66% or 75% now. Now I need, I don't know, 10 or 12 new patients a month to stay average. But if I'm still bringing in that hundred now, I'm keeping a bigger percentage. So the other other is a case acceptance. You know, the amazing thing is you bring somebody in for hygiene, you're going to make 100 bucks, roughly. And they're really nice people, and you keep them, they go home. If only 28 out of 100 accept the treatment that you proposed. There's a whole bunch of people walking around out there that you've spent time with, you invested in a relationship. It took you what, 300 to $500 to get them in to bill them. 100 for hygiene and then never see them again. So that's the. So those are the numbers. You know, we've talked about this before. The new patient number is awesome. But you can get lazy and let. I'm going to do quick math. So I'm going to screw this up, I can tell you. So I'm going to let 78 out of 100 go on through the back door and never come back.

Good math.

I'm going to let 72 out of 100 leave and never do that crown that I proposed. So what you're saying is you fix that and the new patient piece now becomes like supercharged.

Exactly. And here's another way to look at it. People buy what they want. What do they want from a dental practice? Get their teeth cleaned. You give them what they want, then you can give them what they need as long as you ethically provide an education system. So want based dentistry through hygiene. Then you give them what they need through a patient education system with your team fully on board. And that plugs the two leaking holes of retention and case acceptance. And then when you drop new patients in, boom. You just did some math, Steve. Think about how much time is wasted. 7. If you, if you give an hour and a half to 78 patients, that's a hundred hours right there that you just don't need to do anymore.

Build zero. Yep.

And think about this.

You talk about efficiencies, let's do some quick math here. Instead of looking at hygiene as $100 for that hour, let's look at it from a2. Like, let's look at it from. If they do a crown a year, the value of a crown is a thousand bucks. Now all of a sudden that hour is worth 100 plus 500. It's now worth $600.

Right.

Now all of a sudden, if you have an opening, it's a $600 opportunity cost to you, not a hundred dollar loss to.

Context.

When you start thinking about it in this, this. Right.

Oh, when you say that, Gary, take 28% of treatment or of case acceptance and turn it into 38%.

Yep.

So for every hundred patients, if it's a crown, you know, that's roughly 10 grand to your bottom line. You've already seen them, you've already marketed to get them in, you've Already done all the front end work. You've already seen them. Now all you've got to do is turn that 28 into 38 and suddenly you're probably making payroll.

And let's talk about this, Steve. Now I have this doctor who's so hyper focused on new patients, they're sitting on webinars watching for social media, trying to master this. They're spending all these hours down a.

Strategy that isn't going to work and.

It'S never going to get them ahead of the game. So what I love is, I love giving a paradigm shift and having them see that. It's case acceptance and retention. And when you put your focus, your attention on internal marketing, which is to your team and to their patients, guess what happens, Steve? You can all the time and money you're spending on spinning your wheels.

You can go hang out, go golfing.

Take your family out, take time off. You know, we get people to six, seven, eight weeks off and increase them.

Up, you know, a million dollars a year.

That is not unheard of. Working less, making more.

Why?

Because it's already there. If it wasn't already there, Steve, then.

We wouldn't be able to get that outcome.

It's already there.

You can probably do it with the patients you have now. I mean, fundamentally, it's already in your practice. You're just not. What do we say? You're not harvesting efficiently enough. What's already in your practice? What you've already paid to get in there.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry. I know our time's running short and this is popping up like three times. So I'm going to. I'm going to marry some questions together here.

Okay?

One is, which I think you and I have also talked about, relates to the first one. It says, I feel Larry's pain. I've been through multiple office managers. My team drives me crazy. I'm ready to fire them all and start over. Where's the best place? Here you go. You're going to like this one. Where's the best place to look for the kind of leader who can run my practice?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I know your answer.

Maybe. Maybe stop looking out the window.

Right.

And look in the mirror.

Yeah.

You know, it's not out there. It's over here. And here's the thing. This is leadership made simple. All there's one definition, Steve, of leadership. You go first. See, what happens is 80% of the people that get embezzled were preyed upon because the person looking for the job Knew that your head was in the sand.

Yep.

Right.

Let me give you another way to look at it. Get out of the stands. I went to the Big House in Michigan. I love it. You know we have a mutual friend from a big Michigan fan, right?

Yes.

I had to go see, be there with 105,000 people, but I was in the stands talking about the game. See, when you go down on the field to play, it might be scary because I could have a 250 pound linebacker coming at me. But guess what? I can get my whole life to work once I get out of the stands and down on the field and I don't have to do it all. You can set up a team leader that does it. And you just have to say, we are going this way. And here's the thing, Steve, I'm going.

To give you this.

This is my mantra. Make the unacceptable. Unacceptable. If you're living something in your practice and in your life, don't sit there and say that I just, you just accepted the unacceptable. Say this is no more. I'm not taking it another day. And then go plug into somebody that's going to get you out and walk you through the path of owning your practice. You have to be the practice owner. It doesn't mean you have to know everything. Please don't put that on you. And it doesn't mean that like you're, you might not fail. But if you work with somebody that already knows how to do it and then you have a team leader, we'll get, you know, you get a team leader around you and then you get opinion leaders and drivers. Then you just keep saying we're going this way and they map it out for you. It's not woo woo here.

It's the way it works.

And it's very simple. Once you say we're going this way.

Tell me what you think. And you know, for our, for the audience here, I'm going to bet that a lot of them who are struggling hear this and say, oh well, I'm being the leader and I've hired somebody. I hired my, you know, my wife's sister's brother's cousin, step friend. And you know, she was the front desk at the nail salon and she does a great job with checking people in and out. She's really awesome. And suddenly, you know, they get 250 grand stolen from them or the team hates everybody and gossip overwhelms the practice and all that junk filters in. And I'm guessing that's why this, this particular thing, I hate My team, I just want to start over. That didn't happen. You know, you can't hire somebody to do that. You are, as the leader, are sort of the. You build the company culture. You can't be 15 minutes late every morning and expect your team to care about being prompt. They're taking their lead from you, but you hit the nail on the head. And I agree. That doesn't mean you have to know everything. It means you have to hire the right people and hiring somebody because they're good at patients at the front desk. And then they're also handling all your money and handling taxes and tax deposits and loan payments and all that stuff. And then you're shocked when they didn't do them. And you can't go to the IRS and say, well, Mary Jane forgot to make those deposits. They don't care about Mary Jane. They care about you. So back to Larry in chapter one. He literally has that exact same sort of situation. And I think what I would like to say is that's common. So the listeners on tonight, I think if you've got. If that's your struggle or that's your question. Gary just said it. Don't, you know, you can't delegate that kind of thing. You know, you have to be on it. And that's overwhelming for a lot of docs, don't you think?

There's no doubt, Steve. And the other thing about this is so often, if you don't have a simple, predictable business model in place with support and structures for a team, and it's not the doctor's fault, and it's not the team's fault either. I'll tell you. I can't tell you how many times we've been called in and the doc goes, get rid of her. She's horrible. This is horrible. And really, they just weren't set up to win. They didn't have a structure to know what to do and how to do it. There's so many people that come in from the outside and they just, you know, spew information to you, but they don't give you the what to do and how to do it. With a business model that is installed that you can see where the inefficiency is. And that's the key to this. Um, you're.

You.

You know, most people are just relying on theory and ideas and reminders. That doesn't work. You want platforms, you want process, you want structure and systems, and that's how. That's how to have it duplicatable, consistent. And I can't tell you, Steve, how many times I've seen it where a doctor said these people are, you got to get rid of these people, fire them all. And they got rehabilitated because they got invited to play on a, in a business model and a purpose and, and understand the systems on how to deliver them. And they just, they're just all on board and they're, they're some of the best employees.

Well, it's, and, you know, I'm keeping an eye on time here. We promised Everybody right around 30 minutes it's okay if we go over a little bit. Good stuff. But I wanted to also talk about your book here, Million Dollar Dentistry. And anybody listening can get a copy. And I'm going to, we're going to put some links down below in the show notes, but I'm also going to I'll just say them here. You got nextlevelpractice.com discovery and that will take you to next level. Jeff will answer a few questions, but get a book out to you. Or you can also text 311-678-506-7542 or go down below and this will be listed in the show notes and get a copy of the book. I would encourage it. We're going to go through in the next 11 episodes a chapter at a time. Starting out with Larry, I think it's really great to start out with this big common experience and then drill down into some more specific things as we go that are, you know, I think you said it, you don't need to do it yourself or know how to do it, but you need to know that the person who's doing it for you is on top of it. So you don't need to file your 941s, but you probably need to know that that's a thing your accountant should do or your payroll company should do or somebody should do. Not, you know, again, your wife, sister's cousin, brother, step friend who ran the nail salon because they've never heard of it. And you know, and I will tell you, Gary, I've had more docs that came out of dental school, started a practice and had a great year and then got an $89,000 tax bill because they haven't been making deposits and they don't even know what a 941 is. And Mary Jane, they're ready to fire her. But, you know, what's the expectation of her? She doesn't know what it is. She's just a nice person at the front desk. So the answer is really that. I think you said it very well. It's Leadership 101. And leadership means the right people in the right jobs, doing the right things. And that's your expectation. Don't just throw somebody at it and hope they figure it out, because it always comes back to you. So awesome. So is there really an actual Dr. Larry, or is that just. You just make that up.

I made it up because I had to protect. I had to protect the reality of what's actually out there. So. And it was fun. You know, I need to have a female version of Larry, and we'll get there. I love Charlie Chairside, too. He's pretty funny.

You and I have heard this story. Chapter one, Million Dollar Dentistry. Probably between us, I don't know how many dentists are there? 175,000 in the United States. Yeah, 174,999 is about the number of times you hear this exact story. And the good news is, you know, I always say the good news is you're still a dentist. It's not like, you know, if you struggle and this practice is overwhelming you, you know, at the end of the day, you're still a dentist. Find the right people to help you, and you're going to be a practice owner. Find the right people to help you with the practice piece of it. And, you know, you be the dentist and the owner and, you know, you can have pretty good career and retire with this thing.

So.

Any parting thoughts?

Yeah. You know, I have a lot of.

Empathy because you were not prepared leaving dental school. I get it. But you also don't have to struggle. I'm going to leave this. One of my favorite quotes. In dentistry, sufferings, pain is necessary and suffering is optional. So pain tells you, like, if you're.

In pain about it, make the change.

If you stay in it, in the suffering, that's on you. And make the unacceptable, unacceptable. And start taking some new actions, and then you'll have the life that you love.

I'm going to write another Gary Katyism. I'm going to write this down here.

You like that one, Steve?

Yeah, I do. I think that's the first time you use that.

That's awesome.

Pain is necessary. Suffering is optional.

And, you know, the good news is this is recorded so you can watch it over and, you know, see it again. So anybody who's listening or watching, I want to make sure nextlevelpractice.com discovery and that'll take you to a little form that will get you the book Million Dollar Dentistry and Gary, Katie. Gary, do you have an email address anybody could that had a question for you? We've got a lot of questions here. First of all, that I promise you promised at the beginning, we'll answer them all and there are a lot for you, Gary. So you know kind of specific things and I know you've committed to have your people reach out or answer these questions. I kind of pick the higher level ones. But there are a lot of specifics here. If you have a question, still put it in, still submit it and Gary's team will get back to you or we'll get back to you. But so don't hesitate to keep putting those questions in and any way they can reach you by email maybe?

Yeah, I'm going to do that. I think your community, Steve, is just so well versed. They're just I always get good questions and thoughts. So my name garyxtlevelpractice.com so my name garyxtlevelpractice dot com email me direct and I'll answer any questions personal or professional. I get a lot of personal ones. I always love your feedback, always love your thoughts and stay in touch with me. I'm a safe guy who just cares deeply about Dennis and their teams because they really weren't set up to win the game. And that's been my, the dedication of my career is really seeing dentists and their teams and their families and their communities transform. And it's been a real blessing and a joy. Steve, thank you for this opportunity.

Well, likewise. And you know, Million Dollar Dentistry, chapter two is the life you're entitled to lead. So again, this is a first edition and I've already screwed it up. I already reduced the value. That's $100. You know, Mark there that I never should have done. That's going to be episode two, chapter two, the life you're entitled to lead. And I would encourage everybody to watch the series as it rolls out. We'll send reminders as each one comes out that, you know, you can listen to these, you can get the book ahead of time and sort of be prepared. But Million Dollar Dentistry, again, I think you said it's kind of the bible of practice ownership and it is, it's something you do refer to a lot. I can, I can tell you that from firsthand experience. So, Gary, with that we're going to sign off and until next month. Good. See you again. As always. Holding down the fort in New York City, aren't you? You're in Rockefeller Center.

I am Saturday night Live is filmed.

Right around the corner. Jimmy Fallon's right here.

And, yeah, we watched the tree light up. So it's a real, real great place to have our home office.

Good deal. All right with that practice owners, thanks for tuning in. Come back next month for Million Dollar Dentistry. Gary, Katie, and the life you're entitled to lead. So we'll sign it off there. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Gary.

Thank you.