The Anti-Know-It-All — Thriving through Constant Learning

[00:00:00] Welcome. You're listening to the Grow Ortho Podcast presented by HIP.

[00:00:04] This podcast is dedicated to orthodontist who want to stand strong in their market and be leaders in their community.

[00:00:12] Now, on to today's show. Dr. Jamie Reynolds, thanks so much for being on the Grow Ortho Podcast today.

[00:00:19] Thanks for having me.

[00:00:20] Maybe for those listening and watching, just give a third in between and we wound up accidentally kind of adding a fourth location at the same time. So we went from two locations to four in about a couple of weeks.

[00:01:44] Took us 20 some years for Larry to add a second location. We kept that one, two locations for about eight or nine years

[00:01:47] and then added a couple in a couple of weeks. run like a well-oiled machine, a well-functioning business. Was it always like that or were there some epiphanies along the way that made you start to think and learn more about the business? Yeah, I mean, I'm sure anyone. We didn't really have any goals. It was just show up to work We were the good reputation in the office when I joined it was just sort of a You know presumption that we were gonna grow. I paid at the time a very high premium So back then practices were trading at

[00:04:22] You know

[00:04:23] 0.5 to 0.8 times

[00:05:25] out here to the point where we were trying anything to attract folks in. And it was really kind of trial by fire where some of the business things happen.

[00:05:32] Then when we open our second location, it was an hour across town.

[00:05:39] You know, if you open a location and all of your team members go over there with you,

[00:05:44] then a lot of that feel just kind of comes with you.

[00:06:43] And it took us a while to fix it. So then we can talk about how much detail that we want.

[00:06:49] It certainly wasn't ordained.

[00:06:53] I started working for a good single location,

[00:06:55] but that's very different than a multi-location practice

[00:06:58] in different cities with different teams.

[00:07:01] And I learned all of it the hard way

[00:07:05] or from copying off of people who had figured it out

[00:07:08] ahead of me. It was probably, we had a 1.25 to 1.5 doctor practice and we had two doctors there. And I was like every other young associate thinking that I was doing all the work and the old guy wasn't doing any of the work, right? And so, which, you know, was probably partially true and partially, you know, the arrogance

[00:08:23] that all the young pups out there have and the value that they bring. a little bit of a foothold. And then when the economy crashed, we got a great deal to move into a new space that we wouldn't have been able to afford in any other time. And that kind of helped us start to scale because we put together a nice little thing while everyone else was kind of hibernating. So then when the it was kind of, it wasn't me like sitting down with some business plan and like being super strategic about it, which is not the advice that I would give someone younger than me what to do. I would say be much more strategic. And I was fortunate that the landscape was,

[00:11:01] you know, less sophisticated and capable

[00:11:05] than it is now.

[00:12:04] other ownership and leadership in that OSO. Have you guys been able to systemize things

[00:12:08] and then see practices like you're saying,

[00:12:11] the advice that you give younger practices?

[00:12:14] Are you guys able to collapse time

[00:12:16] and now that you have a system in framework,

[00:12:18] you see it work much faster than maybe just figuring it out?

[00:12:23] Yeah, so we're our office exposure to a lot of different things, including the investments and board positions and understanding the investment landscape and strategy and blah, blah, blah, let us to kind of start orthodontic partners rather than sit on taking some of their jurisdiction from their clinical stuff. It's just different. So we approach two things differently. So we've got a lot of folks that are really amazing groundbreaking clinicians in our group. And the way that all of us, some of them

[00:15:02] are just genetically superior, like Stuart and Maz and Dave and Kaz and The whole foundation principle was even the best practices are really good at some things and not so great at the other. And so if we could get a bunch of the best practices, then you could find out what everybody's great out and then like lift the level for everybody. Yeah. And so on the business side of things that we do have some operational things that we do.

[00:16:20] We have a phone system that we put in.

[00:16:22] We have a practice management system and orthofy, whatnot, that are different in a way. But a lot of the stuff you need to do is just the fundamentals, right?

[00:17:45] Even the practices struggle to answer the phone. The same as most the only differences is that there's a pretty high barrier to entry, right? So like everyone that is in orthodontist is very very smart and has been very successful in their career You know, I was listening to one of your guys podcasts on the way in this morning and I was thinking you know

[00:19:04] The one thing that all orthodontist have in common is

[00:20:20] that biggest thing that I see, we all think we know it all when we're done with residency, but a lot of us continue to think that way. I don't know why for whatever reason, I grew up in a small town and the fact that I can sit in some of the rooms that I can today with some of the minds and skill sets that I do still puts me in awe. And I just constantly wanted to learn from people,

[00:20:25] and that's I think the average practice, I hear different numbers. I hear anything from 1.2 to 2 million or whatever. And it's probably somewhere in the middle. And the opportunity I think, and you would know better than I with growth is a crispness and talks about this too.

[00:21:42] You can easily scale past that,

[00:21:45] with the opportunity, the market, when most orthodontists are probably not that great at sales, some of them are, for sure. But it's not the best use of their time to run and manage every aspect of the practice from payroll, time off requests, one-on-one meetings,

[00:23:00] if those even exist in the practice, running the consultation,

[00:23:05] it's just or not. And so we can put our hand in the sand and pretend that it's not, but that's our own detriment, right? Because the patients don't know enough to discern whether or not, you know, who to choose and whatnot, you know.

[00:24:21] And so I think that's not an excuse

[00:24:26] to like not be a problems for stuff, right? And then convenience. And I think if you look it really is anymore. There's a lot of stuff that's proven that the models that

[00:27:02] folks like you are talking about work. Right? But really, at least for now, the only avenue for patients to really come into the practice is by the phones, right? The web tools are kind of clunky. And even if you want to do an online schedule or exclusively, it's best to communicate with them by the phones, you know? So you've got to have really good eyes on your phones.

[00:28:21] So are you answering the phones?

[00:28:23] What's your handle, right?

[00:28:25] And most people don't know that.

[00:29:25] right yeah and i would say that before you do anything else those numbers have got to be in order because

[00:29:28] anything more sophisticated more expensive everyone wants to do

[00:29:32] face book and instagram and you know spend

[00:29:35] thousands of dollars on google ads and whatnot and that's all

[00:29:40] throwing money down the toilet

[00:29:42] if you don't answer your phones you We can get this AI bot or this scheduler. I don't think the human to human aspect is going anywhere for a long time. When you can get the person on the otherists in the community and continue their relationship with them. Referral marketing in dentistry is not dead by any stretch. It's not as big as it used to be, but the market's growing. So there are a lot more people who are getting orthos.

[00:32:21] So if the dentist chips off, some of them, who cares, frankly, encourage them?

[00:32:25] Get them to be doing more ortho. and he gets 70%. And of those, about five or 10%, let's say, wind up same day starting, if you recommend treatment. Now, at the top end of that group is about 80 to 83% form fill, right? So the delta is like low 70s to low 80s,

[00:33:43] so not very big delta as far as form fill. of percent difference, but it's really all the stuff you did before. And so getting that relationship started before they come in and setting the expectations that they could start that day makes a 10x difference in the same day star percentage. And that's only by human touch. And it's kind of the number behind the number. So if you say, well, 10% increase in formville, who cares, like a 10x increase in the same

[00:35:03] day star percentage is like literally would change your practice and personal financial

[00:35:08] life, right?

[00:36:23] Patients love that.

[00:37:43] And then people leave, they get poached by other places, they want to move to Florida because it's It's different. I think owning and operating your own business if that's the metric you're using at is harder because they're more sophisticated and more expensive So like for every DSLROSO that's out there that you could throw shade at for being bad, they also are showing you the recipe for attracting and treating

[00:41:42] small-dereclup for all its failures. If you have to see, right? Are you like looking at the systems and seeing how they do things and learning so that you can stand on your own two feet one day? Are you what happens if when you don't work there anymore? I mean, if I could give a young doc one question to ask himself, would be what happens when you don't work here anymore? And if the answer is things stay the same or things get better,

[00:41:46] then that's not a good answer for you. ultimately have continued success. And the day that I stop running fast is the day that somebody else catches me. And that day gets closer and closer every single day. I'm getting old and tired. It's nobody's entitled to anything.

[00:43:03] No orthodontist is entitled to anything. No person is entitled to anything

[00:43:05] like the world is a tough place and all aspects. deliver quality. For viewers or listeners who maybe want to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to do that? My email is JamesBrentles18 at gmail.com. So they can shoot me an email. I'm not terribly hard to find the worst case. You could google my practice and give the

[00:44:20] office a call and ask how to get in touch with me. Happy to help. So many people have helped me