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Meet The Mentors: Eric Morin · Dental Mentors

• Dental Mentors: There's always one major constraint that's holding you back from that next level of growth. А сейчас I'm gonna get you out of clinical care in two weeks. I'm gonna build a team around you. We're gonna build the entire suite around you, the services. All his revenue he was producing was replaced in thirty days. Now when they started seeing financial numbers, they came back and they were like, ⁓ here are there's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole. You're focusing on producing, which you can only produce, you know, depending on what you're seeing as far as patients, 1800 bucks. Maybe if you're doing full arts, you can do more, but the average doctor is 1800 bucks. I said, I'm gonna show you how to produce over $10,000 per hour. I'm gonna show you how to go from 12 million to 24 million in 12 months. If you have the ability to create something great and you don't, it's selfish. It is. Welcome everybody to another episode of Dental Mentors. I'm Neil Zemba. I'm here with Matt Ornstein and Eric Morin. Today is a special episode. We're kicking things off with what we're calling the Meet the Mentors series, where we're putting each other in the hot seat and grilling each other. I'm just kidding. ⁓ today it's all about Eric. We're talking with Eric Morin. ⁓ Eric, I'll just kick things off by saying is to me one of the most experienced, knowledgeable people. in dentistry and also in business that I've met. ⁓ he's been an incredible mentor to me. And the thing, Eric, that I think is so cool about you is just how many, you know, Eric is the ⁓ founder and CEO of Tower Leadership, who I really just consider to be the absolute pinnacle, the gold standard of dental consulting. It's it's so much more the dental consulting, but what I've always found really interesting about you and what you're able to do and you know the the the the abilities that you have ⁓ is you just have such a wealth of experience. You've seen it all. You've seen every archetype. You have such, you know, I know we have a lot of discuss we've had a lot of late night, you know, multi-hour discussions and you have all these isms and tower isms and Eric isms. And you're just, you're just one of those guys where like, I know that I can come to you with a specific problem. You're like, ⁓ I've seen this 12 times over. Here's what that problem really is. Here's how you solve it. You know, it looks like this, but it's really that. And not only that, but you have names for everything. So for those listening as well, ⁓ you know, we we really encourage you to, if you're if you're a dentist or an operator, we really encourage you to join ⁓ the dental mentors community. Right now, by the time this episode goes live, we will have our dental mentors mastery series, we're calling it, live in the Facebook group. It's a free Facebook group. ⁓ you have to it it's private, ⁓ it's invite only. But if you are a ⁓ Dennis or an operator, we'd love to have you in there just so we can have really, really frank conversations. Nothing is taboo, nothing is off limits. ⁓ we all own practices here or or have own practices or groups, ⁓ ourselves at various points in our career. And we really, we really wanted to create a community. We we we we wanted to create the community that we wanted, ⁓ for ourselves, either starting out or currently. ⁓ and I say all that because Eric's ⁓ isms are woven very intimately all throughout the Dental Mentors Mastery series. And Eric, you really did a phenomenal job, I think, architecting that out so that you can watch it from beginning to end. There's about 20 videos in there ⁓ that we're just wrapping up right now as we speak. But again, by the time this airs it'll be live and you can go through there completely for free and just understand ⁓ you know, if I'm a single ⁓ operator and I want to I want to maximize my EBITDA, I want to you know, maximize my own personal wealth, which is a topic that obviously we're all very passionate about. We think building wealth is great. We're pro building wealth. ⁓ we're pro ⁓ maximizing ⁓ essentially just our our our our options as owners. And so one of the things that you've really opened my eyes to to kick things off is ⁓ what options dentists and operators have as they as they go through their growth journey. One of the things I'm not a clinician, as you guys know, but when I got into dentistry, one of the things that really shocked me, ⁓ was how little formal business training there really is in the dental space. We talk about the concept of ⁓ the the the dental mentors mastery series being like the dental MBA that everybody wishes we had. We all three of us, I think, come from the the School of Hard Knocks, the University of Hard Knocks. ⁓ and we graduated cumulade probably, maybe not me, but the two of you guys did. ⁓ And I and I and I think that what's really what's really cool about what you've what you've built into the mastery series is getting to own a practice is hard enough, I think, for for an owner. But I've never seen I've never seen an outline like you've put together of like, all right, well now now what do I do that I have a practice? Now what are the options available to me? We all see the big DSOs out there, we all see the smaller groups, we all see the individual practice owner that runs a really great practice. And they might be, they might be bringing home a million dollars net or more personal income. And it's like, well, how do I do that? How many ops? You I'm I'm, you know me, like I'm obsessive compulsive when it comes to questions. Like I'm a pit bull. I will latch on to the thing and I will not let go until all my questions are answered. And I will annoy people being like, how how many ops, you know, you're living the life that I want to live. You're an you're an owner operator. You have one practice. You're netting a million dollars a year. ⁓ some of these folks are out of the chair. Some of them legally cannot be in the chair, like myself. So they've always been out of the chair. They're not a dentist, but they own these thriving practices. And I've always wanted to know how many ops do you have? How many dentists do you have? What's your specialty breakdown? What insurance breakdown do you have? Why do you take Delta or not? You know, all and so you're you're one of the only people that I've ever talked to that I can be my insane OCD self. And you not only have an answer for every little question, but You explain, you always take it back to the macro. Okay, you should do this because when you're asking that, you're here on the journey. And so I think that what I've what I've learned talking to you is ⁓ when you're an owner operator, you've got a couple core paths that you can take. You can stick to one practice and maximize it out. Maybe add ops, maybe add add associates, maybe get out of the chair and have a great lifestyle business. You can create a small intimate group. You can Go in and build your second practice. I really want to get, you know, more in detail on that part today. Cause I think a lot of people, especially in dental mentors already, really have that question. Do I do I maximize where I'm at? Do I add a second practice? And then from there, you know, the sky's the limit. Matt on this episode has eighty locations. That's incredible. How do you get from two to eighty? There's a whole bunch of steps in there. And Eric, I know you, you know, you know, you know literally the the blueprint to get there. So, ⁓ Kicking things off. I'd love it if you could maybe even just kind of start with what are the core archetypes that you see and, you know, what is that what does that look like in terms of, you know, what what options a an owner operator might have? Well, first of all, thank you for that introduction. ⁓ I I really appreciate this. ⁓ because the industry ha has hit an inflection point. It has changed dramatically over, you know, when I started doing this over 20 years ago, what You know, the industry's come a long ways. And I tell people, I think some people are fearful of where the industry's going. And I always say, There's never been a better time to scale than now. There's never been an easier time to scale than now. I was just talking to a doctor the other day who said he was like, I was the first doctor to market in the 70s and I got I got kicked out of the dental association. And you know, the ability to scale and grow, is is there's more resources to do that. There's more technology, there's more communication, there's So I think it's a beautiful time in dentistry if people take advantage of it. And so I would say it sounds, you know, this this idea of it's it's between your ears, but it really is in some ways. It's really what people want and ultimately what they want to build for their selves and their family. I started this, I was an MBA, not in dentistry, and then asked to get into dentistry. And then I started scaling organizations. And this was before the DSO world. And so people started saying, Well, how are you doing this? And I started helping more and more doctors. But it always started with a simple question, which is, What do you want? Why do you want this? It's right before we got on this podcast. I got a I someone asked me, Hey, could you talk to a doctor friend of mine? And he got on the phone and he said, He said, Eric, I've got one location. Do I go to a second location? How do I afford that? How do I where do I how do I when I say afford, I don't mean he can't afford it. I mean Do I use debt? Do I use equity? How what's the you know, all these questions that he ultimately had and and wanted to solve? I'm losing some patience out the back end. All the challenges that and people think that it's only at 1.5 million or or 5 million. These challenges are happening at 100 million, they're happening at 60 million. So so I think that it's really goes down to first, what is someone trying to accomplish and why are they trying to accomplish? What's the strategy to get there? What's the most efficient way? ⁓ because there are multiple ways to get there. And and so I think we start there. And I don't think a lot of people do, believe it or not. They they have these ambitions. They're like, I'm just gonna add nine locations or ten locations, but they don't even know why they're doing that. They don't know if that's the most efficient use of capital. They're they're there's really no great plan at the beginning. It's just let's add locations and then find tactics that add efficiencies. But I think people should start with really the end in mind and and then we can build out the True architect so okay, what do what do you want to be? Why do you want to be it? What's the most efficient path? And then and then stay on that path, which is one of the things we've talked about too, is then people get off these paths pretty easily, ⁓ especially if they go to any kind of dental convention. So so so finding that path, knowing what the path is, and then there are people that do want to stay at that small, you know, I say small, but but I'm probably little biased because I think people should expand. ⁓ I'll say my own personal philosophy. I believe that the more you create, the more you can impact others. And and the the more an organization build, we've talked about this on this podcast. And so I believe that if you have the ability to grow and expand and scale and to build, and then you have the means to help more people. And so in my mind, I I'm kind of biased towards people who want to grow and scale ⁓ to an end. And so I I've kind of pushed that way. So there are different levels. I don't know if I'm answering your question a hundred percent. I think more like giving you my own philosophy on on what I see and and why I think people should grow in scale in the end as much as possible. I'd like to say something about that because you brought up you brought up a great point. ⁓ I think I forget who said this. I think it might have been Tony Robbins. I'm a huge fan of Tony Robbins, but it might not have been Tony. But effectively the the the saying is people will get done what needs to get done in the allotted time they're given. And I do believe that to be true. So, you know, if you I'm gonna pick a number. Let's say you, you know, I'm someone who says I work fifty hours a week. I'm just picking that number. I will make a statement that I believe is true, and I'd like to ask Eric, if if a doctor owns one dental office and it's run well and it's it's very profitable, that doctor is gonna work 50 hours. If that same doctor has 10 dental offices, everything that needs to be get that that needs to get done to handle the operations and management of 10 offices can get done in fifty hours by that same doctor. And I personally believe that to be true from my own personal experience. But going back to what you said, you know, ⁓ the the more that you have, the more you can help, right? The more you have, the more you can give. So is it really that much more time for a doctor if the doctor owns one dental office or five or ten if in terms of how many hours per week that doctor has to allocate, as long as that doctor hires good people to help in the management of the of the practices? So I'm ⁓ I'm gonna answer that with true example of what just happened. So I had a doctor who who has grown to you know, you know, let's just call it roughly twelve twelve, thirteen million dollars in top line revenue, great practice, done well. And I sat down with him and he's the main producer. He was the number one producer in the business. And I said, I'm gonna get you out of clinical care in two weeks. Let everyone sit let's sit down with you for a second. He said, I said, I'm gonna get you out of clinical care in two weeks. You're gonna get out of completely out of clinical care. Because what I'm gonna get you to focus on will blow by. And I'm gonna build a team around you. We're gonna build the entire suite around you, the services, because there's a sophistication issue. I don't wanna get into all now. I did not tell all of you that's listening right now to get out of clinical care in two weeks. Let me just I didn't say that. In this situation, I obviously had enough data points where I knew we could do that. And so we removed everything out of two weeks. There's a the other person that was a large, large producer was scared. I said, watch what happens. We put in I'm going back to your point, Matt, which is I said you're just focusing on the wrong thing in those 50 hours. You're focusing on producing, which you can only produce, you know, depending on what you're seeing as far as patients, 1800 bucks. Maybe if you're doing full arts, you can do more, but the average doctor is 1800 bucks. I said, I'm gonna show you how to produce over ten thousand dollars per hour. And so what we did is very work quickly. I said, I'm gonna show you how to go from twelve million to twenty-four million in twelve months. And and so Very quickly we started putting the suite in place. We started we getting all the data points. We upgraded finance. We upgraded now when they started seeing financial numbers, they came back and they're like, ⁓ here are there's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole. And so it was like, okay, great. If we capture those holes, we started implementing new strategies. What all of a sudden, very quickly, all his revenue was replaced. This doctor's completely all his revenue he was producing was replaced in 30 days. And now we have this. This suite of executives. And now what we're s what we're doing is we're actually moving into expansion. And we're obviously gonna maximize our footprint first, our same store growth, but we're also looking at other ways to expand. So going back to your 50 hours, what can be done in fifty hours? It's what are you focusing on in that fifty hours? And and it and I I believe that if people really understood the path, they can move a lot quicker, more exponential type growth than that linear in incremental type growth, which is just And I would say incremental is just working harder. Say the doctor was going into 2026. So I'm just gonna work hard this year. I'm gonna get a little bit better at case acceptance. I'm gonna get a little bit better at my phones. And what we did was move away from that to more of an exponential mindset. And I said, what if we just doubled in 12 months? And that mindset creates a new way of thinking. So incremental is just working, trying to get better, but but exponential is really different. It's a different mindset. So we changed everything he was doing. I know it's a long answer, but but I agree with you, Matt, which is What's happening in those 50 hours and what are you truly focusing on? And is that your best use of time? By the way, I knew this doctor was capable of this. We obviously coached him through this and I had enough data points. So I'm not saying everyone should do that. What I am saying is there's a lot more you can accomplish in a short period of time, in the same period of time than you actually think you can. Eric, I know we've had a lot of conversations about the ability to identify the constraint that's holding you back. And one one of the things that you really taught me is. 99% of the time, especially for the folks that are really on the cusp of growing exponentially, whether it's with their single ⁓ practice or they want to, you know, expand and blow up and and create a large group. ⁓ you really imparted on me that there's usually, you know, in your experience, it kind of boils down to one thing that they're almost not aware of. You know, one of my favorite quotes in business, it's it's harsh, but it's true, is you don't know what you don't know. I'm always asking myself that and it really reminds me of that. Can you explain ⁓ like how you did to me, you know, the concept of of identifying that one constraint. Well, I always tell people that there's there's and I have so many conversations, there's a lot about but but but but Neil going back to it, I always say there is one thing, one constraint that's holding most organizations back at any given point. And and so if they can identify and elevate that constraint, most people focus on multiple things at one time. They're always focusing on 10 things, 12 things, 14 things, which by the way, that's business. We're always focusing on Our case acceptance and our call conversion and our marketing and ⁓ that's fine. But also understand that if you understand constraint theory at all, you'll understand, and by the way, you can get a doctorate in constraint theory. So it can get pretty complicated. But the idea in in in a simple way is that there's always one major constraint that's holding you back from that next level of growth. And when you identify that constraint and say, look, this is our constraint. Now you got to play chess, not checkers, because checkers is all I gotta do is hire doctors and all the problems go away. No, if I hire a doctor, it's gonna create another constraint. Maybe it's hygienist, maybe it's something else. So maybe it's enough patience, whatever that new so you gotta think through it. But what happens is you have multiple constraints at any given point. When you identify those, you say, what constraint do we need to elevate to the top right now and then subordinate other constraints? So we'll put more resources around this one constraint. Let me give example what I mean by that. So we had a doctor multi-location group. ⁓ in the Midwest. And they first had an issue with patients. It was a constraint. They were like, we don't have enough patients for our new location. So I said, great. Well, let's turn up marketing. So we did. And before you know it, they were booked out nine months. They couldn't get another patient in. So, right, so they elevated that constraint. Now their next constraint is, well, we don't have enough doctors. What are we going to do? What we did was we we took all the marketing dollars. We didn't need any more patients. We built a new funnel around doctor acquisition. And literally went to the market with a doctor acquisition marketing funnel. Before you know it, we had 73 applicants for this job. Now you can say we now, as soon as we solve that issue, guess what? We have another constraint. So when you as an organization can realize that there's more there's usually one thing that's holding you back, that's that pivotal thing. And you can and look at that, whatever that is, and then motivate, put resources around it, and then anticipate the next constraint, you can grow and scale a lot quicker. And you can start making ultimately thought, you know, you can make strategy around capital resources ⁓ and team resources moving forward, knowing what those things are and anticipating them in the future. That I don't know if it was that conversation or not, but I will tell you, most people most people I'll say this when they come up to me, I've been doing this long enough to I can have a conversation with someone in five minutes and know how how quick how big they can grow based on their mindset. I can talk to them for five minutes and go, this is their cap right now. Mentally their cap because they don't think they can get higher than this. And they're wrong, but they think that. ⁓ so I know that right away by talking to them. And and you know, and then I know ultimately speaking, what their biggest constraint is. And usually within five minutes of talking to somebody, I can I can analyze this pretty quickly. Now when I tell someone that they go, What's my what's my issue? But but but that does happen pretty quickly. I have ⁓ I have another since this is ⁓ one of the first meet the mentors, I have a a question for Eric. ⁓ it's more of a a personal question. I've been to several of your tower events. They're phenomenal. My DSO uses tower consulting. ⁓ cannot recommend them strongly enough. I cannot recommend y your group strongly enough. Amazing. Appreciate that. But ⁓ what what's your like personal motivation? Forget about the business side and and the money you make from your business, but what gives you the most personal satisfaction? ⁓ you know, what's your what's your why for tower on the personal side? I appreciate you asking that question. ⁓ people have asked me that because I want to see people grow amazing organizations and and I want to see them impact other people's lives and and where does that come from? ⁓ it I always share the story. I said my father somehow had a I call it an unintentional legacy. And I say that because my My father was always one who wanted to retire. He from the time I was a little kid, he worked at Walt Disney World. And I love my dad, but he always wanted to just retire. Like it was always retirement, retirement, retirement. I just want to retire. Someday I want to retire. And he would talk about this pension. My dad talked about a pension. Like it was the greatest thing in the world. Like he like he like I thought this pension was huge. And because he would say, When I you don't get pensions anymore, my pension, when I get my pension, and I'll so my I ⁓ you know, I I grew up with this my dad always talking about retiring and being able to sit around and you know, watch Fox News or CNN or whatever your political affiliation is. And I didn't understand that. And it's interesting because when my dad passed, I went to see my mom and I said, Hey mom, you know, hey, you've got dad's pension. I said, Do you get the whole pension? She doesn't want to get half of it. And I thought to myself, like, okay, this pension, like mom's set. Cause whatever this pension is, it's gotta be just huge. So what is half the pension, mom? And she said something to the tune of like $348. And, you know, there's something there. Now my mom's the opposite. My mom's like mom's like 78 years old. She's still killing it. Like she's ambitious. But what I what comes out of that is something triggered in me somewhere where I said, I wanna see people live this life to this fullest. I wanna see people like Like someone asked me one day, they like, What do you want out this world? Is it money? Is it success? Is it whatever? And I said, I want to swing for the damn fences. Like I want to know I left it on the field. I don't want to get to the end of my life and feel like I left a quarter of it because I was scared. ⁓ and so I wanna see people build an amazing organization impact the lives of others. And and I think that people don't realize, like, when we talk about wealth, I want people to create tons of wealth for themselves. Well one of the people you should create you should impact is your family. I mean Create wealth, create this thing. But I believe people should build amazing organizations so they can impact the lives of others. Look, we were talking with you, Matt, about, you know, the the the responsibility you have over the families that are there, but you employ a lot of families. The truth is, is that when we build these organizations, we get to impact. And I believe it we every conversation is an impact. So every conversation we have with a team member, somebody else, we're gonna we're changing their paradigm. It's not just financially. They go home and then they share things with their kids or their spouse. And so we're creating this, this infinite life. And I know I'm getting a little I am a little bit of an idealist, but it's this infinite life. Every conversation has the ability to change the trajectory of someone's life. Our organization has the ability. One of the greatest things that's happened to me in my life, and I didn't know it was gonna happen. I love writing big checks to team members. I love team members who came in, who were who were like, I was I met them and I said, What's the most you want to if you ever made this much in a year, like what would just blow you away? And then know today they make five times that amount because they, you know, we work together. So I know, and I don't have to take credit for that, but I know that I've changed not just their life, but the trajectory of their kids' kids' kids' lives. And I've had doctors say to me, Eric, you know, this has not just changed my life, it's my kids' kids, kids. And so I think my motivation is. Like I said, you know, I believe that we shouldn't just retire, that we shouldn't stare at the walls, that we get one shot at this, and we should swing for the damn fences. So if you sh if you have the you know, and this is my personal paradigm. If you have the ability to create something great and you don't, it's selfish. It is. And that's my own person. You might not believe that. You know, someone else listening say, Hey, I don't believe that. It's my own personal paradigm. It's I believe that if you've got the ability to do it, do it because you've been given gifts that a lot of people don't have. So Swing for the damn fences. And by the way, the bigger organization you have, the more resources you have to be able to do the things you want. And the more team members you have to be able to scale and pull yourself out and be able to spend more time with your families. That's long-winded. But I think I I have this place innately in my heart that says you just you you should build the world out of this thing. You should live this life and you should you should create wealth so that you can impact the lives of others. And I think that a dental office, a DSO, ⁓ whatever is an amazing tool to build wealth and impact a lot of people. And I I'm that's a long winded. Sorry, buddy. You pumped the hell out of me with that, dude. I love that. And I p personally, humbly, I don't think that's I don't think that's too much vision at all. And I also want to say too that, you know, you know, I'm a big fan of ⁓ EOS and traction and you know, entrepreneur operating system by by a gentleman named Geno Geno Wickman. I think a lot of people in dentistry opp operate that way. And I say that because i in that book it's in there's the visionary and there's the integrator, right? And like you're one of those guys that you have both. And you know, you saying that just makes me think of like, cause I'm I'm so like I think Matt and I's interactions with you, like I see you in our relationship with Tower and you're just such an operator and you know, but you have this incredible vision. It just makes me it reminds me of like the taller the tree, the deeper the roots. Like you have you have both. And the and the deeper your why is, you know, the bigger of an organization that you can build. And just, you know, personally, I just want to say like we've I know we've always really ⁓ I I've always really resonated with with with you in that way because I I I feel the exact same thing. I think I actually take it even to a spiritual level for myself because I look at it as God given potential. If God gave me potential to do stuff, that's talent. You know, you look at a kid and you're like, you all see those kids in the neighborhood and I like my cousins and stuff. And I know, you know, both both you guys really inspire me because I know you guys, you know, do a ton of giving and you guys are such giving people, but it's like, you know, you identify talent so early and you're like, how do you you do that, but you come from that family? And like that was me. You know, so I you know I I was nerdy, you know And you like you you know, you all you know those kids and you can invest in them. And that's the exact same metaphor later in life of when they're ready to work, when they're ready to work at a company. Like you just said, you identify them and you know, you pick you pick them, you pick that pony and you identify that talent. And it's like everybody's why is sort of working together because I've heard you talk about, you know, not only that yourself, but it's like that applies to everybody within the organization. I see it with tower with you guys and you and Jordan and Matthew and like You guys are so aligned emotionally, whatever you want to call it. And some people think this is woo-woo. I don't think this is woo-woo at in the least. Because what makes you want to show up every day and go to work? What are you doing? Why dentistry? Who gives a shit? Excuse me, like who cares? Why is that tool? It's a tool. You're helping people, you know, like Matt, will you talk about holistic? Like the mouth and the heart are connected, the mouth and the rest of the the health of the body is connected. Like we care about this stuff. It's cool. It's interesting. You know, there's a lot of stuff that people there's a lot of options that people have in their lives. ⁓ so I'm I'm just very, very ⁓ touched by by that perspective, ⁓ Eric, because I I completely agree with it. Yeah, one of the things I think go ahead, Matt. Sorry. I just want to chime in, you know, I I am a big believer in ⁓ if you're spending ⁓ spending a certain ⁓ amount of if you're spending a certain amount of hours per week. as a as a business owner, it doesn't make any sense to me to not do everything you can to maximize your net income as long as it's not degrading your mental, emotional, or physical health. And, you know, one of the businesses that I co own is dental pitch brokerage. So we represent a lot of dentists. And I see such a wide variety in in EBITDA or net income from different dental offices. I mean, I see dental offices I've seen this is crazy. I mean, one of them In Atlanta makes a n a net income of twenty eight thousand a year. And then I s you know, most of them I see are kind of in that dozen dollars per year range. I also have some friends that own dental ⁓ offices that each office makes one point five million of net income. You know, one thing I I I like about, you know, and I think that's one of the things this group is ⁓ dental mentors is set up to do is, you know, if you have a dental office and it's making two hundred grand a year. You know, if you could without causing you any additional stress or any additional work hours, if you could go from two hundred thousand a year of net income to five hundred thousand dollars a year, you know, do it. Right. And then then you get to five hundred thousand a year of net income out of one location. And if you can get that to a million dollars a year without working any more hours, no additional stress, you know, or or downside to your mental, ⁓ physical or ⁓ emotional health, do it. I mean, why not? And then you know if you have two or three locations and you can get to you can double and go to five or ten locations again without increasing the amount of hours you have to work or the or the stress in a meaningful way, you know, why not do it? Why not? Now either either path is okay, but regardless of the path that you choose, you know, why not why not do everything you can to be the very best? on the path that you're choosing for yourself. And, you know, business, they call it business because it's business, right? Business. Again, I like etymology. It's busyness, right? You have to you're busy. It's busyness. Busyness. So, you know, that's work. And, you know, I tell people that, you know, work is work and fun is fun. If you're fortunate enough to where you absolutely love what you do, then work is fun, but it's still work. As long as you're going to be working, right? You know, why not maximize ⁓ you know, your your net income, which will then cascade over and ⁓ impact your your net worth and, you know, the things that you can do. You you can't if you don't have, you can't give. And you can do a lot of things for yourself, for your health, for your family, for your employees, et cetera. ⁓ you know, so that's my thought on that. Like if you're gonna if you're doing something, do it. Like give it everything you have. Well, and this is dental mentors and I think that people need to understand is that is that you'll see a common thread is is that we're The three of us could talk business, finance, investment for days. I mean, it's sometimes hard to get off when we're talking because we're having so much fun just communicating because we love this stuff. We do. We we this is fun for us. It might as well be it it's it's business, but it's also a hobby. I mean, it's fun. Like we we enjoy this stuff. Matt, you said the other day, you're like, I work seven days a week because I love this stuff. I mean, we do love this, but you'll also see another side of it is you're not gonna hear us say things about taking advantage of people or or it's all about the money or or You're gonna hear us also talk about taking care of people, doing the right thing, ⁓ you know, having the right hearts. It I I say to people sometimes, some ⁓ one time I took a my highest net worth clients and I put them in a room and I and I and I ⁓ set them and I looked at something and I didn't do it intentionally, but I looked at everyone in the and I said, You know what these people have in common? I was telling Matthew on our team, I said, they're all just really good people. I was like, they really are just great people. And there's something to to people need to know about that because You're gonna have a hard time building a great organization if you can't attract really good people because really talented people have options. They don't come to work for you. If you treat them like crap, they're gonna go somewhere else. They don't need to put up with your stuffs. The truth is, is that it's really hard to build great organizations if you can't if you can't share a vision, if you can't show, you know, if you can't ultimately lead someone to a direction to reach their goals, if you don't care about other people, is this tough stuff. And I think that. That's one thing I do want people to know is that we all talk about this stuff outside of these sessions, is that is that you know, we are we we care about people and I think you gotta know that. Like you, we, we, we are very finance and investment minded and those types of things, but we're all we're also talking about people all the time. And you cannot build a great organization if you can't take care of people. You just can't. You're you're gonna lose too many top talented people. There's no way to do it if you just treat everyone like practice. And some people tell people you should do that. And there's stuff on Instagram and all this other bravado stuff. It's just not how you build great organizations. I'd love for you guys to chime in on that thought. I I really would. I'm gonna I just wanna hop in then I'll let you go. But ⁓ every human that I'm aware of ⁓ that has achieved greatness in whatever area has had a coach or a mentor. All right. Like Michael Jordan, when he was at his prime, he still had coaches, he still had physical trainers, he still had nutritionists, you know, Tiger Woods. Coaches, you know, ⁓ the Williams sisters. I mean, the best of the best of the best have the best coaches. And no matter how good they get, even when they're number one in the world, they always have the best coach that they can find and that they can afford. And they'll all tell you the same thing. I never would have achieved number one in the world without a great coach. That was the difference. That's the difference. I so it's it's it's talent, it's hard work, it's d you know, persistence. And then you need a great coach. In other words, for for coach is mentor. And, you know, it could be anybody, but you know, if I'm making this number up, if you have a practice and you're making two hundred thousand dollars a year, you don't wanna you don't wanna say, ⁓ my friend who's a dentist is making a hundred thousand a year. That he I'm gonna have that dentist as my mentor. No, if you're making two hundred grand a year, you wanna find a mentor who has a practice that's making a million dollars a year. You need to go to someone that knows what to do, how to do it, but also what not to do. Well one thing you said yes, one thing you said, Matt, the other day too, we were talking and having a conversation. You said ⁓ you were talking about questions and and and and and asking questions and you said I'm never afraid to ask questions. If I don't know it, I'm gonna ask you and stop you. And there's also I just wanted as you were talking, I was thinking about the humility to ask questions. The higher the net worth, the more questions they ask. And I've told people that before. I'm like, I'm telling you, people that sit in a room with me that ask tons of questions. It it I'm like if you go look at their net worth, you'll be like, holy crap. Like those are the guys, the the people that stop asking questions because they think they have all the answers. There's something that happens in dental sometimes. And I'm gonna talk to some some of you are gonna hear this and it's you. Some people hit a certain level and they go, I've got all the answers, I've got figured this out, I've already got all that. Trust me, ask more questions because you'll limit your own ability to grow. Because the people at the top are asking and asking and asking and asking and asking. And that's why they're getting where they're they're they're they're so inquisitive, which is why they keep growing their net worth and keep going. So I I see that all the time. I know you guys do too. Huh. And I I think too, ⁓ this is a this is a really horrible question because I'm so biased about the answer. I just view it like I I I feel like I talk all the time to folks about like don't Obviously for for non clinical roles within a practice, I'm not talking about clinicians, but for non clinical roles, we've had the best success ten out of ten times bringing in the right people, ⁓ personality wise for a role, not the most experienced at that role, not the most book smart. And on the flip side of that, you have people, we call ⁓ Gretchens. If your name's Gretchen, I don't mean any offense to it, but it's like the people like, I've been doing this shit for ten years and you can't tell me. That's like what you don't want. And then what you just said you know reminds me of in all roles, you know, in all roles any within a company, like ⁓ you know, I'm just curious your your your your experience working with so many practices, ⁓ you know, when it comes to hiring. Cause I think right now hi I think everybody I think hiring is on everybody's mind, everybody that I talk to at least. Even with even with hygienists right? I obviously there's a hygienist shortage right now. Do you have any tips for folks, you know, on on how to How to make sure that everybody is aligned in the way that you're describing. Like what what can people do to vet the right people and you know, get get get the right people selected? There's a lot first of all, there's a lot of ways. ⁓ professionally. There are people that want security and stability. So they're like, Okay, this is you know, I want this salary and it's set and I know I'm getting that same paycheck every week. And that's fantastic. I love and admire those people. And then there's a ⁓ the second type of personality in business is I don't want to cap my upside and I want opportunity to make as much money as possible. And you have to make sure that you don't have the wrong person in the wrong role. Go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry about that. No, I mean I think well, first of all, we to understand that everybody has a ceiling. I I don't care who they are. There there's a ceiling in their role. And based on where your organization is going, you need to understand that. You need to understand that you you know I'm not a big fan of of promoting people to a position of incompetence. I think that you have to especially d depending on the position, I think you to hire the right people. Now I'm not saying you can't take someone who's a seven and turn them into a nine or ten. I'm just saying, you know, one of the biggest mistakes is I see somebody, for instance, who is already struggling in an operations position, now being promoted to a bigger position, and then the doctor saying, I'm gonna train them how to be an operations person, even though I don't know how to be an operations person. And So we we can talk about all the functional part of people's ceilings and and their levels. I will also say that there's three types of people in this world ⁓ as well, which is idea, execute, and repeat. There's idea people who create and build and visionaries. There's execute, the people that get it done. And there's some people that like just want to do the same thing day in, day out. And those repeats in a dental office, the vast majority, are repeats. That's The challenge sometimes with growth and scale within a dental office is like hygienists. I always say that hygiene, anyone who does hygiene all day, every day has a special place in heaven. Cause I don't know how you clean teeth all day, every day for 30 years. I I just, you know, but that's a repeat, right? That person wants to do the same job every day. If I was in that chair, like I would have like a double decker chair. I'd forgot how to do like hygiene with my feet or something, like because I'll move into like I idea mode, right? So so I think that W you know, there's first of all, everyone has a ceiling. You also need to understand what type of person you're hiring. You want to find people that are Patrick Lincione will talk about humble, hungry, and smart. Because if you look at the last person you fired or let go, you would say that they were lacking either humility, ⁓ they weren't hungry enough or they weren't emotionally smart. And you'll find that. And then lastly I'll say that and we could get into H R for a whole podcast. So I'm I'm not gonna get too far into it, but I will say this. Synergies matter. There's three types of of of Testing. There's cognitive testing, there's cognitive testing, and then there's personality testing. And at Tower, we actually do all three of them because actually I'm I actually test for intelligence as well when I'm hiring. But also understand how people what are wired under pressure, which is cognitive, which is a Colby index does a great job of that. And I'll tell you why that matters. I had a doctor who who came to one of our advisors and said, I can't get anything done. Tell me what you mean. And this guy's got 18 ops. Great location. He said, I just can't get anything done. So they did a Colby assessment and quick start is how quickly you move to action. So they they looked at everyone's quick start, one through ten, ten's high, one's low. And it was like one, one, one, one, two, three, two, two, one, one. Like nobody wants to go to action. Then there was like one nine, which is the doctor. And so there is there is a strategy around hiring synergies, ⁓ and knowing like what how someone's wired and positions. ⁓ because interview is a low predictor of success. We hire people we like, we all know that. And so we know that when I was getting my MBA, it was like we just you can study human resource management. It's just it's slow, we we just hire people we like. It's just the truth. It's a low predictor. So I think doing assessments depending on the position matter too. So I know it's long window, but but that's a whole HR is a whole hiring people, and the town of hiring people is its own discipline. And we could create an entire mastery series on that. But I would definitely, depending on the position, make sure I'm doing some assessments and really understanding how someone's wired and how they're built. And I think I that predicts the most success. And then understanding their ceiling. How high can this person go? ⁓ somebody who's running two locations probably doesn't have the capability to run 40 locations. It's just a different person. And what what assessments specifically do you like? I mean, like we've done like Myers Brig stuff in the past. Like I'm just curious, like what which ones do you like? Yeah, I well I The the disc is an easy one because it's it's so simplistic, but it's a pretty easy one to understand personality. I'm a big you know, if you understand DISC, it's really pretty easy. So I'm a big disc fan. I think everybody should be put through disc. I think some people lean on it too much because it's not ultimately a pressure test, ⁓ but it's a good way to understand, depending on the position, to understand how that person's wired. And I think it's a big predictor of success in a lot of positions. ⁓ I'm a big fan of Colby. I think that Colby index has to be done for anyone who's in any higher level position inside of a practice. I don't it's hard to build leadership teams without the the right type of of synergies. I'm a I'm a fan of Myers Brig. And we do a few different aptitude tests. And so those are a few of them, but but but there's a lot of different ways we could go. I don't want to get too far off because I'll have people downloading assessments on this podcast. I just want people to know what's most important is to understand ⁓ is that assessments are are important depending on the position. They really are. Because everyone hires people they like. And that has n there's such a low correlation between interview and success. Such a low correlation. And you just need to understand that. Yeah. Somebody asked me that yesterday, a guy that is a founder and owner of of a of a company in the dental space. And you know, he he had to let somebody go and he goes, Well, how how do you You know, he was asking me how do you hire great people? Because everyone at my corporate office right now, in my opinion, is like A to A plus. And I said, It's just trial and error. Like there's there's no I haven't found any consistently ⁓ predictive methodology to determine the outcome of of of the hiring process. I agree with what Eric said. I will we ⁓ one thing I wanna make sure I I do say in the aptitude we do the wonder lick. I'm a ⁓ we do the wonder lick because ⁓ I've had people come in and interview, and this is a good example. I've had I had this guy come in and interview, and I got like likable as can be. I was like, we should hire this guy. And and and and then so we did the Wonder Lake on him, and on a scale on aptitude, he came back at like a 22. And look, I'm not saying you know, this isn't beating this guy up. It's just it's ultimately because it ranks you against anyone else in your position in the entire anyone who's ever taken the test. And so, so Like any doctor who's ever taken the Wonder League, it ranks them, their aptitude against every doctor who's ever taken the Wonder Lake. And so it and then it ranks motivation and some other factors. But as a 22, it'll tell you, come back, we'll not be able to critically solve problems, we'll not be able to do these things. And you might say, Well, that's kind of harsh to do, but I have to but it is a as a consulting firm, I need people who can very quickly critically solve problems, right? So that's not gonna work for me. And so depending on the position, that's why I went to at Tower. We went to aptitude because I didn't need to hire just people that are good people and nice people or experienced people. I need to hire really smart people. ⁓ and which is a lot of consulting firms too. One one thing that I I I don't remember where I where I read it. I didn't make this up, but you know, ⁓ and I do believe it to be true. The job of a CEO of a business company is to make a small number of very important, highly impactful decisions. Now that could be per week, per month. per year versus the chief operating officer, president, where you have to make a lot of decisions every single day. ⁓ but that's the between the CEO and owner and and the person operating the business. You know, I've never heard that in that, but I like I just wrote that down. That's really good. I've never heard that, but I love that. Yeah. And another thing too is like if you're the owner of a company or the CEO, you have to make decisions and a lot of times you don't have time to get all the data, all the information in. So you have to have a certain like emotional framework where you're comfortable saying, All right, I don't have all the data in, but based on the information I have right now, this decision is more probable than not to have the outcome we're looking for. And that's where a Colby, one of the assessments on the Colby is is fact is fact finder and how much there's no negative on a Colby, by the way. One's not bad, ten's not great. It's how much data for us as a fact finder you need to make a decision. ⁓ For so you'll find a lot of people that are more in that CEO just need critical facts. Like give me the I need critical facts. I don't need every data point. I need critical facts and to make to be able to make a decision. And so I I think those those assessments are are are important. But but but even if you do all that, it doesn't mean a hundred percent you're always gonna slay it because you still have something to get through, then you're like, ⁓ we messed up on that one. So anyhow. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, one thing that ⁓ I You know, w everybody's talking about AI, the future. And we just talked about that with Matt yesterday. What's your take on that, Eric? What do you think that, ⁓ how do you think that AI is going to change dentistry this year, twenty twenty six, by the end of it? What decisions do you think that owners should be making right now to prepare for it? ⁓ and how do you think it's gonna impact dentistry over the next couple of years? That's a phenomenal question. Dentistry behind. And and here's one thing that's really important for people to understand. ⁓ dentists by nature are conservative. They are. And they're ⁓ there's a very wait and see me mentality inside of dentistry. And I'll give you an example of that. I was I had two doctors sit down with me and it we went to dinner in 2019. And I had this great dinner with them. They said, what are what's one thing we could do right now to really take advantage of the marketplace? And I said, Now, this is before anyone did it. I said digital marketing. I said, go create funnels, go create lead sequences, go remember, nobody, nobody in dentistry was doing any digital marketing. And I said, if you'll go do that right now, before anybody have first mover advantage, I will promise you you will absolutely just dominate your area. Do you think they did it? No. ⁓ they waited. Now who's doing digital marketing? Maybe 10% did it. I don't know. That's right. Everyone's doing digital marketing now. So now acquisition goes up because the market's flooded. They're right, it takes more touch points. So I would I would liken it to the same thing as there's too many doctors that are in the passenger seat waiting to see what happens. They're waiting to see the technology that the friends implement. They're waiting to to vet out the 27 technologies that are the phone AI. They're waiting. The challenge with that is that. By the time you've decided to make a move to integrate AI in the way you need to, your technology will already move past you. So what I would say is that you need to you need to start looking at AI now. You need to integrate now. And I'm not saying you should vet. That would be an uneducated thing to say. But I am saying is you're probably not gonna have perfect system and perfect information before you make a decision. Going back to Colby is doctors say to be high fact finders. So they want all the data points to make a decision. But the problem is that's not the world we live in. And I think right now, if you're waiting the next decade or six years or even three years to to look at AI and and and how it can impact your business, Matt, you were just talking about margins and net income and same quality of life. AI is a way to get there. If if you understand that you can make better net better margins, better EBITDA, better cash flow, better net income by just integrating technology, but you're not doing it, you're making a mistake. I think it's gonna, it's the wave of the future, it's where things are going, but doctors are waiting too long. And I think that that's gotta change. It's gotta change if you're you're gonna get passed by and it's gonna really change the marketplace within dentistry quickly. And the ones that have not adopted and and really adapted to the change are gonna get left behind. Yeah, I agree. So There's one of my favorite quotes, the six most dangerous words in business. We've always done it that way. Right. That's a that is, man, you better be careful with that in the d in this day and age. And I, you know, again, I go back to dental pitch brokerage. I'm shocked at the ⁓ number of of of doctors that own their own practice that don't do any marketing. And I'm like, well, how how are you getting new patients? And I hear I hear this over and over again. well, I use the best form of marketing. word of mouth. And I'm like, man, ⁓ you're a couple of decades behind, but ⁓ okay. I mean, you better get on w you better get on board because ⁓ you know, w the change that's unfolding right now and the advancements in AI and technology, can't stop it. You're not gonna stop that tide. And you need to get in front of that wave, not not get not let that wave just crash on you and and wreck you. And I w ⁓ Go ahead, no. Well I I was just gonna say like I always it it kills me when people say this because I I see this I I see this all the time too and I'm like I don't look it but I'm from the country. I'm a country boy and I fish. I'm like, look, it it's like you're talking about a fishing hole that's been abundant with fish. I get that, but I always try to explain to people, I'm like, there's all these other fishing holes that you're not tapping into. You go it and and you and when you're measuring stuff by your acquisition cost, ⁓ And by the way, word of mouth is not necessarily free. It's still awesome. You should of course do word of mouth. And you should have you know, even even from a marketing ⁓ perspective on the flip side, as a marketing vendor, a marketing partner, you know, I'm like, look, your your cheapest new patient will always be an existing patient, 100%. But it kills me because people don't realize, especially in certain markets, I'm like, but you have this whole other pond right here. It's right there. And if you could, if you can get these patients in for like $10, $20, $30 a patient. And their extraction cases, their I'm not even talking about hygiene. I'm talking about high ticket cases. One of the things that kills me is endo and perio. Endo and perio. I talk to these folks and every single time they go, I don't want to do any marketing because it doesn't make any sense. Nobody's searching for this stuff. It's only I only want to go out and make ⁓ relationships with all of the GP practices in my community. And I'm like, dude, it doesn't mean that people are searching for endodontists on Google. They might not know what an endodontist is. I understand that. But they're searching for what people search for. They're searching for they're searching for, you know, my gums hurt, my teeth hurt, you know, they're searching for, I need an extraction. You know, they're they say it in a ⁓ colloquial ⁓ way, right? Like they say it in the way that people just talk everyday talk. So, and that's what they're typing. And those patients are incredibly cheap now on Google. And Eric, to your point, the market's going like this. You're right. Competition is at as is at an all-time high. People are searching for more things, but people also have to understand how people search now today too, which is like ChatGPT and all of the LLMs, right? People ask. And what's crazy about that is the AI is typically, well, number one, the AI is doing the exact same thing that Google has done with search. I don't think that's a a new idea to a lot of to a lot of dentists and a lot of owners, but that's what's happening. It's not replacing it, but it's it's ⁓ subsidizing it. It's another it's it's an adjacent, you know, way of searching. and AI can be very harsh because AI sometimes only gives the top result. Sometimes it might give three, but if it's saying it out loud, it you know, it's not gonna take five minutes to like, you know, list something out. So anyway, that that I I I completely I completely resonate with you're saying. I we we're we're in we're in a a a changing ⁓ area in dentistry, but I'll I I'll go to one last point on that is enterprise value and and people don't realize how it affects enterprise value and And just the not just the push and EBITDA, but the overall integration of technology. If ultimately you're that far behind in technology and I've got to ultimately acquire your business, but now bringing all this technology and I there's a there is going to be an effect on enterprise value. So you have to understand that there's also, especially if you're thinking about, you know, selling or selling some portion with the next three to five years, if you're not looking at technology. You're making a huge mistake in in your enterprise value. And so I think that's something else to consider. ⁓ when you're looking at at technology is you're getting left behind, but you're getting left behind not just in efficiency. You're getting left behind in valuation. And I think that's an important thing for people to know. I want to say this too, which is that there's a I always try to differentiate in in in Dennis and practice owners' minds right now between exactly what you said compared to the Well, first all, to that point, AI is a tool of leverage. That's why it was invented. That's why it was created. It creates leverage. That's what intelligence has allowed practices to do is create leverage. ⁓ artificial intelligence is no different. And so that's a that's kind of an interesting concept to to think about, but it's true. And the the the big point that that that you made me think of that that we're talking about a lot right now is integrating AI into your practice is complete is a completely different idea, although I get that it sounds the same, of waiting for like which model of combine to put in, or waiting for which SaaS vendor to to to adopt to your point. Like which, you know, do I use this company or this company for my, you know, AI analysis, or do I do I use this company or this company for do I use QuickBooks or, you know, Netscape or whatever, right? For my books? ⁓ or do I use Xenophits or whatever, right? ⁓ this is a this is a slightly different conversation. I used to kind of help guide and mentor practic. I still do to this day, and I mentor practice owners through the concept of like, and I'm not gonna say any names, but you know, the the the the manufacturers will, you know, dentists go these conferences and the manufacturers are like, hey, listen, if you buy this laser dentistry machine, patients are gonna flood in and you can advertise that you have this machine. And people get suckered into that, right? I'm not saying it's completely untrue. But it's mostly not true from a marketing standpoint because a lot of those same companies, I will not name names, would come to us and be like, Hey, can you can you know if people buy this cone beam machine, could you also like run a bunch of ads with it and can we include marketing package in with the machine? That would be in my view, I just I never liked that. I always found that to be quite just not you know, I I hate that. I don't like that. I don't think it's ethical. Because I'm like, at least you know, at least tell the the the owners what you're doing. But the idea that you're gonna buy a cone beam machine. And then all of these implant cases are going to magically come in, is stupid, right? That is ass backwards, that is the tail wagging the dog. I want to differentiate that because I've been harping on that point for years. What you just said, Eric, is not that. You are that point is you need to start looking at AI immediately. You need to start thinking about, and I don't even care which vendor you pick, you just have to start understanding what AI is. And the cool thing about AI, by the way, for people listening, if you want to know how What AI is and how to use it, go download ChatGPT or Grok and just ask it. Ask it what it is. It's wild, but it's true. That's one of the best ways to learn about it. You can just ask it questions about who are you? What are you? You know, you can talk to it. You just press the button and ask it questions about what its capabilities are. It'll tell you what it can do, what it can't do. ⁓ and you can also ask it which companies it would recommend for different dental. You know, I recommend this company for you know, these seem to be the market leaders of AI clinical analysis. These are the three companies that you c that you should look into. It's a weird world that we're moving into, but ⁓ to your point, ignorance is not an excuse, specifically because of how stupid simple it is to ask GPT or Grok about itself. That's much and And and I I'm gonna jump because I'll forget this thought. So I'm gonna jump in in thought. So I agree. So you guys gotta get technology, get all over it. There's another thing I wanna say is before I forget this, is that ⁓ sophistication matters. And and let me explain what I mean by that. Is that people ask me good or bad, good or bad financial advisor, good or bad consultant, good or bad accountant or whatever. I I never look at it that way. I look at it like levels of sophistication, right? I wouldn't say that the the person just started in whatever is a bad person. I just think that their level of sophistication might be low. So as you move on and grow, you you move into levels of sophistication. One of the reasons why I love Rise DDS is because, and by the way, we're partners so everyone knows this. Like we are we're partners in this business of of or this platform with dental mentors. But I want to say this is that tower leadership, we send we are a gigantic Rise referral source. And it's not because ⁓ that that Neil and I said, hey, look, I'm gonna make sure I get like we're f we're we're I we're partners, we're friends, whatever, but I'm gonna send to the best platform for the doctors. And and we refer heavily to Rise DDS because of their sophistication, because of who they are, because of the results they get for tower clients. And so first of all, your platform is amazing, but I also want to kind of just speak to something. One of the things we see at Tower all the time is that people think they should use eight companies in marketing. And What happens is they're paying management fee, management fee, management fee, management fee, management fee, management fee. Because all those companies have overhead s to to be paid for. And so levels of sophistication matters. So when we look at the the organizations that were moving up, and I'm and I'm gonna speak about consulting here a minute, but I want people to understand this. You want to push up levels of sophistication. One of the things we've done at Tower is because we've integrated consulting and accounting and billing and all these things into one platform and ultimately allows Increase in sophistication, control of quality, and then and and not just a plug to our but I do want to say that because I I'm trying to educate what you should be looking for is to say when you're looking at these things, you have to understand that because everything's integrated, you're playing you're paying not 12 management fees, you're paying one company, but also you're getting high sophistication, which is really, really important. And and I think it's people should be educated to understand when you're looking for advisory platforms. like a rise DDS and marketing becomes such a huge hot hot button thing. You need to understand if I get with a company that's highest sophistication, they can provide the better result. But I'm also not paying a lot of all these other fees of 12 companies to pay for 12 different companies management fees. And that thought just came up and I just had to say it because I think people need to know that because it really is important. Cause we sit in consulting all the time, Neil, we're And and and I know we're you guys are asking me questions, but I just want to say that I see this all the time where people are paying twelve different marketing companies. And you gotta understand if you hire a company that has high sophistication, you're not gonna pay twelve marketing company fee management fees, which is just something I I just want to throw out there as a thought. Well, I for for sure appreciate that. And you know the feeling is very mutual. And, you know, I this is a bit tangential, but I think that on on the subject, a lot of marketing companies or excuse me, a lot of tech companies right now are consolidating. And there's a huge push ⁓ from from myself and others in the industry to tr really, really try to condense ⁓ to condense companies. ⁓ and it has nothing to do with like a roll up or ⁓ it's not it's not really a financial reason, ⁓ in a traditional like private equity sense or something. It's because everybody wants another freaking dashboard like they want a hole in their face. I understand that I don't want one either. It's really bad. And you're right. It's like, you know, it's funny when I when I was in I started my career in Silicon Valley as there for the first like six, six years of my career. And the thing that ⁓ one of my mentors always told me was, is this, you know, you as we were I as we were going through these ⁓ you know, startup accelerators, the message that was really, really hammered in and I love it, and I still think about it every day, is when you're on the when you're on the vendor side, but also ⁓ as as a as a practice owner, I think about this a lot too. ⁓ is this a company that you're building or is this a feature of another company that you're building, right? You ever read those articles? And I'm maybe getting a little tech geeky here, but you ever read the the tech articles where it's like, you know, the latest Google ⁓ release just, you know, wiped out a thousand startups? Like that happens every day, right? And it's because those startups are too niche. They're too and so in the ⁓ in in in the tech world. And you're seeing a lot more of this. ⁓ and it's it's completely irrelevant for owners. Owners owners need to understand that this is happening. Because this all the vendors for every for every practice owner listening, all the vendors are going through this right now. This is exactly what's going on. They're trying to figure out am I getting disrupted? What do I have to do? Which which solution do I have? Because you can nego you can use this to negotiate ⁓ in your favor, by the way. You can you can number one, really do your due diligence. If a company comes to you, this is this is a huge piece of advice that I would give. Any company that comes to you and they have a really amazing value proposition, they to whatever they tell you, whatever it is that they can do, right? We can do da-da-da-da-da-da. ⁓ my god, it's so amazing. Okay. 99, there's a 99% chance that there's another company out there that also does that same thing, that does a bunch of other stuff too for free, or it's all one price. You really have to watch out for that right now because of everyone, I'm sure, pretty sure people know what vibe coding is. If you don't know what vibe coding is, tech companies and non-tech companies alike, and it's really cool, can use tools like Replit and Lovable to just make apps now. It's easier to make an app or a software platform than ever before. But to quote Quentin Tarantino, just because you have an iPhone and you can make a movie, it doesn't mean you can make a good movie. I'm a huge Tarantino fan. and I think that's what's happening right now with tech, right? Everybody and their mother, literally, my mother is doing this too and it's awesome and she's making very interesting apps. Anybody can make an app. And so there's a resurgence of there's an app for that kind of a thing. But when it comes to pricing as an odor, just be very vigilant about that. If somebody tells you, hey, you know, we do this thing, chances are ⁓ they're not the only company that does it. And I my my my ⁓ advice to anybody, any owner is to go horizontal. Try to have as few vendors as possible because what's what's really easy to do in the tech world and the vendor world is to make a feature. What's really hard to do is to make a feature work well with everything else. And most vendors have no operational experience whatsoever. I don't think that's a secret, right? A lot of these people are literally, I mean, you talk about the archetype of like a college kid in their dorm room vibe coding something out. I say that with heart because that was me 15 years ago, but but I didn't know what the hell I was doing, right? So but I did it anyways, and it you know, it it worked. It worked, but but but you gotta you gotta work your ass off on the operational side. You have to build a real company. So you don't wanna get caught with ⁓ You know, you you don't want to get caught with your pants down. You want to make sure that you're working with a company that ⁓ doesn't give you yet another dashboard. And that that applies to everything. That applies to everything. So ⁓ it'll be really exciting to see how that that all pans out. But I mean, Eric, I I completely, you know, agree with with what you're saying. It may it makes me think about the sophistication piece. There's levels of sophistication with vendors too, of course. Just like there is with with like there is with employees. I I have to say this. I love this group, guys. I gotta say, just so everyone knows, like anyone look, we're we're we're over an hour in this thing. I just want everybody to hear this. Like the reason this is how we talk all the time, guys. And this is really important to understand is that this is the conversations we're having. You're part of dental mentors for a reason. I hope what you're getting from this is, you on this podcast, we talked about HR, we talked about the why. We've talked about technology. We've talked I mean, we're talking about so many resources. We're talking about scale. We're talking about there's so many areas for us to go into. And we could the reason why we're we're running at the length we're running is because we could just keep talking about each subject over and over again. And we could have a list of 10 questions and we go for 40. I'm glad you're here. I'm thankful to be part of this group and thankful ⁓ to be part of this mission and and helping. Doctors really come to dental mentors and get tremendous amount of value. We're doing this because I think what you're getting from the dental mentors at Meet the Mentor series is that ⁓ and I can't wait to do to to for everyone to hear your session as well, Neil. ⁓ and and everyone, I hope you've already listened to Matt's. ⁓ here's the thing. If you haven't, you need to go back and listen to it. The thing what what we do is we bring a tremendous amount of knowledge, a passion drive energy. And this was created to serve you. So If you're not tapping into all of dental mentors, start tapping into it. If you haven't come to a live session, you need to sign up for a live session. You need to be in the room with us and our great friends that we're bringing together. And I hope you're just getting the value of dental mentors and ⁓ anything I can always do to help and serve. That's why I'm here. Cause I can't I the things we're creating and building inside this group are amazing. And I'm I'm thankful to be a part of it. 100%. Likewise, we're we're ⁓ we're so excited what what what the future has in store. And especially what what is gonna come out of the community aspect of this because we're we're we're we're very interested in learning from from everybody as well, from all of you in the group. And ⁓ I just think it's gonna be an incredible year. ⁓ we can learn from each other, we can be lighthouses for each other, and we can really save each other a ton of time by telling each other what works and what doesn't in our own lives. With that, Eric, thank you so much, sir, for coming on and thank you. Grill you in the hot seat today. This has been Dental Mentors. Thank you guys. Have a great day. If you enjoyed today's video, we'd love to invite you to join the Dental Mentors Facebook group. The group is completely free, but it is private at invite only. The group is for practice owners, dentists, specialists, and dental CEOs. If that's you, we'd love to see you inside. As part of Dental Mentors, you're going have direct access to the brightest minds in dentistry and the brightest mentors, and some of the greatest CEOs. That have ever worked in the dental space. You're going to learn all the best practices that you're going to need to optimize the profitability of your practices, to properly scale your practices, and to achieve a high value exit. You're also going to learn the closely guarded secrets that the rich and wealthy use for asset protection and the access to private investments and investment strategies that will allow you and your family to create generational wealth. Inside the group, you'll also be able to speak directly with today's guest and all of the guests on the Dental Mentors podcast. You'll be able to ask them questions specific to your practice or group and get the specific answers that you need for that next big breakthrough. Speaking of exclusive, one of the great things we're going to do at Dental Mentors is our events. In these events, what we've done is bring together the industry's top experts, people that you want to be in a room with. 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