Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Building and Scaling a High-Growth Dental Practice

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Building and Scaling a High-Growth Dental Practice · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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- This is Scott Becker with a special episode
1:01
- of the Becker's Healthcare and Becker's Dental podcast.
1:04
- I'm thrilled today to be joined by two
1:07
- brilliant leaders
1:09
- who formed and built a dental practice management
1:11
- company, Aerodental.
1:14
- They've done an incredible job of it. They've
1:16
- really done it from what I could tell
1:17
- from almost scratch and have built this great
1:20
- company.
1:21
- We're thrilled today to be visiting with doctor
1:23
- Anushka Kagwani
1:25
- and doctor Abhishek Nagaraj,
1:27
- and they'll tell us about sort of their
1:29
- career,
1:30
- how they get started,
1:32
- some of the trends they're watching today,
1:34
- some of the trends they're watching in the
1:35
- dental business today, and where they're most focused
1:38
- and and what they're looking at growing.
1:40
- Doctor Gagwani, doctor Nagaraj,
1:43
- can I ask two of you to take
1:44
- a moment to introduce yourselves?
1:47
- Sure. We'd love to. First of all, thank
1:48
- you so much for having us on. You
1:50
- know, we've been big fans and followers for
1:51
- a long time, and I know we've had
1:53
- the
1:54
- opportunity to meet in person, and it's always
1:56
- a pleasure. So thank you for having us.
1:59
- You know, Abhishek and I, we started really
2:02
- the end of twenty fifteen. We were like,
2:03
- okay. It's, you know, we I've been practicing
2:06
- already for about three and a half years.
2:07
- Abhishek had been practicing for about a year,
2:10
- and, I was getting a little bit antsy.
2:13
- He was he was doing really well in
2:15
- his associate job, but,
2:17
- I said, okay. I really need to kind
2:19
- of have my own practice, and he was
2:21
- completely on board. So we started looking. We
2:24
- found a practice that was just kind of
2:26
- like a mom and pop shop as you
2:28
- call it and, you know, doing a couple
2:30
- 100 k in revenue.
2:32
- And we went in,
2:33
- remodeled it, you know, kind of just bought
2:36
- it on vibes, didn't really think about anything
2:38
- else. We're much more sophisticated today and,
2:41
- you know, turned it into a million dollar
2:43
- practice within the first year that we were
2:45
- there.
2:46
- And about six months later, we bought our
2:48
- second practice. And every year since then, we
2:51
- just added a practice.
2:53
- That that's amazing. And tell me about the
2:55
- first practice. Was that in Chicago, or where
2:57
- was that at?
2:59
- Yeah. It was in Chicago. It was actually
3:01
- in a suburb of Chicago called Burbank by
3:03
- Midway Airport.
3:05
- And, you know, we just founded it through
3:06
- a broker. It was just kind of one
3:07
- of those things. But, again, you know, we
3:09
- we drove into the park. I remember driving
3:11
- to the parking lot and thinking, wow. I
3:12
- really like this parking lot. I like this
3:14
- building.
3:15
- Not quite how we do it today fully,
3:17
- but that is part of it. And and
3:20
- and, doctor Nagaraj,
3:21
- introduce yourself and then build on that story
3:23
- a little bit. Tell us, was that anxious?
3:26
- Did you do seller financing? How did you
3:28
- buy it? How'd you come up with the
3:29
- money for it? What did that look like?
3:32
- Absolutely. Scott, it's an honor to be here.
3:34
- Like Anushka said, you know, it's, we've been
3:36
- following your your journey for a long time.
3:39
- You're truly inspirational, so thank you for having
3:41
- us. It's truly an honor. Yeah. I think,
3:43
- Anushka, you you summarized this really well. The
3:45
- first practice that we walked into, we kinda
3:48
- I think we were both very hungry motivated
3:50
- dentists, but that's the extent of what our,
3:53
- you know, business acumen was. We hadn't really
3:55
- taken business classes, and we bought this,
3:58
- practice based on fields.
4:00
- And, it had a big parking lot, and
4:02
- the real estate was up for sale for
4:04
- pretty cheap. And we were, like, we went
4:06
- head first,
4:07
- bought the practice for pretty cheap. And,
4:10
- we, we'd luckily established a good, working relationship
4:14
- with a banker back then who was probably,
4:17
- you know, just trying to put his name
4:19
- out there.
4:20
- And,
4:21
- we we when we found this, we went
4:23
- to him and said, hey. We wanna buy
4:24
- this practice. And he was super supportive,
4:26
- said I'll finance this,
4:29
- you know, pretty much the whole way, 80%
4:31
- on the real estate, and you guys put
4:32
- down 20% from your savings. And we were
4:35
- like, okay. Sign us up. Where do we
4:37
- sign? And, that's how we kinda got started.
4:39
- And I remember the practice was super dated
4:42
- and the,
4:43
- selling dentist did not transition. Right? He left
4:46
- he pretty much left right off the bat.
4:48
- And, we had a practice
4:50
- that we had paid a decent amount of
4:52
- money for, which didn't have any staff,
4:55
- had old dated equipment, and we were like,
4:57
- what the heck do we do? So we
4:58
- had to borrow some more money, update the
5:00
- practice,
5:01
- and, really, communicate a lot of value to
5:04
- patients, learn how to market the practice,
5:07
- learn learn how to do HR, and practice
5:10
- on patients. So that's kinda how we got
5:11
- started. And and and were the patients to
5:13
- begin with,
5:16
- Medicaid, commercial,
5:17
- self pay, what did the payer mix look
5:19
- like, and what does that look like today
5:21
- throughout EuroDental?
5:23
- Yeah. You know, when we started, we took
5:25
- everything. We took Medicaid, PPO, fee for service.
5:28
- We felt like we couldn't be as selective.
5:31
- We wanted we just needed a volume. And,
5:35
- once we ramped up learned how to ramp
5:37
- up a practice,
5:38
- you know, to a million, million and a
5:40
- half within twelve to eighteen months, and then
5:42
- we went ahead and did our second practice,
5:44
- then we figured out that we could become
5:46
- more selective. And then we the first thing
5:48
- that we, you know, eliminated was Medicaid.
5:52
- We really enjoyed giving back to the community,
5:54
- but,
5:55
- the practice was it was hard. It was
5:57
- hard to have both types of clientele in
5:59
- one practice. And Areo Dental Group today,
6:03
- almost too soon to be 10 locations is
6:05
- fully PPO and fee for service
6:07
- with a core focus of, same day dentistry.
6:10
- That's our main core focus, today. And and
6:13
- and and and this question, when you first
6:16
- got started, you first bought the first practice.
6:20
- How long did it take till you were
6:22
- comfortable? And both you have this tremendous energy,
6:26
- and and I assume sort of this, you
6:28
- know, relatively healthy confidence.
6:31
- But anybody who buys a business for the
6:33
- first time has some anxiety, some nervousness.
6:36
- Okay.
6:36
- At what point did you get to the
6:38
- spot? Was it a month in? Was it
6:40
- three months in, six months in? Were you,
6:42
- like, able to at least to breathe to
6:44
- say,
6:45
- you know, okay. We can make this work
6:47
- at least. This is a good home for
6:49
- our practice,
6:50
- and then we can build from there. At
6:52
- what point did you start to wake up
6:53
- and say, this might be okay. This is
6:56
- gonna be okay.
6:58
- That's such a good question. We you know,
7:00
- honestly, we just kind of jumped in head
7:01
- first, and we learned on the job.
7:03
- We bought our second practice six months after
7:05
- the first one. I am not gonna say
7:07
- we were probably fully ready. We're still learning
7:10
- things today.
7:11
- That's the truth.
7:12
- But, you know, I felt like we were
7:14
- confident enough where
7:16
- we were we'd broken even within the second
7:18
- month, and we were cash flow and positive
7:21
- by the third month. So for that reason,
7:22
- you know, we felt like, okay. We're we're
7:24
- pretty comfortable going ahead and and getting another
7:26
- practice. But that was mainly because the two
7:29
- of us were very hungry, and we
7:31
- knew how to communicate value to patients. We
7:33
- had, you know, we knew we had developed
7:35
- the clinical skills in order to get the
7:37
- dentistry accepted and done. It it definitely changed
7:40
- a little bit when we hired our first
7:42
- first associate, and we realized that it was
7:44
- a completely different ballgame at that point. But
7:46
- until as far as the two of us
7:48
- were practicing, we were pretty comfortable.
7:51
- And at what point did you sort of
7:53
- transition
7:53
- from I mean, the the you you folks
7:56
- were very closely together,
7:58
- got this first practice going even without retaining
8:01
- the dentist, really. I mean, he was probably
8:03
- ready to move on and retire.
8:05
- He bought the practice, bought the office, bought
8:08
- the records, and and away you go within
8:10
- a month or two of your cash flowing,
8:12
- which is remarkable.
8:14
- And and it and at that point, you're
8:15
- still doing most of the work yourself.
8:18
- Yeah. I take it with dental hygienist.
8:21
- And and and at what point did you,
8:24
- you know, between yourself as dentist and the
8:26
- dental hygienist,
8:27
- at what point did you start to figure
8:29
- out, okay, how do we manage other dentists?
8:31
- How do we manage other practitioners?
8:33
- Because, obviously, you can't scale to 10 locations
8:36
- with the two you're just doing it all
8:37
- yourself or you'd be completely exhausted and wiped
8:40
- out. What was that evolution like to start
8:43
- managing other dentists, other practitioners?
8:46
- Yeah. You know, when we started, what at
8:48
- the second location, Mark, you know, we because
8:50
- there were two of us and we were
8:52
- frankly getting a little bored of seeing each
8:54
- other twenty four hours a day. That probably
8:56
- was the forcing function to go open that
8:57
- second practice too.
8:59
- But when we opened our third location, that
9:01
- was a larger acquisition than, the first and
9:04
- the second one. It was the biggest one
9:05
- we had done, at least for the time.
9:07
- And, we realized that we're we're two dentists.
9:10
- We couldn't be at the, at three practices,
9:12
- at the same time. So we recruited,
9:15
- our first associate dentist
9:17
- and kind of, you know, we didn't have
9:19
- an onboarding system back then. You know, we
9:21
- were just like, hey. You're a dentist. You
9:22
- know how to drill. Go figure it out
9:24
- and call us if you have any problems.
9:26
- That's kinda how we got started.
9:28
- And,
9:29
- and it I think it's been it's been,
9:31
- this dynamic journey over time where we've had
9:33
- to become way more process driven. Anushka is
9:37
- probably a little more process driven than I
9:39
- was. I'm more of a heavier quick start
9:41
- and,
9:43
- recruited Dennis one after another and then had
9:45
- to evolve in order to support them better
9:48
- and better.
9:50
- I I think, obviously, as Anushka said, we're
9:52
- still learning how to do that at a
9:53
- high level, at a at a really good
9:55
- level, but we fundamentally understand that we're in
9:58
- the business of supporting dentists. And if we
10:00
- aren't doing that, then we are probably not
10:03
- doing a great job. And,
10:05
- we've had to come up with we operate
10:06
- on the entrepreneurial operating system. We've had to
10:09
- create a lot of structure. We have a
10:11
- full leadership team in place now. And, we
10:14
- spend the two of us spend most of
10:16
- our time
10:17
- recruiting the having the final say on the
10:19
- dentist when they come on board on who
10:21
- if they're the right fit for the core
10:23
- values or not, and then checking in with
10:25
- our dentist to see what resources we can
10:27
- provide to them. We unfortunately, we don't provide
10:30
- hands on support to them directly.
10:32
- Clinical coach who does that in the company.
10:34
- But,
10:35
- most of our time is spend spending spent
10:37
- around how do we make get these dentists
10:40
- ramped up to what we were doing back
10:42
- in the day. How do we get them
10:44
- to become million dollar dentists or $2,000,000 dentists
10:48
- over a three to four year timeline? That's
10:49
- most of our time. Anishka, is there anything
10:51
- I missed?
10:52
- No. Well, one quick thing. Actually, Scott, we
10:55
- didn't have a hygienist for the first, I
10:57
- think, two or three years. We did. It
10:59
- was about two years. I think we we
11:01
- both did our own hygiene just because we
11:02
- wanted to kind of save on payroll in
11:04
- the beginning, and I think it worked out
11:05
- really well.
11:07
- And and talk about that. Talk about some
11:09
- of the things that maybe you did originally
11:12
- that you think now, oh my goodness. I
11:15
- can't believe we did that. Or or maybe
11:17
- you can believe it. So all of us
11:18
- that go through that that
11:20
- evolution as an entrepreneur go from that sort
11:23
- of in the restaurant business you just talked
11:24
- about being, you know, the the famous adage
11:27
- of
11:28
- cook, bottle washer, waiter, doing everything.
11:31
- Mhmm. Talk about that evolution to
11:34
- now, what you did then to sort of
11:36
- how the role looks today
11:39
- and how you manage that. And and I
11:41
- also want you to touch on I know
11:43
- that the both of you are very, very
11:45
- committed to constant learning and education.
11:48
- I see you sometimes at University of Chicago
11:50
- classes or other places, I believe, and that
11:53
- constant commitment to evolving and learning.
11:56
- And talk about sort of first, how things
11:58
- are different from when you first got started
11:59
- now that you got 10 locations or so.
12:02
- And second,
12:03
- sort of that commitment to constant learning and
12:05
- education.
12:07
- Yeah. You know, I think it's definitely a
12:09
- one eighty. When we first started, we did
12:12
- absolutely everything. In fact, I remember that first
12:14
- practice we're talking about, it was somewhat of
12:17
- a hoarding situation. There were 30 year old,
12:20
- invoices and lab cases in the basement. And,
12:23
- you know, we had just taken on this
12:25
- debt to buy the practice. So I remember
12:26
- going in there
12:28
- four weekends in a row. I went in
12:30
- there and said, I'm gonna clean this myself
12:32
- because we can't afford to hire someone right
12:33
- now. I made barely a dent, and that
12:35
- was the first time I realized, okay. Maybe
12:37
- I can't do everything myself. So we put
12:39
- up the money to hire someone. He cleaned
12:41
- it out. He brought, like, four people, cleaned
12:43
- it out within three hours. They were done.
12:46
- We, you know, obviously, we're we're practitioners. We
12:48
- were clinicians.
12:50
- Last year, the both of us stepped back
12:51
- to,
12:52
- start our executive MBAs at the University of
12:54
- Chicago Booth School of Business.
12:56
- But, back then, we were still practicing. You
12:58
- know, we were managing the office. We didn't
13:00
- have our first true manager until,
13:03
- probably we were at our third practice. That's
13:05
- when we started incorporating managers.
13:08
- We did our own billing. We did our
13:10
- own narratives and attachments. I don't think there's
13:12
- anything that we didn't do.
13:14
- Now we've moved away more, like, from the,
13:16
- obviously, day to day operations.
13:18
- We're still somewhat involved, but at a higher
13:21
- level.
13:21
- And mostly, though, in the growth, where's the
13:24
- business going in the future?
13:26
- Yeah. If I may add to that too,
13:27
- I think, because we did this, we actually
13:30
- were in the chair seeing patients all the
13:32
- way up until the end of twenty twenty
13:34
- four. It's only in 2025 we stopped, you
13:37
- know, holding we hung up the handpiece as
13:39
- they say in dentistry,
13:42
- that we were able to then transition. But,
13:45
- because we did that for about eleven to
13:47
- twelve years
13:48
- of practicing it at, the fairly high level,
13:51
- our dentists don't get to make excuses.
13:53
- They can't say you don't understand what it's
13:55
- to be like when a patient has a
13:57
- big tongue and a small mouth.
13:59
- So they can't pull that with us. Right?
14:01
- So it it's made us very relevant, but
14:03
- at the same time, now we are we
14:05
- understand those are excuses that exist in in
14:08
- any profession.
14:09
- And how do we overcome some of those
14:10
- things? That's probably what we're spending a lot
14:12
- of our time doing now.
14:14
- As you get further away from direct practitioning,
14:18
- how do you keep yourself sort of fresh
14:20
- and clear about what a dentist needs
14:23
- and how they work
14:25
- without feeling like you're too removed from it.
14:28
- I mean, I Mhmm. As I built a
14:30
- legal practice, struggled with that as you got
14:32
- less involved in hands on legal work, but
14:34
- we're supervising people doing the legal work.
14:37
- How do you think about that? And and
14:38
- and
14:39
- is that important or or not so important?
14:41
- You just have to know the business well.
14:43
- No. I think you are so spot on
14:45
- with this. I think that's this is a
14:47
- question we constantly,
14:48
- you know, grapple with. We Anushka and I
14:51
- are actually in their practices
14:53
- at the at a minimum two to three
14:54
- times a week. Right? And because there's two
14:56
- of us, that's that gives us five days
14:58
- to six days of coverage in a week,
15:01
- where we're checking in with, our new dentist.
15:03
- So for example, tomorrow,
15:05
- we have two new dentists starting in a
15:06
- couple of our locations. We are actually, we
15:09
- we do an owner onboarding with them where
15:11
- we set the culture, we sign, we have
15:14
- them sign cultural expectations
15:16
- and, perhaps some clinical expectations. But then and
15:19
- then we carefully transition them to our clinical
15:22
- coach,
15:23
- to further support them in their clinical journey.
15:25
- But we are very open. We share our
15:27
- phone numbers with them, email.
15:29
- And every time we go, hey. If there's
15:31
- anything you need, this is not a company
15:33
- that has all these bureaucratic layers. We are
15:35
- very open about that with them, that they
15:37
- can always reach out to us,
15:39
- if there's any issues. So I I I
15:41
- completely agree that I think we need to
15:44
- stay relevant with our dentist.
15:47
- I don't know that we we aren't that
15:49
- big that we can't do that yet, but
15:50
- if we maybe went to 20 locations, I
15:50
- can see how that can become a challenge.
15:50
- And,
15:53
- how that can become a challenge. And,
15:56
- I probably don't know the answer to that
15:57
- question. But but but that's probably a very
15:59
- good point that at 10 locations,
16:01
- you could still stay pretty connected to everybody.
16:04
- So you don't feel like there's that far
16:05
- distance between yourself
16:07
- and and the patient getting taken care of.
16:09
- And, of course, you you want the patient
16:11
- taken care of really well.
16:14
- How hard is it to recruit dentists today,
16:17
- to recruit
16:18
- hardworking,
16:19
- smart, good patient facing dentist? What what does
16:22
- that look like? Is that hard, not so
16:24
- hard? What what is that what's the situation
16:26
- out there for the supply and demand of
16:29
- finding, you know,
16:30
- effective,
16:32
- hardworking, smart, you know, good people?
16:35
- That's a really good question. You know, I
16:37
- think we can find dentists. Right?
16:40
- We have a good brand, so people also
16:42
- come and find us.
16:44
- Where you hit the nail on the head
16:45
- was smart, hardworking,
16:47
- great patient facing dentist. Right? We we
16:50
- it's it's a little more challenging to find
16:52
- dentists who have great bedside manner and great
16:55
- clinical skills and great communication. Right? That that's
16:58
- like a trifecta. Those are unicorns. It's harder
17:00
- to find those people.
17:02
- So what we really look for is can
17:03
- they communicate, and can we coach them up
17:05
- on clinical skill?
17:07
- That's really what we look at. And, you
17:09
- know, generally, we find that sometimes the the
17:12
- earlier career dentists can be easier to coach
17:14
- that. When you have later career dentists, sometimes
17:17
- they don't want to. So when it's a
17:18
- later career dentist, they know the clinical skills,
17:20
- but if they can't communicate with patients, they're
17:22
- probably not going to be able to at
17:24
- this point in their career.
17:26
- But we're very willing and open to train
17:29
- finding somebody with all three of those skills,
17:31
- though, at once. That definitely is a challenge
17:33
- industry wide. If I may add one more
17:35
- thing to what Anushka said, I think, you
17:37
- know, we've also had to increase our input
17:39
- because we needed more output. Right? We're growing
17:42
- pretty quickly.
17:44
- We've we we actually added 10 dentists in
17:46
- the last five months, and we had to
17:48
- dramatically
17:49
- increase the number of interviews that we made
17:52
- because to Anushka's point, it it was it's
17:55
- it's easy. I think the supply of dentists
17:56
- is there, especially in a market like Chicago.
18:00
- But, the supply of, like, great dentists who
18:02
- own their stuff are in charge of their
18:04
- own professional development,
18:06
- can really communicate at a high level with
18:08
- great bedside manner. I think that's something we
18:10
- have we learned that we have to pretty
18:12
- much cultivate from within.
18:15
- That's the one piece. So we do we
18:17
- are we pretty much interview a lot of
18:19
- dentists at this point in order to be
18:22
- selective and then pick out the right ones.
18:25
- Talk for a moment, Anushka,
18:27
- in in Eversus about about this. You see
18:30
- so much of,
18:31
- this work ethic issue today. Some people there's
18:34
- some spectrum. People are working incredibly hard.
18:37
- Some are working sort of not so hard,
18:39
- and some just don't really wanna work. It's
18:41
- all over the board. And I assume generations
18:44
- have been saying this forever.
18:46
- And when I look at hiring lawyers, I
18:47
- look at hiring journalists, whatever business I'm in,
18:50
- there's obviously a bell curve of those that
18:52
- really wanna work, those that wanna work some,
18:55
- and those that wanna earn a full paycheck
18:57
- but don't wanna work.
18:59
- Are you seeing that evolution in dentistry and
19:01
- how pronounced is it? I mean, certainly in
19:03
- any business I'm always in, 20% of people
19:06
- are really hypermotivated,
19:08
- fifty, sixty percent are great and very, very
19:10
- important, And then some percentage don't really wanna
19:13
- work, and you can't have them around.
19:15
- But talk about what you see in hiring
19:16
- dentists and how hard is it to find
19:19
- really hardworking, motivated dentist.
19:21
- Yeah. I think that's a great question. You
19:23
- know, I think, as you said, you we've
19:25
- all noticed a little bit of a shift,
19:27
- which I'm not saying is a bad thing.
19:29
- Right? I think work life balance is important,
19:31
- especially as an employee. But, you know, I
19:33
- would say out of every 10 dentists we
19:35
- hire, one or two might be very hyper
19:37
- driven.
19:38
- That number is actually increasing because we're very
19:41
- picky about
19:42
- hiring people that are motivated. We've realized that
19:45
- we can't,
19:46
- cultivate motivation. That has to be from within.
19:49
- You know, maybe six or seven are are
19:50
- great dentists. They have great bedside manner. They
19:53
- want to work.
19:54
- And, you know, once in a rare while,
19:56
- it doesn't happen often, we might have a
19:58
- dentist that really kind of wants that full
20:00
- paycheck, but they don't
20:01
- want to work
20:03
- very much, and they don't they don't last
20:05
- very long.
20:06
- And
20:07
- and Abhishek, doctor Nagaraj
20:09
- Mhmm. Talk a little bit about when you
20:11
- look at the next six to twelve months,
20:13
- what are you most focused on and excited
20:15
- about?
20:17
- Yeah. I think we're most focused about,
20:19
- making sure our our dentist that we have
20:22
- hired have the right amount of support
20:25
- and that, they can actually ramp up and
20:28
- become,
20:29
- those million million dollar dentists. Right? I think
20:31
- that's our core focus at this point.
20:34
- That's they all these dentists clearly have a
20:37
- lot of potential that have, that have joined
20:39
- us, and they are very driven and they're
20:42
- committed, but they're they're also humble. So I
20:44
- think it's our job now to make sure
20:45
- that
20:46
- we
20:47
- align the practice,
20:50
- practice level operations, whether that's the practice leader,
20:53
- the dental assistant, and the auxiliary personnel with
20:57
- the dentist and make sure that they have
20:59
- everything they need to be high, highly successful.
21:03
- And, secondly, I think, how do we get
21:05
- them to be, you know, upscale their competence,
21:08
- clinical competence when, you know, some dent new
21:10
- dentist may not be confident in doing root
21:12
- canals because they didn't get enough reps under
21:14
- their belt in dental schools?
21:16
- And how do we get them to, you
21:17
- know, be able to add some of these
21:19
- procedures, whether it's Invisalign, be able to do
21:21
- root canals, or be able to just pull
21:23
- out difficult teeth. Right? That's, those are reps
21:26
- that we are looking to build in our
21:28
- dentist.
21:30
- Thank you. And and
21:32
- each of you have this tremendous
21:35
- motivation and energy
21:37
- and and and great sort of ethic and
21:40
- work ethic.
21:42
- How excite or what advice would you give
21:44
- to evolving entrepreneurs
21:46
- or or evolving leaders? Any piece of advice
21:48
- you'd give to evolving leaders. And I and
21:50
- I love what Anoushka said about
21:53
- you you can't teach motivation. It's almost like
21:55
- you can't teach speed or height. I I
21:57
- think that's largely true.
21:59
- You know, some people find their motivation different
22:01
- parts of the career, but it's very hard
22:03
- to teach motivation. But what advice would you
22:05
- give to emerging leaders, emerging dentists?
22:08
- I think the advice I would probably give
22:10
- is it's gonna take a lot longer than
22:11
- you think.
22:12
- I think there's a lot of, you know,
22:14
- being on social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, there's a
22:16
- lot of,
22:17
- people claiming that, you know, they reach success
22:20
- within, you know, a few months or a
22:22
- year and follow me and you can learn.
22:24
- The reality is that leadership and, success really
22:27
- in any
22:29
- industry, in any role,
22:31
- it does take time because it it's through
22:33
- experience, trial and error. You can find a
22:35
- great mentor who can help you avoid some
22:37
- of the pitfalls. But at the end of
22:38
- the day, you know, there are the hours
22:39
- that have to be put in order to
22:41
- get to that level of success.
22:43
- Yeah. That's great.
22:44
- From from me, I think I would say
22:46
- get clinically excellent, but don't confuse your clinical
22:50
- skill with career success.
22:53
- Number two would be learn to communicate value.
22:55
- Right? Because,
22:56
- patients only understand how you make them feel.
22:59
- They don't care how smart we are as
23:01
- dentists.
23:02
- And then have a bias for action.
23:04
- And then your reputation certainly compounds over time,
23:07
- so don't take it for, you know, for
23:08
- granted, and then take ownership
23:11
- of, the things that you do on a
23:13
- day to day basis. I think those are
23:14
- some,
23:15
- mental models that you can take. And the
23:17
- the last one, my one of my favorites
23:19
- is there there is a what I call
23:21
- the return on decision framework, just like return
23:23
- on investment,
23:25
- that every decision you make will have a
23:27
- return.
23:28
- We get to decide whether that's good or
23:30
- bad
23:31
- over time.
23:32
- Doctor Nagaraj, doctor Ghagani, I I I love
23:36
- watching your efforts and your growth. It's inspiring
23:39
- to me. I love what you're doing. I
23:41
- I thank you so much for joining us
23:43
- today in the Becker's health care and Becker
23:44
- dental Becker's Dental podcast. I know I kept
23:46
- you longer than I than I promised I
23:48
- would, but we're so thankful for your time
23:50
- and energy, and you're an inspiration to me
23:53
- at least. I know for many others. So
23:55
- keep doing what you're doing. It's fantastic to
23:57
- watch and great to watch you guys grow.
23:59
- So congratulations.
24:01
- That's very kind of you, because, you know,
24:03
- honestly, you're the inspiration to us. So thank
24:04
- you so much for having us on.
24:06
- Yes. Can't tell you how much your support
24:08
- means to us and your words mean to
24:10
- us, and I think, thank it's truly an
24:12
- honor, Scott. Thank you. Well, we're we're big
24:15
- fans. Keep doing what you're doing. It's just
24:17
- literally fantastic. Thank you so much for taking
24:19
- the time to join us today. Thank you
24:21
- very, very much. You as well. Thank you
24:22
- so much.