Latest / Dental Mentors / Meet The Mentors: Matt Ornstein
Transcript
- Dental Mentors: If you have one dental office and that dental office is is profitable, I'm gonna make a number up. That dental office makes half a million a year and you say, Well, I wanna make a million a year. Well, if you can do it with one office, you can do it with two offices. And now you're at a million a year. It's just a function of mathematics, right? If you've got two of ⁓ that are making half a million a year and you're making a million, you say, Well, I want to be at five million, all right. Well you just need to have eight more offices. If you can do one, you can do two. If you can do two, you can do five. If you can do five, you can do ten. What stands in the way of that? It's three things. Number one, you you need the capital to grow. You will need to hire some very competent people to manage the additional offices. Cause you know, one person might be able to effectively manage five offices, but if you're gonna grow to ten or twenty or fifty, that's too much for one person. So you have to have the capital to grow. You have to be willing to hire highly competent people, and then you also have to just have the guts to do it. Welcome back to another Death Mentors podcast. Glad to have you here. We're going to do something really special today. One of the things we decided to do is we're going to interview each other. So we're going to do a series where you get to know the mentors. And about 30 minutes is 20, 30 minutes is what we're going to take. And it just gives you an idea of who we are, why we do what we do, and our backgrounds, our our expertise, why we're uniquely qualified to have this conversation. So ⁓ today we've we've asked Matt to be on the hot seat. So he'll be on the hot seat first. And then ⁓ Neil and I get to ask a lot of questions. And I was fortunate enough to get to spend some time ⁓ with Matt and in a group of doctors. And ⁓ so I I was lucky to hear some of this before. So I'm excited to hear our our spin on it. So ⁓ with that ⁓ said, ⁓ we'll jump in. So ⁓ welcome gentlemen. Glad to have you and let's ⁓ let's jump in and get good this thing going. Hey guys. Hello. So I'll cut I'll just jump in the first question. I don't just kick this thing off. So, you know, Matt, what I'd love for you to do is is not just a general question, but if you don't mind sharing your background, because I think you're uniquely qualified to have this conversation. I think some people know about Oak Dental Partners and your DSO, but I would love if you don't mind just taking a minute to explain a little bit of background ⁓ of who you are, what you've done, and your industry experience if you don't Yeah, my pleasure. ⁓ I'm fifty seven now and ⁓ you know, I always like to tell people that I grew up in a a very ⁓ middle class blue collar neighborhood in Massachusetts. ⁓ we did not get allowance. We had one car. Well, so we always had food and had a you know, a you know, a decent house. Always had food in the fridge, but ⁓ no no such thing as an allowance back then. So You know, I was I got my first paper out when I was eight ⁓ and delivered papers in the rain, snow, and shine. ⁓ you know, even in the winter I'd get up an an hour before all my friends and go deliver papers every every day just to have some spending money. And then even at like eight years old, I was caddying at the golf course, lugging those big bags around, you know, to make make maybe like back then it was like three or five bucks ⁓ for eighteen holes. I would dig golf balls out of the out of the lakes and water traps for the golfers. And then I figured out that they were only like three feet deep and I could go get like a hundred balls at a time and sell them to the pro shop at, you know, like five or ten cents apiece and, you know, make big money, you know, like ten dollars. Went to public school. I was fortunate enough to go to University of Virginia. ⁓ went to the undergrad business school there and then started working at the Home Depot. you know, eighty hours a week, ⁓ making almost no money really. And I moved to Massachusetts when I was like twenty two. And I literally lived in it wa I didn't have a section eight voucher, but I lived in the basement of a section eight house that was just falling apart. That was all I could afford. It was one bedroom, linoleum floors, probably ⁓ I mean it was probably two hundred square feet. ⁓ And eventually left the Home Depot completely broke and had to go back and live in my mom's basement for a while until I got my feet back on the ground. ⁓ got into sales working at a manufacturing company. And then I started ⁓ buying single family homes in Decatur, Georgia, with a friend of mine. We'd buy them for like 20,000, two bedroom, one bath. We'd put 20 grand in them. Real quick, same formula every time. And we sold all of them for like eighty thousand dollars immediately. ⁓ and I and then I started making more money from that than at my sales job. So I I left my sales job and did that full time and started a company doing fix fixer uppers. I was doing like thirty-five homes a year. And then when I was twenty-nine, ⁓ a friend of mine and I bought an entire ⁓ block in a transitional neighborhood in Atlanta. It had a huge sixty thousand square foot warehouse on it, plumbing warehouse, and we redesigned it and retrofitted it for forty six New York style lofts. And it was a huge success. I had to sign on a four and a half million dollar loan at thirty years old, which was frightening 'cause it was a personal guarantee and I would have gone bankrupt if that did not succeed. We had it sold out before we were done and then nine eleven happened and eighty percent of the contracts dropped out, but Fortunately, things recovered quickly and and that was a a great success. We made a couple million dollars on that. And then I bought a 66 unit apartment complex in a very rough neighborhood and ended up buying the whole block. It was like six and a half acres, and condominium converted that and finished that up when I was like 32 and ⁓ made a couple million on that. I did that by myself. But that was scary too because I to borrow like five million bucks from the bank. I was a sole personal guarantor. I literally put every penny I had into that, sold my house, was driving a crappy Ford Explorer with like 220,000 miles on it. That my dogs had ⁓ had diarrhea in a couple of times. So like it smelled horrible. I kept enough money in my bank account just to make it for two years, or else I was gonna run out of money. ⁓ Fortunately that finished well. It won ⁓ all kinds of awards at the Home Builders Association and a couple of million dollars of profit. And then I started ⁓ another real estate company with w one of my best friend from college. And we just grew that and grew that in Atlanta. and then got into operating businesses ⁓ when I was about fifty. And ⁓ you know, we have a whole slew of companies now with that are operating businesses. Most of them are real estate, but ⁓ we did a car wash roll up that we're just finishing up. And then I bought my DSO five years ago. It had twenty offices and seven million of EBITDA. And in the last five years, we've grown that to over eighty offices and over twenty five million of EBITDA. We're on track to get to thirty to thirty five million of EBITDA by the end of twenty six. ⁓ and then we're gonna sell that. And that's how I got in dentistry, you know. ⁓ written two books that have sold like between what I gave away and has been downloaded and sold, it's like six or th seven thousand copies of those books and really, really had to get a deep dive into private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and ⁓ the business of dentistry. I love the dental space. It's been the nicest people I've ever met. And that's my one question I and that's that's amazing, Matt. And I I mean you have such a cool story and you know coming from the real estate side is is is interesting. And I want to ask too in a little bit about kind of the the real estate side of of of dental because ⁓ my partners at our DSO are very big on trying to ⁓ buy the buy the buildings out eventually. You know, they wanna either either they go into a situation wanting to buy the ⁓ buildings or or it's it's always something that they want to, you know, visit ⁓ in in in the ownership journey of a particular office. ⁓ I'm just curious so before that, like Why why dental? Like why why did you? I'm always curious about people like like myself. You know, we're not we're not clinicians, we're not dentists. Why did you decide to select dentistry as an industry? That's a great question. We I didn't have any particular idea of, ⁓ I want to get into dentistry. Just an opportunity opened up through some friends that had built the DSO and sold sold it. And then that former dentist told me about. a DSO that was up for sale and went over all the mathematics and economics behind it. And ⁓ the DSO was actually owned by a private equity company in Atlanta called ⁓ South. And the founder of that went to the University of Virginia as well. ⁓ so we we just said, hey, this looks like a good business. Let's let's buy it and grow it. What do you think your biggest lessons you learned from COVID were? I'm really curious about that. Yeah, I think you might be surprised on this. So ⁓ a little bit behind the curve on technology, but ⁓ the two things I learned from COVID were the main things were ⁓ people that I w that work at my companies, if they're A plus players, they can be just as effective in work or more effective working out of their own house. So they're not wasting, especially in Atlanta, two hours a day sitting in traffic. And number two, really ⁓ I really was not used to like ⁓ video calls. So we started using a lot of Zoom, ⁓ which has saved me a tremendous amount of time on airplanes, traveling around the country to go meet with somebody. So I would say, you know, good pe great people can be probably more effective working out of their house. You know, there's no need to get on an airplane or a car and sp waste a lot of time for a an in-person meeting. We can do it over over video. Now we still like to have our team in the office. you know, a couple of days a week because the ⁓ you know, being able to be interactive with people and, you know, brainstorming and collaborating in person's very, very effective. But I don't think you need that ⁓ four or five days a week. You know, if you have, you know, two or three days a week where everybody's together in person and the rest is remote, you can still be ⁓ extremely effective and successful. I mean at Oak, like are you like you're you're Obviously I would I would assume your your OMs are in the in the office, obviously clinicians are in the office, but are you are you saying your executive leadership team is kind of at a hybrid schedule now? No, no, not at Oak Dental. They're in the office. I'm talking about at at my corporate office that got it. You know, owns a th several operating companies. Got it. Yeah, but at at at Oak Dental, our our corporate team's in the corporate office. They need to be. They need to be. S something you said to me recently and i i if I didn't it if I don't remember this perfectly, but but I but I I I listen when you talk, Matt. And so I I and I wrote it down, but I'm not at home right now, so I don't have it right in front of me. But you we were talking about scale recently, and you said something to the tune of ⁓ the difference between like ten million and a hundred million is just scale and capital. Because if you can do it, this model at this level, you can do it. As long as you have the capital and you build a scale to do it, you can build it at any level. And and you might not exact exactly said it. So if I'm butchering a little bit, please forgive me. But but you said to that degree. And I'd love for you to kind of just touch on if you remember the conversation or know what I'm talking about, if you would comment on that. Cause I think people get, or in my experience, a lot of the the the groups, the doctors, the people that are trying to grow, they get. hot and and they get stuck. And so I'd love for you to just just speak to that as someone who has scaled tremendously, especially even in the DSO space. Yeah, absolutely. So my philosophy is if you can do something successfully with one particular ⁓ item, and I'll use an example like just say home building. If you can build one home and then from scratch and sell it, I'm making a number of and make a hundred thousand dollars on that home. And then you say, Well, I'd like to make a million dollars a year, all that means is Well, now you need to build ten homes a year instead of one. And my belief system is if you can if you can do one thing successfully, then certainly you can scale that up and replicate it, right? If you have one dental office and that dental office is is profitable, I'm gonna make a number up. That dental office makes half a million a a year. And you say, Well, I want to make a million a year. Well, if you can do it with one office, then you can ha you can do it with two offices. And now you're at a million a year. If you say I'd like to be making five million a year and you've been able to ⁓ own and operate a a dent a dental office or two that makes a half a million a year, it's just a function of mathematics, right? If you've got two of them that are making half a million a year and you're making a million, you say, Well, I want to be at five million. All right, well, you just need to have eight more offices. If you can do one, you can do two. If you can do two, you can do five. If you can do five, you can do ten. I I I firmly believe that. So what what stands in the way of that? It's really only it's it's three things. Number one, you you need the capital to be able to to grow. You will need to ⁓ likely hire some very competent people to manage the additional offices because you know, one person might be able to effectively manage five offices, but if you're gonna grow to ten or twenty or fifty, that's too much for one person. So you have to have the capital to grow. You have to be willing to hire highly competent people. And, you know, give that ⁓ operational control and authority to other people. And then you also have to just have the guts to do it. Cause it is a little bit scary. And to to grow and scale, you have to empower and trust other people to do tasks that you know how to do, but you don't have the time to do. And I and one thing I have I I definitely have noticed is high performers, it's it's high performers, it's really hard to f to hire a super high performer because most of them are gonna wanna be out on their own. Right. So I've just I had to get comfortable with okay, I can hire people that could do eighty could deliver and perform at eighty percent of what I could do if I was doing it all myself. So and that's fine because I'd rather have I'm gonna use some big numbers, but like I'd rather have eighty percent of ten million than a hundred percent of a million. It makes complete sense. And I think like, you know On that note, too, like do you have any advice for hiring those people? Because I know I I I I've I've heard many times before, and I believe this to be true as well, that an A player is not five or ten percent better than a B player or whatever we logically think. Sometimes an A player is like ten times better than a B player. But you're right. They have a tendency to kind of go off on their own. And it it makes me ⁓ you know, well, first of all, I also just want to say, Matt, I consider you to be absolutely one of my my mentors and have really appreciated all the advice that you've given me over the years and you as well, Eric. and one of the things that I feel like I've learned in the last couple of years as a leader, as an executive, as an owner, is when you're the owner, your vision has to be big enough and macro enough for the A player's vision to live inside of it. ⁓ Do you do you all do you also find that to be true? And what are strategies that you found to be able to find and retain those people? It's very difficult to find those people. So, you know, we have a f a philosophy now of hire slowly and fire quickly. And that's never a pleasant process, but you will never know if somebody is an A plus ⁓ performer. You can't you you'll never know from an interview or their resume. You know, certainly if they give you references, they're only going to give you good references. So you do your very, very best on, you know, on paper and in in interviews. And then you you'll find out, you know, I would say within the first twelve months, sometimes sooner you're gonna find out if if the person you hired is really, you know, as competent as you as you had hoped. ⁓ sometimes it, you know, unfortunately it might take You have to go through two or three people until you land on the right one through trial and error. I don't know anyone that's developed any type of replicable system to ⁓ filter out in the hiring process ⁓ process if someone's an A plus player. And one other thing I want to mention on scaling, if you're planning on scaling, you know, really scaling up, I highly recommend hiring a consultant. And gonna I'm gonna, you know, tout tower leadership's horn on this, but if you haven't scaled before. You should hire a consultant that knows how to how to guide you in scaling properly because the you know, like tower leadership has helped many groups scale big time. And tower knows the mistakes to avoid, knows, you know, all the things you need to do to scale. Because you have to scale on the ⁓ on the hiring side and the management side along with scaling on the business side. And if you if you just say, ⁓ well, I'm I've got two offices, I'm gonna open eight more And you haven't scaled up on the personnel side, you're in for a world of hurt. Or you're gonna be working literally like ninety hours a week until you can get caught up. Well, I appreciate that. And I just saw a major mistake around that. And I'm glad you touched on people for a little bit because I think that some people think that once you get to a certain scale, then you don't have people problems anymore. ⁓ but there but those people problems are are always there. One of the things that you you know I sometimes being around you is like being around the beautiful mind because you do math very, very quickly and it's one of your skill sets and talents. And I've been in so many different conversations where you're you're just firing off math and you're moving quick and and and I and I love that aspect as as you're looking at things. But ⁓ when somebody is in a situation where they're going to skill but don't know how to do math. I mean, let's just say that they don't have the financial math and the financial background. What would it what what advice would you give to that person? Because I think a lot of times People are doing very simplistic, you know, back of the napkin stuff and so really understanding what their returns are and and they don't know how to really look at investments properly. What would you say to that person ⁓ from your expertise? Well, I would say what I said earlier, like they should hire, you know, I I don't know anybody better than tower leadership. So I would hire a consulting group that has the personnel within the group that does understand financial analysis and does understand. you know, capital markets and and what's called a capital stack, like a a mixture of of debt and equity. Equity is just cash money. ⁓ it's also really important to have a great CPA. And we're talking dental here. So, you know, y most people have been with their CPA forever. And typically an entrepreneur will outgrow their CPA. Like the CPA they needed when they were working for somebody and and getting a, you know, ⁓ is it a W nine? Is that what it's called now? I haven't had one in forever. But a W2. Yeah. ⁓ you know, that's not the CPA you need when when you're running a business, right? You need a CPA that's really great with math, understands balance sheets, understands cash flow, ⁓ financial statements. And, you know, so you have to have a great CPA, in my opinion, who who understands financial analysis. And I also go back to, you know, I know I keep sound promoting tower leadership, but I'm I'm just saying like you you need to hire a consultant. And, you know, the cost of the consultant, yeah, they're expensive sometimes, but the return on investment is literally exponential and will prevent you from making mistakes. One of the things that I've always been comfortable with for some reason is asking questions and telling people, I don't understand that. Can you please explain it? And they'll explain it. And I say, I still don't understand it. Can you Go through it again. And I've sometimes asked people when I was younger like ten times to explain it until I understood it. And then I, okay, now I understand it. But I'm always in meetings like, what does that mean? What does that acronym mean? Can you explain that? ⁓ and I've never been afraid of that. I have noticed most people are afraid to speak up when they don't understand something. And that limits your growth as a business professional. And I and I've I also think like If you say to someone, I don't understand what you just said, or I don't understand the mathematics, can you please explain it? I've never had a bad reaction from that. People respect that and they're like, Okay, yeah, I'm happy to explain this. And then you may have to ask them five or six times, like, I still don't understand it. Can you go over that again? But eventually you'll get it and then you learn and now you know something new. But most people are afraid to ask and afraid to say, I don't understand that. I don't know what that means. ⁓ so you know, I really, really highly recommend asking questions. Be honest with yourself and whoever you're talking to till you get to the bottom of it and understand that concept or the mathematics of a a financial discussion. And I will have to say I got that from you. Cause I would say there's times I've been in rooms where I didn't ask, but spending enough time with you, Matt, I now do that. And so I I I I I will definitely give you the credit for that because now when when I'm in one of those rooms, I'm watching you actually do that. You're right. You do that. You'll stop and say, I don't know what that means, right? That acronym means. Explain that to me. And now when I'm in rooms and I've literally can credit you for this, I'll stop and go, I don't know what that means. I don't know what you're trying to you know, and I'll and then it's it you're right. People explain it, which is good. So thank you for explaining that. I noticed I was just gonna say the same thing. I noticed that about your style. And I I do it now too because you're right. It's just like just 'cause you it's like you're you have you saw I see you solve problems in the moment. And then it's just like you said, and then it just and then and then you could just move on from there and you don't have to circle back to anything. Yeah. I mean, I've stopped meetings at my own company where someone came in and was presenting something and they use a lot of ⁓ pronouns. They, them, he. And as soon as I get confused, I'll stop and and and I I I I you can ask people at my company. I'm like, all right, don't answer the question, but I want everybody to get a piece of paper. He just said the whoever's presenting just said he, he, they. I want you guys to write down who you who you think. you know, John was taught referring to. We'll have ten people in a meeting and literally get eight different answers. So if you talk to people that work at my company at our corporate office, they know that I do not allow pronouns. I'm not talking about like those type of pronouns. I'm talking about I don't allow pronouns in business meetings. Because someone be like, you know, hey, I met with John last week and he said that, you know, ⁓ that he would have the presentation done in two weeks. ⁓ you know, they're not really sure about when, you know, the numbers are gonna come in and you know, I'm a you know, they need to follow up with him later. And sometimes they'll use the same pronoun, you know, him, him, him, and be referring to three people. Or they might in one sentence say, you know, they are doing this. Well, what is this and who are they? So I don't even allow pronouns in any of our business meetings anymore because everybody was so confused, but nobody would would ever say, Well, who who is they? Who is him? Who is she? And ⁓ I just like I just like absolute clarity on everything mathematically and also in communication. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You're talking about the people, like you just want to like you have to say the name of the person who's doing the task. It's a little bit annoying, but there's always perfect clarity. So if someone like in the meetings I'm in at my company, and even myself, I'll say I spoke to John Smith on the phone and ⁓ and John is meeting with Peter later today. And Peter and John are gonna get back to me with the presentation and then I'll be able to share that with, you know, John, Peter, and Shane later. And it's a bit redundant, but it eliminates any type of confusion. And confusion in in especially related to business can be disastrous. Another thing is like people will say, ⁓ you know, I'll I'll ask ⁓ well, you know, how you know, tell me about the numbers. And people say, Well, people say this all the time. Well, we made a million dollars last year. And I and I'll say in a meeting with my people, is that a million in revenue or a million in net income? And they go, No, that was revenue. So you just said you just said my company made a million dollars last year. Most people assume like that was your net income. Is that revenue or net income? No, it was revenue. Well, what was your net income? Sixty thousand. Well imagine if you leave a meeting and you think, you know, this this division or this product is making a million of net income, but really that's just a revenue and the net income is only sixty thousand. You can make a horrific dis business decision without that clarity. So I'm really big on clarity in in every aspect of ⁓ business communication. I've actually had people say, Yeah, we made two million dollars last year. ⁓ is that revenue or net income? That was revenue. What was your net income? ⁓ we lost 120 grand last year. We were negative. So I mean th these can have dangerous consequences. It's a write-off at that point. If that ⁓ you know, Matt, I want to ask you. Just at a high level, I'm very curious about, I know we've had a couple of conversations about this, but I'm curious about what is your personal investment philosophy? Do you like like, you know, real estate versus stocks? Like I'm I'm curious to get into that conversation. Well, I like to I mean, first and foremost, I like to invest in my own businesses because I have operational control and I have decision making control and capital allocation control. You know, if you if you're in a balanced portfolio with like a a wealth advisor, if they're honest with you, you know, after all their fees, you're gonna probably have a long term annual rate of return of six to seven percent a year. You know, that's just I'm just calling that average. It's like mediocre. It's not horrible, but it's nothing to jump up and down about. All the businesses that that I own or co-own, we have a very strict rule where the annual rate of return on the Equity that's invested needs to be a minimum of 20% per year. So for every dollar that we have invested, after all expenses are paid, it needs to generate at least 20 cents of net income a year. Obviously, you know, more than that is fantastic. ⁓ certainly achievable in businesses where you own and control the business and you can make decisions and determine where you're going to invest money or cut costs. ⁓ I prefer. what are called private investments. Can't buy them on the stock market. You generally don't have access to them through a a money management firm or, you know, through Schwab. And private investments are just privately owned companies that are not listed on on a ⁓ public stock exchange. And I think there's a lot more opportunity in those type of investments to, you know, consistently you can get, you know, 15% annual rates of return or higher, 15 to 18%. every year versus six or seven percent in a quote unquote balanced portfolio, stocks, bonds, cash, money market. But I always like, for me, a company has to have a great ⁓ you know, a great product. What's a great product? It's a product that people want to buy or that they need to buy. ⁓ number two, that company has to have ⁓ good profit margins on that product, right? So they have a product that's people need or want. And if if the company is able to sell that product or service, the profit margins are are high enough to deliver, you know, very, very attractive ⁓ rates of return or or profitability. And then the third most important component is the leadership team. So you can have a great product or a great service that the market wants, but if you don't have a strong leadership team, you know, competition is always fierce. And every year it gets more and more fierce. So you have to have a that company needs to have a great leadership team. Great Great, you know, CEO, great CFO, great chief operating officer. If they have a board of directors, a great board of directors. And a and and in my opinion, the most important position at at the ⁓ at the executive level is the director of business development. You have to have a great business development team to sell the product and go to market with it. If you're not able to sell it and people don't know about it, what good is it? You know, so you could have great product, great service, crappy management, crappy business development team, you're going nowhere. You could have a good product and a great business development team and you your company could be ⁓ you know, wildly successful. I'd rather have a good product, good product, good service, and a great ⁓ executive team and a great business development team versus a great product. with a mediocre executive team and a mediocre business development team because the good product will outperform the great product financially under that scenario. So it's like, you know, hey, do you have to bet on the jockey, not just the horse. Which which inside of your own business is the same thing, true, right? You'd still have have great product or at least a good product, ⁓ strong profit margins, great leadership and great biz dev even internally. you know This is just off the cuff question because I actually want to know what your response to it would be. you know, Matt, when we're looking at pro forma, because you I'm sure you see a lot of pro forma if people are just sending you if someone doesn't know what a pro forma is, if if you're starting a business, a a newer business, you would send a pro forma or someone's estimating what profit is going to look like, cash flows and those types of things. So when you look at a new pro forma for a new business idea, you've never been pitched a business idea, I'm sure, Matt. So these business ideas that come your way, when you look at a pro forma, I first of all, I I take notes on everything you say because I think people should go back and do that. But when you look at a pro forma, my kind of rule of thumb sometimes is like cut it in half and what looks like because I I worry about biz dev and sometimes we overinflate what we think are r are gonna be sales and revenues. What are your th when you see a pro forma, what are your thoughts from an investment standpoint? Like when you just see a pro forma, just what initial gut reaction no matter what it well, like what's your investor mindset? My investor mindset is well, there's two types of pro formas, right? It's for a new company that doesn't really have revenue yet. Or for a more established company that has a lot of experience in that space, you know, like someone who's developing apartment complexes or self-storage, you know, if they've already built and developed successfully 20 of them, you know, the Proforma is for a new project, but it's a new project based off of historical and known data points versus a a startup company that's never launched that product before and doesn't have any historical data on, you know, sales or profit margins. my main thing I look at is just to in my mind make sure that the pro forma is, you know, it's just like projected, right? Pro forma, projected revenue, projected net income. ⁓ is to ⁓ is to make sure that the projections are reasonable and achievable in the time frame that's outlined in the pro forma. You know, I've seen pro forma where someone says, ⁓ we're a new company, we're gonna capture ten percent of the market share in three years. Well, no, you're not. No, you're not. You might get there eventually, but that's not happening in three years. I mean, it could happen, but, you know, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time it's not. I also really dive deeply into the ⁓ corporate and operational expenses. You know, you know, y h how much are you paying your team? Do you have enough money in the in the budget for business development and marketing and research and development? So I like to really dive deep into the ⁓ into the mathematics of a business plan or a pro forma and just make sure that in my mind the the projected outcomes are reasonable. And I also like to dial it back to make sure that they're conservatively reasonable. So in my mind I can say, yeah, I believe that that what's in these projections is achievable. Like it's it's more likely than not. You'll hear me say that all the time. It's more likely than not that that can be achieved versus what's being projected We have to get really lucky and every single thing has to go right. Well, that never I mean, it never happens. Everything seems to take longer than you project. Everything's harder than you project. And so many things that could go wrong go wrong. So I like I like more, you know, conservative estimates, very, very reasonable and conservative time frames. And then if the numbers still look good, that's great. And then maybe you get you get lucky and exceed the projections. But what you don't want to do is make an investment on projections that are completely unreasonable and don't have any chance of being achieved. I appreciate that answer. Thank you. Yep. And you know, it takes a lot of guts. I mean, you know, starting a business takes a lot of guts and growing a business requires a lot of, you know, ⁓ mental toughness, emotional toughness, and it takes it just takes courage because I mean the fact of the matter is I think ninety five percent of all new businesses are out of business within five years. And then of the remaining five percent over the next five years, like ninety-five percent of those are out of business. So to succeed, you're in the you know, point something percent of the one percent. And it takes a lot of hard work. You know, I'm gonna ⁓ when people say I wanna open my own business so I I have a a better schedule and more leisure time. No, that's not happening. No way. If you wanna be successful, it's so competitive out there, you know, you're gonna be working way more than forty hours a week. Like if you're gonna start a business or you're going into scale up mode and let's just talk about dentistry, you better be prepared to work sixty plus hours a week if you want to succeed. If you think I'm running one dental office at thirty five, forty hours a week and I can scale up to ten and, you know, I'm then I can cut back and work, you know, less time or the same amount of hours. That's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. A and we were we were traveling recently and you said to me, ⁓ Eric, you know, people see me now ⁓ at this DSO when I've got this real estate business and I've got the car wash business and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And they don't realize that until I was fifty, I worked like eighty hour weeks. And you were saying I you know, my friends didn't even know. Like I was I was hanging out with them and then waking up and working. You know, I'd sleep a little bit and then I'd work until like a dog, you know, and then I'd go back out and hang out and go back it it so I you know, when you speak to that, I just I find that fascinating 'cause most people don't realize what it takes to to get there and ⁓ to to reach their goals. So ⁓ yeah, I I I love that. ⁓ that no don't know what you've been through. Yeah. So, you know, that's true. From the time I graduated college and I'm fifty seven now, until I was fifty, I worked at least eighty hours a week. And I still work seven days a week. I just, you know, I I like this stuff. It it's enjoyable for me. But you know, what you were saying, Eric, is like When I was in my, you know, twenties and thirties, even in my forties, man, I was operating on like five hours of sleep. You know, I'd get up at five AM. You know, I was always the first one in the office, last one to leave. ⁓ but you know, if I've my people wanted to meet for dinner, yeah, I'd I'd meet my friends for dinner for two or three hours. I'd go back to office till one or two in the morning. I pulled more more all nighters than I can possibly count. And then on the weekends, you know, I I had a boat when I was in my thirties. So ⁓ I would literally get up at like four or five AM on Saturday. I'd work eight hours till twelve, then I'd meet my friends up at the lake and we'd be on the boat till like six or seven o'clock at night, and then I'd work till like one or two in the morning. You know, I o I would always carve out time, but like no nobody really saw me working that much, like the people I'd hang out with and stuff, you know, 'cause, you know, I'd be available for dinner or like, you know, go have a drink or go go to a concert or go up to the lake or go bike riding. What they didn't know, because I never really talked about it was yeah, it was I got up at four o'clock this morning, I've already worked eight hours today. And when we're done, I'm going back to the office and I'm gonna work another four hours. But I you know, I I cannot for me like forty hours a week ish, forty I guess if you include the Saturday and Sunday, I don't know, I'm probably about forty five hours a week. Now I can't do eighty hours a week anymore. Not at not at fifty seven. I can't do it. But you're still a machine 'cause I get text we we We talked at at eleven o'clock at night, we've talked at six o'clock in the morning. You're still a machine. Yeah, I t I still typically wake up around five AM now. ⁓ yeah. So but it's a, you know, people need to decide, like, you know, do I want to be an employee? ⁓ which is man, I admire that. They you know, they have a great you know, if if you're with a good company and the comp package is good, ⁓ you can have a great quality of life, fantastic quality of life. Or do I wanna be a business owner? And you can still have a great quality of life as a business owner, but you will be putting in ⁓ until you get super established, you're gonna be putting in a lot more hours than a, you know, nine to five employee. And ⁓ I've never taken a vacation where I didn't wasn't doing work every day. But again, I don't mind. I'd get up at five, work till eight, go do my thing, work, you know, from four to seven and then go out for dinner and whatever. ⁓ but like, you know, it's very abnormal where I don't work do some sort of work seven days a week. I enjoy what I do and it's a lot of fun and but it's a lot of work and it's a lot of stress because, you know, everybody that works at your company, their families are relying on you for health insurance. They're relying on you to pay their rent or their mortgage, their car payments, their kids' clothes, food, et cetera. It's a lot of pressure, man. It's a like it's like walking around with a thousand pound boulder on your back all the time. Because if like if I if I have a business that fails It doesn't just affect me, it affects everybody that works there and their spouse and their kids. It's a lot of pressure. And I don't mind it, but it's a lot of pressure. And some people aren't really cut out for that. And that's fine. Neil, jump in here, buddy, because I'll ask questions till the cows come home, brother. Yeah, listen. I've got a lot. I've got a lot in here. I just don't know how, you know. ⁓ and just off record too, I is I know it's two eleven. Do we wanna do you wanna keep going or do you want to do you wanna I'm I'm good either way. You know, I I want to keep this podcast going for a little bit more. I think we need to push out the DSO part a little bit. Yep. But this is such I mean, we're interviewing space people, but Matt, I this is gold. I mean, it's just this is such gold. And I just I don't want to cut this off because we've hit a certain time or something. This is gold. I think we because you're this is just I I don't know. I I'd like to at least flush out a little bit of the DSO stuff. and then and wrap it in a bow because I just feel like we're we're on a good flow here. I really do. Agreed. Hundred percent. I was gonna ask about ⁓ I was gonna kinda get into like ⁓ how you feel the dentist dental industry has changed since you got into it and then kind of your projections over the next five years. Is that a good way to way to tee that up? Okay. Yeah. And ⁓ you know, it's interesting. I will say this too. This is ⁓ now get to back to that question, but most people that that get to know me, they all say the same thing. They're like, every one of them after they get to know me, d say say the same exact thing. They go, Wow, you're like one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. And I I th I like literally thought the exact opposite of you, like what the first time like I saw you or or or met you. If I if they met me like super briefly, every person comes back like six or six or twelve months later and and says the same thing, like, I had no idea like you're you're such a nice giving person. And I'm not saying that to brag, but like I just wanna be clear that I love to help people. I love sharing my knowledge. I have an abundance mindset. ⁓ I mean, I have from the all the the books that I've sold and and stuff, I have probably every two months some somebody in dental school who's read my book pings me on and says, Hey, would you mind can I can I talk to you for an hour? And I'm I'm like, sure. You know, people like, I don't want to bother you, you know. You know, would it be possible to talk on the phone? And some kid on LinkedIn who's who's in real estate, he pinged me on LinkedIn and I was like, Yeah, man, give me a call. And I I talked to him for for an hour. ⁓ so I I just wanna be really clear. Like I love helping people. I want everybody to succeed. ⁓ I'm I'm big into etymology, which is the study and meaning of words. And you know, one of the things in in at least in the American culture, there's a term like if someone's really successful, peop what do people say about that person? They say, ⁓ he's filthy rich. And it's a very bad connotation, like, filthy rich, as if it's bad to be successful. But I go back to the thing, ⁓ You can't help you can't give what you don't have. You can't give what you don't have. So I like to help people succeed. It gives me a lot of pleasure and joy to help people achieve their dreams and their goals and to do well. And you know, the the the better you do in business and the more wealth that you have, the more you can give and help other people. So that's a very a big driver for me. A hundred percent. Well, ⁓ what was it what was your What was your question again? I wanna ask you, as you've so you so you your journey is really interesting to me how you got into dentistry in the DSO space. So you purchased it's it's it's kinda similar to how I got started too, 'cause I my my buddies in Southeastern Michigan called me up. They were like, Hey, we have this opportunity. We have two dental practices right now. Do you want to come in and become a partner? ⁓ I had no idea what A DSO was. I thought it was illegal to own a PLLC, right? Like, you know, which it is in certain states, other states it's not. And then, you know, and ⁓ your your your story has always kind of fascinated me about how you got into dentistry. So you you started by ⁓ purchasing a an existing group of 20 practices, is that right? And then you scaled up from there. I'd love to know about that journey. So you go in, you purchase the DSO, what was that like? How has dentistry changed? First of all, how long has it been since since that happened and and how has dentistry changed since that time? It's been ⁓ five years. It'll be five years April first. So you really got the clump you got the cov you s you bought it and then you got hit with COVID pretty. No, it was it was it was after COVID. ⁓ really? Was it? Okay. Yeah, we bought it in twenty twenty one. Okay. So none of the offices were shut down due to COVID when I bought it. But you know ⁓ the last several years for everybody in the industry have been r have been really challenging because of inflation. Inflation costs of supplies, everything in the office, and most importantly, we're inflation. You know, the cost of hygienists, assistants, office staff and and associate doctors has gone up tremendously. And then the pay the payers, all the insurance companies, you know, they they either don't raise their rates or barely raise them. So if you have, you know, at the office level, I'm making this up, but you have overall Cost increases across the board of twenty percent, but the insurance companies are only increasing what they're paying for dental services by five percent, you've taken a fifteen percent hit on your on your net income or EBITDA. So that's been really, really challenging. Now the other thing is, you know, it's really hard to find dentists that will work more than four days a week. So you've got a dental office sitting there capable of doing business. Let's just say Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And it's empty. It'd be like having a manufacturing plant that makes tires that could operate seven days a week, but the employees will only come in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And you're like, ⁓ my gosh, if I could have people working here Friday, Saturday or Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, exactly. Right. We don't have that luxury. So, ⁓ there've been a lot of challenges in in in that in those areas. ⁓ And because of what the insurance companies cap the, you know, services at, the amount of revenue per patient, you know, it's challenging to get the amount of revenue coming in per patient higher. It's challenging. So really the only way to do that is to do higher treatment case higher dollar treatment cases or to do more volume. Well, if the employees are only gonna be in the office four days a week, it's It's very challenging. But what I see coming down the pipe, and I I I spend a lot of time on this and I talk to all the experts in in this space, with AI and with robotics. Robotics, it's going to be, in my opinion, it's going to be a game changer for people that own dental offices in terms of they will see their profitability go up dramatically. Because, you know, I'm not a big fan of like laying people off. It actually breaks my heart every time we have to do that. I don't like it unless they're just a crappy employee and deserve it. But, you know, I'm just saying, like let's say a dental office right now, I'm making a number up, has 15 employees with AI and tech in the in the next couple years, that office may be able to be just as efficient with 10 employees, right? A thirty-three percent reduction. It's gonna reduce your payroll by thirty-three percent in that example. We are not far off, and I've been talking to a lot of experts in this space on the robotics side. Where two things two things can happen. Number one, your tr your cleaning can be done by a robot or some sort of mechanical device and better than a hygienist can do it. Faster, less painful, and more efficient. Number two, for the more complicated treatments, you know, fillings, root canals, extractions, you know, crowns, implants. We are not but a few years away before robotic arms are gonna be able to do that with absolute perfect precision. Now you will always need a dentist in the office, but you may have an office now with one dentist and two associates. I'm I'm gonna I'll s I'll make this statement and stand by it. We're only a few years away before those associates are not gonna be needed. There'll be a dentist in the office, all the information is put in, and a robotic arm does the does the treatment with one hundred percent perfection, precision in a fraction of the time and with less pain to the patient. So I think the future of dentistry from an economic standpoint. Is extremely bright. We're kind of in that stage right now where like a plane's approaching the sound barrier and there's a lot of pressure building up and the plane is shaking and you see the vapor, and then the plane goes through the sound barrier and boom, it's smooth sailing. We're very close to that inflection point in dentistry. And it's going to be an absolute game changer. ⁓ and then also the cost of dentistry may may go down, which will allow more people to see the dentist. Only one out of two people in the US have never been to the dentist ever, which is which is very unfortunate. Cause I am a huge believer in your overall systemic health starts in the mouth. And if your mouth is unhealthy, your brain's unhealthy, and all your vital organs are going to be unhealthy. And it's just a cascading effect of dis-ease. So I love the field of dentistry. I'm a you guys know me. I don't want to get into it, but I'm like frigging health nut in all aspects. I don't want to get into that on this podcast. But proper oral care is a precursor for someone's autoimmune system functioning at a high level and someone being healthy. So the more care we can give to people, the more patience that you can see because of automation, AI tech, robotics, the more we can impact people's health ⁓ in a very, very positive manner. And I'm really excited about that. So it'll be more profitable to own a dental office. You're not going to be completely beholden to these insurance companies, which I think is an absolute it's is disgusting actually that the insurance companies are intentionally holding ⁓ payment payment levels for services, you know, lower than they should be. It's not I think it's horrible. ⁓ but the officers will be able to see more patients with less labor. So the profitabil profitability will go up. More patients can be seen and overall not only just oral oral health, but overall health i in in humans is gonna go up dramatically as a result of that. That's my prediction. I'll be shocked if it doesn't come true. Well, it ⁓ it makes me think about you said about like your your A plus players as well, because that that that I'm I'm very very much aligned with you on that, Matt. I think that ⁓ No, I I I always think about it like when I when I was starting off in in well, really for the last ten years in the tech world, for example, tech companies would brag about how abundant they are, profitable they are, despite not owning assets. So for example, Airbnb brags about the largest hotel company in the world, right, owns no hotels. The largest taxi company in the world owns no cars. That's Uber and Lyft. And so what I think I what AI is doing in my view is To your point, it's swinging back the leverage back to those who have assets. And I get really excited for dentist owner operators and the the the DSOs that are really empowering dentists because I I completely agree with you. I'm so excited about them being able to have really big guns, ⁓ part of you know, part in the expression. I mean, they get to, they get to really defend their turf. ⁓ and I think a lot of that technology is really going to kind of level the playing field for a lot of the the the mom and pops. ⁓ my view, and I'm curious your thoughts about on this, because I I do, I do think that from a like the the lower level administrative jobs, I think are going to suffer if if that's your job. But I think you can, I'm telling people right now, like, okay, if you're if you're at the front desk or you're a, you know, you're not the office manager, let's say, but you're something more junior than that, ⁓ really study, you know, study. Try to try to become an office manager. Study systems, study the AI. I still think that the AI is gonna need people to ⁓ to to manage it, right? I mean, it's gonna make mistakes. There's things that it's not gonna be able to do, but it's gonna give the owner and it's gonna give senior leadership more leverage, ⁓ to be able to grow, to be able to be more profitable, to be able to work less hours. ⁓ to your point. ⁓ I completely agree with what you're saying. I think that, you know, Matt, I first of all, I think this meet the mentors episode. By the way, I think we're at an hour and I could just keep going and going and going. I think what I want people to know, you know, first of all, ⁓ you are an incredible human being and you are so nice. And ⁓ you and I even got on the phone last night to have a conversation about a topic and and you but at the same time you're so knowledgeable and I'm glad that people get to experience and hear your background. ⁓ from from the car example and and what you've been through and and your and you know, coming from, you know, you know, you know, very you know, limited beginnings to to what you've been able to create today, everything from, you know, you in the dental world, ⁓ the investments you made, the DSO, ⁓ the you know a lot of real estate portfolio, the investments, you know, anywhere we go this in this conversation, which is why we're in an hour, it doesn't matter where we go, you've got great insights. ⁓ you've got great knowledge, you've got great abilities and you have great connections. Sure, also a great person. And so ⁓ I I I'm so thankful to be in dental mentors with you ⁓ and have you as a partner in this because anyone that's not leaned into Matt at some point for some piece of knowledge. Like he said he he just responded to one on LinkedIn. That doesn't mean you should all LinkedIn him. Okay, by the way, but but but he is an incredible person and I'm just thankful to be on this with you ⁓ Matt ⁓ and I'm I'm thankful for all the information you're sharing today, but all the things you're gonna be sharing in the future. Well, ⁓ one of my favorite sayings, I'll say it right now, it's my pleasure. I know you guys hear me say that all the time. But it truly is just my pleasure. I'm honored to be part of this with ⁓ with both of you and, you know, share the knowledge and expertise that that we have at collectively. ⁓ I'm very you know, as I said, I'm an abundance mindset. So the more people that we can help, the better. You know, you guys each have of these have these metal coins. They're really cool. They're the size of a like a like a silver dollar and it's got my name and cell phone and on the back of it is engraved chase your dreams. And I give those out a lot. I've had people that I've gave those to twenty years ago. They still text me a picture of it and they're like, I've held on to this. And you know, if I can help people chase not only chase your dreams, but inspire you, help you to achieve your dreams, that that's a w a beautiful thing. And you know I'll be very, very, very proud of anything I can do to help anybody achieve whatever they're trying to achieve. You know, it doesn't it doesn't have to be money focused, but whatever it is, ⁓ I hope everybody that's watching this ⁓ not only go after your dreams, but achieve them. And I'd be very, very happy for everybody that accomplishes that. Thank you, Matt. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much, Matt. 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 gonna 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 gonna learn all the best practices that you're gonna 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. These are very curated, exclusive rooms just for the best of the best and the people inside of the dental mentors community. And I promise you, you're not going to want to miss these events. If you'd like to apply to the group, click the link below and we'll see you inside. And remember, it's completely free to join.