The Canary in the Coal Mine: Does the Dental Data Point to a Recession?

The following transcription was from the Bulletproof Youtube channel. Here is the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQjci7sCCBs

Craig Spodak
0:00:00
So we don't do intros anymore, right Peter? We just roll right into them?

Peter Boulden
0:00:14
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:00:15
Well, really excited to have you here, Steven. You're not Steven, you're Steve, right?

Steve Jensen
0:00:19
Yeah, either way. My mom calls me Steven, Weston calls me Steven, everyone else calls me Steven.

Craig Spodak
0:00:25
Yeah, I got to call you Steven because Weston and mom those are the two Weston's when your biggest mentors Former CEO of dental Intel kind of hashtag big deal. You're gonna be Steven from now on So really good to have you here in the podcast We're obviously big fans of dental intelligence, but now that the company has become more robust by acquiring Modentum and local med right local med It's a real force to be reckoned with because everybody I've ever talked to about Modento absolutely loves it. So tell me what's exciting in the world of software, dental software. What's the most urgent thing that you have to tell our listeners about?

Steve Jensen
0:01:01
Yeah, cool. I think I'll start here, kind of to set the stage. So when you look at the industry, there are a handful of us companies that are coming at the same problem in dentistry. And the problem that I want to highlight is that software is very fragmented, meaning practices have to log into a bunch of different software programs to run their business. You've got an engagement tool that does text messaging and appointment reminders. You have a different online scheduling tool, you know, your practice management software. You've got a bunch of different stuff, right? And this has been, you know, Westin and the new leadership's vision for a long time is, hey, can we help to consolidate some of that market? So the same thing you guys are seeing with, you know, DSOs trying to consolidate some practices. In some ways we're trying to do with software.

Craig Spodak
0:01:40
There are all the plugins we have, they all have to talk to each other. It's such a pain in the ass.

Craig Spodak
0:01:44
Yes, right.

Steve Jensen
0:01:45
There are cost efficiencies, right? Ideally with some consolidation, we can offer software programs for less money. Then there are also like practical, more efficient things when it comes to like operations. Like they talk to each other, they work well together. One of those examples being, oh, go ahead, Peter.

Peter Boulden
0:02:02
Yeah, no, no, sorry. I didn't mean, I thought you were done, but yes, it's one of those things, I'm so glad you're bringing this up because as I kind of look at software in my practice, you're right, it was a lot of like duct tape things, meaning I had this service that allows us to text and this service that allows us to kind of-

Craig Spodak
0:02:16
Yeah, for review generation.

Peter Boulden
0:02:17
And it was just, you're right, it was so hyper, it was clunky, it was hyper fragmented. You know- It's unstable too. I love when business owners look at something and they say, this is the problem going to solve, right? And you can almost spin that in reverse when someone brings something to you. What problem is this solving? And so you guys took that and said, like, the problem is it's clunky. To your point about inefficiencies with money, the most important inefficiency that it's solving is of time because at the front office, the admin, the front office, the business team, their time is the most precious because people are calling and trying to pull it away. So the more efficient you make that, the more efficient it makes the practice. So I love this, love what you guys have solved.

Peter Bouldenv
0:02:55
Yeah.

Steve Jensen
0:02:56
Now in the big picture, I don't know if the audience knows, but software is not as easy to make as you would think. Like four years ago, I heard Wes talk about this, and now four years later, I'm like, I wanna be moving so much faster, right? There's some things where I just can see it, but it just hasn't been created yet. So what we've done then, where we started as a company, Dental InSign, we think we started in the right place. We started with data and analytics. And so that's what we're known for, like automating reporting, getting insight into the practice, kind of like the speedometer of the practice or your dashboard of the practice, like what's going on, where are we doing well, where do we need to improve? And then the problem with providing data though, just data, is that unless you take action on the data, it's honestly pointless, right? Like why, you can look at numbers so you're doing the place, but unless you like take some meaningful movement because of it, then why even look at it? And so we noticed that practices, some practices were doing that, right? They were getting into Lintel, they're looking at data, and then they weren't changing anything. And so we wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to actually take action on the data. Simple example, right? Is we have a solution called patient finder. You can go in and say, hey, I wanna see all my patients who have unscheduled treatment. Let's say you just wanna look for the ones you've diagnosed with crown, who have insurance remaining of a thousand bucks or more and have said yes to some treatment in the past, right? So like those, that's like a pretty like great group of people to talk to and try to get a schedule. Practices in the past had to like piecemeal how they were gonna contact them, right? So they had to like export that list, upload it into like RevenueWell or SolutionReach or whatever they were using, right? And then start engaging them there. And we realized, hey, those should all work together. You should be able to find those people, save the list, immediately begin, push a button and start like communicating with them, whether it's text message, email, send them a scheduling link. And so now at this point as a company, we're to that point, right? So we acquired LocalMed, which does the online scheduling. We acquired Modento, which does all of the two-way text message communication.

Craig Spodak
0:04:57
When were those dates? What were the dates of those two acquisitions?

Steve Jensen
0:05:00
Yeah, good. So LocalMed was the summer of 2019, is when we acquired them. So we were like eight, nine months in an acquisition before COVID hit. And right when COVID hit is when we fast-tracked getting bulk messaging sent out through Patient Finder so that people can get hygiene patients scheduled back in when the schedules fell apart. And then we acquired Modento in late January, early February of 2021. So we're just about a year and a half into that acquisition.

Craig Spodak
0:05:30
So now all these softwares are bundled or you still a la carte them to the dental profession?

Steve Jensen
0:05:35
So you can still a la carte them, right? So you can still buy all three separately, but if you go to our website, we just did a rebrand. So you'll see that everything is now under the dental intelligence brand. We have our analytics piece and we have our engagement piece. And we've taken all the pieces of all these solutions and bundled them into those two. The idea being on one side of things, you wanna have a view where you can kind of get a pulse on the practice. And then the other view that you wanna see is how do we actually engage these people? Oh, cool, Peter, you're gonna pull that up and so you can share that, cool, so the audience can see.

Peter Bouldenv
0:06:05
Yes, if you just hover over products.

Steve Jensen
0:06:08
All right, yeah, so.

Peter Boulden
0:06:10
Then you'll see that we've got them, yeah, lumped into those two now.

Steve Jensen
0:06:14
And kiosk is a, what is that, a check-in portal?

Craig Spodak
0:06:17
Yeah, check-in, right?

Peter Boulden
0:06:18
So check-in, patients can check-in there,

Steve Jensen
0:06:20
the practice you can do.

Steve Jensen
0:06:25
Yeah, without that.

Craig Spodak
0:06:26
Updates into like the major practice management softwares. Yep, it does.

Steve Jensen
0:06:31
I didn't know that.

Craig Spodak
0:06:32
Yeah, and there's also.

Steve Jensen
0:06:33
Click on that kiosk for me.

Craig Spodak
0:06:34
I wanna see what that looks like. Yeah, great.

Steve Jensen
0:06:36
Yeah, let's connect after. We also have a solution in there called LiveOps where you can see, you can digitally manage the location.

Craig Spodak
0:06:43
Oh, that's from Modento, right? Modento has that software. Yeah, this is from Modento.

Steve Jensen
0:06:47
Yep.

Craig Spodak
0:06:48
Got it, got it.

Peter Boulden
0:06:49
What is it, LiveOps?

Craig Spodak
0:06:52
So you can actually see where your patients are and what ops live. So let's say a patient moves in the middle of treatment or something like that, or we arrived, if you swap them around, you can see exactly where everybody is.

Peter Bouldenv
0:07:03
Yep.

Peter Boulden
0:07:04
That's very cool.

Craig Spodak
0:07:05
That's awesome.

Peter Boulden
0:07:06
Do you guys ever see yourself getting into the PMS space at all?

Craig Spodak
0:07:10
Jeez, I wish.

Steve Jensen
0:07:11
I was actually gonna bring that up. So coming back to this whole, you know, consolidation of software platforms, on one end, and this is not the end we are currently on, on one end you'll see there are some small upcoming practice management solutions that are cloud-based that are trying to consolidate everything all in one right out of the gates, right? So that the big players, you know, you see Fuse and Ascend, they're kind of trying to do the same thing with products they either partnered with or they acquired on like the shine side of things. And then you see like, you know, Curve, Oryx is a new one that I've been seeing pop up lately, Dendicon, right? They're trying to bring everything all in one. But they're starting with practice management software. And they're kind of boxing out these third party integrations. Where we're starting, we're starting from a third party integration standpoint, which I think in the long run is the best place to be. And I'll explain why, right? So we believe that by being a third-party integration company, we can be far more nimble with our innovation than if we're managing, trying to do literally everything, including practice management software, right? So think about EgoSoft, Dentrix, OpenDental, that they kind of started, at least had reshined it, they started trying to like come at this whole, like we're going to do everything, but their products that do everything have lag, right? Like their page communication isn't nearly as good as everyone else's. When you stay kind of smaller as that third party integrator, like I said, you can just observe the market quicker, you can make quicker movement towards innovation and then disrupt some of the big incumbents. So we'll see if that plays out in the long run. We're feeling pretty good now. You know, in terms of company growth, it's all working really well. But there are some people that are trying to come at it from, hey, we're going to do the practice management software and everything. And growth numbers on those solutions have been pretty slow, slower than expected. But you never know, Peter, right? We'll see like, hey, the tides could change. And if they begin to change, then maybe we jump out of that space. But as of right now, we don't have intention.

Peter Boulden
0:09:09
I mean, it looks like your product offering, that's the only thing that you're not offering.

Steve Jensen
0:09:12
Yeah, right.

Peter Boulden
0:09:13
We just need to keep carving.

Craig Spodak
0:09:14
Right.

Craig Spodak
0:09:15
Frankly, it's the harder parts, all these, you know, really advanced products, practice management software is just there. How much innovation do you really need if you have all these tertiary products on them?

Steve Jensen
0:09:25
That's right.

Steve Jensen
0:09:26
Like, what do you really need?

Craig Spodak
0:09:27
You need a chart and an accounting software. And if you can hook it into your notes. Right, exactly. But if you have your patient financing, imagine like coming out of the treatment planner, clicking on that button or coming out of the treatment planner and sending the reminders. I mean, it just seems like such a no brainer. What are we missing? Why is PMS software that tricky or compliant? What's the deal with it?

Steve Jensen
0:09:47
Yeah, you know, and then there's other elements too with data storage. And then a big one is integration with your imaging software, right? That one's far more complicated than I think most people would imagine.

Craig Spodak
0:09:58
Yes, yeah, that's true.

Steve Jensen
0:09:58
And some of those newer practice management solutions do have some like pain points and struggles there where like you can't use the imaging solution you were using before, right? And so some of that stuff becomes pretty complicated.

Craig Spodak
0:10:10
Is Open Dental still like the leader, Peter or Steven, as you know it to be in the cloud-based practice management software sector? That's what I used to hear. Are they still the number one?

Steve Jensen
0:10:23
Or curve?

Craig Spodak
0:10:24
Curve.

Steve Jensen
0:10:25
I would put them, and Open Dental, just to qualify, they are on the on-premise server-based solutions. So they do have a cloud when they're working on. So they've been like the leader in terms of like practice, growth, percentage of practice growth on the on-prem stuff, for sure, for the last handful of years. And right now, man, it's difficult to know who the leader is with cloud-based. They're all very hesitant to share numbers. And as you guys know, most everyone's public numbers are all bloated, right? So they'll say, hey, we've got like 3,000 locations or 5,000 locations. And maybe more realistically, it's more like, I don't know, smaller than that. They're gonna do everything they can to forward those numbers round up.

Peter Boulden
0:11:06
So Steve, you guys obviously being, the genesis of the company was an analytics company, like you said. And we've actually used some of those in our field manuals we do for a summit. I know you guys put out a big PDF report. So data is still your jam. And I think a lot of people are interested on, you know, what that data tells us. I love how you said data is nothing unless the rubber can meet the road. Right? Where do you execute on that? And I think so many times we get enthralled by, look at this chart, look at this graph, and look at this data. And you get wooed by the data. But until you know, like what lever to pull doesn't do anything. And sometimes that analysis causes paralysis. So can you kind of find something I know in the past we've done like, you know, for instance, we had Weston on in the past. We talked about like the biggest metric to kind of move your practice thing that you're going to look at if nothing else is look at your reappointment rates. Right. So given that you kind of live and breathe in data. Is there something now that, you know, and as you get more data, you get more intelligent with the process, right? I mean, meaning the more data you get, the more you can confidently say, Steven, that here's what we think happens. We've seen it over and over again, these practices. So do you have any like groundbreaking stuff to tell our industry or those people listening that like, here's the things that you should be doing?

Steve Jensen
0:12:25
Yeah, yeah, let's start. I mean, the same stuff we've talked about in the past all stands, like the number one metric that's correlated with practice success is hygiene reappointment. Like that just isn't what it is.

Craig Spodak
0:12:35
It hasn't changed.

Peter Boulden
0:12:36
To what degree? Just out of curiosity. Like is there not even a close second?

Steve Jensen
0:12:41
And the close second would be your case acceptance as a doctor.

Peter Boulden
0:12:45
Okay, all right.

Steve Jensen
0:12:46
Or provider, I should say, because it could be the hygienist as well. But the hygiene one, once again, it's just because of patient retention. But this is worth, I'll like share some interesting insight I think that's worth like noting on some shifts in the marketplace that we're seeing. So there was a Wall Street Journal article that was posted this last week that suggested that spending in dental was down 11.3%.

Craig Spodak
0:13:10
Interesting.

Peter Bouldenv
0:13:11
Over what period of time? Say what? Yeah, over what period of time?

Craig Spodak
0:13:13
Say what?

Craig Spodak
0:13:14
Yeah, what period of time?

Steve Jensen
0:13:15
Year over year, starting in 2020. So in comparison, right now in comparison to 2020, when we are in the middle of pandemic, they're suggesting that spending is down. Now here's what's fascinating, is that I'm not necessarily seeing in just the general performance of our practices, that they're down by 11%. Like that's not happening with performance. So then it begs the question, like where is that coming from, right?

Craig Spodak
0:13:36
Well, it could have been the shutdown too. So it's the statistical average of being shut down for, you know, between two and seven months, depending on where you are.

Steve Jensen
0:13:44
Yeah, so here's something that is fascinating. So we've been tracking, as you guys know, but I'll share with the audience, we segment our customer base and the ones we're seeing. So we're syncing with about 10,000 practices right now. We have about 8,600 like active customers and we've got, you know, just over a thousand or so of these lingering sinks that we're doing, where people have been like, just sink with me, but I'm not buying anything. So about 10,000 is our pool. We segment that into the top 10% of practices, our average practices and our bottom 10%. Like those are the groups that we're looking at. When the pandemic hit, after we went through that first, it was really more like what, nine months. So like from March 15th through the end, at the end of that year, at the end of 2020, we analyzed what performance looked like. And what was interesting was that the top 10% of practices actually outperformed their previous year. So in 2020, the top 10% in general did better than they did in 2019. So they were able to see growth even with that little shutdown that happened in March and April.

Steve Jensen
0:14:47
Jeez.

Craig Spodak
0:14:48
The average-

Peter Boulden
0:14:49
Was some of that though including PPP money, you think?

Steve Jensen
0:14:52
No, because this would have just been from production numbers we're seeing in the private

24
0:14:56
management software.

Craig Spodak
0:14:57
Wow, that's big.

Steve Jensen
0:14:58
We're not looking at EBITDA or their actual revenue numbers.

Peter Boulden
0:15:04
We're looking at actually tied to the treatment. Yeah.

Steve Jensen
0:15:07
Yeah, okay. So whatever's going into the private management software.

Craig Spodak
0:15:10
Did you boil it down by state too, by the way? Did you have state information in there?

Steve Jensen
0:15:14
I didn't break it down in a state, I could go, I could go track some of that down.

Craig Spodak
0:15:16
That'd be so cool to see how like the, what states, because it really shows you like, hey, you're not just practicing in your region, your state matters. I mean, let's face the fact that you were in Florida, you were, or George, you were mandated to shut down what, eight weeks? California and New York could have been 20 weeks, I don't even know. I mean, what were they, what was the shutdowns in New York?

Steve Jensen
0:15:37
I mean, there's lots of the long time, right? So I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure that matters, right? But what's interesting though, is that on the bottom 10%, they did worse than they had ever done in their entire history. So not even just like 2019, but it was like the worst year. And we in general are keeping about five years of data depending on how long they've got it in their practice management software. And it was like the worst year that they had seen. So there became this like chasm in performance between like the best practices and the worst practice in the nation. And so you saw-

Peter Boulden
0:16:09
So the top, let me make sure I'm understanding this. The top 10% that you had in your data set did better.

Steve Jensen
0:16:13
The bottom 10- Between 20 and 20-

Peter Boulden
0:16:15
Of your data set, the bottom 10 did worse.

Craig Spodak
0:16:18
Than they've ever done.

Peter Boulden
0:16:18
That's correct, than they've ever done.

Steve Jensen
0:16:19
Yes.

Steve Jensen
0:16:20
Okay, that's interesting.

Craig Spodak
0:16:22
Right, so we-

Craig Spodak
0:16:23
Isn't that wild?

Steve Jensen
0:16:24
So what's interesting then is-

Craig Spodak
0:16:24
Psychology.

Steve Jensen
0:16:26
Surrender.

Steve Jensen
0:16:27
Yeah, so we started,

Steve Jensen
0:16:27
and I actually agree with that, right? Like people's mentality coming into a situation like that, I'm sure had a big impact on how they responded to that, how they actually performed. So it wasn't impossible to do well still through that period. So the reason why I was bringing this up, Peter brought up hygiene reappointment, like a number one metric for success. So here's one thing that's interesting. So we were like, okay, so what were some of these metrics that really defined the solid practices from the ones that struggled worse than they ever had? So one of those was patient-based growth or the lack thereof, right? Or attrition, right? Them losing patients. So in 2019, top 10% of practices were increasing their patient base by about 14%. Okay. What's interesting is that in 2020 and in 2021, we saw about the exact same number. Patient base grew by 18% in the top 10% of practices. So they were, they're seeing increased growth over the last two years in comparison to what we were seeing in the past, right? So they're growing more. So they're picking up patients from somewhere. And I can guess where they're probably picking up the patients from, based off of what we're seeing on the bottom end, okay? So on the bottom end, in 2019, the worst practices shrunk by about 7%, but in 2020 and this last year, they shrunk by 12%, right?

Peter Bouldenv
0:17:51
Wow.

Steve Jensen
0:17:52
So you take, it seems, on the surface at least, that all the patients that these bottom practices are losing are migrating over to these top practices, right? The numbers like almost identical on the bottom, the increase in loss on the bottom and the increase in growth on the top is almost identical.

Peter Boulden
0:18:10
This is like Pareto's principle, cause I'm sure you're about to say that the 80% really kind of did as you had expected, right? So there's the 10% on the top, 10% on the bottom, which is an 80, you know, 10% equals 20. Pareto's principle is 80, 20, there's massive change in that. I'm guessing, am I right to extrapolate the fact that 80% did just as you kind of expected? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. So, here's where that becomes interesting.

Steve Jensen
0:18:31
So, I'll just like hone in on this whole like patient retention thing, right? Like that becomes such a key moment in the practice. Greg, I agree with some of what you said about mindset. Like I'm a big believer that our energy, you know, we can change it, but the energy you put out comes back to you, right? So if we have a practice, it's like all concern, the world's going to crap, they're not sure what they're going to do with their business. Like patients are naturally going to sense that, you're not going to behave as well, you know, like, your team's going to have, you know, I'm a big fan. I don't know if you guys have heard this, but one of my mentors taught me this, where like there are people that live this world, like they hold on to money or opportunity with like a closed fist. Like they hold on to it so tight that they're very restricted. Where in reality, if you start to live your life and live as if like there's open hands, like there's so much opportunity.

Steve Jensen
0:19:22
Like a flow of it.

Craig Spodak
0:19:23
Energy, kind of.

Steve Jensen
0:19:24
Using money like energy. You know, then that naturally kind of like comes around to you.

Craig Spodak
0:19:31
Well, it's not even as abstract as the examples you're giving. I mean, I've talked to fearful dentists and when the pandemic was happening, like there were offices even as that my friends were working in. I have a friend who's a hygienist who's working in a place that was banning the use of ultrasonic instruments as recently as like 4 months ago. So imagine like you're physically taking away the tools. I mean, it's it's not even abstract how you believe in your feelings about money. Like you physically shut down the tools that operate your business. You know, so it was a very interesting polarization of mindset we get to actually see. And there's never been a time in history we could actually see by visual example someone's mindset around COVID. Some people stopped wearing the mask after a year. Some people stopped after 16 months. Some people haven't stopped yet. And so there's never been a physical manifestation of your concern for the virus as there was now. Now we can see people literally, you might remark you're driving to work one day and you're seeing somebody walking completely alone on a sidewalk with no one around them within 600 feet and they're wearing a mask, which you know is a personal choice, but it does, it's a physical representation of that person's thought process. Because most of us would know that we'd be more inclined to wear a mask in crowded places unless we're alone, or maybe, so it was a polarization of the mindsets too. It's like literally that was such a gut punch for people.

Peter Boulden
0:20:58
I feel like you have even more stuff to tell to your sheet in front of you there. Oh yeah, that's awesome.

Craig Spodak
0:21:04
Yeah.

Steve Jensen
0:21:05
So that one was a huge takeaway, right? Like I mentioned the chasm, one of those big ones that caused that was ability to retain patients, right? Like are your patients consistently staying with you? And then calling back to the beginning, some of those leading indicators for that are, every single day, are we reappointing patients back into hygiene? And then the big picture one as well, there was a significant number change here worth noting, was what we call pre-appointment. So essentially, of all of your active patients, how many of those are pre-appointed? And I think it's worth calling out that all of these had big change, but in the top 10% actually, let me pull up the number so it's right here in front of me. So on pre-appointment percentage, specifically I'm just noting with hygiene, so all of our active hygiene patients. What's interesting is everyone took a hit this last year, which kind of makes sense in the sense that when everything got shut down, we had a crap ton of patients that all fell off the schedule and the only way to get them back is from just like brute force labor, right? Like calling them, texting them, emailing them and creating a new appointment on the schedule. So that was painful. So the top 10% dropped from an average of 77% of their patients appointed to come back down to 70%. But then the bottom 10% went from about 44% down to 30%. So a huge drop there.

Craig Spodak
0:22:27
So a bigger drop.

Steve Jensen
0:22:29
A much bigger drop.

Craig Spodak
0:22:30
So the best got slightly, they took a 7% hit. The bottom took a 12% hit, right?

Peter Boulden
0:22:37
What is ideal for you, Steven?

Craig Spodak
0:22:38
Do you see a corresponding, sorry, Peter to cut you, do you see a corresponding drop in that same percentage of revenue?

Steve Jensen
0:22:44
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Craig Spodak
0:22:46
It's exactly the question. Statistically. So it just kept-

Steve Jensen
0:22:48
And then here, just so everyone understands some like-

Craig Spodak
0:22:50
Sorry, Steven, is that you see that corresponding percentage of revenue, seven points down on your reappointment rate, is it 7% in loss and top line revenue? Yeah, 12% down.

Steve Jensen
0:22:59
Yeah, both pre-appointment and reappointment have direct correlation with practice revenue.

Craig Spodak
0:23:05
Can you believe that? So if you've got nothing left from, no more brain power or no more execution power left in your practice, the only thing you should work on is your reappointment rate. That's it.

Peter Bouldenv
0:23:17
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:23:17
And then the problem, what do you think is, what do you think is an excellent

Steve Jensen
0:23:22
reappointment rate?

Peter Boulden
0:23:23
Let's say, you know, cause we got gunners that listened to this pod. Like, so where would you say, if you were a practice owner, Steven, and you're like, look at this number, I'm good. Cause it's not going to be a hundred percent.

Peter Boulden
0:23:31
Right.

Peter Boulden
0:23:32
So I have a pull up yours and mine right now.

Craig Spodak
0:23:34
Well, I do 91%. Do you want me to, do you want me to? Yeah, why not? Yeah, pull it up. Yeah, big like gut punch. We can always edit it out, Peter. No, we will only edit it if I'm secondary to you. We will definitely keep it when I'm superior. Yeah, or you could just edit what he says to like just edit the whole video that you're on

Steve Jensen
0:23:57
top. Yeah, you just change the words. You know Peter well. So I'll pull you, I'll pull this whole last year. It'll take me a second, but yeah, in general, 91%, 91, 92% is where you hit that top 10% on reappointment. And then for, for pre appointment, you know, you're around 75% of your patients pre appointed to get to that top 10%. Average is around 50%, 52% is the number. 52% is average. Which, which that number is crazy, right? Like the average practice only has half their patients scheduled to come back. Like that's wild to me that you're able to like operate that way. I mean, that means you're just-

Craig Spodak
0:24:35
Or you might have a great marketing, you might have a great marketing budget that you're just back filling that in.

Peter Boulden
0:24:40
Yeah, but dentistry as a whole is very similar to software. Like a lot of our revenues are focused on recurring revenue, right? Recurring patients, people coming back. And so you're right, when you're letting half of those people go and be like, I don't know, see if you'd like us next month or not. You know, like no software company would exist

Craig Spodak
0:24:59
if that was the case.

Steve Jensen
0:25:00
No, no.

Steve Jensen
0:25:02
But that's why plastic surgeons-

Peter Boulden
0:25:02
So the dentist really is gravy.

Craig Spodak
0:25:05
Well, but that's why plastic surgeons too, Peter, they use Botox, they do Botox and all these other adjunctive procedures because frankly speaking, they're not great money makers, but they don't have the ability to sell E.E. Mrs. Jones every six months. So they keep talking about the Botox, eventually the blepharoplasty or the facelift or whatever else, that's what they have to do. We're just blessed that we have an industry that allows for recurring revenue.

Peter Bouldenv
0:25:27
That's fascinating.

Steve Jensen
0:25:28
Also, another metric, I mean, obviously, Craig,

Peter Boulden
0:25:30
I feel like we've beat this over the years, even talking to Wes, and we talk about our summits all the time. And that's the, even in our masterminds, we talk about this metric just because of the data, Stephen, that you've even now fortified. Another thing, and I know you're looking at those numbers, for those numbers. Another thing that I get actually on the daily is, is I call it APPV number, right? The average production per patient visit on average. And you, I think, alluded to that as being the second place one, but that might be, maybe you didn't, you said the doctor's enrolling treatment. But I think that is correlated because obviously the higher… Yes, the leading indicator is that number, right? Yes, okay.

Steve Jensen
0:26:12
Okay.

Peter Boulden
0:26:13
Yeah. So, I'd like, you know, I'd like when you pull, when you get our data up and acknowledge me as the winner, that then we can move on to the…

Craig Spodak
0:26:20
So, what's the next statistic? Because Peter asked that. So it's hygiene reappointment and then patient acceptance or doctor acceptance or case acceptance. Peter asked the question. I'm curious to know the answer. Is it a close second or is it above and way above and beyond the best single performing data point is that reappointment? We're looking for the easy button, Stephen.

Peter Boulden
0:26:47
Yeah, that's what we're looking for?

Steve Jensen
0:26:49
It's by far is reappointment retention. Plug the hole in your back door.

Peter Boulden
0:26:53
Don't do anything else, but plug the hole.

Craig Spodak
0:26:55
If you keep patience, then you're gonna do well as a practice owner.

Craig Spodak
0:26:59
Yeah, great.

Steve Jensen
0:26:59
And then beyond that, then you start tinkering with things to improve your production per visit, right? But that spread is, we're talking about, on an annual basis, we're talking about several hundred dollars per patient. So you can change that number, but that spread's not like, it's not like the annual patient value between the bottom 10%, the top 10% is like $3,000 of a difference, right? Like it's only hundreds of dollars of difference between bottom and top, where the biggest differentiator between practices is their ability to retain patients. And, you know, the worst ones are just like cycling through them and they're spending a crap ton of money on marketing. New patients are less likely to say yes to treatment.

Peter Boulden
0:27:42
They're less likely to be-

Craig Spodak
0:27:43
And we all love the new patient. Everybody loves it. Oh, I got four new patients today. No one cares about the existing patients.

Steve Jensen
0:27:48
I don't know why.

Craig Spodak
0:27:49
I don't know why.

Peter Boulden
0:27:50
Yeah, it's twice, three times as much work. 10 times as much work sometimes, you know? I mean, it's, it is crazy. That is the sexy in our, in our industry. But like, it's like, ah, forget about the gold bars that are sitting in my practice. I'd like to, I'd like to get the ones out in public, potentially.

Craig Spodak
0:28:04
Yeah, there's dust covered bars.

Peter Boulden
0:28:06
I'm gonna spend the gold bars I have to try and attract those gold bars.

Steve Jensen
0:28:09
And here's something that's interesting to me. You know, I've traveled quite a bit now in the last four years, and I have had a number of doctors bring up to me that they're like, well, but Steve, if I just have the same patients, then I'm gonna have, what did they call it? Like clean mouth syndrome?

Peter Boulden
0:28:22
Yeah, no treatment to be done.

Steve Jensen
0:28:24
I will have like fixed everything. And in my opinion, I'm like, do you really believe that like highly of yourself that like your patients are all going to brush their teeth. They're never going to get another cavity.

Craig Spodak
0:28:34
No accident, nothing's going to change, no wear.

Steve Jensen
0:28:38
Like that's just unrealistic, right? Like, I don't think, I have never seen a practice that has accomplished like, wow, like our patients are so compliant that we never, they never keep getting, having issues in their mouth. Like those things just keep arising. Like patients get older, which brings this new set of opportunity within the mouth. So that one I've been surprised by. Is that something that doctors talk about?

Craig Spodak
0:29:01
Yeah, I've heard someone say that to me. Well, I would buy that practice, but they did all the work.

Peter Boulden
0:29:05
Yeah, I was gonna say, it's commonly talked about in an acquisition, Steve, where it's like, you know, the phrase is, well, there's really no work to be done, right? Because that doctor may have been a unicorn at a producing. The dentistry and enrolling it, right? And so when you have a unicorn that use doctor who can do like cosmetics and implants and stuff like that, like they've probably had that conversation and quote unquote, there's not much dentistry to be done is the issue. But I see where you're coming from as well from the like, I don't think that being the case when you have 3000 actives and something's bound to happen.

Steve Jensen
0:29:43
And that might be maybe like, I can see on the cosmetic side, right? Because in general, like you're not gonna go like, redo all the crowns, you know, often, hopefully ever as long as they're your patient, you know, maybe 15, 20 years down the road. I can see that, but like, I don't know. My guess is that you haven't done full mouth restorations on all 3,000 of your active patients, right?

Craig Spodak
0:30:06
Like there's holes in certain business models to Steven and it's like there's certain practices that exist as like just purely Cosmetically you said are or all on for type practices and they don't really have hygiene programs They might be doing five six seven million in top-line revenue, but have one hygienist So it's not the practice is built differently. It's not built to have recurring revenue.

Steve Jensen
0:30:28
So, Craig, I was trying to, coming back to your guys' numbers, I was trying to pull all of last year, and it took me a second where I'm like, why is this taking a little while to load? And I forgot that Craig's practice is probably one of the largest practice in the US in terms of data.

Craig Spodak
0:30:42
Can I take that as a win then? Is that Peter's outlook?

Steve Jensen
0:30:44
No, no, no.

Craig Spodak
0:30:45
But my reappointment rate's at 31%.

Craig Spodak
0:30:48
I'm assuming listeners know

Steve Jensen
0:30:49
that Craig runs a monster dental practice.

Peter Boulden
0:30:53
Oh yeah, yeah. He'll tell everybody on every podcast.

Craig Spodak
0:30:55
What are you talking about? I'm not the one who wants first place here. I don't want to win this.

Steve Jensen
0:30:58
How many, Craig, if you were to break out your practice into like an average multi-location group, what do you consider yourself? 10, 13? How many locations do you call yourself if you were to do it that way?

Craig Spodak
0:31:09
I don't know. Yeah, 10, 10 or 12. 10 or so? I don't know. If you take, yeah, maybe, I don't know, eight, I have no idea. Peter could probably answer that better. I have no idea.

Peter Bouldenv
0:31:17
So you're, let's see, I'm gonna switch,

Steve Jensen
0:31:19
just so we're like apples to apples. We're just gonna look at last month for both of you, just in mind. Not last month, we can't do last month.

Craig Spodak
0:31:25
We have to do like a month. You can do any month.

Peter Boulden
0:31:27
No, I'm doing just, I'm just doing the most recent month.

Steve Jensen
0:31:29
Peter, how are you like, currently like that?

Craig Spodak
0:31:31
Current performance, okay?

Steve Jensen
0:31:33
We can't look too deep in the past, Uncle Rico. So, we were, Craig, you were at 88% last month on Hygiene Reappointments. So you're just like flirting with top 10%. And then, uh, and then Atlanta Dental Spa, you guys were at 82%. And I'm just looking at Atlanta Dental Spa, just one location.

Craig Spodak
0:31:53
Oh, wow.

Peter Boulden
0:31:54
Just one location?

Craig Spodak
0:31:55
No, but we are, no, no, no, no, there's no qualifies. You have to edit the shit out of this podcast right now.

Steve Jensen
0:32:01
No, no, no, no.

Craig Spodak
0:32:02
Let's take a break for a second.

Peter Boulden
0:32:02
It's only one location though.

Steve Jensen
0:32:03
You can't open it.

17
0:32:04
Pull up another one.

Craig Spodak
0:32:05
Pull up another one. Let's do another one. You want me to look at another one?

Craig Spodak
0:32:09
Yes, let's do another one.

Craig Spodak
0:32:10
Let's go full, full attack mode.

Steve Jensen
0:32:13
Remind me, Peter, what are the other locations you got?

Peter Boulden
0:32:16
Which one did you look up?

Peter Boulden
0:32:17
I looked up Atlanta Dental Spa.

Steve Jensen
0:32:19
That's what I was looking at.

Peter Bouldenv
0:32:20
Oh.

Craig Spodak
0:32:21
All the good, glamorous locations. Is it?

Steve Jensen
0:32:23
Yeah, again, all in one account

Peter Boulden
0:32:24
because it is my database. So that was just for last month.

Steve Jensen
0:32:28
Okay.

Steve Jensen
0:32:29
And I will- Okay, you're above average, okay.

Peter Boulden
0:32:33
Yeah, I can see it then.

Steve Jensen
0:32:34
All right, I was wrong, I was off.

Steve Jensen
0:32:36
I'm pretty close, you're only six points behind me.

Craig Spodak
0:32:39
Around there. That means I'm a first place loser, right?

Peter Boulden
0:32:42
Hey, no, I'm not in the top percent.

Craig Spodak
0:32:44
I'm at 88%, you need to be to 91 of you top 10% There's gonna be heads rolling after this pot I gotta go guys I got it can we end right now I'm just gonna go everybody Because I've looked at both your practice in the past I know both of you have been in that top 10%

Steve Jensen
0:33:01
So remember listeners just looking at last month. It was June. So maybe you know people. Oh, you know what?

Craig Spodak
0:33:07
I'm not listen. I'm not gonna say I gotta say something in my defense. Our patients are seasonal. So at this time, when they leave, they can't make their appointments because they don't want them coming back. We have like 20, probably 35% of our practice that's completely does not live here during the summer. So all the May, June, yeah, if you pull up like our November one,

Peter Boulden
0:33:31
we're gonna be at like 99.975%.

Peter Bouldenv
0:33:34
I'm sure.

Craig Spodak
0:33:35
99.

Steve Jensen
0:33:36
Peter, same with you, right? Seasonal?

Steve Jensen
0:33:40
No, no.

Peter Boulden
0:33:41
Nope, I just, I have no excuse. I'm gonna take my L and move on down the road.

Steve Jensen
0:33:45
Cool.

Peter Boulden
0:33:46
Well, you know, that one,

Steve Jensen
0:33:47
that one I'll just call this out again. I think the reason why that one's so important, by the way, that reappointment is because it snowballs over time, right? Like if we started with a thousand patients in this six month segment, because we're seeing all our hygiene in that six month segment. If it's, call it a thousand to make it simple. If we only reappoint 80% of them, that means 200 of those patients need to get calls, texts, to get rescheduled back. And any of them we don't get in recare. Typically, recare is about, you get between like 20 to 30% of whoever you didn't schedule to come back to like get rescheduled. So like, it just snowballs over time. Or it gets worse and worse and you end up losing the patients, so. Big number. Let's come back to the report and let me highlight another one that I think was interesting in like what differentiated these practices and maybe, you know, why could the Wall Street Journal say, hey, spending in dentistry is down 11%, but like a Craig Slodak and Peter Bolden, like you guys are like, I'm not, I'm not feeling that. Like we're not down 11% year over year in our numbers.

Craig Spodak
0:34:46
Right.

Steve Jensen
0:34:47
Here's one that's interesting. Top 10% and bottom 10% have always been differentiated. Another one is by their same-day treatment acceptance percentage, meaning they're getting work done today that they diagnosed, right? So, they're not like scheduling and waiting for the future. Both the bottom 10% and the top 10% when COVID hit started doing more same-day treatment,

Peter Bouldenv
0:35:12
okay?

Steve Jensen
0:35:13
Okay, so before the pandemic hit everything, top 10% were doing about 41% of their production was happening same day. They weren't waiting for the future. You see increased case acceptance because of that, a lot of things. They jumped to 48% same day treatment acceptance. Bottom 10% was only doing 5% before COVID hit. Wow. Right, so a huge gap there in performance, 41% down to 5%. So that was already a differentiator. But what's interesting though is that the bottom 10%, I think out of necessity, jumped up to 15%. So still not high enough to make a big enough difference in their production, but they were like, crap, we need to get some work done. So they jumped up to about 15% of their work they were completing same day. So I'm interested to see if that stays consistent or if that starts to slide back down for those practices so far, they've been staying pretty much the same all through 2021 at least. And then we produce numbers at the end of every year. So we'll see if that holds through 2022. But that's another one that's interesting is where same day treatment went up for top 10% has kind of stayed there. And with the bottom 10% of practices, they haven't like jumped enough for really, really for that to make a difference.

Craig Spodak
0:36:26
Are you guys working on anything like workplace satisfaction or do you have an ability to import as another variable like reviews into these algorithms so you could see like top performing reviews? Like an NPS score? Yeah, because I think it's fast. What I'm imagining is these low performing doctors. It's like we always say, it's psychology and skill set and 80% of psychology. It's gotta be your mentality. So it's like, well, I don't think we should do it, you know, today, or it's just that we're all our own worst enemies. And I just wonder if it's, you can put into these variables as well, the NPS net promoter score of how your team feels about you, how the community feels about you, because I bet you, these people are not doing well on those either. So not only are you not successful financially, but I bet you're not being, you're running successful businesses. That's my, that would be my expectation. Do you have anything, way to put that into the variable there? I feel like you have like the dental matrix at your fingertips there. I'd love to see it. It's all like zeros and ones. You're like Neo of dentistry.

Steve Jensen
0:37:25
That's one of the things that, you know, going to the beginning, talking about consolidation. That's one of the places where we have been partnering on. So like inside Modento, we're partnered with Swell, which handles a lot of the reviews management and stuff like that. But no, we haven't like paired the reviews data along with practice management.

Craig Spodak
0:37:43
But- You should, that'd be so powerful for the industry.

Steve Jensen
0:37:46
One of the things that we are working on where maybe we might be able to do this as like the next step to this. We've never really been able to give the industry like live data, like what's going on now. We use some of that internally. Like we always wanna understand, for example, like that number of Wall Street Journal says, hey, it's down 11%. That could mean a lot for us as a software company, right? Like that could mean, you know, cancellations. That could be, you know, buyers maybe aren't gonna be interested in buying if there's not as much money there for software, they might scale back. And so we need to be on top of that stuff. And so luckily we're able to look and see, okay, like what's actually happening with our practices and production. And we're feeling pretty confident moving into this, you know, into this, you know, potential recessionary era that we're in now, this bear market.

Peter Boulden
0:38:29
How many practices exist?

Craig Spodak
0:38:30
Like you guys know you're- If you don't mind, let him just finish this. I wanted to hear, cause you feel really confident going into this recessionary era with what? I want you to just complete that. Cause-

Steve Jensen
0:38:42
Oh, with our software business.

Steve Jensen
0:38:45
Meaning?

Craig Spodak
0:38:45
So you obviously are bullish on the dental industry because if the dental industry took not only 11%, but then a 20 and 30% hit, your software sales would suffer as well. So how are you feeling, what is leading to your level of confidence going into what everybody thinks is gonna be a bear market?

Steve Jensen
0:39:09
So some of the things that we've done, I mean, this is more just like business stuff. I don't know if that's-

Craig Spodak
0:39:14
It's relevant for us.

Steve Jensen
0:39:15
It's relevant for us because it paints

Craig Spodak
0:39:17
the picture of dentistry.

Steve Jensen
0:39:19
Yeah, I mean, a lot of that has had to do with, you know, the way that we've positioned ourselves. So the fact that we have consolidated solutions, we've got some cost efficiencies that have been helpful. Like in the past, if someone were gonna buy the analytic solution, for example, it's 450 bucks a month. Before that was a net new spend on top of everything else they had. Where now, if someone's, you know, using Modento and online scheduling, those things are 300 bucks. And then all of a sudden now just to add analytics is only a couple hundred bucks more on top of that. So there's like the pricing of how we fit within a general practice is a little more interesting now from a pricing perspective that's been really helpful. And then we've been investing millions of dollars into our DSO enterprise product. And we've got some really cool stuff coming out here over the next couple of quarters that we think will position us uniquely as well. So one of the things that I will share, you guys follow, you know, Brian Clio over at Dicomomuch. He's been sharing some interesting data around kind of this accelerated growth of practice consolidation. So just a couple of years ago, people were saying, you know, practice consolidation was around like 18, 19, 20% just back in like 2019.

Craig Spodak
0:40:28
Right.

Steve Jensen
0:40:29
And in the spring of this year though, Brian got up and shared that we were between 32 and 34% now. So about a third of dental practices have been consolidated into a small emerging or large DSO. That's fast, right? And probably has something to do with the fact that I mentioned earlier of these low performing practices, docs who are like, man, this isn't working for me, I'm not making enough.

Peter Boulden
0:40:51
COVID accelerated that for sure.

Steve Jensen
0:40:54
So I'm sure there was some acceleration there of performance, like, I can't handle this anymore. So the sell off to these DSOs. And then potentially some earlier retirees seeing higher multiples, there's a category there, people with like five to 10 years where we're seeing some increase in some sales as well, where they're like, hey, I'm just gonna sell, take advantage of what I think is a potentially high multiple on my individual practice, and then maybe read some rewards as some of these private equity groups go to sell the next five to 10, right. So I think there's some interesting stuff happening there. So we positioned ourselves really well for that space as that continues to grow. And we're seeing some really good, you know, sales engagement and, and software engagement with those with groups. So those are the reasons why we feel confident moving into, you know, this kind of recessionary period, knowing that if practices are hit, it's gonna start with this lower group. They're gonna get consolidated DSOs, we're a good fit there. So kind of on either end, top performing practices will continue to use this because performance is gonna stay steady or grow. And then with the DSO consolidation, we're positioned well, so.

Craig Spodak
0:41:56
I'd love to know, Peter, you have a question that's outstanding that I interrupted. I don't want that to be forgotten. It was kind of addressed, honestly.

Peter Boulden
0:42:02
I was asking like, what's the total addressable market for dental intel right now, if there's been a consolidation, right? The more the industry consolidated, there's less mom and pop practices that will use it, the practice on a standalone. So I was just asking like, okay, so you guys have 8,000 users, essentially practices. I wonder how many practices there are in the US. You know, you find, and I know you would know that number way better than I do.

Steve Jensen
0:42:25
Yeah, I've got some numbers if you want me to just spur bombs off my head. So Bureau of Labor Statistics, they suggest that there are about 100,000 dental practices. But somewhere to the tune of like 160 to 180,000 dentists, right, because you've got multiple dentists in every practice on average. So that's where Bureau of Labor Statistics is. You find some other stuff, ADA, Marco over there is publishing some things suggesting that might be a little higher, maybe between 120 to 140,000 physical dental practices. But if we just go with Bureau of Labor Statistics, 100,000 practices, that's not like a big number, but it's also not that big of a number. So if we're at 8,000, creeping up on, it's like 86 something creeping up on that 10,000, we're already about 10% of the market.

Peter Boulden
0:43:10
10% of the market, addressable market, yeah.

Steve Jensen
0:43:13
And then of that, how much is DSO, how much is not? So there's some interesting, we'll see how that plays out. On the Pratt & Spandrad side of software side of things, you've got Dentrix, I think who claims on their website, like 50,000, Eaglesoft is claiming, I think like 36,000, and then Open Dental is claiming like 14,000 on their website. So you start to add all those up and that gets you pretty close, between 70 to 80% of that market, they're claiming that they own from a practice management side of things, which we integrate with.

Craig Spodak
0:43:43
So have you guys seen a slowdown yet, Steven? You know, that would corroborate that Wall Street Journal statistic, because frankly speaking, you guys have a data set that I think is super. I mean, what is the ADA's data set? It's reported. Yeah. Hey, how are you doing? I'm doing really well. I think I'm making a million.

Steve Jensen
0:44:00
No, you're not.

Craig Spodak
0:44:01
You're making $300,000.

9
0:44:02
Yeah, ADA, it's all polling. Yeah, it's all polling.

Craig Spodak
0:44:03
And if you ask dentists how they're doing, Peter, you and I know this, how are you? Oh, phenomenal. My reappointment rate's 99%. So you have what I believe that the ultimate data set. So are you, can you corroborate what the Wall Street Journal is saying? And if so, if not, then where did they get their data from? Yeah.

Steve Jensen
0:44:23
Doc, how's it feeling? So far, no. So far, no, we can't cooperate. We're not seeing a drop.

Craig Spodak
0:44:29
So then it's not, what did you say, Peter, with their scope?

Steve Jensen
0:44:33
100%.

Peter Boulden
0:44:34
I like where you're tracking, right? The way that, like, for instance, we'll zoom out in a second and talk about it from a recession in the economy, right? The best data set would be the one from American Express and consumer spending and things like that, like to be the big canary in the coal mine for like, are we about to hit something bad? So the extrapolation, the analog of dentistry would be what you're talking about with Steve.

Steve Jensen
0:44:55
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:44:57
They have the intel. So how would the Wall Street Journal calling up random dentists? You feel like it's sort of, yeah, definitely feels wrong.

Peter Boulden
0:45:02
We are calling to see how you're feeling right now.

Craig Spodak
0:45:04
Well, that's what the ADA is doing. How did you do last year? No one, every dentist I've ever asked their numbers, how did you do last year? It's always wrong.

Steve Jensen
0:45:12
Yeah, yes. Now, one thing that's worth noting, an internal discussion we've had over the last week is, you know, there is the potential that our data set, you know, you think about the type of practice owner that is going to be attracted to using, you know, our core product analytics, is not gonna be in general your average dentist, right? So when you want-

Craig Spodak
0:45:34
Then again, the person listening to this podcast, Steve, Stephen, these are the people that are like actively trying to get better. You consume content, you buy additional software, you reinvest in your business. That's what this is. Whether you're just driving your car, listening, you're investing in your business. So, you know.

Steve Jensen
0:45:50
There's a potential that maybe, you know, maybe like I mentioned before, it seems to be this pattern of we're seeing this chasm happen between top practices and bottom practices. Maybe the ones that are attracted to using our software, you know, we're more heavily weighted on the higher end that are interested in what we're using. And this is actually something we're working on right now. So we've never like mapped out, you know, we're like a bell curve of our customers. Like, are we heavily weighted on the higher end or do we have like a pretty standard bell curve where, you know, the average practices, you understand what I'm saying? Like statistics curves, our expectation is when we finished this analysis, and if you guys want, I'll share with you, like are our customers weighted on the higher end of practices versus the lower end?

Craig Spodak
0:46:32
Well, what a great sales pitch for you guys. So the average dental intelligence consumer does this well. So, I mean, frankly speaking, I was, Peter, we were friendly when you got dental intelligence. I referred Peter into it, and the minute he saw his numbers, he got really obsessive. He saw some of my numbers, he saw some of his, and within like six months, he was like beating me on everything. Like, you know, once you got the data, you took action on it. Cause it's really hard to put that together, but it would be, I remember that COVID report that you did, that was such like the state of the industry report. Are you doing, part of my ignorance, but are you guys doing that type of reporting on a regular basis?

Steve Jensen
0:47:11
Oh, that's what I think, oh, I was getting there. So we are currently just finishing up a project. It's called our Data Lakes project. So in the past, and this may be too nerdy, but in the past, I'll keep it simple. In the past, in order for us to get industry data, we had to go query our like patient facing database. So there are risks involved with that. Like we could like technically like put a strain on customer experience, where we're like constantly tapping into that. Then it might take you longer, Craig, to load your data in Dental Intel. So we didn't want to have that happen. So we needed like a way to mirror all of our patient, you know, our practice facing data, but be able to like mess with it ourselves. And so we're just about done with that project. And once that's completed, then we'll be able to have live access to all industry data. And then we can start giving guys like you or industry partners access to, hey, here's exactly what's going on here, our trends, you know, Marco over at the A-I company. Hey, like, hook me up, I wanna see that, you know.

Craig Spodak
0:48:08
That'd be so cool to see that.

Steve Jensen
0:48:09
So we'll have the ABA should consult with you. Coming from us really soon, where we wanna understand some of that stuff, like, hey, like, what's going on, what's Marco finding from ADA and the Health Policy Institute, what are we seeing, and start to combine some of that and create some live industry feeds, basically.

Craig Spodak
0:48:25
Yeah, I mean, we're doing the same thing like compiling our mastermind data right now. So like we are taking the numbers that people produced over the year prior to mastermind and the statistical increase of just being in one year of mastermind is like mind boggling. Like we have people that are literally doubling the revenue just being in the mastermind. So, but you know, we're just querying that data right now because it's been the completion of our second mastermind is completing right now. So, but that, that's super cool. I think it's super cool. I mean, those who that do that work and invest in themselves, read the rewards. It's that simple.

Peter Bouldenv
0:49:01
I agree.

Steve Jensen
0:49:02
And then I'll add, uh, we always share, you know, Wes and share this, then performance is measured. Performance improves. I'm a huge believer in that. Right. And that's any, anything in our life, right? Like I'm a big endurance racer. And so I've been measuring like the heart. I've been trying to work on my speed for my running. And I've watched as I've gotten faster and faster and faster. Like I never thought last year my goal was, hey, I want to run a like sub six minute mile. And I hit it right at the end of the year. And then now all of a sudden I'm playing around with the sub five minute. Like I watched some Nick Bear videos. I saw that dude run a sub five minute mile. And I'm like, I want to go do that. And so now I'm like flirting with it. And I think the same thing plays over in practice management. I've seen it time and time again, when performance is measured, performance improves. So I think a good reminder to the audience.

Craig Spodak
0:49:44
We're a big advocate to that.

Peter Boulden
0:49:44
I mean, we talk about, you know, that's Pearson's law, right?

Peter Boulden
0:49:47
Yep.

Peter Boulden
0:49:48
I mean, essentially that it's so true. And Craig even gives this example, like, look, just track your weight and inherently-

Craig Spodak
0:49:54
Yeah, if you have a scale, there's a study that shows if you own a scale,

Steve Jensen
0:49:58
you're likely and you have it-

Craig Spodak
0:49:59
Well, you use it every day, Craig. Not on a scale. Even if you own a scale, you're less likely to be,

Peter Boulden
0:50:06
I think that's the thing. No way.

Craig Spodak
0:50:08
Yeah, I mean, well, definitely if you use a scale every day, I mean, obviously you'll see the micro trends. You won't wait till you're like, can't fit into your pants. You'll see the two pounds that are in it.

Steve Jensen
0:50:17
But I like how you look.

Peter Boulden
0:50:18
I think sometimes you can measure anything you want, and let's come full circle with this pod. Sometimes you can get into the minutia and you end up being like, oh, it's too complex. Don't you know. But if there's a takeaway from this, it's like, hey, here's a couple of things that you should do if you're not doing it now, whether using the software or not, because you could actually figure out some of the stuff you talked about without them. Intel, it may take you a little while, but you can do it. You can harvest this data yourself. is start with a couple. If you're doing nothing, start with a couple and just watch how it happens. I mean, I always proclaim to Craig that I look at like five on a daily basis and that's about it. Once one of those gets skewed, then I dig in because that's kind of the canary in the coal mine for me about what something that may be a tell. But in general, like once you get kind of rolling, I think there's a few you can look at that kind of keep you on track. But you gotta be doing something. And to that which is measured is improved. So I got some improvement to make to beat Craig apparently. Just kind of coming for a circle on that mastermind too,

Craig Spodak
0:51:23
the statistical data, it's impressive, but Peter, I wanted to mention to you, we still have a couple of spots open on the mastermind. So selfish plug there. We have a handful of spots at BulletproofMastermind.com. That's BulletproofMastermind.com. A couple spots. It's a one-year commitment. It's awesome. It's basically three different masterminds in one. One of the things I love about Dental Intel is that you guys pair the statistics of how a doctor does with A and B and C hygienist and A and B and C treatment coordinator. And And what I think a missing area in our dental practice industry is that we don't have, you know, the performance together as teams. Because not just some rogue high-performing doctor, some rogue high-performing hygienist, where the rubber meets the road in a truly successful environment is a team approach. And that's what the mastermind is. It's a hygiene mastermind. It's a doctor mastermind and an office manager mastermind, all working separately but simultaneously on fixing the practice. That's why we're getting the results that we're getting. And it's just kind of feels like the same thing that you guys are doing with your software and your approach. So it's really it's really. Yeah. Ultimately, the lift shouldn't come from one person, i.e. the owner. Nothing ever happens when the doctor says, well, I'm going to fix this myself.

Peter Boulden
0:52:44
Like you give up when you have the team rowing the boat with you.

Craig Spodak
0:52:48
Like that, that that that hygiene, that reappointment rate I have no idea if you're gonna say 62 or 92 I had no idea You know just that's that but that's the benefit of having a team you don't have to be the nucleus of everything that goes on Your practice you just set the standard to get out of the way

Peter Boulden
0:53:03
Steve I enjoyed our time today. That was awesome. That was really cool I mean, you really don't something to get updated data I know you know actually was shared with Craig prior to coming on, I was like, man, we've had a lot of dental intel like discussions, I'm hoping for some new stuff, new intel, no pun intended. But you did it, man.

Craig Spodak
0:53:22
It was awesome.

Craig Spodak
0:53:23
Yes, you did, man, yes, you did. I want this, I'd love to have the quarterly update of the dental profession from Steve.

Peter Boulden
0:53:29
The AI, the AI stuff of dental industry. Yeah, you will see it.

Craig Spodak
0:53:35
So the minute you start seeing that consistent dip down, let us know. We don't have to wait like the consumer, the CPI that they only report it quarterly. And they're waiting two consistent quarters. Now we can have like four consistent weeks or six consistent weeks of downturn. Let us know. Yeah, I will. For sure. All right, Steve. Thanks again for your time today, buddy.

Steve Jensen
0:53:52
And we'll see everybody next time. And we'll see everybody next time.

Peter Boulden
0:53:53
I'll be back through this time baby

Transcribed with Cockatoo