Building Community & Career Success: A Conversation with Dr. Paul Goodman of Dental Nachos
Episode Description
Join Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan and Dr. Richard Offutt as they welcome Dr. Paul Goodman, founder of Dental Nachos and Dental Job Connect. Discover how these innovative platforms are helping dentists build community, find career opportunities, and navigate practice transitions while maintaining work-life balance. Learn valuable insights about practice ownership, associate placement, and creating sustainable dental careers.
Episode Navigation
- 00:14 – Introduction to Dr. Paul Goodman
- 00:53 – Dr. Goodman’s journey into dentistry
- 02:02 – Building Dental Nachos community
- 04:19 – Evolution of practice ownership
- 06:42 – Creating Dental Job Connect
- 15:47 – Community building strategies
- 27:35 – Career planning insights
- 41:41 – New graduate perspectives
- 43:34 – Learning from career mistakes
- 45:15 – Tips to simplify dentistry
Key Takeaways
Building Community in Dentistry
- Dental Nachos has grown to over 61,000 members focused on helping dentists learn, laugh, and feel less alone
- Communities provide crucial support for dentists at different career stages
- Facebook groups remain valuable platforms for dental community building
Career Development Insights
- Consider practice transitions and associate hiring earlier in your career
- New graduates seek stability and mentorship over pure production-based compensation
- Rural practices face unique challenges in attracting associates
- Timing of bringing in associates impacts practice transition planning
Meet Our Guest
Featured Expert
Dr. Paul Goodman: Dentist, multiple practice owner, transitions broker, and founder of Dental Nachos and Dental Job Connect. Created a community of over 65,000 dentists and developed innovative platforms for career development and practice transitions. Former general practice resident at Albert Einstein in Philadelphia with extensive experience in practice management and dental education.
Featured Discussion Topics
- Building online dental communities
- Practice transitions strategies
- Associate hiring and placement
- Career development planning
- Work-life balance in dentistry
- Practice management solutions
Connect With Simplify Dentistry
- Website: simplifydds.com
- Facebook: Simplify Dentistry Community
Topics: dental community, practice transitions, associate placement, dental career development, practice management, dental consulting, dental job market, dental practice ownership, dental mentorship, practice growth
Transcript
00:02
Intro
Welcome to the Simplify Dentistry Podcast. Join us as we discuss clinical, operational and financial aspects of your practice, help you enjoy life, and dare to simplify dentistry.
00:14
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Welcome back to the Simplify Dentistry podcast. I’m Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan along with Dr. Richard Offutt. We’d like to welcome today’s guest, Dr. Paul Goodman. Dr. Goodman is a dentist, multiple practice, owner, transitions, broker and founder of both Dental Nachos and Dental Job Connect. Dental Nachos is a community of over 65,000 dentists and dental Job Connect is a platform and service for dentists looking for associateships and practice owners and group practices looking to hire. Welcome, Paul. Thanks for being with us today. You’ve done a ton with Dental Nachos and all of your stuff in the industry. Tell us a little bit about your journey.
00:53
Dr. Paul Goodman
Well, it all starts as well documented. I my failed dreams of playing professional basketball. I hold this ball to remind myself that my dream was to play professional basketball. But my parents lied to me. Not all dreams do come true because you grow to this size, you have this speed, you got to get new dreams. I say that as a joke because growing up, that was what I wanted to do. Play for the Philadelphia 76ers. They’re having a brutal year, but not the Eagles. I’m wearing their color here. Great year. Great year for the Eagles. So I was, you know, growing up in the 90s, I wanted to be a dentist, doctor, a lawyer. My dad was a dentist. He loved owning his own business. I love that he had the flexibility and freedom to coach sports.
01:28
Dr. Paul Goodman
And kind of when he went home at 5 o’clock, he was done for the day. We can talk about how my dad’s version of being a 45 year old Dennis is much different than when I was a 45 year old Dennis or my brother. But I like George Clooney from A Few Good Men. I’m sorry, George Clooney from er, Tom Cruise from A Few Good Men. As an attorney or my dad the dentist. Thrilled that I followed my dad’s footsteps. We worked together for 11 years before he passed away. Amazing dad, amazing dentist. He allowed me to do what I wanted to do with the business. He was not someone who really wanted to grow the business beyond him and his partner in Pennington, New Jersey. But we acquired a second practice.
02:02
Dr. Paul Goodman
He supported me with marketing to practice, supported me with bringing in specialists. I’m a big collaborative person. I think dentistry can be very lonely. That’s kind of the mission of dental nachos. To help Dennis learn, laugh, and feel less alone. So I did a multiple year general practice residency I think was one of the best decisions that I made. And you’ll ask me about some not so great decisions, so I’ll be happy to share. But one of the best decisions I made was doing a multiple year general practice residency. And many people say, oh, your dad was a dentist. Why didn’t you just go practice with your dad? And I elect your office here too. Residencies in dentistry are magical. No matter which one you do, you get to follow around bigger, stronger dentists. You get to get outside your comfort zone with support.
02:40
Dr. Paul Goodman
So I did a general practice residency at Albert Einstein in Philadelphia. Love being part of the hospital system. Learned a lot about leadership. I got to place and restore 150 implants. A lot of I thought this was like a gross thing to say. Can we just say this in this podcast?
02:55
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Sure.
02:56
Dr. Paul Goodman
Wet finger dentist. Why did we have to describe it that way? Right. Just kind of a gross thing. Right. So I do want to share that I didn’t pop out of Facebook Cabbage patch land in 2017. I had a real life prior to that. So I was practicing as a dentist. My dad bought a second practice. My brother joined us in 2008. We incorporated specialists into our practice, like endodontist, periodontist, orthodontist, to do more in one place. We still did traditional referral for other cases, but I enjoyed. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with this store company, Best Buy, but Best Buy was very popular in New Jersey. And I loved as a business person, I was always into business. My real dream probably would have been like to be Michael Eisner from Disney. Do you remember that guy?
03:41
Dr. Paul Goodman
I was very enthralled with his life. We went to Disney World as a kid all the time. Loved the service, everything. So at Best Buy, I was like, man, you got like a 16 year old buying a CD. I’m old enough for CDs. You got a college kid buying a computer, you got a business person buying a flat screen tv. When that was a big deal back then, I said how cool it was that this one place Best Buy offered all of these things. So I strive to do more of that in our dental practice, which you know of it. What dentists, what dentists hate more than the dentist leaving the place they go to another dentist. And I say this with care. We refer people out for complicated wisdom teeth extractions.
04:19
Dr. Paul Goodman
We don’t have an orthodontist now, but if anyone was listening, I think the more that you can offer your Patient responsibly, the more you can grow your practice. So I was doing that teaching for an implant company, looking to acquire more practices. 2017, I started this Facebook group. Most good ideas come from your wife. So I was sitting at our kitchen table. I was like, I’m pretty opinionated. So I try to do it in a kind way, but I like sharing my own ideas. So I said, oh, I’m sharing on all these other groups, but maybe I should start my own group. I can say exactly what I want. I want it to be about implants, practice management, and being a friendlier place in the dental world. So dental nachos grew out of that. The metaphor is, nachos are meant to be shared.
04:58
Dr. Paul Goodman
They get a little messy. There’s a famous comedian who said, you would fight your grandmother for the last chip on the nacho plate. Right. So nachos are. And then also, I’m a broker, I’m a speaker, I’m a dentist. And even though this seems like the olden days, back in the day, people were just posting pictures of their nachos on the group, which had this magical impact of being fun and sticky and. And people saying, I like those nachos. I don’t know if you could agree with me, Dennis could be overly serious. Would you agree?
05:27
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
At times, I think that’s 100% true. And they take themselves way too serious. Yeah.
05:32
Dr. Paul Goodman
So at the end of my dad’s life, when I was able to talk about him, I said, my dad was a person who took helping people seriously, but never took himself too seriously. So I’ve tried to carry that on. So I think dentistry could use a little more fun. But in this marketing magic, which I didn’t know at the time. Cause I truly love nachos, worked at a Mexican restaurant, eat at Mexican food all the time. I love it. They are the golden retriever puppies of appetizers. People stop and want to look at them. And a funny story that was like, early on in this thing, my. I’d be walking around Philadelphia, My phone would go off, and I would see a picture and be my friend.
06:06
Dr. Paul Goodman
And they go, paul, I just want to let you know, I’m eating nachos, but I don’t think they’re worthy to post on the group. And I said, oh, all nachos are good for the group. So that was the start to that. I never knew it would turn into a business. I never knew it would turn into what it’s turned into. What you can ask me about now, we have over 61,000 members. I was so lucky to meet some great people along the way. That helped me turn it into a real business. I will share startup dental practices. They have blueprints. You can literally buy a book that says, get these number of operatories, spend this on marketing, hire this team, you acquire dental practice. I’ve acquired multiple dental practices. There is a recipe for what to do.
06:42
Dr. Paul Goodman
Connect with the patients, send them letters, bring them in, and be nice to them. There is no blueprint for starting a company named after an appetizer. So that journey has been fun, frustrating, filled with awesomeness, anxiety. So that’s how nachos came to be.
06:58
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
You know, it’s interesting you say this. You know, Dr. Often and I have been business partners in some other things where we’ve started a national group purchasing organization. And like I said, there’s no blueprint from that. You start figuring it out. You think you’re going east, and then all of a sudden you’re like, oh, no, we got to go northwest, you know, because it just. And you have to be able to pivot. And I think that’s where communities are. And like you said, you know, when you started nachos, you never thought of what it was going to be and how to get there. You know, kind of. How has it changed since you’ve started it?
07:29
Dr. Paul Goodman
It’s a really good question. I mean, it was really new to be part of Facebook groups in 20, 17, 18, 19, and 20, and now they’ve become more popular in some ways saturated throughout the dental community. Some of this is good, Some of this is a challenge for getting attention inside of social media. Dental nachos. Even though we’re known for our Facebook group, we are also present on Instagram. I’ve proudly built a 7,000 member text audience, an email audience. So I think one of the things that have changed is Facebook groups haven’t become as rare. So being parts of them, your attention can be divided and you’re not spending as much time in these places. I do share with the younger dentists. I actually made this comment this weekend. I text out my audience. I said, I know many.
08:17
Dr. Paul Goodman
I texted people ages like 25 to 30 D4s. I said, I know you think Facebook is for old people, but you know what’s not for old people? Having a job that doesn’t make you want to cry inside. Join our dentist job Connect Facebook group. So I think what’s changed is that it’s actually hard to get newer dentists to be part of Facebook communities. And I’m a big fan of this guy, Gary Vee. I don’t care about Facebook. I don’t care about LinkedIn. I don’t care about Instagram. I just care about great communities where people can share. But I will share that Facebook is one of the few places that really lends itself to group discussion, sharing, commenting back. So even if you’re a young dentist, don’t think Facebook is just for older people.
08:59
Dr. Paul Goodman
One of the nicest things that get sent to me is Paul, I’m only on Facebook for dental nachos and dental clinical pearls, which was started by my friend, only on Facebook for dental nachos and dentistry in general. So I encourage people out there, start your Facebook account even. Even if it’s just to be part of Facebook groups just like yours, that you’re growing too, because there’s just magic being shared inside these groups.
09:21
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah, I mean, I, I think you’re. I think you’re right. You know, basically you look at the platform. No platform lends itself to more discussions and discussion that stays out there. I don’t think Instagram does it. I think Facebook does a really good job of it, which I think is. Is helpful.
09:37
Dr. Richard Offutt
Yeah. I mean, I look at it kind of in a funny way too, is that I was not a Facebook guy, you know, and then I only did it for dentistry. And so to your point, Paul, I think that’s absolutely spot on, is that, you know, is that it creates quite a forum for sharing, and that’s pretty rare, actually, especially when dentists are mostly siloed. Can be kind of a lonely deal, as you said. And I think it does provide the community that you’ve done an awesome job with it. I mean, you’ve grown. Makes me come to this thing of, you know, you’ve done so much with it. You’ve run tangentially to it on a lot of different things. And, you know, it’s almost like Dr. Shakhan and I were talking earlier.
10:29
Dr. Richard Offutt
It’s like, I wonder what he’s going to do next, you know, what’s the next game? So. So, so what? Talk to us a little bit about your. The dental.
10:36
Dr. Paul Goodman
Yeah. So I say this in a fun way, right. And I know I’m a whole thing. Not everyone has loved everything about dental nachos, to use a pun. They’ve called it cheesy. Some people think, oh, you know, Dennis shouldn’t be, like, so jokey and things like that. So I’ve had detractors over the years, okay. People said, I don’t like what you’re doing, you’re too your baby new dentist. They should get out there and have to grow, eat what they kill and hunt PPO class twos, right? And that is their right. They’re all free communities, right? I always tell people, you can’t complain about free. You come to Philadelphia and they’re passing out soft pretzels at Rittenhouse Square park or Free park and you don’t want one. Just walk by and not take one. Don’t, don’t yell at the person passing out.
11:18
Dr. Paul Goodman
So I respect people’s control of their scroll. But what has been funny is some people have been detractors. Came over to me when I started Dennis Job Connect and say, oh, Paul, I need one of those associates. And I say, oh, yeah, who it is? Oh, now look at it. Because.
11:35
Dr. Richard Offutt
So actually you like the damn pretzel.
11:37
Dr. Paul Goodman
Yeah. I’m not a political person, but I will share. As a dad of a ten and a six year old, I could have people that I disagree with politically, but if they had a babysitter that could help me with my kids, I say, oh, I’d like to.
11:50
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah, bring it on.
11:51
Dr. Paul Goodman
So I say this in a fun way. Associate dentists unlock more freedom, free time, fewer hygiene checks. When I started Dentist Job Connect, it just became one of the most popular toppings that I turned it into its own company. It’s got its own team. I also am someone, you know, you were specialist, which is awesome. I always, I give lectures a lot and I say, us general dentists, we have a tough job. We’re running like a diner. You ever go to a diner at 10pm and you want to order a full on turkey dinner and they make it, and your friend next to you is ordering a Greek salad and they make it. And then the next person next to orders a milkshake and they make it. If you ever stop to think how hard it must be to run a diner, right?
12:27
Dr. Paul Goodman
When you go to an Italian restaurant, they just make the chicken parm. And I’ve described that with specialists, right? An endodontist is just doing endo. An oral surgery is focused on this. So Dennis Job Connect is my specialty thing because I’ve always been jealous that specialists can just have to worry about one thing, right? Like if you’re an endodontist and you say, hey, guess what? Like my, you know, upper bridge is bothering me, they say, hey, guess what? You can go back to your, you know, general dentist about that.
12:53
Dr. Richard Offutt
That’s right. That’s right. I think it leaks. Go on back yeah, yeah, Right, Yeah.
12:57
Dr. Paul Goodman
Oh, you place a bunch of implants and someone goes, my dentures rubbing. Oh, your general dentist can take care.
13:02
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
That’s right. He’s got that for you.
13:03
Dr. Richard Offutt
Speak. Speaking of endo, when you were at Einstein, did you happen to run across the amazing Fred Barnett?
13:08
Dr. Paul Goodman
Oh, yeah, he’s awesome. Him and I are close. Lamar Hicks was there when he was prior to Barnett. So Barnett is an amazing educator. Known many of his residents throughout the years. They have run a fantastic.
13:18
Dr. Richard Offutt
Dr. Barnett and I were classmates at Penny.
13:21
Dr. Paul Goodman
I always say that Einstein, Albert Einstein, Philadelphia represents the best part of dentistry. There’s nine general practice residents practicing shoulder to shoulder with four endo residents and six ortho residents. And the things that happen on that floor are just so great. Right?
13:36
Dr. Richard Offutt
So the clinics, I mean, the clinical stuff is just incredible. Yeah, well, it comes out, you know, you get outside of Philly and you start talking about Albert Einstein and it just goes right over the top of people’s heads. They have no idea really is.
13:53
Dr. Paul Goodman
So I to myself, Dennis, job connect sells one thing. We sell a flat fee associate placement that is much less expensive than a recruiter. It could be more expensive than indeed, depending how you use the indeed of the world. I use indeed to the world. And sometimes you’re paying 300 bucks a month, but you pay it for 10 months. And we can help someone looking to hire their first associate so they can spend more time doing what they want. Like my friend Dr. Mitchell Rubenstein. You can help hire, you know, your fifth associate. Like my friend Dr. Rash in Missouri is building a group. We can help large practices. We can help DSOs with this one thing. There’s no cost to the job seeker. There’s a flat fee to the practice owner.
14:33
Dr. Paul Goodman
And I had a tremendous amount of fun building it because finding jobs and getting jobs is name of the whole game of being successful. Can’t prep a crown if you don’t have a job. You can’t take time off your practice if you don’t have an associate. So I really am proud of the impact we’re making on real people’s lives. And it’s kind of like the total difference, right? It’s like you got a 55 year old owner who’s like, I just want to take two days off. I don’t care if I make less money. Right. And then you got a 27 year old with $500,000 in debt. Like, I just want a job that doesn’t make me want to cry inside. And to use a dental Term we’re bonding these two together. So that is dentist job connect.
15:08
Dr. Paul Goodman
And just really enjoying growing that with my small team and hopefully creating something that’s truly profession changing. Might not a opportunity for the profession that’s never been there before. Because I often describe finding a job in dentistry as like from the Oregon Trail days. That was the first video game I played as a kid. So I believe that we are way behind the times when it comes to finding jobs after our programs.
15:33
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah. You know, you mentioned you. You guys built del nachos into 61,000 people. I mean, it’s fantastic. Yeah. And I think there is the aspect of building community where you’re giving back to people.
15:47
Dr. Paul Goodman
You know, you’re.
15:47
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
You’re learning from the mistakes that you’ve made. And that’s kind of what we’ve talked about. You know, interesting thing. Your team has been really great with us. You know, I’ve talked to Lindsey a few times, and she shared a lot of insights. I think. One thing I’d like to mention. Yeah. I mean, she. We’ve had a long relationship with Kettenbach, you know, and I think Kettenbach is a great company. We’ve known Ryan Moore forever. Yeah, he’s his wife. His wife was a, A, A golf pro at Club in Charlotte a long time ago. And, you know, I think Kettenbach’s a fantastic company. I’ve used them with Futar. I’ve used them with other things. And they said, I guess, what do you use Kettenbach with him?
16:23
Dr. Paul Goodman
I mean, I’ve always loved their. I’ve. I can always sense when a patient’s annoyed. So alginate was always, to me, annoying because if you didn’t pour it up or the model broke, it’ll bring the patient back. So the gateway Kettenbach product I used for years was Siljonaut, which was an alternative. And then our practice has used a lot of their impression lines. They’ve used their core buildup material.
16:43
Dr. Richard Offutt
Really?
16:43
Dr. Paul Goodman
They make great stuff.
16:44
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah, I think they really do. You know, you’ve. You wear a lot of hats, you know, from seed, coaching, practice, sales. You know, what. What is the hat that you feel like you’re wearing the most right now? Is it dental job connect or. Or do you just keep changing hats every day?
16:59
Dr. Paul Goodman
Well, it’s a great question. And, you know, I want to share that the way I am. You know, there’s good points and challenging points to personalities like mine. Right. I can be, have incredible amount of energy. I think I could do Anything. But I also could go from what I call what’s the difference between passion and obsession? Right. There’s probably like a little line there. Oh, I’m so passionate about being the best dentist I could be. I take C every weekend. I never see my family. Now I’m obsessed. Right. So what I’ll share is my passion is growing teams, building things, really enjoying this entrepreneur life. I describe Dental nachos and Dentist Job Connect. Like my two children, they’re awesome and exhausting. Right now, Dennis Job Connect needs the most amount of attention from me, just like my 10 and 6 year old.
17:44
Dr. Paul Goodman
Because Dennis Dental Nachos has been a company since 2018. We grow through our sponsorships. I don’t. I know I did invent this, so I’m not going to be as arrogant to say I invented this, but I was one of the pioneers of companies sponsoring online communities. Right? Online communities. So now when people say, I just got two messages over the weekend. Oh, we want to know how we can sponsor you. I was having to explain in 2018 why these companies would want to be online in these dental communities. So Dennis Dental Nachos is a little more mature, stable place. Dentist Job Connect is growing, so I put more attention there. But I come to this place with my 10 to 15 team members. We run both out of the same location. So I would just like parenting.
18:26
Dr. Paul Goodman
It’s like asking, who do you pay more attention to? Probably the child that is needs the most help.
18:31
Dr. Richard Offutt
The child that needs it. Right. Child that needs it. So doing that, which hat fits best?
18:37
Dr. Paul Goodman
I mean, Dental nachos is to me, I mean, I have like a lot of dreams and things I want to do. To me, Dental Nachos is the giant community that has spawned things like Super Dentist Boost Camp, which is we bring practice owners around the country and teach them Dentist Job Connect things with selling and buying and selling practices. So Dental Notches is still this community that has catalyzed other companies to develop. So it’s not more important to me. I see Dennis Job Connect as this awesome company that’s doing this very specific thing that it could grow, hopefully scale doesn’t mean I need to sell it next week. Everyone, everyone says, what’s your exit strategy? I’m like, I don’t know, not crying every day. Is that an exit strateg? Right?
19:18
Dr. Paul Goodman
So like, but to answer your question, I see Dental nachos as this like incubator to some degree of all these awesome things that I could hopefully create for the dental profession. That really is what drives Me?
19:32
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah. And, yeah. When we started Simplify, you know, kind of our goal in this was very similar to you. You know, people were always like, so what’s the end game? What are you going to do with it? And I was like, we don’t know. You know, we just want to build a community. We want to give back, we want to contribute. And you want to build this collection of people who interact with each other, then you can figure out what to do with it. You know, I mean, there’s always something that you can do with it, but I think having the resource of that to be able to feed other things into, you know, to be able to spurn other things off is what we’ve looked at.
20:01
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah, I like the dental Nacho’s mission to dramatically increase the success and happiness at every age and stage of your dental career and being a trusted resource to guide you through your dental career. You know, I think that resonates. But, you know, how do you.
20:19
Dr. Richard Offutt
I actually think that’s. That’s big. We were talking about it. I think that’s babies.
20:22
Dr. Paul Goodman
It’s.
20:22
Dr. Richard Offutt
It makes a. It’s a big tent.
20:24
Dr. Paul Goodman
Yeah, that’s.
20:25
Dr. Richard Offutt
It’s a big tent. So there’s room in that tent for almost everybody, right?
20:30
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah, it’s.
20:31
Dr. Richard Offutt
At some point in time.
20:31
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
And I think when you started in 17, you know, the tent could be huge and you could have everybody in it. You know, when we first started Simplify several months ago, you know, we had a broad plan, you know, where we’re doing all these things. I think we’re finding that it’s a. It’s a different stage. So now you have to kind of find your niche, you know, where do you fit in? You know, you know, we can’t be del Nachos. We can’t be nifty thrifty. You know, you. And, you and Glenn have figured that one out, you know, So I always.
20:58
Dr. Paul Goodman
Say, though, you know, it’s. You know, I myself am still a dentist, right? I still go to my office twice a month. I don’t. I am lucky to have extracted, pun intended, myself from the wet finger dentistry, which we’re not going to say. Okay. But I am still 5050 practice owner with my brother. I’m still involved. And are we hiring this person? Right. Not as it used to be. And I myself am like the person learning from these communities, like the nifty thrifties and the dentistry and generals in your communities. And there’s no. There’s always room for great communities to help us. Right. I mean, the more niches that we have, the less people can be confused. I mean, there’s groups that are just for moms, there’s groups that are just for dentists. There’s groups that are just for team members.
21:39
Dr. Paul Goodman
So I’m totally with you. And I actually think that dental nachos is like this fun giant circus where people find out about a lot of things, learn about products, meet people, but then they can find their niche inside of dentistry, where, you know, whether it’s a Facebook community, whether it’s another type of platform, and I love being part of that. You know, there’s. It’s. It’s like you said, exactly. It’s a big tent. But just like people go through these ages and stages, we talk about finding your first job, buying your first practice, hiring your first associate, and selling that practice. And we want to be a resource for those four big decisions. Yeah.
22:09
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
And I’m going to ask you a couple questions based on that. So let’s talk about how does nachos help a doc who’s been out for five years?
22:17
Dr. Paul Goodman
So docs have been out for five years. Most of them. I always say, live your life in the most. Right. Dental implants. I’ll just. Sidebar for a second. Dental implants are one of the most successful things you could sell to another human being. Okay, you don’t have a tooth. And then we put in this titanium root and we build a tooth on it, and most of the time it goes awesome. We know what Dennis say. One time in band camp, I saw peri implantitis and the implant fell out. Cool. Just fix that implant. Right? I challenge every dentist to go back to their office tomorrow and look at every full mouth series that comes through their office in a day.
22:52
Dr. Paul Goodman
And they’re going to see so many implants and count how many implants need any actual intervention where you have to actually do something to fix it. It’s very few. But what I’ll share is live your life in the most, not the lightning. Be aware of challenges, be aware of risks. I’ll tell you about one of my transition mistakes, but back to what you asked. Five years out. Most dentists five years out are evaluating whether they want to become a dental practice owner. If they want to buy a practice or start a practice, it’s the biggest decision of their career. And. And that’s where we show up the most. Whether it’s with advisors, podcasts, resources, ce. We have a ton of Free content where they can meet. I always talk about your transition team.
23:33
Dr. Paul Goodman
To buy a practice, you’re going to need a bank to give you money, right? You know, sometimes guys, people kind of can be negative about dentistry, right? Like, oh, you know, it’s a too much debt. Insurance is difficult. I agree with all of those things, right? But you know who makes me feel good? The banks make me feel good. They’re like your mom, who would lend somebody $750,000 who’s already $500,000 in debt. Think about that for a second. Someone came up to you guys after this podcast and say, hey, I would like 3/4 of a million dollars. You’re like, okay, fine. How much are you already in debt? Would you want to give them that money? You would not. But banks sign up all day to give Dennis this money. Now, there is more than meets the eye to this.
24:16
Dr. Paul Goodman
And when you buy a practice or work with the bank, you should have good advisors. But, like, I think that’s a positive thing. That dental practices tend to work out well enough not to go out of business. So we show up really strong for dentist in making that decision not to get blindsided. If you want me to lob in one of my mistakes, working with a dual rep broker was one of the biggest mistakes I made. It was in 2011. I didn’t know that you were supposed to ask certain questions. It was totally my responsibility, but I totally didn’t have the resources to say, hey, this broker doesn’t have your best interest in mind. I think if I calculate that mistake, it’s over $100,000 in my career and more than that, some my morale.
24:54
Dr. Paul Goodman
So I try to help people avoid those mistakes, like working with a dual rep broker, getting people on your side, that’s the biggest place where we show up. Because buying a practice is not like it was 20 years ago. There are associates making $350,000 a year working four days a week. Maybe they don’t want to be practice owners. There’s also people who think DSOs are buying all the best practices, and that’s also not true. They’re buying some of the best practices. So we try to provide responsible information, but have them make the best decision for them, just like a treatment plan.
25:24
Dr. Richard Offutt
So then forward that to the next. The next demographic. So you’ve got a doc, he’s out. He owns a practice. He’s been there 10 years. Now he’s got a practice. He’s not unlike the situation you described for yourself when you Went in with your dad, you’d been there 10, 11 years, got to practice with your dad, then all of a sudden you go, okay, are we going to buy that second practice? Are we going to bring in my brother? You know, I love that.
25:48
Dr. Paul Goodman
I’m a big Hamilton, I’m a big Hamilton fan. I don’t know if you’ve seen the play, but the king in Hamilton has that song. What comes next, like after, you know, America won the revolution. Hey guys, what are you going to do next? How hard is it going to lead this country? So I think it’s the next, you know, is it hiring an associate dentist and growing? Is it staying as a solo practice owner? I think one of the challenges is the cool part of being a solo business owner in dentistry eventually becomes very stressful initially when you leave your associate job and you get to make all the decisions and you’re making more money at some point and you’re leading your practice, I think it become monotonous.
26:22
Dr. Paul Goodman
One of my friends, Paul Etchinson, who’s an amazing dentist and coach, grew his practice from like 2 to 6 million dollars with associates and teaches people how to do this. And we talked about inside and outside the operatory stress. So what I’ll share is the 10 year dentist out probably has way more outside the operatory stress than inside the operatory stress. I mean one of the. My dad did tell me this at one point, I want to drop out of dental school. I was like, I don’t know if this is for me dad. I don’t like all the waxing stuff. He’s like, I just want, you know, one day dentistry will be the easy part. It’s going to be all the other stuff. And I think that’s that 10 year dentist, right?
26:54
Dr. Paul Goodman
And I think dentist also, to use a popular term, get a little gaslit at that stage they go, look at you. You make more than most people. You have your own business, aren’t you happy? And you’re like, well, my assistant just quit. I can’t find a hygienist. Someone’s complaining about their insurance. So I think that is that are you going to expand and grow? Are you going to hire associate dentist? And that’s where we help them see the upsides and downsides. Just like informed consent of that. I think I do. If we jump a little, we’ll come back. But I give these lectures on what to do at the end of your career. Who I’m close with, said my biggest regret was practicing alone my whole career because I Never had an associate because it’s not like I didn’t like my job.
27:35
Dr. Paul Goodman
But if I could go back, I would have wanted to hire an associate and have someone work with me. I think, to be honest, it’s a big loneliness factor. Right. I don’t know what you guys like, but like the assistants have each other, the hygienists have each other, the front desk has each other. But if you’re the solo dentist, male.
27:49
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Or female, you’re on an island.
27:52
Dr. Paul Goodman
Yeah, it’s you. So that’s where the ten year dentist, I would say what we, you know.
27:56
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Now I would say that takes us to the next thing. So I’m the guy, I’m the 20 year dentist, I’m solo, I’ve been solo. You know, I’ve had all the success that you had as a solo practitioner. You grow the practice, whatever. It’s a million and a half dollar practice, five ops, whatever. What’s next? You know, I would say, how does nachos help them? What?
28:15
Dr. Paul Goodman
No, I’ll, I, I’m a good, like, question. Like putting things into two different buckets, right. So I would say to you, hey, you’ve been practicing for 20 years, you have an awesome practice, you’re satisfied or happy with your income over the next 10 years. Is it more important for you to make as much money as possible or have the most freedom of your time as possible? And you can only pick one and that’s your next. If it’s to make as most money as possible, keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t hire an associate.
28:41
Dr. Paul Goodman
Solo practice owners, pound for pound, like a boxer, can make a lot of money and they have to do all of the dentistry and they might not be able to take off because their assistant’s out of pto, and they might not be able to be at their child’s game because that’s their late night for hygiene. If your most important thing is to have more freedom of time, I’d say how can you incorporate another dentist into your life, full or part time, to create more, I always say the Fs, you know, free time, flexibility over your schedule, and most of all, fewer hygiene checks.
29:11
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
So do you get the. Do the nacho community, does the nacho community ask you these questions too?
29:16
Dr. Paul Goodman
Oh, yeah, all the time. I mean, one of the things interesting about dentists, you could say is like, we’re so proactive with our patients. Right? Take, I mean, amazingly proactive. Full mouth series X ray. I mean, pictures, models, perio this. But we’re often reactive with our own careers. Right. Like, you know, one of my greatest relationships with Dr. Mark Kost, this amazing friend, mentor, sponsor my group. And, like, I’m part of the Dental Success Institute, and they talk about once you pass this number of exams per month, you should hire an associate dentist. And that number’s, like, way lower than most solo practice owners think. It’s like 140. And some are doing, like, 200 plus exams a month.
29:56
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Sure.
29:57
Dr. Paul Goodman
So there’s metrics to this, too. So that’s what I’d basically ask you.
30:00
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah. Cause I think. I think you always think about it. You’re like, okay, I have to be so full that I don’t know what to do with myself. You know, I’ve got to be booked out for three months to get a crown done, you know, before I’m gonna bring an associate in. I mean, is that. That’s.
30:14
Dr. Paul Goodman
Well, I love what you’re talking about. That’s wrong and normal. Right. There’s many things that are normal and wrong. Right. I’ve been exercising my whole life. The exercises that we did in the 80s were normal and wrong. Right. You had people just doing bench press and bicep curls, doing no core activity or legs. We found that’s wrong. So who you should have on your podcast, Marcos is amazing, but Summer Kazmiel is one of his DSI coaches, and she talks about redlining and why do you wait until. I love how you put it. Why you wait till you’re so full to get help? Because you know what happens when you get help when you’re redlining or so full you have no time to mentor. That energy is frenetic and chaotic. And now you want to bring in an associate dentist into your mess.
30:52
Dr. Paul Goodman
They don’t want to be there. So be more proactive and bring in somebody for help before you get to that red line stage.
31:00
Dr. Richard Offutt
You know, it’s interesting that you say that, because I was of Dr. Chican and I talk a good bit, probably more than we should. And. And the thing is one of the things I’ve. I’ve always told him is that I felt that I practiced solo for too long. You know, I practiced. I had a long time. And. And when I finished, I had, you know, multiple offices, multiple doctors. It was great. And I wish I had done that much earlier in my career. To the point that you’re making.
31:28
Dr. Paul Goodman
What made you. I always say my. Sometimes my officer manager has this disease. I call it rtc. Itis Resistance to change. Itis. Right. So I bring her an id. I say, this is going to be great. Like outsourcing insurance, billing. What was your resistance to doing it sooner?
31:42
Dr. Richard Offutt
Like, I think it was. I think I feared a financial risk. Right? I mean, I was cruising along, you know, I had four kids, all in private schools. You know, it was. I was living a great life. And I just said, you know, why mess this up? You know, just keep cruising. But what I should have done was been more proactive in growing the multi office, multi doctor thing at a much earlier age is what I should have done.
32:10
Dr. Paul Goodman
And I love what you’re sharing because I asked. I do a lot of polls. I’m known for all these surveys of asking questions. I just did one this weekend. It’s like, would you rather work the same this year and make 10% less or work like 10% more and make 20% more? And everyone picked same and 10% less. Right. Like it was like nine out of 10. So, like, we fear sometimes these financial risks, which are totally normal. I would fear them too. But we just need someone from outside of our box to kind of help us and, you know, try to find a dentist who’s hired an associate who regrets doing it. I challenge you to try to find it. And they say the same things. You’re driver. I should have done it sooner.
32:43
Dr. Richard Offutt
Absolutely.
32:44
Dr. Paul Goodman
Yeah.
32:44
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
And I guess you just feel like you don’t want to give away your practice or give away your production or whatever it is.
32:52
Dr. Richard Offutt
There’s a big chunk of that, right? I mean, you do that is the goal is to give, get some of the work off of your back.
32:58
Dr. Paul Goodman
And I also think, and I say this lovingly to my dental community, you guys too. We’re a little dramatic with that whole thing. Give away part of my baby. This is my baby. Like, you see these doctors working these amazing teams and all this stuff. Big older. They said, like, we’re like a little dramatic with less. Like, I mean, I just got someone to sign up for Job Connect this week. Who at the meeting, she’s so great. Her and her Hudson. They’re awesome. Like, say their name. I love them. They go, I don’t know if we can have anyone else, like, work with our baby. I’m like, can you stop saying it that way? Right? Like, it’s just an office that does fillings and crowns. Like, you’re showing yourself to be like kind of an unhinged business owner to describe it that way.
33:36
Dr. Paul Goodman
And now they’re going to hire one, you know, so, like, I don’t Know why we describe it that way?
33:42
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
You know, Dennis also think, you know, and I’m guilty of it too. You think everybody there wants to see you, they only want to see you, they only want to be with you. They only want you to treat them. But you know, you find if you empower somebody, you know, people are going to see the other guy, you know, they’re going to see the other girl.
33:57
Dr. Richard Offutt
You’re sitting there thinking, okay, I want to do all the periodontics in the greater Charlotte area. Well, that’s a stupid thought, right? That’s just totally a stupid thought. All I need, all I need is a certain amount, right? You don’t need all.
34:09
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah.
34:10
Dr. Richard Offutt
And yet when we’re sitting here in our own little silos and you know, we have a couple of hygienists, couple of dental assistants, office manager or somebody doing insurance, you’re going, yeah, here in my world, I want it all.
34:22
Dr. Paul Goodman
Yeah, right, it’s, and I’ll add to this, it’s if someone’s acquired a practice and they say that, which is normal, they are inaccurate in saying that. Do you want to know why? Because they acquired a practice from another dentist who only saw the other dentist. So now they’re seeing them. So maybe they could get past it. I don’t like to tell people to get over it soon, but maybe they could get past that. Objection. Because if they purchased a practice from a 60 year old dentist at age of 33, every one of those patients had to see them as a new dentist. And the world kept on spinning. And what they find actually is associate brings a new energy to the office. Some of the patients like to see you. So I hope this podcast least inspires people to think about that sooner.
35:04
Dr. Richard Offutt
I think so. A good conversation.
35:06
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah. And you know, so Dennis Job connect, same kind of thing. When we’re talking about the five year tenure and I think you touched on it, you know, what does Dennis Job Connect bring to the five year guy? Five year guy girl helps them find a job, I guess is kind of what it is. The ten year. Now you’re looking at, you’re trying to position yourself to do whatever you want to do in your career and now it helps you find an associate, I would guess. So what does it do for the 20 year.
35:31
Dr. Paul Goodman
What it does for them is it gives them an opportunity to test the market as to who might want to work with them. How attractive is their position and is it better to bring on an associate or grow or think about selling your practice. This is a really good part to the conversation. Some dentists, through enthusiasm, mess up big career decisions. So let’s just say you have a $1.6 million practice and you’re an older dentist or you’ve been doing it for a while and you say, now I want to bring in an associate dentist. But if you’re calling me old, but not you, no, not all. I’m 20 years in, I’m the same, I’m 47. But bringing in an associate dentist with plans of selling your practice in the near future can actually disrupt the goodwill.
36:15
Dr. Paul Goodman
It can cause a problem for a new buyer. So it’s where I tell people to kind of take a time out. Dentist Job Connect can definitely help you see if you want an associate dentist to work with you. But maybe you want to have an ad that talks about a buy in potential. Maybe you want to switch seats with that dentist. Maybe you bring in someone two days a week at 1.6 or 1.8 million, they work with you for two years, and then you sell the practice to them, and then you work for them for two years. So I think it gives them some good career planning advice. And then I am someone who’s lived in Philadelphia, lived in New Jersey. I’ve never lived in a rural location. I love being near my family.
36:50
Dr. Paul Goodman
But there are some gems out there of practices where there are not enough dentists. And these dentists are seeing doing very well financially, but they can’t find an associate dentist to take over their practice, can’t find an associate dentist to work with them. So for a pretty reasonable fee, we give you an opportunity to kind of see how attractive is your area for another dentist to come to. I think that’s the biggest shift in dentistry, if you ask me. Back in the olden days, in my dad’s generation, I think people went back to where they lived and became a dentist. And now the demographic and dynamic of dental young dentist is awesome. But getting them to move to a new location where they don’t know anybody, that’s a big ask. And there’s rural locations that are struggling.
37:32
Dr. Paul Goodman
But if you find the magic wand, we do it through job Connect. Well, now you have somebody in your town. So that is what I would say we’d offer to you, an opportunity for some career planning.
37:41
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah, you know, I think your point is very valid because, you know, I think about it as, you know, do you just want to kind of cruise along or sell? Bringing an associate in, you know, I’d never Thought about it disrupting the sale process. So let’s say you do bring another associate in. Are you bringing an associate in? Do you have to go down the path you were talking about having a buy sell or something like that.
38:03
Dr. Richard Offutt
It’s just a discordant element that you’re introducing, right? You’re bringing in something that creates noise.
38:09
Dr. Paul Goodman
It’s. Yeah, it’s not a right, you’re perfect. It’s not a, it’s not a deal breaker. We’ve sold practices with associate dentists who’ve stayed on, who haven’t. It’s just that if you’ve been doing something for 25 years and then you only want to. I always say this the last day you want to drill in a tooth. It’s a very good question. Many of them say I don’t know and that’s a terrible answer. So if you said, let’s just say I’m Paul, the 47 year old dentist who never did any of this stuff with dental notches and you asked me, I’d say I could see myself doing this till I’m 57 years old, but I would like to make a plan within the next 10 years that I don’t have to drill on a tooth after 57. That’s answer.
38:41
Dr. Paul Goodman
When you talk to some of these dentists, they say, I don’t know. Or even worse yesterday, like you said, if you introduce this associate dynamic, you could disrupt the whole process. That’s why people need, I always say, get people outside of your box on your team who can help you make these decisions, who do it every day. Why are dentists, that’s diyers.
38:58
Dr. Richard Offutt
It’s so interesting, Paul, that you were saying that because I had, have built DSOs and sold a DSO and were working on, on a couple of these locations and it was basically North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee and doing transactions and in this, in the last year we had some really nice practices, but they were in rural South Carolina and we, I mean we struggle. We actually walked away from the deals because the, we could not attract, we couldn’t attract an associate to come in and we were willing to give away a, give away 10% of, I mean right off the block, 10% ownership just to get, just as part of the signing deal, you have to work for a year. But, but you know, they were going to be owners almost immediately and could not sign that deal, could not make it happen.
39:54
Dr. Paul Goodman
And I’m with you. I mean what’s really cool about. I think dentistry is the spouses of dentists have their own all. So they can’t always just pick up and leave sometimes. My associate just moved to San Francisco because her husband got a job in finance. So they didn’t say, oh, we can’t leave because you have to work for Paul and Jeff Goodman in Pennington, New Jersey. So I’m totally with you. And I think that when you talk to rural dentist who can be amazing dentists and people, and they say, why does nobody want to come practice with me? This happened on a coaching call. And I said, oh, how did you pick the location where you practice? And they proudly say, I was born here. And I say, that doesn’t count. That doesn’t count. That’s right. Yeah. You have your friends, your family.
40:37
Dr. Paul Goodman
And if you just think about as a person, because I’m very into the feeling alone and helping Dennis feel better, think about how difficult it would be to move somewhere where you didn’t know anyone, you didn’t have a social network to be a dentist, which is a fairly stressful job. And it doesn’t mean no one does it. Interview Dr. Arasha Madden, one of our Dentist Job Connect clients. He moved from Southern California to Missouri. He owns five practices, six practices there. So when he talks to. That’s why he gets dentists, because he said, listen, I did this, I came to Missouri area, but most of the dentists are from that area. And I can see how hard it is to make that leap.
41:13
Dr. Richard Offutt
But to be honest, we had the exact deal. I mean, the, the doc was in on it. His wife didn’t want to leave Charleston right at the beach. So, you know, it was, we, it was a zero for us. So. But it was. Your point is well taken on that really spot on, actually.
41:27
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
So with Dennis Job Connect, you get to see what’s going on in the industry. You know, do you see that new graduates or docs, are they looking to just work someplace and get a salary or do they really want ownership?
41:41
Dr. Paul Goodman
I think I’ll say this in a way where it might sound dramatic, but what new dentists want is to not regret the decision of becoming a dentist. Okay. Because right now the pandemic has created some of this too. The number of reps that they do to become a dentist is at times pathetic. I met a second career dentist who was smart enough to realize that she barely did a crown in dental school and she better do an AGD before she went out and tried to charge people for her services. Sure. So I’d like to take this moment to say that many dental students, not all. Some schools are great. I’m not saying all. They’re not getting the reps to go out and deliver dentistry in a way that they can pay off their loans and be part of the practice.
42:28
Dr. Paul Goodman
So that’s my first part after that, I think that they want stability more than making $500,000 a year. And many of these associate jobs are kind of like these weird hundred percent commission sales jobs on teeth. And I got people working at Dennis job connecting dental nachos. They all got base salaries, some have bonuses, some are in sales. But they all know if they show up to this place, they are going to get paid no matter what. Part of Dennis Job Connect is trying to create a base salary. We just hired, we’re hiring associate dentist now. I talk about a base salary, okay. With adjusted production bonuses. What that means is if you come and work with us and part of our team, you’re going to make this amount of money no matter what.
43:10
Dr. Paul Goodman
And we want you to make more, and this is how you can make more. So I think it’s not that they want 37% of adjusted production or 30% in a lab. They want a place where they don’t regret becoming a dentist and that they can pay off their loans and make feel good about the decision to go to dental school.
43:26
Dr. Richard Offutt
I think that’s spot on. A job with a kicker is really a good deal.
43:30
Dr. Paul Goodman
I like that. Yeah, I’m gonna start saying that.
43:31
Dr. Richard Offutt
Job with a kicker. Yeah.
43:34
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
What, what piece, what decision did you make in your career that was a mistake? And how did you learn from it and how did it impact your career moving forward?
43:44
Dr. Paul Goodman
I’ll give you one in 1A and this one’s more one. The dual rep broker thing was 1A. But you know, I lost out on 100 grand probably. I didn’t like if we still got the practice. Like it wasn’t like a, a career killer. It was one I regret. The other was many people will tell you that you can’t out exercise your diet. And for many years I tried, okay? I was the guy who would run 30 miles a week and then want to go eat pizza. And I thought, you know what? No matter what, I can work out and it won’t affect me. And I’ve now learned the age of 47 it affects you. Right? You can’t out exercise your diet. And I’ve, what I’ve come to, what I think is a healthy body image and try to be in shape.
44:19
Dr. Paul Goodman
But for years, I did not have a healthy attitude towards exercise and diet. I would exercise a lot and then I would eat. And now I’m going to take it to dentistry. My mistake was not paying attention to the numbers of my practice sooner. My dad was an amazing dentist who took some PPO plans. He took the teacher plans and I used to say, oh, dad, you know, this is adjusting off 40% of a crown this work. And since he was a guy who was an amazing dad in dentist but got no training in business, we did not pay attention to our PPO insurance adjustments long enough. We didn’t, we didn’t pay attention soon enough. And I wish I had someone like Mark Costas helped me evaluate that sooner. Currently we’re totally out of network.
44:57
Dr. Paul Goodman
Doesn’t mean I’m recommending anyone else go out of network. Okay? To me, dental insurance can be like processed food. Doesn’t mean never eat it, but if you eat too much of it’s not healthy. So I would implore anyone not to just care about production, not to just care about marketing, to pay attention to the numbers of your practice.
45:15
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
That makes a lot of sense. Obviously, we’re simplified dentistry and we always like to ask our guest, you know, what’s your takeaway advice for our listeners on how would you dare to simplify dentistry?
45:29
Dr. Paul Goodman
So I love this question you guys are doing. You’re doing the work of the Lord GV Black heroes with this podcast. That’s my joke, right? You know, you’re doing an amazing job to simplify your dentistry in your life. Look to outsource things you are not good at much sooner than you think you need to. So many times, dentists, for some reason, even though we’ve never gotten any courses on marketing, think they can build their own website. For some reason, even though dentists have no idea how to bill insurance, they try to figure it out with their front desk team member who’s been in dentistry for six months. So to simplify dentistry, enjoy it more. Focus on what you want to do more. Look to outsource frustrations and annoyances that do not come with your dental degree sooner.
46:09
Dr. Paul Goodman
I know from my own dad and I’s experience, we just wallowed. We got stuck in doing things that we shouldn’t, like our own bookkeeping for a while, that was not a good decision. So to simplify things, outsource annoyances to people who do that thing every day. They’re faster than you, they’re better at you, and you’ll be happy that you did it.
46:29
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah.
46:30
Dr. Richard Offutt
Thank you.
46:31
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah.
46:31
Dr. Richard Offutt
Thank you. Thank you.
46:32
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
I think that’s great.
46:33
Dr. Richard Offutt
Appreciate it.
46:33
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
And thank you for being with us today. I hope our listeners get as much out of this as I did. I might have to call Dennis Job Connect soon.
46:41
Dr. Paul Goodman
Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. These conversations are awesome. We should do more of them. You listen to them. Anytime I run, I do a podcast, too, so really appreciate you guys having me on.
46:51
Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan
Yeah.
46:51
Dr. Richard Offutt
Paul, thank you so much.
46:52
Dr. Paul Goodman
Appreciate it. My pleasure.
46:54
Dr. Richard Offutt
Bye.