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Guest: Noel LiuPractice Name: Secure Dental GroupCheck out Noel's Media:‍

Websites:

Secure Dental - www.secure-dental.com

Secure Dental Group - www.securedentalgroup.com

Noel Liu DDS - www.noelliudds.com/

DentVia - https://dentvia.com/

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Social Media:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/noelliudds

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drnoelliu/?hl=en

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/drnoelliu

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnoelliu.

Twitter - https://twitter.com/DrNoelLiu

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Phone: 815-670-2923

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Other Mentions and Links:

Wells Fargo

EBITDA - Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization

Levin Group - Dr. Roger Levin

Scheduling Institute

DEO - Dental Entrepreneur Organization

Dr. Marc Cooper

Cardone Ventures

Brandon Dawson

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

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My Key Takeaways:

• If you're thinking about practice 2 and beyond, be sure to maximize your primary practice first!
• Plan out your revenue breakpoints and what you will do when you reach them. Without a plan, you will lose progress while growing!
• Know the numbers! KPIs, P and Ls, and Productions and Collections are essential to keep close tabs on for improvement of your practice.
• Expanding to a new practice is 80% mindset and 20% strategy. Don't get too bogged down in strategizing!
• Emotional and logical decision making BOTH have a place in business. If your decisions are too logical, it will be hard to take action. If your decisions are too emotional, you may lack to planning and strategy needed for success.
• Try getting to know your team and their individual goals, values, and aspirations. This will help when aligning with the practice's values and ensure a sustainable culture!

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p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Alright, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Noel Liu. Noel, how's it going? I'm doing very well, Michael. Thanks for having me. No, thank you for coming on and being a part of the podcast. We truly appreciate it. If you don't mind me asking, tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you

Noel: are today?

No, it's a great question. You know, it's like, um, when they say, when you climb the ladder, it's, it's this way. So this is how I, my, my whole journey with the whole career has been, so we started, I, I graduated back in 2007 from N Y U College of Dentistry and, uh, I was working for a corporate and I think I lasted about four and a half years.

Stuck to one job, just stuck it out. Didn't quit, just, just kept going. And then we opened our first practice in 2012 in Peor, Illinois, and that's where we are based. So from there, we just, uh, my wife and I, so we are both dentists. She graduated in about, you know, 2011 ish. So, you know, I was in 2007, she was 2011.

And then we just started, you know, our own little operation. And, uh, since then, I think it's been a, it's been a journey. Lots of ups and downs, lots of mistakes. And uh, right now we, we are, we are a few locations here in the Midwest. Nice. How many locations? So we're currently, we are operating out 11 locations.

Wow.

Michael: 11 locations then. Okay, man. So, real quick, rewind a little bit. You were working for corporate and you said you stuck it out for four years. What were you having to.

Noel: Deal with. Yeah. Great. Great question. Because right now, when I look at some of the forums and I see some of the new guys coming out, they're like, in know, job hopping.

They just, if they don't like something, they just quit. Mm-hmm. Right. For me, it was more about sticking it out my own principles, my own, uh, moral and ethical value and like, you know, whatever it is, we just take the most, extract the most out of it and, uh, just take it and, and just take it as a learning experience.

I always saw positivity in whatever situation I was put in, so I. That was, you know, like one of those things. And the reason I emphasize on that part is because that is what I've been, the feedback I've been getting, they're like, oh wow, you stayed for five years. You know, you didn't, you didn't wanna quit, you didn't wanna go somewhere else.

Because all my, most of my colleagues, I wanna say all, but most of my colleagues, they actually, they kind of like, you know, went from job to job.

Michael: Got you. So what were the things you had to deal with?

Noel: I mean, it was like, you know, when you come out of school, you are looking for mentorship. Mm-hmm.

You're looking for somebody who you can hook onto and, and take your first year or two, maybe like, just write it out in a sense that under an umbrella, under somebody's wing, like you're not making any kind of mistakes, especially with the state boards, with the chart writing, with, you know, all the codes that we have for our dental, Time after time, I've seen like a lot of people make those same mistakes again and again with procedures and how efficient you need to be, what your KPI's supposed to be.

So it's like none of those metrics were like, you know, like laid out. So we just went in and just gunned it down and just, just learned and just, you know, learn how to swim yourself. So that was a good experience. I think I, I took it as a positive thing for myself because it gave me lots of insights.

Mm-hmm. You know, about like what kind of person you are and, and how do you withstand stress and, and multitasking.

Michael: Hmm, that's true. From, from that corporate position, what were some systems that you decided like, oh, I like this, I'm gonna take it into my practice. And then what were some systems where you're like, I never wanna do this, to my team, to my own

Noel: practice?

Well, the system that I really loved about that place was, um, scaling and growing, all about the numbers production, And all the good aspects that would help you propel to the next level. That's what I liked about that place. And on the same token, if you look at what I did not like about the place was at what cost do you get that production at?

What cost do you get that elevation? how are your staff treated? is like almost like a weighing kind of like a scale, if I were to say that way, because in order for you to do this, You gotta sacrifice this. So my whole mindset was, how do I do this without doing this?

Right? So how do I get the good out of it without doing, without having to carry the baggage of the bad stuff? So that was the whole idea, and that's how when we found a secure nl, we wanted to make sure that our staff and our team are well recognized and they are well deserved, that they are there like, you know, for a reason.

Michael: Mm-hmm. When was it where you were like, okay, I wanna start my own practice? Was that in dental school? Was that before or was that during

Noel: corporate? Great, great question was way before, way before dental school. So I come from a family of dentists. my dad is a dentist from back home and I wanted to make sure that, you know, I carry on his legacy because he, we are four siblings, right?

Mm-hmm. So he wanted one of us to be a dentist. And unfortunately, uh, three of my siblings, they, they hate dentistry. So they didn't, they don't want anything to do with dentist training to know where the mouth, right. So mm-hmm. I was like, all right, cool. I'll take the torch and I'll run with it. so I went to dental school and that's how I decided that I will, I will need my own practice because that is the, the mindset that was instilled when we were kids that you gotta have your own business and you know, with a lot of Asian people, they always want to make sure that you always have your own business, right?

So, mm-hmm. So I always wanted to make sure, like, Hey, this is what I want to do during school. It just got even stronger. And then once when I got outta school, then that, that was like my mission there to get get, get my own.

Michael: Get your own. How fast did you wanna, were you trying to get it like as soon as possible?

Or did you know, like, no, I need to have some years

Noel: under me? At first, yeah. I needed to, I needed to have some years under me. But you know, like when I graduated, I, it was like right before the financial crisis. So, long story short, I wasn't getting a loan. So I wasn't getting a loan.

Everybody kept rejecting the banks kept stating that, no, you, you're not good enough. You, you, we can't, we can't lend you. So then we had to scale down our little idea of business plan, and then we had to go like, Hey, how, what do I need to start off with just two, two ops or maybe even three ops. So that's when we, uh, I came across Wells Fargo and that's where we got a first loan for de Novo from scratch.

And uh, we just took it and run. that place, the first office that we did was, it was equipped for six ops, so we equipped the first three. So my wife and I, she joined us and, uh, you know, we became pretty busy. So then little did we know that we needed more space, so I borrowed money from my dad, and then I got the other three ops, to get going.

So it was, it was a nice rollercoaster ride, but, you know, it was, it was good. It was good.

Michael: Yeah. So your first practice, it was three ops.

Noel: Plum four, six, but we started with three because that was the only allowance we got for in terms of budgeting from the bank.

Michael: Okay. Okay. And so when it came to growing that, how was your marketing and advertising, how did that look?

Noel: radio, tv, you know, like all the basic stuff, direct mail. handing off flyers myself, going out to parking lots. I even got thrown out, I think from one of the parking lots. They were like, Hey, no soliciting kind of deal. Okay. mean, you name it, Michael, I mean, we, we did almost anything and everything.

Community, churches handing out, like sending a lot of boots and a table. All the organic stuff. Okay. You still do all that today or no? Oh, no, no, no. Things have changed quite a bit in marketing, you know? Yeah. just like dentistry. Right.

Michael: Yeah. Today, normally, what are you kind of honed in on or focusing on when it comes to marketing?

Noel: So, as far as marketing, we have our own in-house marketing manager right now. She does all the organic leads and, uh, we do like, you know, like those, uh, Facebook funnels that, that comes in, we are targeting, uh, basically on demographics, on age and uh, buying habits. And we are also doing like psycho demographics as well as the regular demographics.

And, uh, just seeing like, you know, like personas from our own database. Who are, and then we are just mimicking out there in the market. a lot of ai, a lot of, you know, things have changed, evolved. I mean, what I used to do was, was at dinosaur time, you know?

Michael: yeah. No, no, I get you. So a lot of it is more you delegating that to somebody specific in your team, right?

Noel: Right, right, right. Absolutely. So my wife is really hands-on involved with her in terms of marketing. But, if you were to ask me, like, how do you do this? Uh, you know, I'm the wrong person, let's put it that way. Okay.

Michael: Gotcha. Gotcha, man. But so Noel, you've, scaled a lot from the three ops to where you're at now, right?

You have 11 locations. Are they all the same secure dental?

Noel: Correct. They're all, they're all in the same name. Okay.

Michael: So I feel like sometimes there's a couple things. First of all, it's hard to do your own startup, right? Especially like, like you mentioned, right from the ground up. And then sometimes we think, okay, I'm gonna do a startup.

It's successful. I'm just gonna copy and paste and do the, the same thing on the second one. And we figure out, oh my gosh, that's not the way it's handled. Right? Yeah. So then how did you do this? How did you do, let's go with the first one. How did, what were some of the struggles, mistakes and everything from making your startup to trying to grow to

Noel: number two?

Oh, that's a great question. Because, you know, here's the thing. When, when I was, when we started off, I was looking at my ex-employer, I. And he still has about like 90 plus locations, right? So he is scaling like, like still pretty fast. Now. I wasn't in the mindset that, you know, once you open your first one, then jump to the second, and you could do the same and then jump to the third.

You could do the same. Little did we know that it doesn't work like that because once when you open the second office, you have to split your time. So we were like, all right, cool. So we will split time. So she will work in one practice and I'll work in the other practice. Then we hired a, uh, an associate, uh, for the first time as a part-timer.

And little did we know that how to handle associates, how to have the structure in place, the onboarding, we, we, we had none of that stuff there. doctor came in, we just gave them patience and, you know, here you go and, and start working. So that, that was a hit or miss, but I can tell you that much we learned a lot, you know, after the first and the second.

So my mindset was all about. How do I open more locations? Just more locations And, and that's all it was in, in my head. And then sooner or later, like, you know, we found out we were on a third of the fourth location I think. you know, we all of a sudden, like, you know, the nuts bolts, everything of the organization started coming off because all of a sudden become cashflow negative because all of them were de Novos, all of them were startups.

So, you know, if doctor a leaves from one practice, you need to make sure you staff doctor a mm-hmm. Is a replacement. Then you have all these startups coming up. So we need to staff all those offices. So Michael, you know, long story short, it was a lot, lot of ups and downs, a lot of sleepless nights, let's put it that way.

we did not have any kind of like metrics to measure, like when do we open, where do we open? So it was just, you know, like going up and down there. today things are a lot more different. Talking about that is we, we needed to have some, what do you call it? Those guys? consultants. Consultants, we had actually a couple of consultants, but you know, some of them were good, some of them were not. the end of the day, those consultants will tell you what to do, but we gotta be the person that have to execute a plan, otherwise it's not gonna work.

So when we, when we started scaling and we started to add more employees, we started to expand more, operation wise. As those offices started maturing, it started to get better and better because then the cash flow was like from negative to break even, and then slowly going into profit side. But the downside would've been if a, if a doctor left, then everything goes back to ground zero.

How often did that happen when a doctor would leave? if they were like one at a time, that's not a problem. the problem was when we, in, when we had four doctors leave in 2019, so we were at location number six we actually did two denovos and we just acquired one more, which is not a Denovo, but more like an acquisition shell, let's put it that way.

It was a dental office from before. It was all plumb. No patients though. But we just went in and we just took over. So when we had that, we had four doctors leave and then we had to supply these three offices. Cashflow dipped down. I mean, we were like literally down to our knees at that time. So no systems, again, no processes, no backup, none of that stuff.

So I think that was a huge learning curve for myself and uh, you know, at that time I just told my wife that this is not gonna happen again. we need to make sure that, you know, we have, we understand where the market is, where is it expanding, and what kind of resources do we have, where our doctors are standing, where our team standing, and where are we standing in this way that we can all move as one.

Mm-hmm. So are there gonna be challenges in the future? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I can see that I, I see the rough waters coming up again. Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. So then

Michael: what systems specifically did you create to kind of get back up?

Noel: it's a whole round, I call it a 360.

So it, comprises of, let's say, your process and systems, so all the SOPs, everything else. let's put it this way. In business, there are different break points, right? So when you hit a certain revenue target, you hit a break point. You gotta know exactly what you have to do at that break point, even before it, you hit it.

So system, you know, once you hit the first break point, the second break point, let's say revenue size from, you know, a hundred thousand to 1 million, that's break point number one. We gotta make sure, like the system in place would be all the standard operating procedures. Everybody follows the same script, everyone's there.

And then once when we are ready for break point number two, which is like the $5 million mark, then you gotta know, like, you know, who are you working with. So the team dynamic becomes very important. So that's when the hr, People, culture, core values, all those kind of kicks in. Mm-hmm. And then we have the finances, then the financials.

I mean, I can't stress enough like how ignorant I was with financials. I never used to look at p and Ls. But now everything is based on what happens at the end of the month and where are we standing week after week in terms of KPIs and production numbers. that metrics need to be factored in as well in in the whole circle.

Of course then we need to have our, uh, the last one is marketing. Marketing is, is one of those biggest tool that can drive, you know, like any organization up or down. And depending on, you know, marketing. So like with marketing, we used to play marketing by how we feel. Right?

Alright. You know this, I think this audience, this target is gonna be good. Let's, let's do this zip code, let's do that zip code. But, uh, at the end of the day, you know, there's gotta be a strategy in place. You gotta know what is your acquisition cost. You gotta know what is the lead cost. You have to know all this stuff before you even spend a single dollar on, on marketing.

as business owners, as dentists, we are always looking at our, patients. Right? But we are not paying attention to any of the other stuff. And that's what I think drives a lot of people. out of control, like worries and sleepless nights. Yeah.

Michael: I like what you mentioned.

Once you hit a goal, you need to know what to do after. I feel like a lot of the times what I do is like, okay, I hit this goal hoo. And then Oh, oh wait, go back down. You know what I mean? And we're like, okay, we're here now what do we do? Kind of thing. So it's interesting, once you hit that benchmark,

Noel: systems in place.

'cause what happens is once you hit that break point and you're not prepared for it, you will roll back to the first, the previous break point. And God forbid, I mean, if you roll back two break points or three break points, you're out of business. So those are some of the parameters that, you know, one should always keep out for when they're running a business.

what revenue break point are you on? Yeah.

Michael: I feel like sometimes when a startup, right, you're like, okay, I wanna make a million in, let's just say a million in collections, right? you hit that. What should be the next system for that? Should, okay, let's go to 2 million or Or open another practice or, or what do you think?

Noel: No, I would, I, I believe that one need to maximize their, their location, their office and the systems before jumping into location number two, because if you're not maximizing it, the only reason I can think out outside of that would be if there is a market opportunity where you really want to be in, and there is a great way you can add it to the bottom line, the EBITDA or the revenue of that current practice.

Absolutely, by all means, but. If you're just gonna go out there and just say, Hey, I'm gonna shop for a new, new location, then I think the first location needs to be maximized. Yeah. Okay.

Michael: Yeah. 'cause I feel like sometimes it looks like, okay, we've maximized it with ops, we're, we're scheduling patients out way until like three months, five months.

Right. New patients. But would it be considered maximizing it if you're like, okay, well I, I still, I'm accepting all insurances, should I. Go down on that, that means I'm gonna lose patients, but I'm also gonna, you know, have more room now and have better,

Noel: I guess better fees. Yeah, that's a very individualized kind of question because it all depends on the operator's goal.

So let's say if I'm a dentist and I want to just have one location, and I do not want to take, my goal is not to take any more PPOs, my goal is to go fee for service, right? Mm-hmm. Then my maximizing, my definition of maximizing it would be if I have six ops, eight ops, depending on how many ops. If I can fill all those ops and those ops are producing, let's say, you know, like 30 to 35 grand a month in terms of production, and you times that by six and you're really killing it, and now you've got like 40 mil, uh, 40,000 to $45,000 a, a chair a month.

I think that is where, where you're maximizing it. But in case of, you know, if you're trying to scale and grow to locations and revenue, once you hit a certain mark, we need to get an associate in there. and that time maybe you can talk to the associate about some equity in the, in the, in the deal where they can kind of hang around there so that they have some skin in the game as well.

I think everyone has their own, metrics for what it means by maximizing. Gotcha. Okay.

Michael: And Noel, you've mentored a lot of people, right? Uh, to do startups and, and Yeah. Also, and, and dentistry. Especially

Noel: my, my associate doctors. Yeah. Okay.

Michael: You, you mentor them mainly to, to own their own practice or just to, okay.

Have you ever had to walk or, or run into a situation when you're, tell them

Noel: you're not ready? most of the times. Yeah.

Michael: So how does that look like, how does that look like when you, or if somebody's not ready? What, what does that

Noel: mean? No, I mean, I'm not gonna stop them from leaving and, and opening their own.

Absolutely not. But you know, if they came to me for advice to go like, Hey, Dr. Liu, you know, I got this here. How do I do it? You know, I got this location, where do I start first? And you know, I'll guide them. Absolutely I'll guide them. But you know, at the end of the day we'll just have a open conversation.

Like, Hey, where is your mindset at? Because I always like, since from day one, from onboarding, I mean, the only thing that I discussed with these guys is 80% is mindset, right? It's all psychological. 20% is strategy. People tend to focus more on strategy than their, the psychological aspect.

And that's where I feel a lot of people that struggle when they open up the practice because you know, they have to be true to themselves. Like, where do you stand in terms of work-life balance? Where is your wife gonna be? Where is the kids gonna be? Right? Or if you're single, how much effort and how much work hours are you gonna be able to put in?

So those are all the questions. Are you gonna do a startup or an acquisition? We need to see like where they at with us. So in terms of the production, the metrics, like where, how much do they produce per hour, per month, and how many employees per production? So for us, a good metric would be like 200 K per, employee per year.

So if they are anywhere north of 200 k, it's a profitable business. But if they are anywhere like a hundred with their production and the amount of, you know, the staff that's in the, in the building. I'll be upfront with 'em that you are probably not gonna make it with that numbers. and then of course then they're a clinical skill.

And then if they're gonna be doing an acquisition, then the old doctor stays or they leave. So there, there's a lot of, you know, parameters. A lot of factors. Yeah.

Michael: When, when you're talking with them. So it's really getting to know them as a, as a person. Right. Individual. I like what you said, like your mindset, because.

I do feel like sometimes we're like, oh yeah, I want to have my own hours, do my own thing, be able to take off whenever I want. But at the beginning it's not like that Uhhuh. Yeah. So the mindset

Noel: that they have. Yeah. Especially if there are doctors who wants to enjoy, you know, on weekends, weeknights, they wanna go on vacations, they want to spend time with their families, uh, I'll just be upfront with them.

If you do that on your own practice, you might run in the red. Yeah. Initially at least you could do that later on, but not initially,

Michael: Yeah. So then the mindset that they have to have is kinda like grit, right?

Noel: Oh, yeah. But in the warrior. Exactly, exactly. Get that warrior mindset.

I mean, he, they, they, they gotta treat like it, like they're in a battle. I mean, just go and get it done. Mm-hmm. Or for a better, uh,

Michael: outcome Right Now, Noelle, I wanted to ask you, when it comes to your, 11 locations. What are some systems that are unique that you feel like you and your wife or you created mm-hmm.

That each practice has, and whether it's maybe the patient, the back office, front office handoff, or the patient experience, like what are some of the unique systems?

Noel: You know, we just stick by one thing, which is our core values. And our core values are, it's it's short form. We call it adapter. And adapter is, it's just basically nothing more than just a few words.

Right. But they can say the core values, but they gotta believe in it. I mean, we make our team understand what the core value is. I mean, they need to understand that they're gonna be hired based on that. They'll be reviewed based on that. They'll get a raise based on that, and they'll get fired based on that.

So they'll need to understand that, you know, what, where do we stand? So it's very simple. Alignment is one of them. disciplined. Disciplined in all aspects of dentistry. Not only like, you know, like for the doctors, but also like what these guys are doing. Then they need to be accountable.

I mean, anything they do, they gotta be accountable, and then P is production. So we need to make sure we are always scaling this way and not flat, because anything flat, you know, gravity pulls you down later on, you know, as we've seen over the years, like what happens in the, in the past.

then we have the T, which is transparent. Every single one's gotta be transparent, including ourselves. I mean, there's no such thing as, you know, we're operating without transparency. So we, we gotta let 'em know, you know, it's like, for example, if we are letting anybody go, just go in a room, just let 'em know, Hey, what's happening?

You know? The sooner they let 'em know, the faster it is and easier it is. It's like none of the stuff that we do have been invented by us, by the way. Mm-hmm. It's all from learning, it's all from mistakes and it's all from consultants that we had in the past. And sometimes with these consultants, it's not only the dental specific, you sometimes we know we may have to go outside the industry to grasp ideas.

What, what are other companies doing out there besides dentistry? Because dentistry is such a small niche, you may not get the whole thing. But once we explore outside, then you see a whole different world. And I think that's my message to a lot of dentists out there. And just don't look at dental consult, uh, consultants definitely look at outside the industry as well.

And then, uh, yeah, I mean those are some of the things. And lastly, it's results oriented. It's gotta be results oriented. It's not like because you are, you are a manager or you are a front desk for X amount of years. You got, you got raised, you know, automatically we see results. You smash results, you got my attention.

Hmm.

Michael: I like that a lot. What are some of the consultants you've had in the past where you're like, they're, they've been amazing.

Noel: let's start with the first one we had was, Levin group.

Dr. Roger Levin. I mean, he is, he is a great guy. We learned a lot of stuff with them, especially when we started off. of course, you know, there's a, there's a substantial investment, but at the end of the day, like I was saying, beginning in, in the beginning of this podcast was.

You gotta implement it. If you don't implement it, your team's not on board. It's not gonna happen. with a lot of these consultants, we have to ensure that, number one, our teams are involved, that our team has some skin in the game, and the way we have to work with a team is not by just top down order.

We have to work with these guys to align them with our goals. Right. And how do you do that? Is basically you have to find out what your team's. Personal goal is what their professional goal is and what's their financial goal. We gotta find out what ticks for them. Right? Once we find out what ticks for them, then we have a conversation on how do we help you so that you can help me?

And that's where I feel like that's where the mindset and everybody is on board on the same page at that time. Because when we were running our show before, I mean, we were like, Hey, this is how we, this is what we did with the consultants, now this is how it's gonna be like, you know, starting Monday morning.

Doesn't work. Doesn't work. Gotcha. Okay.

Michael: So the, the 11

Noel: group was one, right? Levin Group was one. Si institute, um, I'm sure you guys heard of that one, right? SI Institute or Scheduling Institute, I don't know what, whatever it's called, right? Mm-hmm. So that was the second one. That was a brief one. I mean, we literally lasted for like a couple of months and we are out.

these are all in

Michael: the dental industry. These are all

Noel: in the dental industry. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. These all in the dental industry, I think. Uh, then once we started having a few locations, then I was with, uh, d e o Dental.

Oh, okay. Entrepreneur.

Michael: Organization.

Noel: Organization, yeah. Uhhuh. Uhhuh, yeah. Yeah. It, it's run by Jake. When I joined, it was, uh, Dr. Mark Cooper. So he retired and then he, then, then Jake, uh, Jake, uh, took over. So I joined that. They were pretty good. the only thing I didn't like about them was because I was always being put with practices.

That was one or two and they were, all they were discussing was like assistant problems, up front desk problems. Hmm. So I wanted to see like, how can I scale and grow rather than just having those kind of like discussions going on. So yeah. But that lasted about a year. Okay. And, uh, the latest one that we just came out of is Cardone Ventures.

it's a pretty substantial investment. Mm-hmm. But, uh, I think it kind of got our groundwork set up pretty good. Card

Michael: owned ventures. That's what is that all about?

Noel: So they have, so some of the stuff that I was telling you, the 360, it's all been from, Brandon Dawson. So this guy.

he was operating a A D S O or maybe a, a dental group called Stratus or something in his past life before he came on to card ventures. So they scale businesses and basically, you know, with Grand Cardone it's like all about 10 x, right? So he takes a business, works on a system, get everything in place, and get, gets the revenue up.

So he works with that aspect. So that is what the whole, 360 and then we went through a whole platform and then we went through the whole, strategic business unit, you know, like the whole consulting thing. Great guys. Great guys, you know, I mean, you know, but for us, we were looking at something else, so we kind of like, you know, faded away last year and now we are with Polaris.

Michael: Okay, gotcha. Hilarious. And there, how

Noel: long have you been with them for? Oh, we just started, so Polaris, so this guy, what do you call it, the founders, Perrin and the Walker, they were guys from, uh, what's that company called? Ts Partners. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, so TSS partners, but they, they used to work with Kevin and then they, they separated and now they have their own stuff going on.

Pretty much the same model, but, you know, it's just, I kind of like these guys because they're more down to earth in the sense that they understand numbers really, really well. And, uh, you know, my whole model is gonna be like around de novo. So that's what, that's what attracted me to them. So it's like, you know, you, before you even break ground, you know what your projections are gonna be, you know, what your numbers are gonna be, how much you need to spend on marketing.

So, that's why we, we went with these guys. so yeah. So it's only been like about what, a month and a half I think, or two months. Mm-hmm. So we'll see how this plays out.

Michael: Okay. Noelle, man, it sounds like you really. See this as like an, an investment, right? Where you're like, okay, I really need to find guidance all the time, right?

Kind of thing. You don't know what you don't know kind

Noel: of thing, right? Oh, you don't know what you don't know, right? Yeah. And, and it's like anytime when you have somebody who's on your side and they can see it from outside the box, because a lot of times when we are in the picture, we can see ourselves, right?

Mm-hmm. So I treat my coaches, my consultants as they're outside of Boston, they can see a lot more.

Michael: Mm Gotcha. Okay. And I like that. I like, so when is it then? 'cause I feel like you're scaling, you know what I mean? You have 11 locations. So to you, when is it like, alright, I don't think I need another one to scale anymore?

A coach, consultant, or what are you thinking?

Noel: For me, it's not about the location anymore, like how I used to be in the past. You know, more locations means more headache, more problems, more issues, right. For me now, it's all about the growth in a sense that how do we take care of the revenue or location?

How do we maximize it? And that is, that is my new mantra on moving forward. And when I, I feel like, you know, we've grown wide, but now we need to grow vertical, grow deep, and once when we start growing deep, we can get quality people, we can get quality executives, we can get quality managers, regionals. I mean, that's where it all is.

Because once when they're running a little bit, you know, wide and thin, That's how we were when we started. I mean, there's not a lot of room down there. So I mean, you're not getting quality people, but once when you start going deep and you grow wide, I mean that's where everything starts. Scaling. Yeah.

Michael: To grow.

Right. Growing like in your roots. I like that a lot because you're right, you can add more locations, but it's more headaches too sometimes, you know?

Noel: Yeah. And, and for all the people out there who's thinking like more locations, like, you know, out of three to four or five, you know, they want to grow out.

While it's good, but just have a reason and a purpose and a goal that why you wanna do it. If the why is bigger than, than, the, uh, actual reasoning, I mean, I think that it will always outlast any problems that, you know, one may have or any kind of like issues one may have once they start growing.

The growing pains, I call it.

Michael: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're right. Growing pains, what have been, let me ask you that Throughout the time, from your first de novo to all the way to right now, today, right? Yeah. What have been some of your. Biggest struggles or, or, or fails or pitfalls that

Noel: you've encountered? Not seeing the numbers.

You know, not seeing the numbers, just going everything with an emotional mindset and going with a gut feeling. Well, as an entrepreneur, you need to have that gut feeling. You didn't have that instinct for sure. A hundred percent. I agree. But there are certain things and certain times where you need to look at the facts and numbers, because numbers don't lie.

Right. So, If your numbers under red and you wanna open up a second location or a fourth location, whatever it is, it's probably not a good idea, even though the gut is telling you to do it. Mm-hmm. Right. So if I were to go back and do a lot of things, I would probably, number one, is to go invest in myself, get this right first, you know, once when this is right, then everything else follow.

Okay.

Michael: So, Be logical, right, when it comes to the numbers. Continue to always

Noel: look at them logical. Okay. You know, we got two sides, right? We wanna be logical on one side, and then we want to be, I would call it like illogical or maybe like, you know, you go with your gut feeling kind of deal. So it has to have a compromise because if you're too logical then you never take any action, Then you become paralyzed with all analysis. But if you're too, like, you know, on the other side, then. It's like, you know, like myself, right? You're just a visionary without, without any kind of actual steps or actual concrete, uh, way how to get there. Mm-hmm. So I think both should go hand in hand. If, for me, if I'm not the way, if I'm not that like logical person, I need somebody on my team to kind of like, you know, put a check on me, let's put it that way.

Yeah.

Michael: No, it's good. It's good. It's good to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then that's one of the biggest, uh, struggles that you've had. Numbers, right? What else? Mm-hmm. What else? Can you recall where you're like, man, that's been, that was a headache.

Noel: not having this thriving culture.

Because for me, it's all about people. Having the right people on the team, I think that is the utmost important because people make business. I always thought the other way around, and I think that was like, I had it backwards. You know, I was thinking like, Hey, let's, I'm the business and then we worry about the people.

But it's actually, you take care of the people, the business goes up. that is one of the biggest mistakes that I did or we did in the past. So we learned quite a bit from there. Mm-hmm. Now, for us, it's all about how do we have this winning culture in, in, in, within our organization, and How do we model it? Mm-hmm. So me and my wife, we'll model it. How do we mimic it in terms in our, in our team members? All right. And then how do we master it? Because it's easy to know everything. Like you know it all, but how do you train another person to do it?

that's the key to success for scaling because you can't just have it all up here. You have to pass it on. Yeah,

Michael: that's true. So then your culture mm-hmm. You can tell us what does that look like

Noel: in your team? So it's all about like, how do we pay them more by increasing the production.

How do we all win together? so we have like a lot of like different bonus systems and then we have a lot of payoffs for these guys. We have a lot of team, uh, Cohesion. Kind of like, you know, games that goes on, events that goes on. And every Wednesday we have something called Wednesday, so it's called Win.

Mm-hmm. So everybody wins. Everybody tells them about the wins. so we get all, get on a Zoom call and we are all sharing our wins for that that week. What do we do? And even something personal, like a personal stuff. So I'm on it, my wife's on it, and we are like, you know, participating in it. So we'll tell, share some personal stories.

They'll share something personal so they know like, Hey, that guy, there is not just a figure who just comes in the office and wants every six months, right? Mm-hmm. So they can actually see us and, you know, they have interaction with us. So we, so we have a pretty good time. So it's all about, it's all about like, how do we have a cohesion kind of relationship with everybody and knowing everyone.

Michael: And you do that normally, like the win Wednesdays, right? Is that like a morning huddle or team meeting

Noel: or, yeah, you can call it a morning huddle. You can call it a morning huddle. You know, with, especially right now with like, you know, about 95 employees, I mean, it's hard to keep a, keep a tab with every single one.

Mm-hmm. So we wanna make sure that we are in touch, that they see us the whole time. Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. That's interesting. And you mentioned something about your bonus systems. How does your bonus system work? Because that's a thing we're all trying to like, you know what I mean? Structure. So how do you

Noel: structure it?

So our bonus system for our manager is pretty simple. It's quarterly goals that they have to meet. So there, there's a certain production number that they have to meet and of course they have to keep their employee count to a check. So we kind of strive for 200 to 250,000 per employee kind of deal.

Mm-hmm. And these are all like metrics from card ventures by the way. It's not like I created those. Mm-hmm. So once we have those checks, then and you know, they have to meet those two metrics. And then of course the K P I, whatever they produced, it has to make sure, like what's in account, the actual account.

Those are the three metrics that we look at. And then of course, then the last thing we look at is the p and l. are the numbers as high and are the expenses catching up? Or do we have another net profit? So those are for our, our managers. for the team members, it's very, very simple. we have something called bonus leave.

It's pretty cool. It's like they have a little app and anytime, let's say they talk to a patient about a fluoride treatment where the patient pays out of pocket or if they have a. clear aligner case where the patient accepted treatment, they get a lot of kickback in that Bonusly app.

So the app will show that, hey, they got so much, you know, like money in there and it's all tax free by the way. Because we, we, we carry the taxes for 'em, right. So they'll get like, let's say a $200 bonus or a $300 bonus right there just for, you know, like for a case acceptance, for a clear aligner or maybe for an implant.

You know, they had like a big implant case, you know, there's gonna be like a five to $700, right? So they look at that and they love it. So, you know, that's like, you know, kind of a motivational thing for them to keep applying the same principles like how they did with this patient. A yeah, like, it's

Michael: a good incentive.

How do you determine the, the value of it or the money? So for example, like, oh hey, your implant case, here's 500 bucks. Or

Noel: do they know? Oh, it's all on a dollar value? It's all on a dollar. Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. It's on a dollar value. It's a certain percentage and, uh, yeah, these guys, we started, actually, we started this thing pretty cool.

We started in January. So before that, it was like all haphazard. It was all going up like in payroll and, and it was like, by the time they see it, they're like, oh, I don't care. You know, whatever it is. But since we started this, everybody's on a, on a, on a roll. Yeah. 'cause it's

Michael: like right there, right? Like on their, it's right there and it's on their phone.

So they immediately, they're just like, oh, okay, fluoride, I, I sold it. Boom. Right? And then they can, yeah. The office manager's job is to make sure that's, Kind of true at the same time, right. They're like, are they

Noel: doing it? So there are two checks going on, so mm-hmm. Our office manager will check that patient and then, you know, our, our bookkeeper, they'll go back and say, okay, fine.

This has been entered, this patient made that payment approved, and approval is usually within 24 hours. So we don't make sure we, we don't make them wait for too long.

Michael: Yeah. And then they get that they can cash in that bonus whenever

Noel: or whenever. So, you know, the, the app is pretty cool. I mean, you can actually get cash, you can use it at Starbucks, you can use it at Target.

I mean, you can use it anywhere.

Michael: Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's good motivation right there, man. That's awesome. Yeah.

Noel: Awesome. I mean, think about it this way, right? If in a day they, they collected, let's say a hundred to 300 bucks. Now if you do the math, whatever hourly they get, you just break it down by eight hours.

That $300 or $200, I mean, that's like additional boost in the per hour without paying Uncle Sam. yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. That's like strictly cash bonus. and what we do on the backend is we make sure like whatever bonuses went out, we'll cover the taxes for them.

Michael: Okay. So that's good, man. That's really, really good.

Oh yeah. Nice. So then one of the last questions I wanna ask you is, throughout this time, how is this affecting your

Noel: personal life? So we have three kids, eight, seven, and two. my wife spends most of the time with them. I'm home like probably Sundays, you know, like depends Sundays or Saturdays. But we understand like, you know, she has this one thing you need to be out there.

She tells me you need to be out there creating stuff, making stuff happen. Because at the end of the day, we may be sacrificing now, like I may be sacrificing now, like with a lot of times with my kids, but I know for a fact that as long as I'm present for the events for the little birthday parties, right.

for their, like, you know, like, like theoretical, uh, uh, kind of shows or anything that is happening in school. And I'm away during the daytime, even evening times, even for days, sometimes when I have to travel. they get it. at the end of the day, for me, it's more about where as our future, how long do we wanna work and where our kids are gonna be down the road and how is it all gonna be turning out because.

If I have to, let's say go for a long time, I'll tag the kids along with me. Mm-hmm. So if we are gonna go out scouting for an acquisition or for a place, the kids are coming with us. Right. They'll be like, Hey daddy, where are we going? Well, we gonna go check out an office. Let's go. that's where my work-life balance is, Michael.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Nice. No, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?

Noel: Yeah, absolutely. So I give all my personal numbers. Okay, so my number is pretty cool. 8 1 5 6 7 0 2 9 2 3. as long as it's not a scam, or a spam or you know, one of those three marketers, I'm cool.

so again, it's 8 1 5 6 7 0 2 9 2 3, and we are@www.secure dental group.com. Or you can follow me on Instagram, Dr. Noel.

Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below as always. And Noel, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon.

Noel: Thank you for having me.

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