Ep. 40: The Real Economics of Full-Arch

Part 10:00

This is Beyond the Arches, where full-arch dentistry meets real talk. Let's get into it. Hello, welcome to Beyond the Arches. I'm your host, Dr. Daniel Noorthoek. Here with me today, I've got Erica. Hello. And out of their glass towers and home offices, we were able to pull Nick Glick and Robert Odom into the studio today. Welcome, guys. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Yep. Thanks for making the journey. Of course. ▶And making the time to come here. I know you guys are always busy.

And the reason why you're busy is a little bit like why you're here. So today, what we're going to talk about is, you know, the title is The Hidden Truth or the Economics of Full-Arch. And I think that the discussion will be a good discussion, more or less on kind of focusing on what we would say is the hidden costs of full-arch. And that isn't to say, there are a lot of hidden costs that pop up in the surgery.

It's hidden costs of operating and owning and running a self-propelled full-arch center, something that dentists and patients alike don't know a whole lot about. And so I brought you guys in here today because I think that this is a really good table to have that discussion. So why don't we kick it off? Where it all starts, which is getting the phone calls. So we'll start with you, Robert. We'll start in marketing. You'll have, we'll back up a second.

I'm not sure that we've explained this in the podcast. So when we were just starting, when we were trying to strike it out on our own, I had really two main employees, Nick and Robert. And they both shared all kind of admin duties and responsibilities equally. And I was trying to explain this to, to somebody the other day and you guys kind of had the same exact job title and you would just kind of trade in and out whoever was available to do it.

But now that we've grown and developed over time, we've now got sort of two factions and Robert, you now take over the marketing and Nick, you kind of run the operations in general, the staffing and the lab and all of that. So really cool dynamic here. So I would like to talk a little bit about what you're doing here. So I would like to start with marketing and sort of the costs that are involved with that, because that's of any full arch center or anybody, any dentist that's ever been burned in full arch. Certainly the first thing that goes is their marketing budget.

And then there goes all of their patient base. So why don't you talk a little bit about just high level, what we're looking for and what your day to day management looks like from acquiring patients and managing the marketing. Yeah. So it's always fun to think about the marketing because I think it's kind of a microcosm for the clinical side of things. Right. So when people think about procedures like this or having dental work done, they think about, you know, the hard cost of materials, which would be the implants and then the surgical price for the practitioner. And there's just a hundred times more.

More than that, that doesn't get thought about. Right. That's a equally as true in marketing. Right. So we think about ad spend and we think about, well, how much do we spend on Google and how much do we spend on Facebook? What we don't talk about is the hundreds of other services, platforms, softwares that we use to keep all these things running. And there's a lot that goes into all that. And it's it's kind of even more difficult because we're in the healthcare space. Right. So there's, there's a lot of rules and regulations that don't apply to, you know, things that are not in the healthcare space. So there's extra fees associated with that as well. Just like with everything in dentistry, if it's for dental, it's somehow cost more than, you know, anything outside of dental. So, um, again, there's along with some of the stuff that you're talking about, the platforms that you use to track, it's, uh, hard to find the Goldilocks solution.

Because a lot of options and solutions are sort of for your smaller guy that has a single office with different goals and intentions. So it's a little bit too small of a software. And then the other options are for the really big boys that can spend huge amounts of money to incorporate it. So it's a little bit too big of a bed. Yeah. So it, that, that goes into it as well. Yeah. We're kind of in the, in the middle there. Um, and, and being in the middle is tough because they're, there may be, um, there may be a, um, you know, something that's built out for big DSOs, these big corporations, and, you know, maybe, maybe it's out of our budget, maybe, maybe not, but, uh, I don't think there's a one size fits all thing that works for us. So we've kind of had to piece out the, the things that work best for us, uh, along the way. Um, and again, that goes into a lot of different softwares.

A lot of different services. We do a lot of experimentation. So we may, you know, try things

Part 25:37

out, especially here lately with AI coming along, trying out some, some new AI products. And sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, sometimes they're funky. Sometimes we need a little more time for this stuff to develop before we try to jump into it. Um, but that's just, you know, one aspect again, just like with any business that's worth its weight. Uh, you have a, a CRM to be able to track prospects and people that are inquiring about your service and want to know more. And that can be robust. What does CRM stand for for the listener? Customer relationship management. So when somebody fills out a form or calls in, ask for more information, they kind of get logged into a platform where we can follow this customer's journey along its path and make sure that we answer their questions, make sure we provide them with the information they're looking for. Um, through the entire journey. And that starts from having never spoken to them before to introducing ourselves and meeting them and booking a consultation, having them come in for a consultation, going through the kind of the sales process where we talk about money and, and, you know, what you get for that money and what's included and then, you know, booking actual treatment, going through that treatment process, following up with them afterwards, warranty stuff.

Um, so it's a, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can be a long journey, especially in this, uh, business, right? Cause it's not like buying a product where somebody goes onto a website and clicks add to cart. And, you know, there's a whole journey that takes place here that we have to, uh, or we prefer to hold their hand and walk beside them on this entire journey. So that requires a lot of upkeep when you have thousands of, of patients and, you know, tens of thousands of potential patients.

▶It's a lot of money invested up front to make that happen. I always tell people in my next life, I'm going to sell surfboards and pullovers because it's not that it's not worth it. It's just very capital and time and work and intensive. I mean, this is what you spend a hundred percent of your day in your time on. Um, another aspect that goes into it is you also have to keep your pulse, not only on our things being effective, but what is the message that is being conveyed?

Yes. On the appropriate platforms. And they call it AB testing for the listeners. AB testing is we'll make two different versions of an advertisement and we will push it out to the same demographic and see how that comes back to us. If the female, uh, comes back more positively than the male, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. A lot of, um, it's not wasted money, but a lot of excess, an excessive amount of money.

Is spent in experimenting. Yeah. So let's, so go ahead. Oh, no, I was going to say, and on top of the, you know, different services and messaging, trying to get that across, you also have the cost of the team that's behind it because when a, you know, potential patient does fill out a form or something like that, trying to get some more information, we don't have an AI process. You're not getting a voicemail, you're getting a real life human. And then to even get that person to call in, you have yourself, you have Carly, who's, on top of all the video camera, you know, all type of the digital marketing sides, you have the entire digital marketing crew that you work with. Uh, so there's, you know, four or five different people that are, you know, 40, 50, 60 hours a week going into this every day on top of it. It's much more than just, you know, Dr. Dan with a camera going around operatory to operatory, taking photos of different people. It's a full crew. That's trying to even get that patient enough information, enough resources to say, Hey, Hey, you know what? I'm going to check these guys out. And then when they do check us out, get a friendly voice on that phone, instead of, you know, just, uh, press one. If you want to have some more information, press two, if you want to, you know, schedule a consultation.

Yeah. And there's a, there's a big push for that right now. AI phone services, right? Um, I don't, I don't think that's, it's not anything we've tried thus far. I don't think it's ever going to be anything we do because a lot of people don't want to talk to AI. They want to talk to a person and hate it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Scream representative before you even have the option to hit one or two. And it's, it's getting better for sure, but there's no AI that can take the place of one of us who've had this procedure done, answering the phone and walking people through the process and, you know, just providing that human element and sharing what we went through that's good and the bad. And there's no AI that can accomplish that. So, you know, it's, it's a, it's this market is saturated, you know, just, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, to be real, this is a very saturated market. We have every dentist in the country starting to provide this full arch service. I think we do it differently. I'm proud of the service that we provide. And it's just a job of conveying to the public what sets us apart from every single other dentist within a 10 mile radius saying we're the best, we're the best. And I think part of that is not taking those shortcuts like that.

AI receptionist and, and really just coming up with that messaging that, that tells people, Hey, we're trying to do this a little different. We're trying to be transparent where we have a, a lot of experience in this and, um, and, and just being able to convey that to the public. And it's not just the expense of having a real person on the phone, which is a hidden cost. It's, uh, very intentionally developing our marketing strategies so that the person calling is generally going to be somewhat qualified or appropriate to be on the phone. Absolutely. Whereas you remember back, uh, what, 2017, 2018, we looked at a number of call centers where you could give them a sheet of paper as what a lot of different big centers do.

You give the call center a sheet of paper and you say, these are how you answer the questions. And it's a game of numbers. It's a decision. It works clearly. They're still in business, et cetera, but it wasn't the way that we chose to go about our, our methods and our, our values, if you will. Um, we don't strive to be the number one biggest game in full arch. We want to be the number one best company to get full arch at, and that includes being answered with a phone call right away. Yeah. And that first point of contact, I feel like is so important.

And you have the option of going out in there and hiring appointment setters, right? Somebody that can say, hi, thanks for calling. We have appointments available on this date, this time, whatever, but those aren't the calls we get. We get people that want to know how this works. They have tons of questions as they should. They've been researching for a very long time. This is a

Part 312:50

significant amount of money that they're looking to spend. They want reassurance. They want comfort. They want information. And, uh, Which is a side note. Yeah. Which is not what you would expect, what I would expect. And I am proud of the general public for the amount of research that they do. I'm very shocked every day at how much research they've already done, like kudos to the general public because they do a lot more work and are more informed than you think. And it's awesome. I think Absolutely. We not, that's not to say we don't get the occasional person that has no idea what they're looking for.

I'm just saying as a general rule, you wouldn't expect it. So kudos to the American public. No, absolutely. We've come a long way. Even since I first started here, it feels like the, the shadowy mystery is getting exposed and people are learning more and more and it's become more socially acceptable to talk about this and ask these kinds of questions. So I've seen it come a long way, but it's, it's very, uh, it feels good to be able to answer the questions that this, these people have. Um, there's, I don't think there's anything that can stump us at this point. You know, when we started out, I used to tell our sales reps, like, it's okay to say, I don't know, but never just leave it. And I don't know, you say, I'm not sure. And I don't want to give you the wrong information. So let me find out and I will call you back and confirm these things. Never just, Oh, I don't know. Just, I don't know. And leave it at that. Um, but nowadays there's no need for that. We know everything that there is to know. I feel like The, um, Let's get into some numbers real quick for marketing. How much does it cost in Boca to get a consult face to face, or, or you can go further back on the, on the KPIs if you want, um, numbers wise, but let's go through the three or four bullet points that steps us into a patient being closed just so that the general public can have an idea of how much is spent on them just to get in the door. Yeah. So our average vomiting in the corner, I'll try to get through this.

As I can, our average cost per console can be between two and $3,000. That is a console that has no guarantee of ever moving forward. Um, and that's just to get them in the door. That's to get them in the door. Oh, that's closed. That's to get them closed to get an arch closed. But what, what does it cost to get a console in the door? That's that's, that's the cost per console per console. That's showed up consults. That's not consults that didn't arrive. That's showed up consults.

Okay. I see what you're saying now with, uh, as a global system, if you take all of the marketing together. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, and, and that the, the point of that whole statement or bringing that forward is patients want to know why we take them seriously and talk to them as much as we can. And I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point.

It's because we spend a lot of money to talk to you and we want to talk to you. We don't want to spend and correct me if I'm wrong, we could lower that cost to a hundred dollars. They just, we would have to go through 20 of them to find the same amount of work. Sure. So we don't want to spend a hundred dollars and speak to 20 people as fast as we can. Right. We'd rather spend $2,000 and talk to you as thoroughly as we can and become, uh, uh, make sure and identify that patient is just as much excited about us as we are about them as well.

Right. Absolutely. Consult a big deal for everybody involved. It's a big deal for us. Um, we hope that it's a big deal for, for them enough for them to make time for it and, you know, bring their list of questions and not be drunk. And so, which we have had, we have, we have several consults. The funniest one, just, just as a side, the funniest zoom console I've ever done, um, was a chick was, I don't know if she realized what she was doing, but she was vaping out of one hand, but also had a cigarette in the other hand. Oh, double. I don't think she realized like, like subconsciously she was just in vape mode, but then also subconsciously she was in smoke mode. She was stressed out about that console and had a coping mechanism. I'm going to say that, you know, it is a lot of pressure.

To be face to face with a doctor and kind of, um, open up with this thing that's affected your, your life so much. Um, so we, we, you know, we admire people that are willing to taste that, take that risk and, and know that this is the first step towards a solution for the problem that they have, but it does, it does take a lot of courage to make that step. I will say whenever I talk to friends who do placement for ads and big companies, and they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're,

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they ask me what we spend per year on marketing. And I tell them they almost all fall over because they don't expect it to be that much. It's, it's a big, big portion of our revenue. It's 10 to 15%. Yeah. Can be more, can be less, but that our goal is 15%, 12%, 13%, somewhere in there. Yeah. And again, in a saturated market, those numbers only go up. So, you know, we have a good bit of brand equity. We've been around since 2016.

A ton of patients singing our praises. So, you know, for the little guy starting out, it's tough, tough to compete. And, and it's tough for us to compete with multi-billion dollar corporations. So we can't outspend them. All we can do is provide a better, what we think is a better service experience outcome and, and let that speak for us. One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn in marketing is if you have a pool of $300,000, you can't just go ahead. Even if you have the greatest marketing strategy and marketing firm, et cetera, behind you, you can't just go out and spend that 300,000. You have to dole it out and build it up to be something that's efficient, that makes sure that you're testing and doing these things that we're talking about, that your day to day was not something that I computed in the very beginning. Yeah. I thought it was a, if you had a hundred grand to spend on marketing, you spend a hundred grand on marketing. And then that was, you know, the return was the return.

But it's actually, if you're just starting, you may be only to really be able to effectively distribute 20 grand to spend on marketing. Sure. Then 25, then maybe 45 or, but that number is always kind of changing. That's all, as you know, we sit in the admin meeting every week. That's probably the hardest thing for, for you to beat into my brain is that we can't just go spend a bunch of money to get patients. It's this like growth, slow residual return over time that you can build. Yeah. And I think that's, I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really build your budget over time. It is. And on top of that, there's diminishing returns, right? So you get to a certain level, you would think, well, if we spend twice as this, does that mean we double our revenue? And this is not the case. So it's finding that sweet spot, which is a challenge.

But you've always been a very thoughtful puzzle solver kind of guy. So you've done it well. Um, I see that you're challenged every day and you do a good job carrying that load and that challenge. It's an interesting gig for sure. Nothing's ever the same. Uh, and then Nicholas speaking of diminishing returns and expenses. That's the name of the game is expenses on my side, at least. So Nicholas, um, I'll let you choose where you want to start. You've you're in, in sort of charge of operations and making sure that everything flows well. Rent is paid through the bookkeeper.

Doctors are paid through bookkeeper. They're employees, all of that stuff, HR. And then you also have the lab as your under your wing project as well. So I'll let you decide where you want to start. Sure. Yeah. I mean, um, a lot of people probably look at Done In One and they see

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our ads that Robert was talking about and they look at it as, oh, there's a clinic in Mizner and Boca Raton. There's a clinic in Tampa, Florida. There's a clinic in Jacksonville. Oh, it's Dr. Daniel Northooks. It's Dr. Seth McDuffie. It's Dr. Lucy Park. ▶They don't look at it as a clinic. It's a clinic in Tampa, Florida. It's a clinic in Jacksonville. They don't look at it as, oh my goodness, there's, you know, five, six people in the marketing team. There's, you know, five, six people that work 24 hours at the lab. There's four facilities that all have monthly rents. There's four facilities that all have, uh, liability insurance. We have all the doctors that have malpractice insurance that, hey, this is, you know, a very intensive procedure. So we're having to have and carry pretty much the highest malpractice, uh, insurance possible, which is millions of, which is millions of dollars. Correct.

Also, I'll interrupt real quick for the listeners. This is not, uh, the intention of this podcast in this episode is not to lament woe is us because of all of our expenses. This is a nice, profitable, there are probably much more profitable things to be done, but it is a good profitable business. It is a good business model. This isn't a woe is us. We just want to explain because Robert is on the, he has his finger on the pulse quite frequently. And one thing we do see quite a lot is patients don't understand that there's a justification to the cost.

Oh, for sure. They look at a $30,000 price tag and they're like, man, I bet Dr. Noorthoek's driving a nice car out there. And it's like, well, yeah, we, I mean, we built this model to be, you know, very, uh, advantageous for both the company and the patient, something that's definitely a lower price point than your average clinic that you're going to walk into with a much better process that we feel. But there's also a lot that goes into that. Uh, and it's, again, it's a lot larger than just the four walls of the dental clinic that you walk into. So when a patient, you know, does go forward, they sign up for surgery. Well, you know, that's a, a cost in regards to the implants. And one of the things is, you know, I credit you, Dr. Noorthoek is you partner with different implant companies that are, you know, the best of the best. Like, is there a cheaper alternative out there? Absolutely. You could get source from, you know, whatever country you want third world. And it's just not going to have the same results. The same goes into the printed try-ins and, you know, the next steps. Like we don't cut any corners with our, our, uh, 3d printers. We have the best three printers on the market that are used by, you know, different military groups, even just due to the fact that they have such a, uh, incredible micron fit that we're not going to cut any corners for our patients. And, you know, same then goes into the final zirconia, like that zirconia puck, you could probably source it from, you know, uh, China or something of that nature. And T-Mu, T-Mu, absolutely. TikTok shop, swipe left, smaller. And, uh, you could probably bring in your own puck and say, this is what I want you to use. I got it for 50 bucks online, but guess what? That thing's not FDA approved. It doesn't have any coverage on it. Um, so, you know, we, we definitely are very mindful of sourcing things that are top of the line from the United States, from reputable companies that have, you know, outstanding, uh, customer, you know, support FDA approval. Like, you know, we, we don't cut corners on that side because, one of the instrumental kind of factors of Done In One when this first really got kickstarted was we are going to provide the best possible restoration, best possible service for the best possible price to the patients. And I think we've really done a excellent job of kind of compounding that over the years and ensuring that, you know, when we do make different service changes, we're being mindful of what that end result is going to be for the patient. And, you know, we don't want to switch over to a different company and then have to, you know, inflate the cost to, uh, our patients. And one thing I think that has been pretty cool.

▶So like, if you've been researching Done In One and you've had your finger on the trigger for, you know, three, four years now, you're going to see that our pricing hasn't really increased. Well, if you go, you know, the whole classic, if I go to the grocery store, eggs are double the price. Well, yeah, that doesn't mean our costs haven't gone up. Implants have gone up. Zirconia has gone up. Rent's gone up. Insurance has gone up, but we've always stuck to our guns and saying, Hey, you know what?

We're going to do the best we can for patients because we want to make this the most affordable process that makes sense for everybody involved. And that when you do select us, you're, you know, you're getting the best possible materials, the best possible kind of process through it, but also just the quality of care that you can say, Hey, I'm getting a restoration that

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I'm going to sign up for a lifetime warranty because I know it's going to actually be a lifetime. So I think we're, we do a really good job on that front. You know, another little kind of hidden thing behind Done In One is I think a lot of patients probably assume, Oh man, like there's little elves in the back room making teeth at the Mizner location. When really we have a, you know, a third or a 3000 square foot facility, 10 minutes away that is running 24 seven. We have a team that is, you know, their first thing in the morning, quality assuring things. We have ceramics that are there. We have a Miller, we have our, our, uh, lab manager, but then we also have a, overnight team that comes in and ensures that everything is smooth. Everything is going quick.

So that's why our turnaround of, you know, you can get this in five to seven days is legitimate because we have a team that is working 24 seven. So there's a lot that goes into it. A lot of people that have incredible careers because of what Done In One has offered a lot of mouths that we're feeding and a lot of people that we're responsible for, but a lot of people that walk around with the Done In One logo on their, on their chest, proud of it because, Hey, this is, you know, they know they're showing up to work doing something cool. It's not like when you're, you know, I, when I first graduated college, I was selling cars at Cadillac. There's plenty of times that I sold a car and I was like, Oh man, that lady is going to be back here in a year looking for another car because I don't know what I just sold her. But I don't think anybody has that. I think when Erica, you know, meets with somebody, she knows, man, I'm giving somebody the best possible, uh, procedure here. And, you know, you sleep well at night knowing that things are going to go well. Uh, and things go well because, you know, there's a lot of people that are so much time, effort, research into all the back products and all the back services to ensure that things go without a hitch. And, you know, we continually try to, you know, upgrade that and redefine that. So like, you know, we're right now in the process of, like Robert said, implementing different AIs on the marketing side, but also on the operation side, we're trying to implement things that are cleaner, smoother, that, uh, keep the process going a little bit easier for patients in regards to like, Hey, let's transition to an online cloud-based platform for consents. Because, you know what, we have patients that are having issues with their home printer and they can't print things. Well, let's figure out a way that we can then, you know, have a service that we can send this over to you electronically, right to your phone, right to your email. And it's very simple things like that, that you probably, you know, see on your everyday business, you know, kind of life that you don't think about the cost behind that, but it's different things that we always try to redefine ourselves and ensure that we're, you know, getting the best out of it. And, you know, we're trying to, you know, giving the best possible solution to patients. Yeah. And I'll say I'll, I'll parlay off of that and we'll retouch the, the cost thing that specifically implants, but also printers. So as you alluded to our, our printers are a subscription base. So we pay monthly what it would cost us to buy a new unit every single month. It's yeah. And I actually saw one of our main competitors yesterday. And I was like, Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't I had a TV commercial and I, funny enough, I like my wife was working upstairs and I yelled, come down here. You got to see this. It was because they showed a, their printer, like we're redefining the workplace and the, and the system to have a better set of teeth. And it was like the cheapest printer that's on the market. And I'm like, they're literally advertising.

Basically. Yeah. Something that you could just get in a three day shipping. And we don't do that. We don't really, you know, flex our printers because again, Nobody really cares about the printer. They care about the results that come from that printer. And we, you know, pay for the best on a subscription basis. And we don't just have one. We have two in our, you know, headquarters. We have one in each dental office so we can, you know, be very quick on things.

So, like, you know, if Ms. Smith called today and was like, hey, I decided to chew on rocks last night and I broke my set of teeth. Okay, cool. Give us an hour and a half and we'll have something ready for you. Yeah, that gives us. If she chewed on rocks, we might recommend a medical exam first. Yeah, there could be a little bit of underlying issues there. At least to talk. ▶Once we figure it out, we'll at least have the teeth ready for her.

There might be more to unpack there. But, you know, we definitely develop a lot of things.

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And, you know, that goes to the printer. That goes into the milling machines. You know, what I was going to say about the printer was we had a period where we did go with sole units and said, hey, it's going to be per month. It's going to cost. We can get a brand new one every single month. And we went that direction. And it was so abysmally horrible. And we didn't. We tried every printer under the sun.

We made a very conscious decision on which printer it was going to be. Just what turned out was the expensive one that takes, you know, that costs that per month. And so that's an example of not cutting any corners at all. Whereas the other side on the implant side. The implant selection is a is a huge multifactorial decision that I've gone through a switch maybe four times in my career so far. And every time it's a switch, you get the pushback from either patients or from from the the staff because they enjoyed that rep, et cetera, or they liked the packaging.

And the difficult part as the leader, the one making the decision is it always gets looked at as it's just a financial decision. ▶And I can tell you, I've never made an implant decision on price, period, ever. My decision comes from what else comes with it. You know, you discussed, you know, how you were you sell selling cars back in the day. This is I'm going to choose the car, the implant that comes with, you know, maybe if it's a trim that I love, I'm going to spend money on the trim.

If it doesn't need the trim, I'm not going to spend that money. But it comes with the service package. Oh, I mean, we were just discussing last last week how you bought the three year package and you got your oil changes done and your tire rotations, et cetera. For you, that was a huge value. And that's what I'm going into an implant decision with is what what does this company do that allows me to do my services better, not even just on a screw basis, but on a multifactorial lab infrastructure, et cetera.

And so sometimes it doesn't come down to money and you spend more like the printers. ▶Sometimes on the implants, it appears like you're cheaping out, but it actually comes with this huge 30 bullet point list of all the reasons why my main surgical tech and I were discussing the other day as we're working out with changing up, potentially changing up implants systems. And I opened up the discussion like, hey, do you want to ask me any questions?

And I told her the 36 reasons of why I'm considering. And, you know, even her who works with me every single day and works with the packaging of both companies every single day was like, oh, well, now that makes sense. There's there's a lot that goes into it and it has generally nothing to do with money. Yeah. So there's that side, too. That's the also the hidden cost of dentistry is sometimes you get that infrastructure like the carbon printer that we use, the printing machines.

That we use and it's worth the money. And it's that's hidden into the cost, you know? Yeah. I think there's a as we sit here and talk about it, it's occurring me to me more and more. And I know this is very cliche to say, and we've all heard it our whole lives, but you get what you pay for really, really is in effect here. Right.

Part 833:44

▶Because because we can we can buy cheaper implants, but that's going to cost us more in the long run when they always we can. We can use cheaper printers, but it's going to cost us more in the long run. We can in this is applicable just across the board. And I think it really comes down to because I see a lot of this online with with patients in the marketing space. Well, you you can go here and it's X amount.

And then I'll see somebody say, you know, well, you get what you pay for. True. But in that case, does it mean that the very highest price place is the best? And that's not necessary. It's not necessarily always true. So it's a fine line of of making sure that the price you're paying is balanced with the quality of service and the product that you're that you're getting. And to that point, you know, we we offer a lifetime warranty.

So we have to invest in our infrastructure to be able to uphold that and ensure that, hey, we offer a lifetime warranty. But that doesn't mean we want you to come in every year because something broke. Like we want this to last a lifetime. We want to. Right. ▶We want to see you on your scheduled hygiene appointments, not just because these catastrophic emergencies happen when you're eating a salad. So, you know, we definitely build up our infrastructure to say, hey, you know, we are so confident in what we do because we're so confident that we have made the right strides to build this thing out to the best possible solution that, yeah, we'll we'll we'll stand behind it and offer a lifetime warranty.

We have no issues with that. Much to Odom and Nick's chagrin. I can guarantee that any time we have to spend money on something like implants or our apparel, you know, we don't cheap out on those either. Generally speaking, when I green light something, it's for my own laziness, which is means I'm not creating my own problem later on. The shirts fit me really well and they're comfortable or the printer works really well and we don't get the late night phone calls, et cetera, you know.

But I just wanted to kind of give a little get together and get a little window on from from y'all side. You know, there are a lot of expenses. And again, it's not a woe is us, but it isn't something that we can offer for seven thousand dollars because there's a lot of staff and there's a lot of lights that have to stay on and there's a lot of equipment and materials, you know, just to just as a last little note.

▶As we build out Jacksonville, it's fifty thousand dollars in implant consignment. And that's not even a full blown built out consignment. That's just what we want to keep on hand in Jacksonville. So there's a lot that goes on as any business. But we wanted to kind of give listeners a little inside look on what that looks like, et cetera. So we appreciate you guys coming out of your admin spaces and your busy days doing actual important stuff to talk with us here.

And Erica, I thank you for taking the time out of the office today. It's actually, believe it or not, hard to get Lilia or Erica out of the office because they both want to be there, be in the action and see the patient. So thank you for taking that time out today. And we appreciate you guys for listening and hope you listen again. Thank you. Have a good one.