The Dental Amigos are excited to host their very first guest, Jayme Amos, the founder of Ideal Practices which is a highly-regarded consulting firm that works exclusively with start-up dentists.  In this episode, Rob and Paul turn the tables and talk about Jayme: his business, his approach to working with dental start-ups, as well as the Ideal Practices Start-Up Practice Blueprint. They also chat about the always popular topic: start-up v. acquisition.

While Jayme’s group focuses on the start-up path to practice ownership, much of the discussion in this episode will be impactful for existing practice owners and those looking to acquire a practice, especially the discussions about being intentional with your business, “practice DNA” (a great Jayme term) and the impact of an owner’s happiness and fulfillment with their practice

If you’re looking for Jayme, you can find him at www.idealpractices.com

We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoy doing them!  Feel free to also follow The Dental Amigos by going to SoundCloud and then clicking “Follow.”

Full Transcript:

Narrator: Welcome to the Dental Amigos podcast with Dr. Paul Goodman and attorney Rob Montgomery, taking you behind the scenes of the dental business world. All the things you didn't learn in dental school, but wish you had. Rob Is not a dentist and is not a lawyer, but since rob is a lawyer, we need to tell you that this podcast is for informational purposes only and it shouldn't be considered legal advice. Listening to this podcast does not and will not create an attorney client relationship. As is always the case. You should formerly consult with legal counsel before proceeding with any legal matter. Learn more about the Dental Amigos at www.hedentalamigos.com and now here are the Dental Amigos.

Rob: I'm Rob Montgomery joined as always by the head Nacho himself, Dr. Paul Goodman. Happy to be here. Good to have you. Welcome to another episode of the Dental Amigos where we seek to demystify the business of dentistry and teach you the stuff that you didn't learn in dental school, but wish you did. Today we have a very special guest, a friend of ours, a true Amigo, Jayme Amos, who is really considered by most people to be the, uh, the foremost consultant in the, in the startup dental world. Uh, Jayme is the CEO of ideal practices which has dentistry's elite startup practice consulting firm. He and his team of consultants work with a limited number of private practice dentists each year to open highly successful new practices. Jayme's also the best selling author of choosing the right practice location. He's the host of the ideal practices podcast and the founder of how to open a dental office.com. Creator of the startup practice blueprint course, Jayme has spoken, uh, international stages, uh, for a dentist and to dentists like the voices of dentistry, dental schools, residency programs around the country, study clubs and other venues. And the Ideal Practices team, uh, that works with Jayme has devotes thousands of hours a year helping dentists open successful startup practices that make meaningful value focused impacts in their communities. Ideal Practice is a publication that has been featured in media like dental town, dental products report, dental entrepreneur, ignite, DDS, the progressive dentist. And many others. Jayme's a really good guy who's been a personal inspiration to me. And if you haven't had the chance to hear Jayme live yet, you really need to. Uh, I've had the pleasure of hearing Jayme speak on a number of occasions and even though I'm not a member of the targeted profession, the dentists', I always have good takeaways from his seminars and podcasts that I'm able to apply to my law business. And I think that when you're looking for a consultant to help you with your practice, you're going to be really well served to look at how that consultant runs his own business. And Jayme and his partner, Stephen Treader, have really done a magnificent job with how, how they run their business. Uh, in addition to all that, Jayme's, you know, a flat out a good human being who is active in service projects overseas, including Ideal Practices initiative to provide funding for 10 startup businesses and third world countries every time they help open one startup dental practice in the United States. And now without further ado, here's Jayme Amos, welcome Amigo. And thanks for being on the show.

Jayme Amos: Hello Amigos. It is really, really good to be here. I'm honored because I, I've, uh, I've been able to hang out with you guys and bumping you guys informally and professionally. But now, uh, on a recording, this kind of takes our relationship to a whole new level. This is going to be awesome.

Jayme Amos: I love the intro by the way. It's really cool to hear and I liked that kind of leap legal disclaimer that says, because we're up to an attorney and I would actually vote best attorney in dentistry. Thank you. Cold. But I like how it says, uh, this is not legal advice because Rob is an attorney and it's being recorded or something. So my question is because you can't give you, because what you say can't be considered legal advice, is it okay if what I say is considered legally, but we get.

Rob: What you're saying is good advice. That's for darn sure. Whatever we want to call it.

Jayme Amos: Thank you guys for having me. This is, this is going to be a lot of fun.

Rob: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks again for bearing with us. So, you know, before we talk about startup practices and things that affect Dennis, you know, I want to talk a little more holistically with me about, you know, what you do in your business and what you do for dental businesses generally. Um, you know, and I've, I've observed that you have a very systemic approach for, for startups and frankly, very systemic approach for your own business. You know, where did you learn that? I mean, where, where did that muscle come from? You know, did you have mentors or inspirations? Like where does somebody kind of get the training for that purposeful thought because one of the things that we kind of touch on in different ways on the show is really just the importance of being purposeful in what you're doing. That if you just kind of trip through the process, you know, that you really just sort of leave yourself and your business to fate and that is the exact opposite of what you do. But I'm curious like where, where did you get that? That tree, which I really respect.

Jayme Amos: I love those, those concepts like purposeful a term like that implies so much. There's the depth, but there's brevity there. It means you're pursuing something specific, but it's in terms of what you want. One of my favorite words in the English language is intentional, intentional being, we've got a direction, we've got a plan, we know what we're doing with kind of, we know why we're doing what we're doing and we're actually headed somewhere in particular. I think in business in general, the more intentional a business owner can be in dentistry or otherwise, if you are intentional, you can serve people well. It's really hard to accidentally create great successes or transform people's lives or serve people beautifully. It's hard to do those things accidentally. I mean, I guess you could, you can kind of stumble into becoming Mother Teresa. Maybe. Maybe you could stumble into, you know, helping someone cross the street or something. But I believe that the intentionality in business and in life allows us to serve people and help transform lives. And that's what it's about. You know, business only matters to the extent that we can serve others. If we are not serving well. We're not going to make an impact. So in order to do that, I believe we have to be intentional or purposeful. And to answer your question about systems, I think systems allow us to get there. I think we can have an intention to go pursue and then systems, processes, systems give us the structure to do that efficiently. So a system allows us to get there efficiently and the best part is it will allow us to do it over and over again. So We can get there efficiently, we can do it over and over again and then we can be intentional about where we're headed. So, I love that topic. It's interesting that you observe it. We've got systems, we have systems for everything cause Ideal Practices. As we help to start up practices open, we have, you know, the 13 stages to open your practice and the seven criteria for selecting a contractor and the 11 standards of working with equipment companies. You know, we have systems for everything. Um, but I believe it's for the purpose of serving people well with an intentional outcome and then we can really make a great impact together. So

Rob: like I said, some of this stuff, you know, directly or even maybe in a subliminal way, listening to Jay, man, this is kind of soaked in my brain that I've kind of tried to implement a lot of that stuff myself and my own business and my life. Um, as a result of that. And, uh, I think it's, it comes through, and you know, the people that we see in the world that, that approach their businesses and their lives that way are, are the people that are happy and successful. And truly I find that it's hard to have control over a situation if you're not purposeful and when you don't have control is when you become stressed and unhappy.

Jayme Amos: When I was nine years old, I was a paperboy and, we didn't have much money in my family. Um, I literally had to buy my own toys and all the games. And even some of my clothes. And it was a great experience from nine to I think 16 years old. I had 14 years old or something. I had this paper route. I think back then I had to create systems so I could get off my bike and get out of the cold because I ride my bike around the neighborhood without good systems of how to hold the rubber band, how to hold the newspapers quickly and put the rubber bands on and a proven track around the neighborhood with a system of getting in and out of each person's particular driveway set up with their front door without a system in place for those things. And it gets slow. And I got cold and I just wanted to go back home and stay warm. So maybe it came from my days of being a paperboy.

Rob: There you go. It goes back a long way because you certainly perfected it. So I think the next question I have is, I think I know how you're going to answer it, but I think it'll be interesting for our listeners to hear. How do you measure success for yourself personally? And then how do you hope that your clients would, would measure success? Jayme?

Jayme Amos: Hmm. So that's a question I actually ask myself a lot. Um, what matters? What matters? What is success? And I'm confident that it's a blend between transforming people's lives and knowing what will make you fulfilled. So the first part probably isn't too different from most people, but if you look at any business that has an incredible track record, they've transformed lives. They have served people really well. I look at even like Apple, right? Apple makes the iPhone, they have transformed people's lives with this funny little plastic thing, right? Right. They transform lives with it. In dentistry, dentists get to do the same thing. Dentists get to transform people's lives. Many of our high level consulting clients, they say, but some of my most rewarding cases, some of the cases that I just enjoy most deeply are the ones where a patient, well look up at me and say, this looks amazing. Thank you. You just transform somebody's life. So I think that's my version of success. Transforming people's lives. And having a specific, uh, understanding of what will make you fulfilled in that process. So in business this allow me to say that this might sound, this might come across the wrong if you don't listen to the whole thing, but I think in business one of the primary goals of a small privately held business, small and private, privately held business, meaning not a publicly traded company, private hail business. I believe one of the primary goals is to make the owner happy. If the, if the owner isn't happy, my opinion is, well then who else in the business is happy customers or an in dentistry is case. Can the patients really be happy if the owner shows up grumpy every day? I don't know.

Jayme Amos: Can the staff be happy or can the team serve patients well if the owner is unhappy or grumpy or angry or, so I think one of the primary goals for small business is to make the owner happy. And this ties into a startup. Of course for a startup, that means we need to know upfront before we even consider what town we're going to go to, what's going to make you fulfilled, what's gonna make you happy? And then we can be intentional with that pursuit. So there we go back to my word of intentional, but then we can go pursue that. So there's a long answer for you. There's my whole answer. So it doesn't come off as self serving. It's not about being self serving to be happy. It's so that you can serve more people if you're happy.

Rob: Makes Sense. It makes a whole lot of sense. And it's sort of sort of leads into my next question, which is, you know, what are some of the ways that Ideal Practices is different from other consulting firms? I mean, I, I suspect that what you're talking about, we just spoke of a moment ago, it's not the sort of the normal protocol and the industry.

Jayme Amos: I don't know. That's a great question. I'm not a dentist and I have a degree in international business. I launched a small business straight out of Undergrad and it did really well. We got $1 million in the first year of business and I bought a bunch of real estate. I, over time I found how real estate and the demographics and small business, how these things could fit together to help dentists. And it was, the results were, they inspired me. They were really impressive how these things combined together, real estate, which I had experienced in at that point and small business, which I had experience in and that point, um, how they combined to help dentists. I guess my outsider's opinion being from the non dental industry is a little oblivious, uh, because I don't understand how other consultants inside of dentistry necessarily work or think I disliked to find the most efficient, repeatable, dependable process to help open successful startups in dentistry. So I spend all my time on that. Whatever it takes to do that and doctors become fulfilled with a custom practice. Um, that's, that's kind of all I know. That's about all my team and I know.

Rob: Yeah, that's good. That makes sense. Now Jayme, you don't just take on any client that comes in the door either. I mean, are there certain traits or certain things that you guys look for when you're basically screening clients to decide whether or not it makes sense to work with them?

Jayme Amos: I mean, yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of sue have asked to work with us then we have a, an application process. But I think this kind of goes back to what you guys know, you know, Paul and in your practice. How cool would it be if all of your patients were like that favorite patient you had from a couple months ago?

Paul: Oh yeah. I mean, that'd be great. I, uh, come through most of my dental work from the acquisition side personally and selling practices from the startup side. There's just a lot of, I think every dentist wishes they could do a startup at some point in their career because they could make it how they want to make it. But I think, you know, it's a daunting task. I think it's awesome that you've, you're solving this problem for dentists and I'm looking forward to hearing more about you know, your, your process. But I, that would be great if you had patients that, you know, you built your own culture and could do things the way you want it to do.

Jayme Amos: If you could, if you could kind of reverse reverse time all the way back to the first day you stepped into practice ownership and you could just define one kind of patient and you could find a town that was filled with those kinds of patients and you can have a marketing strategy that appealed to those kinds of patients, and then you could build your team around very customized solutions to create an incredible experience for those kinds of patients. You can probably guess how it would start to compound, right? You can probably guess, Huh? Maybe not all 2000 patients are the best, but there's a lot more than if I just left it to chance.

Paul: Yeah. No, I totally see that.

Jayme Amos: I just like to think, well, you know, there is a way to reverse engineer this to get a higher percentage of patients who you are really enjoy in your practice. So since we can pre plan some of this stuff, most of it I, I believe, let's do that. Let's not miss the chance because once you step forward and start signing leases or start making long term commitments to things in dentistry, man, you're stuck for awhile. For better or worse, you're stuck for a long time. So I like to try to avoid problems instead of fixing problems. If we can avoid problems instead of fix problems. I think life I saw a lot more enjoyable.

Rob: You're preaching to the choir. I mean, you sound like a lawyer now how many times I tell people that, what's the cost? What does this cost? Well, it's a lot cheaper to do it right then is try to fix it 10 years from now, I can tell you that, you know, it's a 10th of the price, if that makes you feel better. The, the ability to, to, to head off problems and to solve problems that people well before they even become problems or that, that the clients don't even know about is the true measure of a, of a good advisor. I think. Um, I think this is probably a good segue into a where I'd like to go next, which is yesterday, uh, Jayme, you graciously, posted on the Facebook group, the making of a dental startup, uh, that you are going to be on the podcast today and ask the the members there if they had any questions to ask. So I think if you're up for kind of rolling through some of those, um, I think they would kind of fit where we are in our conversation. I think the first one...

Jayme Amos: Fascinating to me, by the way, to see how many people jumped in with, with, uh, questions and Kudos to you guys. Uh, your, your names kind of lit up the board, like back in the old phones switched days right off the board, your guys' names out there, you guys are like, uh, like the dental celebrities and now that your powers are coming bind to the power of Nachos, the yellow, the yellow Nacho gooey cheese that holds you two guys together is transforming dentistry.

Rob: We're in Philadelphia. Cheese cheese is a delicacy here on sharing our true collars. I love it, but it was neat. It was cool to see that. And thanks for doing that. So one question that a few people asked and it kind of asks a different ways, but you know, I hear it a lot, and I know you hear it a lot more, which is startup versus acquisition, you know, what, which is better and why. And so I, I've got an opinion on this and you've, you've heard it and I've heard you, uh, your opinion on this, Jane, but why don't you take the first crack at that one?

Jayme Amos: Oh man, that is such a good question. And I think the answer has to start with what you want. I think the solution, the right answer to which is, which is better, it depends on your preferences and it depends on what you want out of your career in dentistry and what you want to pursue. Paul, how many hundreds or thousands of practices have you helped doctors analyze for acquisitions, right? How many variations of existing practices are out there?

Paul: Oh, there's, it's all over the map in terms of size, scope, the way it's run. It's an interesting world acquisition. It's one I know well, uh, from my own personal practices as well as doing, you know, the transitions brokering. But, uh, I'm excited to hear about the startup process, not to jump ahead and do it at all. But I always, I get the question from, you know, young buyers asking me for help and I totally encourage him to consider a startup. I just don't feel comfortable, you know, guiding them. I guide them to someone like you to talk to. But if you could give our listeners some, you know, just some experiences you've had with young dentists or don't even have to be young, you know, kind of weighing these two things against each other.

Jayme Amos: Yeah. So I'll give a shout out. I promised a couple of shout outs to the person who asked the question in this Facebook thread with Alex Sharp. So Alex, here's an acquisition and startup related questions. Um, so Paul is, we're kind of talking through this, let me, let me throw a lob up. A simple question. What, uh, how many, if you had 15 practices that you were showing buyers, how many cultures, how many cultures of practices would you say there exists in those 15 different practices?

Paul: I mean, it's really all, all 15 because the dentists rarely talked to each other, so they're just all out there. Dentising the way they know how.

Jayme Amos: and each of those dentists, I would argue each of those dentists has a practice that kind of reflects own personality. Whether or not they mean too, I like to call that practice DNA.

Paul: Totally, I mean, and in what you said about the patients were true. It's, it's interesting because I deal with dentist of all ages. I mean there's, what's the saying like people start to look like their dogs or vice versa. I always say, you know, dental patients start to look like their dentist and vice versa at age 70 and you know, they start walking and talking the same dentally, right? So you know, the, the, the watch one dentists, nothing against that guy. His, when his patient breaks a tooth he says, ah, you know, we'll patch it versus a different type of dentist with a different culture. And I just think what's super difficult on a young buyer is you can't really capture that culture and the meetings you have with the dentist. Sometimes they stay, sometimes they don't stay, but yet another presents with unique, I mean I've taken over cultures and it's not easy to you and find out what the culture is.

Rob: Well, I think what Jayme said a few minutes ago is really spot on though. When you talk about, you know, what do you want? What, what brings you happiness now to be able to treat the patients that you want to treat in the place that you want to treat them. The way you went to treat them is a very individual and personal thing. You know, it's like Paul Goodman comes into Rob Montgomery's life and my happiest day, Paul, might feel like this sucks like this. This is terrible. I can't, I can't, I can't, I hate this guy's life. Like how does this make them happy? But you know, trying to plug yourself into somebody else's practice is, is not an easy thing. And you know, we see that a lot. You know, if people look at practices and they are like, well this is a poorly performing practice. Like, I really don't, you know, we need to change the appearance that we were gonna need to get rid of this. The staff, the front office, and uh, all these things are not good. And why are you buying this? You know, like this doesn't make any sense. You don't like it. It's like going into like a car showroom and I'm like, do you like this car? I hate it. I want to buy it. You know, why, why do you, why do you want to buy that? You know, you just told me it don't like it.

Jayme Amos: that term, the term practice and DNA I think signifies so much in acquisitions. Every practice has its own DNA and its own culture and DNA. Like we all know DNA is really hard to change, right? You can change it with something like a nuclear bomb. You can change it if you want and create a different DNA strand perhaps. But it's really hard to change DNA. So I like to say they're t my humble opinion. I, I've talked to a lot of doctors about acquisitions and startups and talk to a lot of doctors who regret the fifth thing that they have to do in that process. And here's my opinion. From my humble perspective, I'm not an acquisition guy. I deferred, I deferred it guys like you to talk about acquisitions in depth, but I like to try and make it simple on my mind and I like to think there are really two criteria to consider purchasing a practice. If you're looking to be a business owner, that's important. If you're looking to be a business owner, two criteria number one, the practice has to be doing in over a million dollars in revenue. Why? Well, at $1 million of revenue you really start to see a business structure, not just a practice job, the difference between a business structure and a practice job. So we could go into the weeds on that topic, but you probably see what I mean. So number one, $1 million in revenue. Number two is a surfer dentist sit only by a surfer dentist's practice. And I'm convinced,

Rob: What do you mean by that?

Jayme Amos: Well, a surfer dentist you can probably imagine, gives the hang loose sign, maybe has some long blonde hair. He's paying, he takes off to go surfing and over lunch break he might be in California. And that dentist practice has a very specific way of connecting with patients. Therefore, no other buyer should consider that practice unless they too are a surfer dentist. Because when they step in, like the team is going to have an expectation and a rhythm. It's not right or wrong, but they're going to have a rhythm of communicating with patients and a rhythm of talking with the doctor and a rhythm of serving their community. What that practice is known for has been determined already. So I think if you're going to purchase a practice, look for the culture and remember the surfer dentist and look to see if you are the same culture as that other person. So those would be my two humble criteria for an acquisition. If you want to be really happy without having to go fix everything, if the day you buy the place.

Rob: it's a good point. You know, I have this conversation a lot with clients know, they talk about whether they should do a startup or an acquisition and ultimately I approach it as you want to be a practice owner? That's what we're, that's what we're talking about. Now let's talk about the path to that ownership. And I always encourage people to keep an open mind. Like don't just go into it saying, I only will do it. Startup probably only want to do an acquisition. You know, the reality, in my opinion, if you can find the perfect acquisition with a practice, let's just say, you know, that's doing $1.3 million in revenue. Culturally, it's a surfer practice, you're a surfer, all this checks out. Is that better than doing a startup? Good luck finding that Unicorn, you know, like they're out there. But good luck. And, and you know, when we talk about your threshold of $1 million dollars, that's interesting for me now Jayme, because the, the world of, of dental transitions is changed so much in the last 22 years that I've been doing this. You know, and, and I had clients that built really big group practices in the, like early two thousands doing all kinds of acquisitions. We'd show up for a deal. We would present, you know, the asset purchase agreement. And the seller would say, oh, I don't like this or that. Too Bad. That's it. We're not going to make any changes. We could do that. You know, because it was really a buyer's market. Now if you're, you know, a dentist that's been out for seven or eight years, you're looking to buy, you know, what you talked about, which is the business, you know, at a million bucks, you're buying a good business.

Jayme Amos: Um, you've got a lot of competition with the DSOs. You know, like those practices are really hard to find. And what you might as a, as an owner operator might be willing to pay, you know, 700,000, $750,000 for a DSO might be willing to pay a million. So like, it's really hard for a lot of people to find that opportunity. And what I see is like the classic settling. Like, I couldn't get that practice. I'm just going to buy this other lousy practice, you know? And, and, and then we talk about like, why do you want to buy this practice. And maybe they're, you know, if the, the, the doc has been, you know, in practice for a, I don't know, you know, 30 years and his life's work is this practice that that gross is $450,000. Nothing against people. But you know, is that the business that you look at and say, wow, I want that business. You know, like that's not, you know, it, it's not something that is fired on all cylinders. It's, it's got, you know, it may be in the best case scenario, it can be fixed, but maybe it can't be fixed. You know, Paul mean you see these practices.

Paul: One thing I wanted to add, and maybe you know, I always, Jayme, actually I'd like to just take a time. I was a, you were the first person to invite me on a podcast and now I've been on, you know, 47 podcasts since then. So, you know, I appreciate you for getting my start. Is that a real number? I know. I don't know. I don't know. Close. Close. Right. But I was very nervous for that one with you, Jayme and Amy. You are awesome. And I just remember you saying a lot of things about delivering value. So I'll, you know, uh, reuse one of your lines but maybe did deliver some value to you and Rob and you know cause I'm the only one who's gone through dental school here. You know, you probably might get the sense that dental school is not a place that's built around happiness. Right. And you know, a lot of professional schools are like that. But would you agree that a lot of dentists have been through a difficult time to get to their associate than ownership position?

Jayme Amos: Yeah. Many of them kind of show up at the finish line out of gas.

Paul: I think you and Rob. And, and now you know our, our producer Muco Dan can appreciate the dental journey cause you haven't done it and you probably are not going to go back and do it. And I dunno if dentists, you know, the conversation you rob had about being happy and choosing things. It's really, it's a great conversation. But as someone who does acquisitions and now sells practices, a lot of times dentists aren't so concerned with reaching for happiness. They're kind of, you know, I don't, I don't want to be only want to use is a big words here, but they want to practice that is not mess-up-able. Right? They don't want to be able to mess it up. And even though you and rob may look at these acquisitions in such a way that are not a super positive one, you know, the, the reality is a lot of these acquisitions work out, you know, but that might not be your goal in life, just to have something just work out for you. And I think that's why startups even to me, you know, 40 years old, done a lot of different practice things. I feel like I have a lot of different skills. It would still be daunting to me. So I'd love to hear a little bit about how, you know, when you have these clients in front of you that you've taken on, you know, maybe, uh, a walk through the startup journey or we have here, you know, when is someone ready for that? Because I'm, you know, personally just super interested in hearing about that.

Rob: Before Jayme answers that, cause I'm interested in that too. You know, to me, I think if you're looking at a startup versus, and the acquisition, Yup. It's the type of people that, you know, you can do a startup the right way and it's not risky. And I think that's a huge misconception. A Startup mean that you just hang out a shingle one day and hope patients show up. Let me tell you, anybody that's listening, that's planning on doing a startup that way, do not do that. That is a recipe for failure. You know, if, if you do things in a purposeful way, you can control your destiny with your practice and you, you can make yourself happy. I mean, you're right, to some extent, and I've been spoiled to a large extent because a lot of the startup clients, I work with, our clients also of Jayme's and I've, I've heard and been to Jayme's presentations and I see the people that are there that are the people that are know the people that we all want to be as business people. They're focused, they're goal oriented, they've got a plan. They, they, they, they are, you know, brave enough to execute on it. It takes guts to do that. But if you're willing to do that, it's not this like horrible, risky venture. You know, that, um, you, you can, you can put yourself in a better position by doing a startup then doing a bad acquisition and look at the end of the day, I guess there are a lot of people out there that are, that are happy, not failing. But if your goal in life to not fail, you know, if you want to just get cs and ds, you can, but you can get A's too. Uh, and if, if you're really willing to, to put the work in.

Jayme Amos: And the A to your point that, that getting an A in practice ownership and in your career, and I would say even in your life, your ability to transform your community and serve the people you care about, all of those things are really enjoyable about the human experience that (A) is totally different from the workoutable, right. It's very different from the workout-able of will it work out? So if I could, I can share a couple of concepts from our course that we have the startup practice blueprint course.

Rob: Hey Jayme, can you just hold on for a second? Before we do that, we just want to take a quick break, um, and just, uh, tell everybody, remind everybody about our course that's coming up. And, uh, March 9th and 10th here in, uh, in Philadelphia at the, uh, the Union League of Philadelphia. Pauline talking about our state, the two day dental amigos event. Uh,

Paul: We've got a great lineup Friday afternoons going to be a lot about the business of dentistry with rob and I as well as, uh, the Larry David and Howard stern of dentistry. Dr. Steven Martin are from Florida. And uh, the dental hack himself, Dr Jason Lip Sicko and talking about multi-practice ownership, that's going to be on Friday. And then on Saturday you forgot, followed by followed. They're the most important part. Yes. The cocktail hour followed by a, a, a, a complimentary cocktail hour, uh, the, the favorite price for Dennis free. And uh, then on Saturday we're going to have the world renowned Doctor Cory Glenn talking about digital dentistry and all the things he's inventing. So you don't want to miss out on, uh, this opportunity after Corey seen us and Philadelphia, he'll be going to a Guatemalan Croatia. So we were one of his stops on the Cory Glenn tour. Now Rob, you are able to get us some great rooms at the Union league.

Rob: So it's a, it would be a great time to come to Philadelphia for the weekend. And, uh, meet some Amigos and, uh, get some CE credits.

Paul: 10 CE credits being offer

Rob: You also can look in the show notes for this episode for the registration page. Yeah, sounds good. Now, uh, Jayme, if he can ever starting to talk about, uh, what your practice blueprint looks like for the, for your startups.

Jayme Amos: Yeah. Philadelphia is one of my favorite cities of all time. And the Union League is one of the coolest places to go in terms of the venue. Gorgeous old history there, right near downtown Philadelphia. You're just a couple blocks from the liberty bell. You're a couple of blocks from where they literally signed the Declaration of Independence. It's like one of the most momentous moments in the history of this great country is what brought problems six blocks.

Rob: Yeah. Six blocks. Big Savings.

Paul: Birthplace of our nation, sir. It's your patriotic duty to come.

Jayme Amos: Philadelphia. It's amazing. It's the coolest historical city I think that exists in our country. So, um, yeah. The, the startup practice blueprint course, uh, one of the foundational topics that we cover their plays into everything that we've been talking about. And it's three levels. If you, if you can imagine if you can visualize a three step staircase, just a simple little zig zag line of three steps that you might write down on a piece of paper. The first step, this kind of encapsulates practice ownership and specifically startups. The first step is the startup practices that are open. These are three possibilities for startups to understand how this whole thing works. The first step as a possibility for startups is that it's a practice that is open. The second step going, one step up this staircase is practices that are successful. And the third step is practice owners that are fulfilled. So these three steps, these are the three possibilities for startups open as the first level successful as the second level and fulfilled as a sort of level.

Jayme Amos: So to kind of illustrate this one, our high level consulting clients out, she's all set of Denver. She opened up earlier this year and uh, amazingly after four days she had 209 new patients. That's a lot for anybody who doesn't know. The average in America is 25 per month. She had 209 in her first four days. And the cool thing is, you know, rob, you alluded to if this can be done, if doctors can do this, if guess what? She had zero business experience. None 99 some percent of our high level consulting clients have zero business experience and they're producing over a million dollars a year in their first year. In her case, 209 patients in her first four days. And I had a little recap discussion with her and I said, Lauren, how you're feeling? She said, amazing. This is so cool. She said, but you know what?

Jayme Amos: I get it now. Like would you guys talk about in your courses? I'm not just open. Yes, I have a practice that's gorgeous. Yes, I have a practice that I love, but I'm kind of reaching this financial place even in my first month where I'm reaching the success level. And it's not about the dollars, it's not about the money necessarily, but there are these things called bills to pay. So let's just make the practice profitable. Right? But then the third level is she said something like, and my gosh Jayme, the patients who are coming in there, many of them are my ideal patient. Many of them are patients who I just love being with not just having as a patient but actually being with. So if I can kinda rewind many doctors, actually one of the doctors, uh, my good friend Dr Greg May, um, Greg is just a wealth of knowledge and information and he spoke at one of the big CE events I did in Miami last year.

Jayme Amos: We hosted one and Greg spoke, well, Greg posted a comment on that question list from the Facebook group. Remember I mentioned the long list of questions in that Facebook group. His question was, what's the best marketing tip that you see in the country? And I like to answer that question. With this kind of situation. There isn't one best marketing tip to bring her practice to a place where she could grow that quickly. It actually took about a year and a half of planning. It wasn't like there was one special postcard that "ding" throwing the postcard and poof outcome 200 patients. It took a couple of weeks. Right.

Paul: Could you just on a side note, what was any of these dentists? Are they just, cause I'm curious and most of our listeners are going to be dentist, are they working at their associate position during this year and a half? Are they doing a hybrid thing? I mean what, what's their normal work life working with you guys?

Jayme Amos: Unless there's some really weird situations. Yes. During the preparation stages, it's a full time associate ship position until about two months before your opening day, about a month or two before your opening day. We ask that you scaled down because then you can have the extra time in place to go through our dental startup MBA program. We have a dental sort of MBA program that we guide doctors through the business of dentistry. So when your practice opens, you're not left with a practice, you're left with a business structure and protocol and systems and all that stuff. Marketing, all the marketing strategy and all those things. So going back to that staircase open versus the next staircase of successful and the third staircase of fulfilled, she got to experience how this planning process with the solution to achieving all three. See, unfortunately that open stage, that's where the vast majority of dentists focus.

Jayme Amos: And it's sad. I mean it really, it bothers me. I mean like it upsets me sometimes when I see these stories of dentists who spent all this time and energy on dental school and then they try to learn all this stuff about opening up a practice and they try to learn how to become a lease expert, right? You tried to become a leaf expert and then they try to learn how to negotiate for construction and they try to learn how to negotiate for equipment and I think you're crazy. This is your first time ever doing this. And you're, you're literally competing against people who have decades and decades of experience learning how to sell you the most expensive construction or sell you the most expensive equipment. You can't win. You can't win going through your first time. You just spent four years in dental school not negotiating school.

Jayme Amos: So let alone structuring the marketing strategies, let alone the hiring. So I like to say you don't need business experience. You don't need some magic touch to open up a successful startup, but you do have to follow a proven process. You have to follow a very specific set of sequenced events and you have to have most of them go really well. Or You could be like, uh, so one person asks, uh, what? Or I forget who the person was, the in that thread of questions, but the person asked a question like, uh, what are some of the failures of what are some of the downsides? Um, uh, I think startups now have sort of a, an intriguing, maybe almost sexy kind of sensational feel in some circles. And I, I like to remind people guys, startups can and do fail that can and do fail.

Jayme Amos: Just putting it out there. I know not supposed to say that because I'm a startup guy, but they do. Um, there's, uh, I spoke at a, one of the biggest lenders in dentistry. I spoke to their team and as I was talking through the presentation, talked to this big group of thanking people and those, just the guys who lend the money and the big banks that lend the money that dentists, as I was talking through our process, teaching them how this works so well, some people on the up on the top left of the, of the group, they kept peppering me with questions that were questions based on fixing problems, not avoiding problems. They were talking about fixing problems. Well, we'll, could you ever help somebody who is stuck in this kind of situation or what would you do if you know the lease was going to implode?

Jayme Amos: Or how else would you help a guy who's been opened for a month and still are at six months, it's still hasn't seen a dollar of profit, right? They're asking me those kinds of questions and I paused my presentation. I said, excuse me just a second. What's your role? Those are really fascinating questions coming from a banker. What's your role here and if it were from the special assets division. I say, what? What does this last us division? She said, there was a woman amongst three or four of them up there. She said, we're the group that helps doctors who have open practices who are failing.

Jayme Amos: Interestingly, special assets division as an acronym spells the word sad, so I like to think will hold up. Whoa, hold on here. If there's a division in the bank that focuses on the special assets, the failing businesses, I think that's reason to recognize there. There has to be, this has to be done right? We can't just launch in. I don't believe you need any special human traits to do this. I think anybody can do it as evidenced by doctors all across the country we've helped from all different walks of life, all different age ranges with no business experience or training. They're doing this, but they follow a very specific process. So in our courses, that startup practice blueprint course, I mentioned the open versus successful versus fulfilled. Let's go back all the way to the beginning of our conversation here on the podcast. Like I meant when I said, let's be intentional. Let's, let's focus with that end result first. Let's focus on fulfillment. Let's focus on how we're going to get there. And the other pieces can fall in line. Let's focus on what's gonna make you happy. And then figuring out how to get the other pieces of stuff fit in alignment with that. So that's what we liked focusing on.

Rob: That's so powerful, Jayme. You know, a lot of people, like you said, they focus on the open. They don't even realize that, you know, it's fulfilled is ultimately where they want to be until maybe they've been at it miserable for 25 years. You know, it's, um, and, and I think it comes back to even in the context of that with the, uh, with the lenders. You know, uh, I love the fact that dentists have one of the lowest default rates on loans and leases in the country. It's great. I built that out when I'm negotiating with, uh, with landlords all the time. But I'm also, you know, I also hear that and it makes me cringe a little bit, which is, you know, is everybody really like, you want to do better than just not fail. You know? And, and, and, and in the profession, it really is hard to fail, you know, but there's so much between just not failing and being ultimately fulfilled and successful, um, that you can, you can put yourself on the, on the right side of that continuum, you know, to just do it, to not fail because there's a terrible goal. You set a low bar for yourself, guess what? You know, you're, you're not really going to go too far above it.

Jayme Amos: Remember who shares those statistics? The statistics is not failing. Those statistics come from the banks. Right now. I love dental lenders. They are necessary. They're great partners. The ones who understand dentistry. Absolutely. Those statistics are coming from the banks. Those referred to default rates. Meaning did you foreclose on the business? Will Rob, let me ask you a question. If you had a startup practice that wasn't doing well that was not profiting, would you foreclose on the loan or would you get a part time job to help pay the bills?

Rob: Part time job. And I've seen clients that did it. We have clients that drives an Uber, you know, to make it.

Paul: Oh, also Jayme and Rob, I think to hear from one of my groups yesterday or maybe it was a dental hacks, I, we were just talking about something that rob and I talk about frequently, dual representation brokers and other things that someone had chimed in. You don't need anyone to help you with anything that banks are going to make sure everything's fine. And I said, that's like leaving my three year old with a bowl of candy. Right. And it's like, maybe it's not a Kenneth Candy to make her sick to go to the hospital, but at the end I'm going to be like, this was not a good use of this candy. Right? So like I tell the people, you know, this is such a perfect thing for the listener. Understand it, and it's, everyone gets very judgmental when you talk about income. Right? But it's not meant to be judgmental, but I tell, I was just saying to a buyer coaching client I had yesterday referred to Rob, um, you know, the banks you're going to, if you make $60,000 a year and pay the loan, like rob said, you haven't failed.

Paul: But as a dentist that maybe not is not why you went to dental school. Right? So it's also a lot of stress to work for, you know, $60,000 a year. You know, my wife is a teacher. I have tremendous respect for what she does. And people will say, you know, well teachers make x, Y, and Z, but you know, unless you are a dentist like us and working inside people's mouths, it's insanely stressful job. And to not get enough income to feel rewarded for that. It kind of goes back to what you were saying. If the owner's not happy, can you be successful? So if anyone's listening, the banks are not there to protect you from total failure.

Rob: Well, I also wonder too, and this is something that, you know, the questions are, you know, why do startups fail? I'm kind of curious, you know, and I wish I'd thought of this yesterday when I saw the, uh, the post, you know, what, what is that person asking? What do they consider to be a failure? Are we talking about like boarding up the, the, the, the front door and closing? Or are we talking about just muddling through and unsuccessful career? You know, because to me there...

Jayme Amos: I probably didn't, I probably didn't express it clearly or eloquently, but I think what dentists have been trained to associate with that word failure, that the bankers and the industry has used this percentage of whatever it is. 1.5% of dental practices ever fail. But I think it's, it's really important to remember that's coming from a bank who probably has a special assets division that is trying to prop up some of those loans. And that also includes all the doctors who Paul, like we just said, you would get a part time job too, right? You'd get a part time job, but before, before you foreclose on that practice. So it doesn't mean that practice is thriving. It just means that the doctor didn't choose to foreclose on a loan at a practice that's not making money.

Paul: Just to use an example, it says you, how's your marriage go? And you don't say not divorced. Right. Which strangely, you know, like, like you know, that's how you're feeling. Not Dead. Right? I mean that's like down a good way to describe it. So I think that's a really, and I think the three, three of us talking about this, cause we cut coming from we, each one of us talks to a lot of dentists all the time in different places in their lives. Sometimes the same, sometimes different. And you know, I, I just think dentists are just, it's a career where people are just working by themselves and their own little dental homes and they don't share a lot and they don't really know what's going on with other dentists out there. So, you know, I think it's, it's great you can kind of share your experience with how you help people at startups. I think it's another thing as a practice broker, there might not even be enough practices for everybody to buy, to become owners. Right. You know, so there's that, there's that out there too.

Jayme Amos: There's, so one of the things I like to say is to avoid being too ethereal with some of my concepts. Sometimes I get too too cerebral without enough action. So at the risk of that, the topic of being fulfilled, I would encourage everybody who's listening, whether you're a practice owner or you're considering a startup, are you considering an acquisition? Uh, try to push through these three topics to define. This will literally help you define how you would be happiest in practice ownership, how you would be fulfilled. First is what do you want to be known for in your community? How do you want to be known? Literally write it out. Write it out. How do I want to be known? What kind of best possible review could I ever get? Get really clear on what you want to be known for in your community.

Jayme Amos: The second thing is analyze what kind of legacy do you want to create or what, how you want to be remembered even at the end of your career. Get clear on what you want long term, even after dentistry. If you can get clear on that. And I'm encouraging you to literally write it down with a real pen and a real piece of paper. Write it out. And then the third thing is how do you want to give back? How do you want to give back to society? How do you want to give? I think it's interesting to look at people like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, some of the wealthiest people in the history of humankind. Those guys now, after amassing all this wealth, they say they're now working harder to give all their money away to important causes than they ever worked to earn their money. So what does that mean? It means, why don't we just start there? Why don't we just start by focusing on the things that we're most passionate about? Let's just start on giving to the causes that were most impacted by. So that's my encouragement to, to focus on that fulfillment level as a practice owner. Get clear on those three things and you'll, you'll be in an entirely new level for what you should say no to and what you should say yes to in practice ownership. Does that give some good ideas?

Rob: Exactly what I'm talking about.

Jayme Amos: I practice what I share with people. At Ideal Practices, uh, we've made it very clear that every time we open up a startup practice in the United States, we simultaneously provide the funding for 10 startup businesses in third world countries. The technical term for it is called micro lending, but we provide the, the, the small loans so that through a nonprofit partnership we provide the money so that people in third world countries can get off the ground with small businesses of their own. Like for them it might be, uh, you know, a couple dozen chickens so they can get the eggs and they can take the eggs to market and they can provide an income for their family or maybe a couple of cattle, you know, those kinds of opportunities for them, they, they are literally nonexistent without a little leg up. So every time we open up a, that's what we do. So I believe that I am so fulfilled by that and I feel so humbled and honored to be able to play a role in things like that.

Jayme Amos: And through it all, I see man power and the opportunity through entrepreneurialism is one of the most powerful forces in, I think, human existence. The opportunity for a small business, a small business, has the opportunity to change a community, whether it's here in the United States by dentists transforming healthcare or to change the way we serve people like an iPhone that changes people's experience, that that's serving model or like overseas where people are being saved from things like extreme poverty or in some cases human trafficking. Entrepreneurialism can do that. Transform communities, change lives. That's why I love startups because we're creating these opportunities to transform people's lives. So focus on that topic. It is powerful stuff.

Rob: That's amazing that you guys do that too. It really is such an impressive thing and I'm sure everybody involved feels that, you know, and probably have created, you know, like the raving fans that you know, kind of follow you forever. How long have you guys been doing the whole startup Ideal Practices? How many years? Like what's your first, first one out there?

Jayme Amos: I wrote a book four or five years ago after that book. That's when, uh, we had some branding changes and things before then. It was just the Jayme show.The very first dentist I ever helped was, uh, 13 years ago. In his case, he, uh, he opened up his practice and we, I tried combining these concepts of real estate and demographics and small business growth. You know, the, the background that I had, I knew nothing about dentistry, but I combine those ideas with him. He said, Hey Jayme, I'm making good money as an associate, but I hate it. Can you help me? So we put these ideas together and man, he took off, he did 1.4 million in his first couple of years and this guy, but his real goal was to sell the practice and move to Florida, which is where he is now. He's said some really nice stuff about me and our experience even just recently. And this is, you know, 13 years in the making, any still the cool thing for him that I think is that it wasn't about just owning a business. It was, it even included him saying I'm making a good living and I'm not enjoying it. What could we do something better. And then by following proven systems in small business and real estate and demographics, we're able to create this cool success story. And then he was able to follow what was really meaningful to him, which has moved his family to Florida.

Paul: That's awesome. I was just thinking maybe Rob was a couple more questions. I just want to say one thing, I'm just wondering as I listened to your story, this is 13 years ago, right? So at some point your, your initial people are going to come to the end of their career and I'm wondering if you'll be able to match like you know, Surf or you created 20 years ago with new surfer dentist, you know, you've been on the acquisition side, we'll work together, you'll come over here, you know, trying to sign them up, sign them up 12 years from now. So you know that this is, I was thinking you've created this and you might be able to match certain people later. I know that's down the road, but that shows you, this is asking, so thanks for sharing

Jayme Amos: The cool thing about what you do. Paul, you're the guy who was sort of like finally cracked the code on recognizing that buyers need representation. Somebody else asked that question on that list of questions. You are the guy who cracked the code on recognizing how do I serve people at buyers of practices so that they are served well in buying. If you're going to buy a practice, you must have somebody like Paul on your team who represents your interests. Think of a realtor. No one in their right mind would go buy a house without their own realtor. You need your own realtor so to speak, but for some reason it's become acceptable in dentistry to just have one person represent both sides.

Paul: That's crazy. Working with rob, I've learned some words, but you know, you, when you were talking Jayme, I think your model of, you know, working with the contractors, the lenders practice managing people and you're doing that for your clients, right? So you are, you were finding the experts and bring them to your client. You're the center. That's how I feel as a buyer coach. You know, I bring them to people like rob on the legal end. I bring them to an account or Rob may help bring them to an accountant. But you really need somebody in the center for you because I say it's like, you know, it's pretty much the most important decision of your life or one of the most important decisions of your life.

Jayme Amos: I kind of look at those big decisions, this huge life decisions a little like, uh, a patient who might come into your practice. So Paul, this might, you might be able to relate to that if a, if a patients come into your practice and they're considering you for this full mouth reconstruction versus somebody who's done it just once, who do you think they should take advice from?

Paul: Right. Yeah. And that cuts both ways. As a dentist you say that too, like, you know, it's very interesting. You know, the general dentist has a lot of power. The broker has a lot of power because they're the one you know, and they'll say, you know what, can't you take out my son's wisdom teeth? And I use the same thing. Like I don't do this every day. I want you to go to someone who does it every day. So dentists actually are very familiar with that and their clinical life. But then when they get into their business life, they think, well, I'll just use this one person for everything. And, you know, that really can lead to some, as rob sees an I see and I'm sure you see some, some dangerous outcomes.

Rob: Well, the people that are sort of advancing that you can deal with one person have their self interest in mind. There's a reason why, because they can control the information and get the deal over the goal line, whether it may not be good for the buyer or the seller, but it's good for that. Right? But you know, shame on anybody that, that falls for that. I mean, I, and that was one of the, uh, uh, somebody did post that the other day. Uh, you know, basically talk about, you know, dual representation and it's just there in my world, there's no such thing. You cannot represent both sides of a, uh, of a deal. Um, you can't represent whether you're a broker, whether you're the lawyer. Um, you know, even from a, from a real estate broker standpoint. I mean, I know I work with a lot of real estate brokers, uh, that the ideal practice has guys use. And you know, there are people that are tenant reps. They, they don't represent the landlord. Next week. They represent the tenants and the tenants only and now. And, um, that's, that's important. You know, you can't, you know the people and we get calls not infrequently from clients that say, Okay Rob, I've got this lease and uh, like you to take a look at it.

Rob: And I ask them if they're working with a broker and they say no. Oh, okay. Did you just call the number on the sign? Yeah. How much tea I are they giving you none. Okay. And what's the rental rate? You know, you get through it and then, well then I have to try to put the genie back in the bottle and go in and negotiate these business terms and then they're like shocked. Like, wow, I got 40 bucks a square foot to a right for my tenant improvement allowance. How'd you do that? I asked, um, but I,

Jayme Amos: But the broker who represented the landlord, he said it was a good deal.

Paul: I think that what Rob said is so true. The whole thing we could do and I want to write down like they hope you don't ask this and then you know, if you get someone on your side who asked this for you, magical things happen. Magical things happen, like rob said, but the person who's trying to get it over the goal line without you asking, that's the problem. So yeah, that's it. That's a great point.

Rob: We've talked about this and, and the, if, if, if a real estate broker represents the landlord and somebody comes to that broker, they call the number on the sign, they get a different deal, you know, they'll go to the owner and they'll say, you know, did they have, or is there a broker involved? No, then give them this and it's not a better deal. I think sometimes people think like they could save money if there's only one broker and somehow like that they're half of the commission is somehow going to be put back into their deal. No, it's the exact opposite. They are like, oh, we've got, you know, we've got a chump

Jayme Amos: So Steven, we all know and love Steven, the director of consulting and partner with me at Pdeal practices. Steven has now successfully worked with over 500 startups. I mean, you get this guy, I'm talking about startups that has just mind blowing every time. He's an incredibly wise, experienced person on this topic. And he always laughed about brokers. He says, guys, I see it all the time. I was a realtor. Get the deal done, or a broker, get the deal done. And then they go out with the drinking buddies of the person at the other end of the deal, the real estate deal, they go out, they go to the golf course and they, they clinked their glasses and they say, hey, cheers to us. We just got a signature. So they are motivated to get a signature on paper. They're not necessarily their compensation plan, their motives, their business motives don't necessarily protect the doctor.

Jayme Amos: They're not there to protect the doctor there are there so they can clink their glasses at the golf course. It's not a bad thing. It's just that those are their motives. That is there. Incentivization is geared toward clinking their glasses after a signature, not necessarily keeping you safe. Does the doctor in Nashville that we worked with and his, his uh, real estate broker who was representing him get this is broker represented him. He had an attorney look it over. Um, and uh, my team looked through the lease, an 85 page lease, very heavy handed at lease. And I said, the broker, the real, the realtor said, uh, this thing is good to sign. We're good to go. The realtor landlord looked at over, you're good. Well, I looked at the lease one of the clauses in there literally said tenant is disallowed from having any hazardous materials on the premises. Paul, are there any hazards in your office?

Jayme Amos: I don't think he's a bad guy. The realtor, I think he's better.

Rob: The thing is, you know, and that that's where, you know, if you, if you're a dentist and you've never been through any of these processes before and you think you could do it on your own, you don't know all this, you know, you have, Steven has done 500 startups. I don't even know how many you've done. Similar more to giant numbers. You know, I've done a ton. You know, it's like if somebody thinks that they can just sidestep all that experience that they don't know all that, you can size that up in a second. Steven and I can say, Hey, you know what? You're listening to the wrong person. This is not, this is not, you're not getting good advice. You know, and, but they don't know that, you know, and if you don't avail yourself of somebody that's done it more than zero times before, you know, you're again, shame on you. And those people end up, you know, getting, you know, bad deals oftentimes, you know, a bad deals. Are they so bad that they're gonna fail, quote unquote fail with the lights go off? Maybe not. Are they going to go on to be fulfilled? Probably not.

Jayme Amos: Very true.

Rob: Another question that was on the, uh, the border, I think it was a sandy Pardue, um, commented about, you know, bad locations and Paul has said this before, I mean it's, it's, it's easy to, to, to sign a lease. It's easy to buy a practice. But it's hard to get rid of one sometimes, especially if it's not a good one or if it's an underperforming one. I know, you know, what you do, Jayme, is there's a very big emphasis put on, uh, on demographics and you've, you've obviously have, as you said, you've written a book about the subject. If you can just talk about that for, for a few minutes, like what, how you approached that and why, why it's important and how that fits into the process with Ideal Practices.

Jayme Amos: Yeah, it's a great question and thanks to sandy Purdue. Shout out to Sandy. She is one of the most formidable, um, legacy consultants in dentistry. She's got one heck of a reputation. So Sandy, thanks for the question and thanks for the Kudos there in the comment. Um, the opinion that my team and I have developed over the years is that demographic is misconstrued by, by so many who are trying to convince dentists that the right location is based on a mathematical number. But that's not true. For example, here's what I get asked all the time. Jayme, you wrote the book on location. I want to open up a practice. Where should I go? And I say, well, tell me about yourself. I said, no, no. I'll go anywhere. I'll do, I'll, I'll go, where are you telling me to go? My bags are ready to be packed.

Jayme Amos: I can go anywhere. I'm mobile. I'm ready to go. Let's do this. Just tell me where to go. And I said, okay, Zip your suitcase first. Good. Sip your suitcase and I'm going to tell you where to buy airfare. Here we go. You're ready Alaska, go to Alaska. Well, I don't want to go to Alaska. I liked my town. Ah, you like your town. It's what we're really talking about is what she was like, isn't it? Oh, maybe it is. So I think it's first important to remember to start with, what are you going to be fulfilled by? Let's, let's at least start analyzing that because the math won't make you happy long term. It just won't make you happy long term. Now there's a place for the math and there's a place for the demographics, those, those numbers on those, all those reports, there's a place for those.

Jayme Amos: But most importantly is where will you be happy? And then in that region, how do we look for your ideal patient? How do we find your ideal patient and then an abundance of them so that statistically speaking, Paul, like you and I were talking about how do we fill the practice of 2000 of your favorite patient? Maybe not all 2000 are going to be, but let's, let's game the system. Let's reverse engineer this a little bit so we can get as many as possible in your practice. So let's start with, we're going to be happy. Let's find a place that has an abundance of your ideal patients. And then we can look at the demographics with the competition ratios and all those reports and analyses on all those, all those, all that math does the massive, massive, important. But let's figure it, we're going to be happy.

Jayme Amos: Then inside of all that, once we have a town, once we have a region, then we can start looking at real estate. So my big kind of mind bender, that kind of messes with a lot of people's heads is I say, do not look at, don't look at buildings. They don't matter yet. We don't even know what town you're going to be in. Don't be swayed emotionally by a building until we know which region is right for your long term fulfillment in practice ownership. So if that gives you a little peek at the location selection process, uh, you get it wrong, you're stuck for a decade or more, right? You get it wrong, you're trapped. You can't undo that.

Rob: Yeah, that's for sure. And then I think really the only other question that I recall on the post, uh, last couple of days in the Facebook group was really asking questions about financing. You know, maybe we could just talk about that briefly. How much money should you save for a startup and just talking about adequate capital and financing. Is there any sort of myth or anything that you think is, uh, something good for, for people to know if there's one or two takeaways that are important when it comes to financing? Jayme?

Jayme Amos: So I guess a couple of the most important things is do not be distracted by the two things bankers want you to focus on. Rate and term. Everybody knows I should get a great rate. What's your interest rate? How long can I get the rate for the safety of your future and your family and your finances? Don't be distracted or rate and terms. What's most important for all I know is startups, right? What's most important for startups is a proper cash flow solution. We have to have a proper cash flow solution that is created through your loan. What the heck does that mean, Jayme? Well, basically we don't want a loan that has a really high monthly payment. Just imagine if you have expenses that are four or $5,000 more per month, you're going to run out of money real fast. So I like to say, let's focus on getting you the right loan product, not the right rate and term as the top priorities. If rate and term is all that mattered, loan documents would be one page long, but they're like 50 or 70 or a hundred pages long, right? If that's all that really mattered, the banks wouldn't need all the other papers. It's not about rate and term. Those are important, but they're not the first or second or third priority. What's most important for a startup is proper cashflow solutions. Does that give a good answer?

Rob: Totally. I mean, if he can't keep it a lights on, then I mean as far as I know, there's no award or prize for getting the lowest interest rate at the cost of operating your business. Like, Hey, I'm out of business. But man, I had a great rate. I got it. I got four and a half percent. My lock is that great. Yeah. But you don't have a practicing, right. Yeah. But my rate was good. Give me some kind of award, you know, like, yeah. So I totally, I totally agree with you Jayme. Well this has been a, it's been a lot of fun. Um, Jayme know, thanks so much for coming on. You know, just want to wrap it up the next couple of minutes. Um, do you have any, uh, any events coming up that you want to, uh, talk about or let people know?

Jayme Amos: Well, I mentioned that startup practice blueprint course and we're just thrilled the townie meeting dental town and the townie organization, they chose the startup practice blueprint course to be the first and only ever two day break out workshop. Oh, nice. So our event, the startup practice blueprint course, it's a two day long event and this is the first time they've ever done it. So we are really honored and humbled that they've chosen us for this. So the startup practice blueprint course is a mind blowing experience. It's not just a bunch of tabs and papers that get shoved down your throat or big binder that you throw in your closet when you get home. It's actually an experience that shows you how to do this. So I love it. We all, we limit it to 24 people held out months in advance. So I don't know, by the time this is at least, well I don't know, maybe there was still be seats left, but it's um, if you want to see what it's like or even see if you qualify to apply for the next one, cause an application process, you can check it out.

Jayme Amos: It is a really fun time and big eye opener, Aha moments. Uh, literally one doctor said, my mind was blown. You might even see a, a case study from a doctor who attended the course. My mind was boiling, like coming to this course. So it's a really, uh, it's a great experience. So if you're interested in the startup, uh, I would recommend checking out the course.

Rob: I've, I've actually had the privilege of attending some of them. It's a great course and it, because it's a small group, there's, there's a lot of personal contact with, uh, with Jayme and Steven trutter and the rest of the team and the, and the of the experts that they work with, the other professionals. And it's, it's a very hands on event, you know, it's not know, not sitting in the back of the room, uh, dropping out. I mean, everybody's participating and you get a really focus group there. I, I think it's a great, uh, a great thing for people to do. And, uh, Jayme, awesome.

Jayme Amos: The successes that we see come out of those courses is awesome. They are, they inspire me. I mean, the doctors who come out of those courses, they, they are accomplishing things that some doctors wait decades to accomplish. I mean, they, they love their practices. They're making great incomes and they're, they're really happy with. So that's, that's the most important thing to me. Are they transforming their communities and are they fulfilled? And uh, we've, we've had some really good feedback on those topics.

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