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We just announced Jordan as our new CEO.
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I think as Dental City looks forward in developing our business, we really wanted to find somebody that was going to really help take Dental City to the next level.
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And with all the integrations with special markets, group practice, DSOs, Jordan has really paved the way for Dental City and really earned our trust as owners to really put him at the helm and we're really excited to have him.
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What's going on, everybody?
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We are here at Dykema 2026, and it's the 13th annual.
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It is Friday.
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Day one was amazing and always an honor to have conversations.
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Yesterday was with a lot of the speakers that were on stage and all of that.
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But this is a special episode of the Beyond the Operatory podcast brought to you by the amazing team at Dental City.
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And look at that.
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Look who's with me.
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This part of the amazing team at Dental City.
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They are here at the Dicoma Conference.
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And as many of you know, or may not know, hopefully you do.
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Beyond the Operatory is a new podcast that Dental City has put together and we've built it kind of in two different ways.
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One way for you, the listener and the dental practice or DSO is to bring you leadership content, practice management, sometimes people outside of dentistry to help you grow your practice.
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But one of the unique things about Dental City and their relationships with partners and manufacturers and all the things that they do to serve dental practices is also knowing the ins and outs of what works kind of on the company side of the manufacturer side.
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So but today we have Jordan and John and Riley with us.
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We're on a first name basis.
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We're more than happy to give you their last names in the show notes.
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But for today, we're going to do first names.
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Good morning, guys.
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How you doing?
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Morning.
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Thanks for having us.
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Of course.
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It's always a treat, right?
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This podcast is, we've had a lot of great episodes.
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We talked to a lot of great people and we're going to continue to do some great things.
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But I thought we would take some time today.
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First off, John, there was recently an announcement made with Dental City.
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Yes.
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And I'd love to maybe, you know, have you talk about it.
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Sure, sure.
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We just announced Jordan as our new CEO.
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I think as Dental City looks forward in developing our business, we really wanted to find somebody that was going to really help take Dental City to the next level.
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And with all the integrations with special markets, group practice, DSOs, Jordan has really paved the way for Dental City and really earned our trust as owners.
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to really put him at the helm.
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And we're really excited to have him.
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Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because many of you may not know John as one of the founders of Dental City.
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And there's been a lot of congrats this week, rightfully so, to Jordan.
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But I wanted to take this opportunity to also congratulate John because it's not an easy decision when you start a company and you put your trust in somebody.
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So congrats to you as well, John.
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Thank you very much.
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You're welcome.
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I appreciate that.
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Yeah, talk a little bit about what this week has been like.
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You know, you've been doing such a great job, Jordan, building a great reputation for this organization and all of that.
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But just talk a little bit about what it's been like.
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Well, I think, first of all, Brian and the whole Dykema team just killed it.
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Yep.
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And I feel like they do every year.
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They bring it and they bring it to another level.
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And now we add some more pyrotechnics.
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Everything.
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That's right.
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It's getting bigger and it's awesome to watch.
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I think the other cool thing that I picked up on today from Brian
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as he's walking through, it's like 7.30, 7.45 before breakfast even starts.
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He's up and down the aisles thanking people for coming.
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Like he cares so much about this event and it's just unreal to see.
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And there's a reason why it's grown so much and so fast.
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It's because the care at the top.
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And I think that's been really fun to watch this year.
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Yeah, no question.
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And with this podcast, everybody, I mean, we thought it was important to highlight what goes on at these events, like whether you're in your DSO, you're managing your business, your individual dental practice, a lot of those that Dental City serves, a lot of these meetings are going on, and Dicoma is one of those.
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And there's a lot of things that are shifting and changing in dentistry.
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And when you take the opportunity to make the commitment to be at these meetings, you learn a lot of those things like Jordan that you were talking about.
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And speaking of special markets now, she does have a long title.
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Yeah.
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But we're just going to say that she's always smiling.
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And for those of you that know Riley, you know what I'm talking about.
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Riley, how are you doing this morning?
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I'm doing good.
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I'm really excited to be here.
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Yeah.
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So talk a little bit about how you are helping the customers that you guys work with.
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I mean, obviously, you're doing a lot of work in the special markets, but how is Dental City specifically helping them become successful?
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Yeah, we really look for true partnerships.
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And there's an infamous saying that I've heard many times over the last couple of days here, where if you learn, if you know one DSO, you know one DSO.
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So it's really about getting to know that person, what their goals are, where they want to see their group going, and then meeting them where they want to be met.
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So it's strategizing, it's talking with them, it's finding the right partners on the manufacturer side and bringing everybody together.
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Yeah, I love that.
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And John, we were talking before we came on here.
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There's a lot of investment that you all have made.
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Almost this vision and know where in the industry was going in an effort to be able to support that with what all you do.
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So I'd love to have you talk a little bit about some of the exciting things you guys did on the warehouse, some, just some innovations that is going to help this space moving forward in regards to continuing to take care of their patients, but do it efficiently.
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Yeah, well, first off, we've got a great team and we couldn't be successful without these two and many other people behind us.
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And through our strategic plan, we really took a look at what's going on in the industry,
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how consolidation in the industry is really changing everything.
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The reinvention of dentistry over the last five to 10 years has been enormous.
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And we really asked ourselves, what do we need to do to become an elite organization that we can integrate with our partners?
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And so along with that, there became a number of strategies that came up.
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And one of them was really to have a world class distribution center.
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So we invested the time and our energy and the money to automate our distribution with robotics technology parts like VLM's vertical lift modules carousels we went from a a
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a pick process that really was a traditional line pick to have picked a consolidation using different zones within the warehouse.
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And that's really allowed us to adapt very quickly to DSOs and group practices that we bring in, and all of a sudden we have volume increase, we can adapt to that.
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We've structured our distribution part of our business so that we can elevate with anybody.
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And then on the other end, we've really invested in technology and integrations.
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And so because of the vertical...
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integration that's needed to all these partners, we really had to bolster all of our technology so that we have better partnerships.
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Yeah, and if you ever go to the warehouse, anybody, wear your tennis shoes because there's a lot of robots running around, right?
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I mean, they're pretty smart, but...
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You know, in all seriousness, Jordan, it's like, let everybody know, you know, I've been saying this for years, the relationship between, and you guys know this because you work directly with your dental practices, but manufacturers, distributors with dental practices, unique in dentistry because the better that relationship is considering all of the products and supplies they use, that feedback comes back to you guys.
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You can make improvements.
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But just talk a little bit about...
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you know, for those that are watching, what you guys do and how important it is to build these relationships with these manufacturers for you guys to know and understand the advancements they're making so that when the products get into the dental practice, they can feel confident to know that they're getting what they need.
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Yeah, I mean, I think the manufacturer partnerships that we have are just, they're so key.
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It's not only the product that they're supplying, but the experience that the customer has.
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At the end of the day, you know, we're representing them, we're representing their product line and what the product is supposed to do for the patient in the chair.
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Dentistry is a little unique in the sense that it's not like a large medical facility where you can ship and work kind of out of one big facility and there's thousands of rooms.
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Even in dentistry, even as the DSOs continue to grow, it's still a practice.
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That's still one practice with a couple of operatories and a couple of dentists that are working out of it.
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And so for us to have a great relationship with our manufacturers, it's obviously about the product, but it's about us getting the product in, getting it in on time, knowing what we need to purchase and how much of it we need to purchase because this practice over here needs it.
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And then for us to get it efficiently through our distribution center out the door and to that practice in two days.
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So that way they can have the confidence in the product that's coming, when it's going to arrive, and that patient's coming in the chair.
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That's how this industry has always run.
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And DSOs just do it at a little different scale.
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But at the end of the day, it's a practice.
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And it's a couple operatories, and we've got to be able to serve it.
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So Riley, what are some of the conversations that you've had here at this meeting with some of the, the, the organization you guys have been working with some of their pain points, some of their challenges, what they're excited about.
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Basically your to-do list when you get back from here of how you need to continue to help.
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I mean, is it large?
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Is it small?
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Like what's, what type of conversations you guys been having?
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Yeah, a lot of the conversations were around, I would say, distribution.
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Because as we all know, platforms are growing.
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And they're so essential for the industry because there's approval processes and budgets.
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And it really holds all the suppliers accountable to make sure the groups are getting the pricing that they deserve.
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But then there's some...
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issues with offices or groups ordering from multiple suppliers.
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And if the stocking status is incorrect, maybe they're expecting to get a product and then it's not getting there in time.
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So it's working with the groups on understanding what their forecast is and what we need to stock to make sure we have everything they need when they need it.
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And then it's us working with those manufacturers to make sure we're placing those orders or what their drop ship capabilities are and like the logistics.
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behind it all.
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So a lot of our follow-ups are going to be with the manufacturers and how to like get past this hurdle.
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When you're in a meeting like this, you hear all the conversations and the courses about them scaling their practices and multiple practices.
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And then it's almost like you think, are they really thinking about if they go from 5 to 10 to 50 to 75 of how they're going to manage that from a,
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supply perspective and I would imagine that's kind of what you're talking about, right?
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Which that can tend to be second thoughts.
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But then all of a sudden you wake up and you need all those products and things are all over the place.
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You know, John, one of the things that I was noticing in some of the group conversations was really the chaos that's created as they expand Yeah.
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to multiple offices and how they need to be prepared to be able to scale up
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And you can't do that with chaos.
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You have to have an organized system.
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You have to have processes in place.
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And one of the things that we do is we really partner with those groups to make sure that we assist them in diminishing the chaotic nature of chaos.
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you know, really the distribution channel.
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And so, you know, that's the benefit that we can provide to everybody that we partner with, is that we have, we're fully integrated.
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Our production numbers, you know, we're 99.9% accurate on our shipping, our service levels, our fill rates are super high, same day shipping.
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And then all the integration platforms to make sure that all that information is shared with them
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in a really real time basis.
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It's really critical to help them scale their business.
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Who would have thought all this goes behind making sure they get their products in the back?
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Right, right.
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I was gonna say, going back to the to-do list, one of the cool things about coming here is it's almost like you're advancing things.
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Like we've already had so many things in the works and now you get to sit down
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meet with people in person and you're taking like you know three or four more steps further whereas otherwise you know you maybe meet with somebody over the phone or maybe you have a teams meeting now we're sitting down at the table we're saying yeah let's check this box let's check this box let's get this thing done yeah and i think that that's what one of the beautiful things about this meeting is you get to come here you're meeting with the with the folks you already know and have great relationships with and you're able to push things forward and that's really fun
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It's a good point.
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I think, again, I thought this was kind of a unique episode for Beyond the Operatory because we wanted all of you to know and understand when you're in your practice working with patients, these are the types of the things that are going on in an effort to make sure that
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the companies that you work with, the products and supplies, like all of that is being streamlined, but more importantly moved forward while you're continuing to do that.
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And it's kind of interesting that you say that because all of these, it's been hard to get like a table to have a meeting.
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Like it's almost, yeah, you guys ever go to those resorts and it's like the people are up at 645 putting towels in the chairs, you're not allowed to do that.
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You're not, you can't put the towel in there.
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There was guys down here like at 630, like reserving those tables.
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But to your point, that's what this meeting isn't all about is people communicating and all this stuff or whatever.
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John, one of the things I'd add too is that if you're a practice or a group practice, I would highly urge you to come to this event.
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I think there's so much value in this event.
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in this event for a practice group practice uh an emerging group so much to learn and to not be here i think is a missed opportunity uh for for anybody and it's it's the meetings that are happening in the hallways but the speakers they get i mean all-time great people that are out there telling you about the industry from a
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Yeah, totally different perspective.
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Absolutely.
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Well, and they have challenges too, right?
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I think that's one of the things we talked about.
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And I talked to Brian about this all the time the last couple of years.
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I mean, he's always been real.
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He's always been transparent to where, hey, here were the good times, here were the tough times.
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And then how do we move forward?
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Which is awesome.
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Well, I think it's real easy to just, you know, focus on all the good times, but it's really critical to have that engagement with a group like this when, let's say there's some challenges within the industry,
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challenges within maybe financing practices, consolidation, so forth.
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Now's the time to be here.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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Congrats on your new role.
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Thank you.
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Congrats on your to-do list.
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Congrats on building an amazing company and now being able to kind of like step back and empowering, you know, these amazing two and everybody that's part of the Dental City team, you know, and continuing to move things forward.
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So.
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Well, thank you for having the rest.
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Absolutely.
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Appreciate it.
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All right, everybody.
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And again, Beyond the Operatory Podcast, you can find it on Spotify, Apple, YouTube.
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We're going to continue to have a lot of great episodes and guests.
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I have a feeling there's probably a lot of people that these three met here this week that will be able to bring on guests that can add value to in your practice.
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So we'll see you soon.