Independent Dental Solutions is an Independent dental collaborative created on behalf of independent dentists to leverage the members collective buying power in order to drive down the costs of supplies, lab, capital equipment and much more.
The allows private practicing dentists to stay independent and receive all the same benefits of corporate dental groups.
VIDEO - DUwHF #1232 - Independent Dental Solutions
AUDIO - DUwHF #1232 - Independent Dental Solutions
Independent dental solutions are a mission driven movement to unify the independent dental market. Their goal is to “keep independent private practices independent” and give independent dentists one of the “loudest” and most “influential” voices in market!
Howard: It's just a huge honor for me today to be podcast interviewing Dr. Rick Romenesko DDS founder CEO and chief dental office of Independent Dental Solutions otherwise known as IBS he's also the founder of Romenesko Family Dentistry. Sitting next to him the better-looking one who's bald obviously all bald men are far more handsome Brian Heyndrickx not to be confused with Jimi Hendrix they spell their names differently he's also the co-founder and CEO of Independent Dental Solutions. Rick oh my gosh he has practice dentistry for over 40 years in Appleton Wisconsin he has three sons a daughter-in-law a brother and a nephew that are all private practicing general dentistry my god that's a genetic disease we must find that gene stop passing on. He practices with his son dr. Michael or Minsk oh how cool is that there are five separate practices in their family there's also Jeffrey Romenesko, Benjamin Romenesko. Independent Dental Solutions is an independent dental collaborative created on behalf of independent dentists to leverage the members collected buying power in order to drive down the cost of supplies lab capital equipment and much more. This allows private practicing dentists to stay independent and receive all the same benefits of corporate dental groups. Independent dental solutions are a mission driven movement to unify the independent dental market their goal is to keep independent private practices independent and give independent dentists one of the loudest the most influential voices in the market. Right next to him is the balding Beauty Brian Heyndrickx, attended the University of wisconsin Oshcosh where he studied leadership and organizational leadership Brian has over 20 years of experience providing strategic guidance and leadership in the health care industry he was a regional vice president leading a 2.5 billion dollar one of the country's largest distributors where he worked with manufacturers and GPOs. Brian is now leveraging his experience to help IDS. My gosh so you know it this comes down to life life is a different like like you know you think different thoughts when you're 20 then when you're 40 well now I turn 57 this month my four boys have turned into five grandchildren I don't want my grandchildren going to a dental office that's not owned by a dentist with some office manager raw raw that 30% of new patients should need deep cleanings and some profit-driven were they trying to upsell her cavity to an onlay or a crown I want my five grandchildren to go to a dentist and I look at the greatest companies and the founder like leg of it was hewlett-packard Dave the founder had a PhD in engineering I mean Henry Ford actually could work the assembly line look at Boeing right now Boing is a-class example the the nothing's they're all falling apart but they make their planes in Seattle their fuselage in Wichita Kansas and management is in Chicago now what what type of acid LSD trip are you on to think that's good idea and then when I go lecture in Japan the entire Honda factory everything is in one location and you go look at American cars and you know they've outsourced 30,000 different parts from all around the world and what would you rather own a Mercedes Benz or a Japanese car so yeah I'm getting old and I'm getting nervous I don't want my grandkids to be treated at a dental office it's owned by an MBA instead of a DDS agree or disagree?
Rick: I agree wholeheartedly wholeheartedly that's what this is all about Howard.
Howard: So why and how did you start independent dental solutions?
Rick: Well it's kind of an interesting story Brian and my son Michael became good friends and just one day Brian popped the question to Michael
Brian: Yeah I said to Michael I said hey who do you buy your supplies from and do you have a contract and he responded he said what do you mean contract is that I don't have a contract I just I just you know buy my supply so we basically started the process right Rick you tell me all the process.
Rick: Alright so Brian gave us a task to do so I took 25 items that were our most popular supply items and I sent them off to 9 or 10 different distributors and I asked them to quote me pricing on this if the 5 Romenesko practices banded together and we could have the same ship to we would have worried about dispersion and invoicing could be all sent to one place and we'd split it up or if that was better for them and the response everyone got back to me and they all we would have saved anywhere from 18 to 54 percent on the prices that we were currently paying.
Brian: and that would just sound five practices keep in mind.
Rick: Now I was on five practices, so then we decided hey what would happen if we expanded and banded all private practicing dentists together what would that look like and what kind of pricing could we get. So we got together with a friend of Brian's and now one of our co-founders Jordan Herbert who is industrial and analytical engineer and we started running all kinds of data and found that for example my brother and I who had practiced in the same building for 39 years my brother is three years younger than me and what separate practices but basically 10 steps apart when we ran our data from our previous our previous distributor 95% of our items were priced differently in 2017.
Brian: So thinking about that that's the same practice right in the different practices excuse me in the same building from the same distributor 95 percent seen what they're buying same rep same company different pricing so that was a big opportunity and another ah-ha validation moment for us.
Rick: Right right
Howard: and I think some of it is preying on our weakness I mean when you go around the world arguing about the price is like half of the love of shopping in some countries I mean some countries they just love that but Americans is one of those countries they do not do I mean when you tell other people other dentists in some other countries that you can't go into a mall and argue down the price of an outfit at the mall they're just like are you from ours so my homies in America and Canada they think well you know em Richard you know we're friends we played golf you know we're nice we're all play you're obviously gonna give me the best deal but it's the opposite it's like my God he's he thinks I like him he trusts me he trusts me it's time to clean up on this guy and so I mean is that what you see or not it might be into?
Rick: That's exactly that's exactly what happens they prey on our fragmentation as independent practice tactician. Well I mean my brother and I never talked about well what do you paid for that or what do you pay for this and so 95% of our things were priced differently some higher for me some higher for Jeff.
Howard: When you say so then who's Benjamin Romenesko school that's her brother?
Rick: That's my godson that's Jeff's son, Jeff practices with his son now.
Howard: Oh yeah
Brian: So we caught the Romenesko dental mafia here in the Fox cities of Wisconsin so.
Howard: So and did you all go to the same dental school?
Rick: We all did Marquette and different undergrad but what we all went to Marquette.
Howard: and do you remember that's the one that Rick Kurshner gave a million dollars too right?
Rick: Yes that is correct
Howard: and he graduated from there?
Rick: Yes I think he graduated in like 76 or 77 is my guess I believe he was just a few years ahead of me.
Howard: So did Rick Kirchner give that money or was it his wife Cindy?
Rick: That I couldn't tell you.
Howard: I love Cindy she's so but yeah so Rick Kirchner graduated from Marquette in what year you think?
Rick: I'm thinking in the mid-70s that's my know
Howard: So how many dentists do you know can give a million dollars to their dental school that is unbelievable. So you practice your Rick and you practice with your son Michael and your brothers Jeffrey in practice was his son Benjamin so who's the fifth one then?
Rick: Well the fifth one is Michael's wife Callie actually I am supposedly retired as of the first of the year but I've been working I fill in whenever they need me to so Callie his wife now it took my spot basically in our practice.
Howard: So mike your son Michael married a dentists in school?
Rick: Yes
Howard: and what's it her name?
Rick: Her name is Dr Callie
Howard: Wow that is so cool so
Brian: Two more though you guys
Rick: There's seven of us actually I have two other sons that are dentist Rick jr. and Nikolas and they all practice in the Fox Valley but also but there's five separate practices.
Howard: Wow that is just a Mesa Rick jr. Rick Romenesko jr. and then Nikolas Romenesko
Rick: Right
Howard: and what do they what do they think about that what well let me say this do they think that you and your brother Jeffrey were lucky because you graduated in the golden years back in the day and that they didn't and that it's real different now or how did they see this?
Rick: Well they I believe that even back then in the supposedly golden years you'd go to some dental meetings and it was always doom and gloom and I never felt that I always thought that dentistry was a gift and that's really why I'm so involved as I am now because I love the profession and I don't like seeing what's happening to it.
Brian: Yeah I think one of the things Howard is when talking with Rick when we hold first started this thing we started to meet with all these distributors we started talking about our mission and Rick would always say I you know I want to help independent private because I believe that you know corporate dentistry is kind of ruin the profession they're like we have nothing against the Essos and corporate others but because we understand every dentist's has their own personal situation they may want to be an associate but to your point early when you opened up we believe that independent dentistry provides really good care. So Rick you know we're telling all these manufacturers and distributors we want to help save into town and private practice because as we've heard you say before and and we talked before is a lot of dentists they don't really know how to run a business they know how to practice good dentistry but they don't know how to run a good business they don't know what to look for they don't know what to ask for and it's it's amazing because you you talk to dentists as as a consumer of just goods and services outside of their practice like if they go to a Home Depot right they expect to pay the same price for a hammer if they go to a Home Depot in their town or 50 miles away or 10 miles away but as a practice owner they have a different response to say well you know I may be paying different for that hammer through my distributor and ten of my other colleagues may be paying something different for that as well. So we're trying to educate you know these dentists and to be a little bit more empowered to make good business decisions on everything not just supplies equipment and services we're trying to bring in we have a lot of really good partners that we brought into the mix to help these independent dentists become better business people.
Rick: We want to pull the curtain back basically and let everybody peek into how the business of dentistry actually works.
Brian: and I've seen that in my side work in you know 20 years and healthcare distribution and manufacturing so we're taking that knowledge to help the independent dentist and you'd be amazed we go out and we do these seminars or duties these meetings or meet with dental societies and you know 90% of what we're talking about is just educating them and what they should look for what they should ask their distributor their manufacturer and empower them so they can become a better business owner which obviously helps them become the better dentists. We always talk about we want our members to manage like a CEO save like a CFO and practice like a dentist so you want to help them with all of that.
Howard: Nice I like that and my homies they they they're not business people though how do you how do you how do you do that I mean how do you know I mean I mean human nature I mean you go to a restaurant that's really really good the owner and chef they like to cook dentist are all surgeons aid we all work with their hands my oldest son's a welder and I we always laugh that we both work with her hands and out so how do you get them to focus on the business?
Brian: Well if you if you look at you said earlier you know you go to a DSO or corporate again nothing against them but you know they're run by an MBA they're run by private equity you know that's you know that's fine but the reason people join the DSOs is because they're looking for a job or they don't want to do all the business stuff so what we want to do is we we partnered with really good companies like CLA which is Clifton Larson Allen there are very nice professional services firm they do accounting tax wealth management and we've partnered with them to basically pull in their dental strategy to help our members to kind of create our own ecosystem so basically...
Howard: That was Stern Gold you were talking about?
Brian: No Clifton Larson Allen that's a professional services accounting tax wealth management firm.
Howard: I'm trying to find that on your website I see I see...
Brian: They're not they're not on the website.
Howard: Okay okay so I gotta I gotta find them so so tell me the name of them again
Brian: Clifton Larson Allen they go by CLA so here's an example they have a hundred and twenty two offices across the country they have a dental strategy focus for the independent dentist they also work with you know other types of dentists and DSOs etc etc but we partnered with them collaborate with them you say let's put together a package for professional services to help dentists with wealth management retirement if they're going through a transition what their strategy is tax accounting payroll practice management you name it so to your point earlier what are we doing to help our members become better business people we're finding the really good businesses like CLA that want to collaborate with us to help we also work with Midway Dental you had Steve and Kizzy on a podcast while ago CEO of Midway Dental we're also working with them they have this great program called the Mack Midway Education Center so we're constantly looking at ways to collaborate and partner with really good organizations that are like-minded that want to help educate and empower our members while we're looking at how does teledentistry come into play how do we look at that how do we look at insurance. So we listen to our members of what's important to them and then we have these initiatives and we pull in like-minded companies and businesses and talent to help us figure out the complexity within within the dental market. So it's not this isn't just about you know supplies and equipment it's about changing the landscape of independent dentistry by crater this ecosystem of like-minded businesses to help educate and be there for our members.
Howard: and how long has this been out and how long has it's been going?
Rick: Well we started Michaels conversation with Brian was in the spring of 2017 so it took us probably 18 months or so to kind of put the business model together and we consulted with a lot of specialists and general practitioners and we would get together and say shoot holes in this idea this is what we're thinking about doing. So what we did is part of our process was to we basically vetted nine different distributors we met with the big three and six other supply people distribution distribution people and they all were nice enough to come and meet with us in Appleton some sent five or six members from across the country to sit down and basically find out what we were up to and what we were what we were doing. So those are some interesting meetings that we had some of the conversations are some of the highlights from those meetings where I usually kick off the meeting and talk about my history and our family history and how I seem seeing the changes in dentistry over the last 40 years and and how the fragmentation is allowing that we felt dentists to be taking advantage of and one of the one of the larger distributors had a person that kind of chimed in and said we want to save private practice too because that's where our biggest margin is so you have you can imagine how we're all writing down scribbling on our paper got that quote down and then another one of the larger companies one of their members said well we we want private practice who survived as well because that's what allows us to give the deep discounts to our DSO and corporate partners.
Brian: I think one of our favorite ones was one of them so one of the distributors said you know good luck organizing independent dentists if you can organize independent dentist call us yeah so I would say all of them were you know oh no we're decent but all of them were kind of pushing us down the whole DSO thing and we had one company say well you know we think the DSOs are gonna be X amount of the market by the year 2025 we don't disagree with that but it was you know 10 15 20 percent and we said well what's your strategy for the other 80% of independent dentists and they literally said we don't have one we're really focused on the DSO. So we thought this is a good niche and what's great is you know happy to report so we've launched in July 2018 2019 was our kind of year anniversary we're about a thousand members and we also like to say it's you know a lot of companies will say oh we have 10,000 members but when they look at the amount of spend that goes through their contract it's very little so we're really focused on saving as much money as we can for as many products and services that that dentist needs so we're not this ecommerce model where this full-service group purchasing an organization that partnered with Midway Dental and we have a couple of uh...
Howard: So Midway Dental is your main supplier for supplies and then that on your website though it says learn about our partner stern gold from their CEO Gordon Craig what's all that about?
Brian: Yeah so what we've done too is that you said earlier so how do we help our dentists so again going back to the partner we chose a Midway Dental they were a phenomenal partner they actually helped create this model with us and they know that there's some products and services that do not go through distribution so in a really nice conversation with them Steve and Kizzy Pat Blanc and the whole you know Midway team and we talked about here's kind of our vision and so they agreed like this and we know that dentists have certain you know likings of certain products so we want to work with you on these directs so they obviously support that. So there's certain things that our members want so Stern Gold Commit I mean you name it so we've been out there and we're gonna launch a few more actually in the next couple of weeks but we're listening to our dentist and making sure that we have supplies for them that are direct only. So Midway Dental helped us create this again it's you know it's full service it's equipment it's all the product lines we can ship all over the country and then I think the best thing about our model Howard is its full service so a lot of companies out there like e-commerce will say if the way we get savings as we cut out the sales rep and for us we think that is the worst thing you can possibly do the the sales rep the business development rep whatever you want to refer to them they bring our members so much value because they they help them they just needed a different the dentist needed to understand that there's a different model that we have so we still provide our members really good savings and when we bounce up against all the e-commerce site we're still doing their prices we're still begin the prices with full service with with the rep we think that if you cut out you know the local representative you're cutting out that trusted advisors because what Midway's kind of mission is is they want to change the relationship between the distributor and the dentist. So they have this really cool culture where they're all about yeah we want to give independent dentists a really good fair price but we all want to service them heavily you know as well so that's what's really nice about our model. So you have full service you have equipment you have local represent you have equipment technicians locally but wait another.
Howard: Slow down Spanky I'm trying to get all this enter I'm old senile, so your main services are gonna be what would you say supplies?
Rick: Supplies capital equipment service we're working on a lab piece now.
Howard: What service you mean equipment dental equipment?
Rick: Yes through Midway dental they are they're a full they're a full-service operation and one thing that sets this all apart and is really a tribute to Midway dental is we actually we have a contract which locks in our pricing so it's not like we're the pricing is is floating or as everyone likes to say they margin up the business so someone will call your office and say hey I will save you 20% off of what you know off of you know your supplies well its first of all the first question is 20% off of what is it off the retail price or is it whatever and what we've done and we run the data for our office for our members anyone can send us their information for their their past spend for the year for example and we'll bump it up against what our actual contracted pricing is through Midway dental and we've yet to not save people money in fact we have...
Howard: So why do you think the big boys Schine, Patterson, Burkhart, Benko, why do you think they're letting these guys do that well they just they just want to they'd rather have less dentists and higher margins and lower their margins on everyone do you think that's what it is?
Brian: I think it's I think I understand your question you're saying why does the you know the big organizations let these dental groups come into play right that's what you're saying? I think it's a couple thing I think it's that you know I'll give you a good example I'll get a good kind of answer to that in health care where I came from GPOs and buying groups they pull out fifty billion dollars a year okay fifty billion a year and they've been doing this for you know for forever but 98 percent of healthcare organizations buy on a GPO contract because ecommerce and a buying group is different than a GPO so that's one thing.
Howard: Explain a GPO first.
Brian: So GPO is a group person organization so for our group Howard we're a GPO so we represent keyword we represent our members we listen to what they need and like you said earlier those services we provide you know service equipment supplies professional services tax accounting all of those things marketing so we listen to that and then we create contracts on behalf of our members with the manufacturers with the distributors with the service providers that's what's different that's what a GPO is. A buying group or e-commerce is you know use by with you what you want there's only no relationship between the dentist and the e-commerce site it's just the website you go there and order. We have a advisory group we actually have endorsements with a lot of state dental societies and we actually work with them to develop a strategy to go to their dental Society meetings their component meetings to promote what we do. So what we have is a full-service strategy so when we basically looked at this it was like when I was talking to Michael I said Michael how in the world do you not have a contract for the stuff you're buying and he said I don't know I just never had it what is his dentistry Howard has been owned by big dentistry by big manufacturers forever they pretty much own the market so they can kind of say you know this is what we're gonna do and it's hard for people to get into this market well now you have a lot of people entrepreneurs like ourselves and working with Midway to break into that market to offer a different model which has allowed everything to so you know...
Howard: So basically your takeaway is that is that the dentist is not aware of the difference between a GPO a legal entity and that's it's a group purchasing organization is an entity that's created who leverage the purchasing power of a group of businesses to obtain discounts from vendors based on the collective buying power of the members so are you seeing a lot of these buying groups might be more marketing hype than real savings if it's not in writing are you saying if it's not in writing it ain't?
Brian: Right right I mean exactly so to Rick's point we have contracts so we basically say we have a contract for a product if you're on South Dakota Florida Indiana Illinois everybody's saying the same price and we go meet with the manufacturers and distributors we're representing our members as an example about a month ago between Midway Dental and IDS they've negotiated better pricing on 7400 in 18 items that gives a phenomenal fee because how were able to do that Howard is we're represented in our group we're saying we have a thousand members this is our this is our group we're representing that. I think the other the other thing is a lot of the you know bigger organizations don't want to do GPOs they don't want to do a buying group why because it just lowers their margin and they already own the market so why would they want to if you own the market why would you want to create a program that lowers the margin if you already have the market it's basically this is kind of how you you know kind of weed out the weak if you will and basically focus on you know kind of a sustainable you know strategy who wants to kind of build a strategy place a stake in the sand for independent dentist over long haul and a lot of our manufacturers have indefinitely Midway dental as and CLA has. So it's really about how do you innovate and are you willing to do things a little differently than the status quo.
Howard: Okay so you remember you listen to your members and I think ninety-eight percent of them are probably your own DNA Romenesko so supplies equipment service and then you said Clifton Allen Larsen...
Brian: Clifton Larsen Allen also known as CLA.
Howard: Right but what would you call that financial tax...
Brian: Financial planning tax accounting planning
Rick: Transitions
Brian: Transitions human resources consulting practice management consulting, so we try to look for everything under one umbrella cuz we want it to be easy you. So for their example is you know their whole thing is they promise to know you and help right so they've created this dental strategy with us they have 122 offices across the country so wherever our members are we can access them locally which is really important it's not like you go on like...
Howard: Was dentistry a division of them was that a focus of theirs before?
Brian: Yeah it was but they it was and is and they continue to invest in into the dental market so that's a really important attribute to that so they have industry teams like health care is the industry team and that industry and then dental is one of them so what's great about them is its ease of use so what I've learned in working with them is you talk to a dentist and they'll say well my you know my financial person is over here I do my payroll with this person I do my tax will be here I'm a bookkeeping here and my wealth management over here and it's really convoluted so we worked out a nice strategy with them because they have everything under one umbrella so ease of use.
Howard: Nice and then I'm so okay so supplies equipment service and you're carrying that out mostly through Midwest..
Brian: Midway
Howard: Via Midway Midway dental supply so that and then financial services financial planning tax accounting with Clifton Larson Allen
Brian: Clifton Larson yeah
Howard: Clifton Larson what would be the next category?
Brian: So we you know we had banking so we have a really nice really nice agreement with Bank of America and we also work with a local of the local bank BLC which is it's just Bank of little shoot so again we're we want to leverage like-minded businesses and organizations to work with us to work with us to help on yeah yes on behalf of to help independent dentist we work with you know some marketing groups we work with and it's all on the website we work with medical bill and trying to bring in medical billing into you know into dentistry we work with a company practice protection for you know for insurance and liability so credit card company, so we're really work...
Howard: Where can they found them on your website?
Brian: Yeah so you can go to the website which is independent -ds.com and they can you know click they learn more information or learn about the services that we have and I'll say we're constantly vetting and adding new services because we listen to our group you know right now one of the things that I am...
Howard: but if you go ok so you would click the solutions tab instead of join about solutions and then to be or would it be under a member benefits which one would it be?
Brian: Under member benefits and then if you're a member you type in your...
Howard: Yeah you have to be a member to see that so if my homies not a member how is he gonna see those benefits what is there another place?
Brian: Yeah so if they just go to the IDS info and say hey send us information on you know the the member benefits then we can send them like a document that shows them everything that they're looking for we can send all the Townies that.
Howard: Okay so I found it under solution so there's a tab under solutions it says independent so credit card processing dental marketing banking IT services legal handpiece service and repair office supplies lab Freight in progress is strategic supplier partnerships additional lab services medical billing revenue cycle management malpractice insurance CE programs cellular services employee health benefits PPO insurance custom landscaping this is a really exciting do so do you think this is going to at the end of the day give independent dentists a better chance of maintaining independence?
Rick: Absolutely absolutely there's no question everyone that we've run data analysis for at this point in time has experienced the savings in fact I think the average savings not based off of some pie-in-the-sky but off of their actual spend from the prior year averages between 23 and 30 percent which you know supply is what six seven percent of your overhead in a year so that you know those numbers all add up. We also capital equipment good example we had an office that was really close to purchasing all their equipment for a new build-out was given a price of three hundred and seventy one thousand dollars for his chairs and x ray units and so on we saved that person seventy one thousand dollars on what he was already quoted and just about ready to put into his office.
Brian: and one other thing I'd add to that question Howard is this is where it really hit me is when we have a lot of dentists that have come out of school and they're now associates and they want to buy a practice or we have a couple of dentists that we've met with recently that they're gonna graduate next year and they've said I want to own my own practice but they don't know who to go to like you can say well yeah you can go to this company to save supply so ours we had a meeting at CLA in Appleton Wisconsin and IDS with a husband and wife that are associates at a at a local Dallas and they said we have we didn't know who to go to to know who to talk to they said you're giving us a road map and putting us in contact with people that have been vetted and that you trust so weak so they're looking at and buying a practice in Montana so CLA is helping them with that we talked about how we can help them on their tax and their accounting and their overall vision of the practice they want to start their strategy so the emails that I've gotten from a lot of these newer dentists that want to buy other own practices saying thank you for doing this because it's not just about the supplies you're building a strategy so I know I can call IDS and say I want to start my own practice how can you help me what businesses comp. So they have this full roadmap and the Rick's point the dentists that are already in practice we're able to educate them so they can not only save money but they become better negotiators when they're negotiating other types of fees and services and we're bringing you know services and solutions to them like teledentistry you know teledentistry is a big thing that's coming up that how do you how do you leverage that in the independent dental world so that's something that we're working on for our dentist Rick's leading an insurance initiative you know as we speak. So there's all these different kind of initiatives so what we always get from you independent dentists that were working with say we say thank you for doing this somebody should have done this years and years ago so that's the difference it's not just about can you save me supplies here and there it's give me a roadmap to become a better business person and help me maintain my independent status and also help the next generation of dentists make it easier for them to be independent dentists and be better business people.
Howard: Political it's called channel conflict so when you're a kid in dental school you might have seen it like in Arizona here the AT Still in Mesa and the Glendale they have a pretty good rivalry going on in trash-talking so a lot of people in dentistry maybe they're lecturing on crown and bridge and you say well what dental lab do you use well they might use five dental labs and they really don't want to piss off 15,000 dental lab so they just stay quiet. We just saw a California Dental Association start a dad cattle supply like this so are you getting pushback from like the Wisconsin Dental Society and State Dental Society do you think California State Dental Society is getting pushback from the American Dental Association what happens when you're a dentist in Wisconsin and you think you're normal because you love Brett Favre more than any of them and some other dentists disagrees that Brett Favre isn't... so what are you getting any channel conflict that's the question?
Brian: So that's that's a really good question so we can give you a couple of different responses based on the different you know market so you like the WDA the WDA is you know mixer Rick's a member of the WD a there are great they're a great dental state Dental Association we continue to have discussion but they have they have a competitor of source one and they provide really good service and and things are going well we always want to stay in close contact
Howard: They have a competitor with source one?
Rick: Yeah so you have they have an agreement with source one Wisconsin Dental Association
Howard: Okay
Rick: So they're an enforced Wisconsin Dental Association endorsed source one the that went live the day after we've met with them and introduced what we were doing.
Brian: Yeah so as you were saying we met with the TDSC so there's a lot of dentals state dental societies that endorse TDSC so when we get into those like for us we're endorsed by the Illinois State Dental Society and then we have a lot of state dental components state dental societies that endorse us like the Indianapolis District Dental Society they endorse us there's many others within the state of Indiana so we have a really nice relationship with the WDA and we continue to promote what we're doing hopefully we have a shot at the WDA and the you know in the near future.
Howard:I want to go back to source one for a minute because they really started entering a deal where they were denied their right here in my backyard they're there in Tempe Arizona I know the founder of the guy great guy and he's from Iowa and a great guy and but Texas and Arizona didn't let them have a booth there because the big guys can you can you talk about this to let these little kids in dental school know how serious this game is?
Brian: Yeah I mean sort of that point I mean you see it all the time where and we've even get asked for it they'll say well if IDS is gonna be at the state demo show can we have you know the others you know our stands how it is we're all about competition competition is good for everybody so we'll tell the Dental Society yet you know have them come no problem but we want we but when we're there we educate them on the differences so source one good company TDSC good company they just have a different different model so a lot of a lot of e-commerce sites will say we want to save you on we want some of your business not all your business because they can't get all the products but they they do grow they try to get more products they don't have service reps they don't have service techs so the models are you know our difference so we basically tell our members know what's out there just because you're gonna go out and get a price for a product today doesn't mean that price of the product is going to be the same because we have a contract a good example is if you know the biggest e-commerce site in the country wanted to bust into healthcare ten years ago today they're starting to talk about getting out of that because they realize ecommerce doesn't work in healthcare or dentistry.
Howard: Are you referring to Amazon?
Brian: Yes
Howard: Okay well Amazon the last three years at the Greater New York meeting which is the best meeting in the world simply because they have it at a good time it's right after Thanksgiving so you can always go to the Greater New York gentleman whereas Chicago decides to have it in February Boston and you know February but even with the Greater New York meeting Amazon's been there three years in a row, what do you think they're doing there?
Brian: Well I think what they're trying to do like every company is trying to figure out a strategy in a model to get in front of dentists I think everybody's trying to position themselves to create value you know to the dentist but when you come down to it when you look at and again all of these are great companies there's nothing bad the education however comes in to understand as a dentist or a new dentist coming into a practice what you're gonna get out of it right. So if you look at today with in e-commerce in dentistry there's less than two or three percent of dentists that buy everything on e-commerce now that may change over time but I think with some of these bigger e-commerce companies I can Amazon I think what's important to them is is data and you look at all the stuff they're doing in healthcare I think there's opportunities there but when you look at healthcare so when I worked in the healthcare market we were scared to death when Amazon and a couple other e-commerce sites said we're gonna come to you we're gonna come and we're gonna disrupt that market we were scared to death of it it had very little if no impact to to the medical field our sales and distribution did not go down where we lost out was some of your like paper goods and maybe office supplies but when you get into equipment and when you get into you know products that you put in people's mouths dentistry products around the medical side it didn't have it didn't have a big impact so I think what you see now is you have a lot of ecommerce sites trying to you know kind of create a similar solution in dentistry and what's happening now there's an oversaturation you know of e-commerce site. So what we're trying to do is what we've done is just a create a completely different model where it's full service and not you know and not ecommerce but I think you're always gonna have the Amazons and you know big corporations trying to figure out something to dentistry why because there is so much margin Howard as you know in dentistry I mean if you look at what dentistry is like one of the top three companies for the top three you know businesses to own that makes the most money that's why these companies want to go there. So I think you're always gonna have companies that want to get into dentistry because there's a lot of there's a lot of margin there people want to find solutions to get after that.
Howard: Rick were you friends with Rennie Shellner of Lords dental studio back in the day?
Rick: Yes yes I knew Rennie yep and yeah he was a great guy yeah we miss him.
Howard: Does he is he ever get back up there?
Rick: Not seen him, no.
Howard: So basically what I thought was the neatest thing about him but Rennie Shellner he taught me something and also green dental lab in Arkansas it's only two guys taught me this but they didn't what Rennie didn't understand was that um that Lord's dental studio said my god there's 3,000 dentists in Wisconsin I don't need to go to another state and he eventually got one in every three Wisconsin dentist to use him in his lab and he says you know like the other strategy is like Glidewell to let's go national which got 5% of the whole market but I wonder do you guys tend to I mean if you're with Midwestern Dental Supply are you leaning more towards the Rennie Shellner market where you'd rather be all things to your local Midwestern tribe then starting to go for aim for New York Florida in Alaska?
Rick: Yeah I think the concentration is is Midwest you know with Midway dental that's that's a big part of what we do and how we, we actually lead them to different places and they lead us to different places in terms around the country but right now the primary concentration is Midwest.
Brian: and Howard I would say this too, we don't want to be a big company we want to be a great company we want to make we want to make sure that our members have such a great experience so we're more concerned about our thousand members and you know grows on a weekly basis but we're more concerned about taking care of our members and having them have a great experience than saying like an e-commerce site we'll say we have ten thousand members but they're only doing twenty million in spend you know we have you know when we ran the numbers a while ago we were at five hundred some members and we were doing you know twelve million that tells you that when members join IDS and Midway dental the compliance is higher because you get everything that you need it's not these onesie twosie so we're more concerned about being we don't want to be a big company we want to be a great company.
Rick: So we just want to do what we do well.
Brian: Yeah and we're really focused right now as Rick said in the Midwest right now it's Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana but we're in 37 states today so we help out people you know all across the country but we're all about you know we don't want this big blitz and and try to be everything to everybody we want our members to have a really really good experience because that's how this grows people will tell you know dentists will tell their colleagues about it and that's how that's how we grow.
Howard: Right what is your fastest way to grow growth what is making you grow the most now?
Brian: A lot of it is basically getting the this is a good kind of your story before about with the competition so a lot of organizations will want to get an endorsement from a state or a state Dental Society and they expect that state or that Dental Society to do all the work promote it send out emails and just do a bunch of e-commerce type of advertising we have a completely different approach we actually have meeting set where we go to all the demo not just the state meetings we go to all the component meetings will go to their golf events we hold our own meetings. So we basically go out as you said earlier what's really important is education so we want to get out in front of as many dentist as we can and educate them on what they do. So what will happen is you know like we're working like we talked about Kim Myers before right she's a great rep in Indiana that market is exploding or so she'll basically say you know she sent me texts and emails from dentists to say thank goodness Midway and IDS are doing this we've been waiting for somebody to do this for a long time I want you to come in and take on my business and then they will tell you know four or five of their colleagues and then we set up meetings kind of meet and greet so it's really it's a grassroots movement Howard very very grassroots and that's how this works as people will tell people about the experience and you don't see that I didn't see that medical you don't see that in e-commerce because you don't have a relationship I mean if you ask somebody do you know anybody from this ecommerce right no I just have a 1-800 number or an email or a website that I go to so we're all about we want to build those relationships so we know a lot of our members.
Rick: Right this is really for us it's a mission and a movement so it is grassroots like Brian said that's really our focus has been word-of-mouth get the word out educate and basically pull the curtain back let people see what's actually going on.
Howard: and you know on dentaltown there's a love-hate relationship with organized dentistry when you look at like the American Medical Association I mean when you go to these associations they look at me and they're like he's got an MBA he's not a dentist he's a businessman and they say well what we want to do is we want to get weaned off our members we don't want to be you don't want to have to please your members and so they try to do all these non-revenue these different revenue things and if you're if you're an association and you get over a half your money from your due paying dues every consultant psyche well you're not smart you're one day they might not love you and so they start diversifying so they don't even need their own members and it's really weird but I'm why why do you think why do you think you're doing what you're doing and why wasn't it done by like Dental Association shouldn't the Dental Association done all this for you guys already?
Rick: That's a great question it's what we found it's a lot of work and you know and I don't think they had the vision they didn't have the Brian Heyndrickx from the medical supply side with that information they don't and they do have the dentist but I don't know it's a good question everyone raises that question to us all day so we like to call it's a no-brainer when we present our story basically we just tell a story we tell them what happened to myself my family members and where it's led and it is it's a no-brainer.
Howard: When you say it's a no-brainer when you started what surprised you the most what looking back what what disillusions our learnings or reflective moments that you have when you start to independent solutions where you you didn't see that coming?
Rick: Well here's a pretty good example when we started we had a goal we launched in July of 18 and our goal was to we were hoping to have 50 members by the end of the year and we had doubled that and it's like oh okay this makes sense and then we did some presentations to the Illinois State Dental Society and their endorsement came january of nineteen this past january and it's like okay so when we tell the story and people understand what we're doing it's they get it and so our endorsement of the Illinois State Dental Association it was like yeah they understand and so that we're on to a good thing and this is it just makes sense.
Brian: and I think from my perspective howard being a supply chain purchasing organization manufacture distribution background I was amazed because we talked about this a lot just how dentists don't understand how the business really truly runs and they just accept everything you know the way it is because they're focused on dentist that's all we say you know
Rick: We're trusting people.
Brian: Yeah there's not very trusting people so yeah.
Rick: We are very trusting people
Brian: So I one of the things I've shared a lot of the team has they've been out I share this with some dental societies as last year one of my biggest reflection it is way easier to take advantage of independent dentists than it is to help them so that is a big kind of ah ha moment that I had out working with dentist the other thing I'll say to Howard isn't yes about the states I think I think the states they just don't have the sources I don't think they have the skillset or the vision but I do give a lot of these states a lot of credit because they're trying to do something so if they're having an endorsement with somebody I think that's I think that's cool that's great it's a step in the right direction but I also think that they need to continue to not just look at you know the sale or the service and equipment there's other things like tele-dentistry and the insurance and running a business because I think you know as we talk to a lot of dentists they'll say my state doesn't bring me a lot of value or they'll say my state does bring me a lot of value so I give a lot of credit for the state dental societies that were working with they're saying you know what we believe in what you're doing we want a partner we want to collaborate and what else can we want to do so we want to innovate with our Dental Society it's not just have this transactional type ecommerce but I think those those are some big learnings.
Howard: Well you know what I would I would really recommend first of all thanks for coming on the show this is not a commercial guys I asked you guys you didn't ask me but dental town is coming up on its 250,000 member we started 20 years ago we were four years before Facebook in fact we still continue to grow 1,000 new members a month ever since Facebook opened in 2004 and the difference is Facebook is all social medias last in first and it's a fun it's like a ride the dentaltown is what all the universities that's what scientists use NASA uses Jet Propulsion Laboratory where it's a message board format so it's all organized and one of the categories is dental supplies and like this question here on dental supplies I'm looking to get my supplies down do any of these dental buying groups deal with Canada do you guys sell to Canada or is that are you mostly US?
Brian: Mostly yes we don't today but I'm working with Stephen Kizzy at Midway Dental that is on the radar and it is being looked at.
Howard: Okay but anyway my gosh you should go in there you can answer all these amazing questions has anyone joined any of the independent buying groups or dentist, clear impact so if you know so uh because they're all organized right they're like like if I knew you were a dentist and I went to your Facebook page I'd scroll back and I'd be seeing baptisms and birthdays and all I mean it's just where is on a message board you want to have you broke a file off in an MB2 you go straight to N do you can do a search for MB2 but I I don't think I know my homies I don't think they know they're ever seeing a buying group and there's so many of them versus a...
Brian: We appreciate that we appreciate that insight that's something definitely yes you know get on top of everything else.
Rick: You have an amazing site your dentaltown is amazing by the way.
Howard: So what another question under dental supplies yes can I don't get it I'm offered I'm looking at these dents different dental buying groups and one of them's offered by what I'm called thrive program and then he finds out that's actually from Henry Schein so he's white he's confused okay I'm buying from Henry Schein I would think that that would be the best deal but now he's finding out that now I gotta go find a buying group called the thrive program with Henry Schein I thought I thought hey Henry you and me go back 30 years I getting the best deal oh no you didn't so talk about that what what is what is that?
Rick: 40 years how about 40 years I was a customer of one of them one of the larger companies and I I was shocked when I found out the comparison of my products with my purchases versus what I was paying now through Midway dental and you know for example at least we have a contractor pricing our price doesn't change people can stop shopping they don't have to keep looking or having their staff like oh that's gonna what am I gonna pay today I ordered some fill tech on a Monday and I order the same tube on a third on a Wednesday so three days later when the invoice came this is when I started really looking at invoices closely and I paid $6 more three days later and it came in on the invoice special blank pricing it's like really yes.
Howard: I think it's a human relationship though because like I'm my last time time I fired my house cleaning person or whatever she kept always changes gonna go what's up you know that this is how we have oh I got this pile and he only calls me like once every four months and whenever he calls he needs it done like right so I'm like okay so you know you're comfortable with me you've been cleaning my place for years here so what so what is Howie does he get does he get priority no I am so finally realize my god I'm the last guy on her totem pole and I pay her more a prepare her you know so you know it's the same thing my yard service one time a friend of mine was over and he says well does your yard and I saw I don't know I just said his first name and I saw he's been doing it forever and but this dentist knew sprinklers and he went around the house and he found like 13 sprinkler heads it didn't even work and then it realizes the same thing since we're buddies he blows and goes my yard cuz we're buddies but yours and you see what dentists said dentists like oh that's bad will the dentists do it this is their on a new patient exam they'll sit there and spend 15 minutes and get you know half of their treatment accepted and then when it's a recall exam my god it's a blow and go open by boom-boom-boom and so it's like my god it looks like I think everybody should get a new dentist every six months if you want to complete exam don't go back to the same dentist because after one good exam it's just blow and go so there's something in a human relationship that once I know we're friends I know I can walk all over you and treat you like crap and I only have to work at we're trying to win over new friend is it human psychology?
Brian: Yeah we've had people say well you know I don't want to you know like that people say I divorce my current company because we're good friends and then they basically sit down and have the discussion with them and I say hey those relationships come with yours in the same yes with the cost and like are you gonna pay another twenty thousand dollars a year you know to have that relationship and I dare to bet if you do not that's a business that relationship not like a friendship because as soon as that business relationship is done still gonna be friends with them I don't know that's what everybody's gonna ask some question right but you're right I think those are things that you know every dentist part of the education in part because they think because hey we're friends they're doing I'm getting the best deal and what's what's great is I'm not seeing I mean there's a lot of reps out there that do really good you know do really good work but again to our program we lock in that prices so that negotiation is done. So look the reps like because they can focus on you know bringing in innovation and helping with service and helping them grow their practice and taking care of day to day needs to a lot of reps will say I don't have to haggle I don't have to negotiate cuz it's all done I can focus on them I can focus on their practice as Rick said earlier you don't have to have the front desk person spend all this time searching for different products online we do that and then we constantly hold everybody accountable to drive down those prices as we said you know 7,500 individual items just got reducible nobody asked us to do that we just did that because we know we're trying to grow something special represent our members and we made that commitment to hold us and everybody accountable so the savings has always been there just other people have been taking it in keeping it and that's what we're uncovering with with the relationships that we have but you're right there is a psychology to that but guess what we can also be friends with the dentist we're also going out to all these study clubs and dental societies and creating good trusting relationships listening to our members not just sending stuff an email and then representing them and taking on some of these initiatives to help.
Howard: I also see you have a mommy dentist on your MDIB yeah Dr. Gracie Young they've been a great they've been a great collaborator with us we've helped out her group a lot and she's really her group.
Howard: and whats mommy dentists and business?
Brian: Mommy dentist and business yes they're a fast-growing group they have they're all about helping female dentists that are you know dentist and a mother and on their own practice and an owner would like to be an owner so they do a lot of great stuff so we met Dr. Gracie actually a Chicago north ranch meeting when we were promote IDS and the state of Illinois and we got connected and we're doing some really good stuff.
Howard: Where are you bigger at Illinois or Wisconsin?
Brian: I would say collect I mean Illinois cuz we're a state endorsed there but if when you look at it you're proud I would probably say Wisconsin because that's where we started Illinois and then kind of Indiana are all kind of same Indiana's exploding for us because we're doing a lot of good work there but and then you would look at Mommy Dentist and Business and some of these other groups that were with across the country and their kind of spread out.
Rick: Across around the globe.
Howard: and yeah I see you got Bruce Beard on there with a productive dentist's Academy how's that working out?
Brian: Great what we've done we did some podcasts with them so they'll promote us because they believe in kind of the mission and movement and we do the same thing for them as well so then again again to your point getting like-minded people to help promote the mess of this is not just hey get your supplies cheaper here it's us overall strategy and that's why we have the partners we have today
Howard: and you have the dental peeps network?
Brian: Yes with Lee Dukes we've collaborated with Lee Dukes from the dental peeps Network that's at social media and he does a lot of Facebook stuff so we've collaborated with him as well.
Howard: What other I'm trying to think of what other am I missing on your website.
Brian: Well what's coming as we said early clifton larson allen CLA we're gonna be doing a big announcement you know about them soon we have a couple other big announcements coming out with you know some other manufacturers that we're happy to announce tri med services which is medical billing we've done a lot you know with them productive or excuse me practice protection we do stuff with them and then you know percy soft which is an IT company and then when we go into markets we actually create relationships with local independent businesses as well that support the dental community. So I spent a lot of time and spent a lot of time in Indiana so I'll meet businesses in Indiana that want to work with us that are independent that want to help independent dentists so Jordan our partner spends a lot of time with the like-minded businesses to create solutions into the companies that we that we work with and then the markets that we serve.
Howard: Well here's my we we reached our our and to my young dentists out there don't give up on dentistry because dentistry never gave up on you and the reason you're the reason your mom and dad cried at your graduation is because you didn't just start selling widgetsI mean dentistry is mission driven it's you know I grew up in Catholic school and there's not a single than that Catholic nun who thought dentistry was an occupation they said it's a vocation and they said you could do a vocation to the priesthood or to dentistry and it means that that dentistry is bigger than you are that's how sister Mary Magdalene who's still there sister Mary Magdalene which she told me she goes dentistry is bigger than you are and once you think you're bigger than dentistry you don't get it and it's a and the reason it's a secret sovereign profession is because of the asymmetry of information I know the difference between Hershey's and chick-fil-a and McDonald's but when you walk into a doctor and they say you have four cavities I mean I hope you're a good honest person because how the hell how the hell do I know if I have four cavities and then you sit there and you say well what would you do if it was you then you're like oh my god what if it's a predator I mean if they then the minute they know I'm they're gonna trust me they're just gonna take me to the cleaners say oh no not four fillings you need for crowns this isn't four $250 fillings its four $1000 crowns and it's just it's a if you're going to be a sociopath you want to go to where everybody has to trust you and you don't want to go to where everybody can measure you and I want dentistry to remain independent because I don't want people looking at my grandchildren as an economic opportunity to upsell fillings to onlays to crowns I wanted to remain a vocation and I just want to thank you guys for everything you're doing for dentistry to keep it as vocation and I hope you go on that dentaltown where everything is organized and go right to the supplies and get the key opinion leaders of these groups that you're on to go in there and be transparent this is what we do because what they tell me they like about dentaltown is when they go to the Chicago Midwinter meeting and they walk by a booth and you you pull me one out like a lion does he separates the gazelle from the herd he pulls you out of the aisle and one on one he tells you all this stuff and they're thinking I wonder if he'd be seeing this exactly if it was posted on dentaltown where my tribal homies could look at what you're saying and it's just I'm not very trusting guy because I think humans are a bunch of crazy people in fact at 57 I am still the most normal person I've ever met and on that note thank you so much for coming on the show today
Brian: Thank you so much.
Rick: Thank you so much and keep up your great work thanks for the opportunity for us.
Howard: Alright take care buddies.