Our guest this week Dr. Trent McCord, DDS sits down with Shaun Keating and shares his experience on what a recent dental graduate goes through that is normally overlooked by students pursuing a Dental Career. He also shares some tips and advice on how to prepare yourself before you purchase your first practice. You will hear all this and more on this week’s episode of The Dental Up Podcast.
Things you will hear about on this episode:
-The importance of understanding the sacrifices and struggles you might face after graduating Dental School
-LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION! and why it matters.
-Research, the fundamental key to success before buying a practice.
-How Dr. McCord utilizes Dental Town and other online resources to learn and sharpen his Dental Skills.
For more information on Dr. Trent McCord and his practice feel free to reach out by clicking the links the below. Check out his website at: https://mintdentalar.com or you can reach out directly to Dr. McCord at [email protected]
[bg_collapse view=”link” expand_text=”View Full Transcript” collapse_text=”Hide Transcript” ] Host: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Dental Up podcast, brought to you by Keating Dental Lab, a full-service, award-winning dental laboratory. Each week you’ll learn tips and techniques from real-world dentists bringing you in-depth interviews, motivating stories, current events, and sports. Host: Here’s your host, Shaun Keating. Shaun Keating: Hey everyone. Shaun here. Welcome to another episode of the Dental Up podcast. Our guest this week received his doctor of dental surgery degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry. He was awarded the Edward L. Wilson Award and also received the Volunteer of the Year Award from the Samaritan Community Center in Northwest Arkansas. Currently practices from Centerton, Arkansas. Please welcome Dr. Trent McCord, DDS. Shaun Keating: How’s it going Dr. McCord? Dr. Trent McCord: Hey, Shaun. Doing well. How about yourself? Shaun Keating: Oh man, I’m fantastic. Hit a little traffic on the way in to work, but man, I’m here. It’s a beautiful day here in sunny Southern California. Dude, thanks. Man, I’m just looking at you and your wife and your daughters. That’s an all-American family. Dr. Trent McCord: Man. It’s right. I don’t know what picture your working at. I have a third now. Shaun Keating: Oh, okay. Yeah. I think I have an older one with just the two of you. With your two daughters. Dr. Trent McCord: I probably should update our website. Yeah, I have a third daughter now. That shows you how good I am at keeping up with our website stuff. Shaun Keating: I’m the same way. I got people that, I get on there sometimes, I’m going, “Guys. This is like, you got to update this stuff.” It’s so many moving parts in that damn website. I’ve probably in my 16, 17 years, I’ve done it probably 14 times. You know, redone it. It’s just the way it, I guess, but who knows? Who knows even how much it all helps? I just, we do it and just hope that some doctors or dentists can see us and that’s what it’s all about. It’s just kind of a leap of faith in a way. Dr. Trent McCord: Oh yeah. I tried getting everyone that worked for me to do a little bio, put their picture on about a year ago and I haven’t touched it since. We’ve got a bunch of new people and a bunch of people that aren’t there anymore all on our website. I’m like I should probably change that, but you know what? Let me just go pull a tooth. That’s going to be easier than messing with the website. Shaun Keating: You’ve got to get the young, like I have Little David here, my producer. Young kid, but there’s people out there that, they can do all that stuff for you, help you with your socials, the different platforms, especially for dentists. I see it with the public. All those people out there, they could be patients. Where with me, it’s like a needle in a haystack and I’m trying to get through all these millions of people to find a few hundred dentists. They’re hiding out. They don’t want to be talked to or touched or anywhere. Shaun Keating: But with the public, if I was a dentist, because I kind of do guerrilla marketing where we don’t have a big, big budget. People think we’re all bid. We’re just a family run dental lab, but I try to do that guerrilla marketing with not a whole lot of money, but try to get the best bang for the buck. It’s important, especially for a dentist too. It’s tough. They don’t get. If you invest $10,000 a month, you’ll get a $50,000 in services that you’ll probably make $20,000 off. What you put in, you get out of it when it comes to marketing. That’s why these big, big corporations, they just pump it so much. Shaun Keating: Hey, I’m going to put a million dollars out and I’m going to get … you can almost track it if you do it properly, how much you put in how much you’ll get out of it. It’s very small percentages, but it’s like all those big, big corporations, they just go in such debt to fuel growth. That’s one thing I don’t like. I’ve got a really good girl here that runs our books and our CFO. We try to be debt free if we can just on everything. A lot of guys get real big by just blowing up with debt. I don’t get that, but I think that’s just big corporations. We’re little small businesses, but I try to think like a big business. I’m kind of getting to a medium sized business, but it is … I always have the saying: You can be miserable making a couple million year or miserable making 100 million a year, you might as well be miserable making a 100, right? Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Yeah. Hey man, might as well. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: I’m obviously a dentist, a small business and golly man, this running a business type stuff, it’s so far over my head. I’ll call my … my dad’s a banker and I’ll be like, “Dad, what on Earth? How am I gonna…” he’s like, “Son, this is basic. This is basic business 101. You really should probably do this.” I’m like, “No one ever told me that. I just want to pull a tooth.” Shaun Keating: I know. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. I’m sure you hear that all the time talking to dentists. I don’t want to call us all morons, but we’re probably not the most astute business owners as a whole. Shaun Keating: Well, I think there’s a lot of different professions that it’s kind of like they teach you the X’s and the O’s and all that, but they don’t really teach you the business end of it. It’s just so important. I do. I have a lot of dentists that still want to do all their books. They still want to stay late and write up their charts. It’s all important and all good, but it’s just something I’ve got other guys that will delegate it to different people. You have three or four people in your staff and they’ve got all their job duties and even too, to almost outsource your accounting so it’s proper and you’re paying the right taxes and all that, or get a tax service that kind of does a lot of that. Your payroll stuff. Shaun Keating: I still haven’t brought that all in house because it’s a big headache. I’d rather pay the professionals to do it for me just so I can sleep at night, because I’ve got enough stuff to worry about. What we try to give to our dentists, it’s like there’s so many guys that’s just got great hand skills. They’ve got such great theory in their mind. They know everything about it. But when it comes to running a business, they lose it, or managing people and it’s hard because I’ve got so many guys that have got great hands and got a great practice, but they just don’t have the business skills to keep it flowing and to keep their staff happy. It’s important. Like any business, you’re only as good as your people. Shaun Keating: If you don’t have happy people and all working kind of as a cohesive unit, man, you only get so far and it’s not going to be as easy as when you get a system in place. Kind of like your big Razorback guy fan out there. I’m a big football guy. I love the Razorbacks back in the day with Lou Holt and all that. It’s a cohesive unit. You’ve got to come together as a team. You win as a team, you lose as a team. I kind of run my business like a football team in a way that it’s just kind of, you’re only as good as your last play. The defense wins championships, the whole thing. Quarterbacks, running backs. You’ve got your front office. You’ve got your coaches. It’s the same thing as a business. Shaun Keating: Put the best people at their positions and after you do it over and over and practice and practice. All my offensive linemen, I gather all my plaster guys. And all my receivers are all my designers. My quarterbacks are my ceramists. It’s just weird, but it works. Then you’re kind of in play-off mode and if you can keep that staff together for a certain amount of years and try to retain and pay them above and beyond to keep them engaged, put a carrot over their head with some bonus programs on numbers and this and that, you’re kind of like a Super Bowl. You’re like those New England Patriots after four or five years with Brady at the helm. Your staff and your team, there’s nothing that you can’t do that is not going to be more successful than not. When you’re working together with the same people, but I’ve got some dentists that, “Oh, I’m going through staff left and right.” That’s not a good thing. Shaun Keating: It’s hard to finally get that staff, but when you do get them, educate the heck out of them and treat them like family and you’ll come to work happier and you’ll go home happier and you’ll have people doing all those jobs that you probably shouldn’t have been doing in the beginning, but most dentists like to do it all. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah, I’m with you. I don’t know the business stuff, and I’m real. Especially as we grow. We’ve been open three years. As we grow and things change, those small little mistakes get big. It’s been … some of them it’s like golly. You have the accounting, I outsource that. We’ve got a payroll software company that’s just a piece of cake to use. I’d rather … I’m perfectly happy paying someone else to do that than me spend an hour and a half on payroll stuff and mess it up every week. [inaudible 00:09:26] I’d find a way to mess it up. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Having people do that, and you’re right, having the team. I think there’s 14 of us at the office. Shaun Keating: Yeah, you guys are rocking. Dr. Trent McCord: We’ve got some rock stars, and I never worry. My assistants, I don’t worry about assistant type stuff at all. Same with hygienists. We’ve recently brought some new people on at the front. That’s finally going better, but in the past, you have people. It’s like, “Man, this isn’t working out.” Shaun Keating: Yeah Dr. Trent McCord: For me, I sit on the couch and stew about it and don’t do anything about it until it gets to a critical point because I’m constantly [inaudible 00:10:11] and stuff. Then you get someone in there that kind of knows what’s going on and everybody’s happy. Shaun Keating: Oh yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: Everybody’s happier. Shaun Keating: It’s like kids with structure and rules and structure in a way, they kind of want that. They’ll hem and haw a little bit, but same thing with staff. We always have a saying here. Lack of preparation on management part shouldn’t constitute emergencies for your employees. You’re supposed to have it to where they’ve got everything dialed in and they know what their jobs and their duties are. It’s just kind of, your biggest thing, you’ve just got to be the biggest cheerleader. Your just pumping them … that’s what I try to do every day. I come in and I’m just high-fiving my people. It’s like, “Let’s get it going guys. What have we got coming in today?” It’s just like everyone’s kind of pumped up. That’s just the way I’m wired. Shaun Keating: They’re wired here like it. I’ve got no one that leaves me. They all love it here. I’ve got people waiting to come in, but it’s just … totally blessed. I love it when dentists kind of get it down and really just let their staff do what they need to do. They come in the room and man, let me cut it. I want to say high to the patient and let you go on to the next op or whatever. Where I’ve got some guys that just are going to have their hands in everything. It’s just some guys like that. It’s not really a money thing. It’s kind of a control thing. I just, I don’t get that. I don’t know, I’ve always been one for, if you’re not growing, you’re dying. I was taught from my old boss that you’ve constantly got to keep growing because you’re going to be losing patients out the back door because of moving or maybe insurance goes to another provider. Shaun Keating: So you’re always going to be kind of losing patients, but you’ve always got to be adding new patients just constantly. Otherwise, it’ll never add up. If you don’t add any new patient and you just have the existing ones, it’s kind of like the saying you always have what you’ve always had if you always do what you’ve always done. It’s like dude, you’ve got to get those customers. But you’re rocking and rolling man, we’ll get to that in a couple of seconds. I always start off talking a little bit about sports. You’re a Razorback fan, I know that. Arkansas Razorbacks. Tell me a little bit about your roots with the Razorbacks and your love for them if you could. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. I grew up in Northwest Arkansas, a little town called [inaudible 00:12:36] Springs, about 30 minutes from where I am now. We don’t … everyone around here is a Razorback fan. We don’t have any professional sports. I’m a big Kansas City fan, Chiefs and Royals. Shaun Keating: Okay. Dr. Trent McCord: But that’s about the closest thing to us. Then there’s Dallas. When you talk going to games or sporting events or anything, it’s all the Razorbacks. That’s our professional sport. Shaun Keating: No kidding. Dr. Trent McCord: And college sport down here. And it’s Arkansas. I mean, what else do we have to do? We go cheer on the Razorbacks and then go canoeing or something. That’s home for us. Shaun Keating: How are they doing? How are they doing? I haven’t followed them much lately. How are they doing? They been up? Down? I haven’t seen them in the big game for a while, but are they looking up or? Dr. Trent McCord: Football’s terrible. Things have been rough ever since old Bobby Patrino wrecked his motorcycle with his girlfriend on the back, if you remember that several years ago. We were doing good up until that. Then the wheels have fallen off the bus. Shaun Keating: No kidding. Dr. Trent McCord: We got a new coach last year and we are absolutely horrible. We’ll see how this year goes. We’ve got to give them a chance to rebuild. Baseball, we’re pretty good at baseball. We’ve been to the college World Series the last two years and was an awful foul ball away from …[crosstalk 00:14:07] you ever thought three guys standing around a hit. I didn’t sleep for two weeks I was so upset about that. That was last year. Then this year we didn’t do much in Omaha, but we made it. We’re definitely a baseball school, which I know isn’t as big a deal in a lot of parts of the country, but we’re pretty good at baseball. Basketball’s been pretty rough. We got a new coach there too. Man, I don’t know. Dr. Trent McCord: I’ll still support them. I’ll always be a fan. Outside of baseball, you’re not particularly planning on winning championships all the time around here. Shaun Keating: Absolutely. It’s tough. Even too with us, we’re in a hot bed with colleges, you’ve got USC, UCLA and all of them and they’ve been in the tank the last several years in football. Baseball’s pretty big too, but it’s just crazy the competition level, especially in World Series. It’s just tough to get those college teams. We used to always have … Cal State Fullerton was always in the World Series and that’s left and the dude went to Texas. We haven’t really had a lot to cheer about. I think 2006 when we lost to Texas, USC, that was the Reggie Bush era back then. Shaun Keating: Big thing around here is the Clippers and Lakers, all this stuff with the NBA. All the superstars are just teaming up. It’s like a whole different NBA coming this year. It’s gonna- Dr. Trent McCord: It’s the complete opposite of football. You talk about Brady and New England and building a team and a dynasty. The NBA is just, I mean, each year it’s like okay, these guys probably have a giant group text thread they’re all in. Man, Durant, where are you going to play this year? Well I don’t know Tyree, where are you going to go? Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Trent McCord: What should we do? Let’s mix it up. Let’s pick three teams amongst us to be contenders. NBA is just nuts. It makes it fun and exciting, but there’s no dynasty building going on. Say what you want about Golden State, but – Shaun Keating: They changed the whole game just with the three’s. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Shaun Keating: And all that, but we’ve seen with Durant and Clay Thompson going down, it changed the landscape of the whole NBA. [inaudible 00:16:19] bunsen to get Anthony Davis with Lebron and they got rid of the whole fricking team except for [inaudible 00:16:26]. They got some pretty good … got Cousins and a couple others, but damn Jerry West over there with that Bohmer dude, that Bohmer Microsoft guy that owns the Clippers. Everyone gave him crap when he bought it. It was worth a little under a billion dollars and he gave two billion. Shaun Keating: Everyone’s saying, “You’re so crazy to pay two billion dollar.” I think eight months later, his stock at Microsoft went up $15 billion or $10 billion. It’s like free money almost. I bought a franchise and now he’s- Dr. Trent McCord: Oh man, he doesn’t care. It’s like what’s the best video game I could play? Well I’m just going to buy a fricking NBA team. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Trent McCord: We’re not making money when we buy Madden. Shaun Keating: No. Dr. Trent McCord: We’re not making money when we buy NBA video games and these guys, you’re buying the real deal. The real deal. Shaun Keating: Yeah he is. Dr. Trent McCord: Good for them. Shaun Keating: He’s such a, what a great owner, that Bohmer dude. He is such a nut case in the stands. He’s just pumped up. He just doesn’t mind letting his skin show his true colors. He’s just for his players and he gives them the best of everything. He’s actually going through a big thing, because both the Lakers and them are at Staples and always been the red-headed stepchild or whatever and kind of second team there. But the Clippers looked really good last year, really strong with a bunch of scrappy players. Now they brought in fricking [crosstalk 00:17:53] Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah, the Lakers sucked. Shaun Keating: They did. Dr. Trent McCord: With Lebron. Shaun Keating: With Lebron. We haven’t been to the playoffs in like seven years. It’s just nuts. With whatyacallit getting the dude from OKC and then who was it? [Kawahi 00:18:08] Leonard, the Toronto Raptors. Dr. Trent McCord: Paul George. Shaun Keating: Paul George. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Shaun Keating: What a stud that guy is. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah, I’m a Thunder fan. Shaun Keating: Oh yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: I’m a Thunder fan and it’s just like oh. Shaun Keating: How do they do that? Dr. Trent McCord: We had Westbrook, Durant and Hardin all those years ago and then couldn’t get it done. Then it’s just kind of been falling apart. But they’re loading up on draft picks. Shaun Keating: Yeah. They’ve got like six first rounds. Dr. Trent McCord: [crosstalk 00:18:38] Kevin Durant. Is there a more disgraceful move in all of sports than Kevin Durant bailing on Oklahoma City? Had Golden State down, three games to one, lost. And then turns around and just jumps on board a championship team anyway as one of the top five players in the NBA? Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: Kevin Durant, I can’t. I’m an OKC guy, but Kevin Durant is a … what a wuss. Shaun Keating: Yeah, that’s awesome. Tell me- Dr. Trent McCord: Come on man. Shaun Keating: Tell me how you really feel. No, that’s- Dr. Trent McCord: Uh-huh (affirmative) golly. Shaun Keating: I hear ya. It’s so now, and he’s not playing this next year or Clay probably. At Brookeland, the New York Knicks, man. They’re just hating life because they haven’t won in 20 years and that owner is just a ruthless little tyrant. All these big players. You’ve got Durant and Kyree and they’re not going to New York, they’re going to Brookeland Nets and it’s like that Russian billionaire, he don’t care about the money either and he’s probably throwing them cash we don’t even know about. Now, that whole thing in Brookeland that whole thing there is the big buzz because Jay-Z and Queen B or Beyonce, that’s their team. Everyone’s kind of all moving into the Brookland area. Shaun Keating: Brookland was a horrible place 20 years ago. No one even thought of living there. Now they just all re-did and everything’s being built up. Now that Jay-z and Beyonce are the New York Nets or whatever, Brookland Nets, so now all the Millennial type players, they want to go there. It’s kind of the hip place. Not old Madison Square Gardens or whatever or the New York Knicks, wherever they play. I don’t know. Everything’s so crazy in the NBA, but it gets you excited. I’m looking at ESPN every 10 minutes the last couple of weeks, like okay, who’s going where? I’m not the biggest basketball guy, but it’s kind of nuts. Dr. Trent McCord: It’s ridiculous. I’m not either. I went to [inaudible 00:20:48] school in Oklahoma City, so I follow them quite a bit. I never followed the NBA before that. That was a lot of fun, but yeah I get the ESPN thing scrolling. It’s like what in the world is happening? Shaun Keating: It’s all this change big time. Dr. Trent McCord: I’m waiting for Oklahoma City to deal Westbrook. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Can you believe that? They’re going to [crosstalk 00:21:06] Dr. Trent McCord: Next year. Shaun Keating: Yeah, they’re going to get rid of him and it doesn’t matter if he can score 30 points a game. You’ve been matched up with some of the greats and it ain’t happening. Even too, the dude that got traded to the Clippers, he just signed a max contract last year for him to have that thing unwound, unwind that contract to allow him to go. They got like five first rounders from the Clippers. They got so much money and so many picks and everything. They’re going to do the same thing with whatyacallit. They’re going to just deplete the team and start fresh in the next few years with all these first rounders. But who knows if that even works. It’s all a crap shoot. They got so much money from all the contracts from TV and everything. It’s like the dang NFL owners and the NBA owners. Not so much the major league baseball or hockey, but the basketball and football owners, man, that is the franchise to buy. Shaun Keating: I always wanted to own a football team. Dr. Trent McCord: They’re doing all right. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: Let’s go in and buy a team one day after your lab and my office- Shaun Keating: Blows up. Dr. Trent McCord: We’ll both be the biggest … and we gotta both probably be the biggest in the world to afford to buy a professional sports team. Then we’ll just … yeah. We’ll sit back and we’ll never look at teeth again. Shaun Keating: Oh no, I’m ready baby. Hey, I’ve got a few more years and I’m done with it. No. You’re young. You’re just starting. Dr. Trent McCord: I’ve got a lot more years. Shaun Keating: You’re kicking butt though. Dr. Trent McCord: I’ve got a lot more years. Shaun Keating: Well hey, Dr. McCord, let’s go ahead and dental up. Tell me why did you get into dentistry and at what point did you think, “I want to be a dentist”? Dr. Trent McCord: Man, I originally went to college and I thought I wanted to be a physician until I started shadowing some physicians. We had a program at my school, you go shadow these guys. All the doctors I shadowed were like, “This sucks.” In fact, I went down to the Arkansas Children’s Hospital because … to shadow a pediatric cardiologist. This is while I was in college. I’m down there. I’m in the OR and I’ve got a girlfriend at the time that is now my wife. Dr. Trent McCord: I’m in the OR watching a surgery and the anesthesiologist and all these people are in there like, “What are you doing here?” I was like, “Well, I’m just shadowing. I think I want to do this.” And they’re like, “Are you sure?” “No.” They’re like, “I wouldn’t do it. You’re never going to see your wife. You’re going to be a resident.” I was talking to this one poor guy. He was in his fellowship to be a pediatric cardiologist, something or other, he was in year 12. He’s just in scrubs and beat up. He’s like, “I’ve been doing this for 12 years and I’ve still got more to go.” Dr. Trent McCord: Everywhere I went, I think it was just the doctors I saw were like, “Don’t do it.” Then I’m like, “Well screw that. I don’t want to work that hard.” I don’t know how, I started looking into dentistry because I thought I wanted to be a provider and liked the sciences and all that. Then I started shadowing some dentists. The ones I went and shadowed, they’re like “This is awesome. I haven’t worked a Friday in 20 years. I go golf whenever I want and blah blah blah blah blah. I still get to take care of my patients and I make the decisions and everything.” So that’s kind of it. I shadowed a handful of dentists and the handful of dentists I had to shadow, I followed the right ones because now I know there’s tons of dentists who are miserable. But, I was like all right, let’s do it. Dr. Trent McCord: That’s what I did. I went and got into dental school and did that. Shaun Keating: You must have had the smarts and everything else because dental school and medical school, those are the sharp guys. Those are the guys that really studied in school. My hats off to you guys and all the education you have to do and the commitment to be a dentist. It’s kind of like a blind faith. Unless you get into some guys at the beginning like you did that showed you a positive aspect of it, some people go through all the schooling and they get in and they become an associate and they go, “I don’t know if I like this.” Dr. Trent McCord: And you’re stuck. Shaun Keating: And you’re stuck. Oh, I’m going to go be a librarian now or whatever. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Uh-huh, yeah. They’re like, “If I could wipe the slate clean and get rid of all this student loan debt, I’d never be a dentist again in my life. That’s not me. I really like it. I like being a dentist. I like the dental part of it. The business part of it sucks. I don’t care for that at all. Shaun Keating: Oh absolutely. Dr. Trent McCord: But, the being a dentist, fortunately I do really enjoy it. I’ve got … I know a guy from dental school. He got out and went to Indian Health Services, so he got his school paid for. He got done with that four year commitment and I don’t think he’s touched a hand piece since. He’s like, “Nope. I’m done. I did my time. I’m done.” He’s got a brewery. He’s loving it. He’s doing what he loves. Dude is like screw that. Shaun Keating: I know. That’s a trip. It’s just so true on so many different levels with different doctors that get into it and they’re like, “Well,” but I think that’s with everyone going to college. I remember in high school, “What are you going to be? What are you going to be?” I knew from eighth grade because my oldest brother, I’m the youngest of four boys, he was going to be a dentist because his teeth were all jacked up in high school, orthodontists so he had to go to all that stuff. I always knew from eighth grade I’m going to be a dental technician because my brother Kevin’s going to be a dentist. Shaun Keating: It was like I kind of knew. I wasn’t real good in school, I was good in sports and all that, but that got me to my senior year in sports. Then when you’re five foot nothing, 100 nothing, you ain’t going to the next level. Not with that D for diploma. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. So what else can I do? Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: You know what? The being good at school part and being smart part, that’s helpful for getting into school, but man a lot of that has nothing to do with what kind of dentist you are, or what kind of doctor. Every dentist will tell you they had classmates that were brilliant and you would never get near them. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: To work on you. Shaun Keating: I always say that. I’ve got guys that they are so smart and so much theory, but they really don’t have the hand skills. Those are the ones that go on to lecture. All of those guys you see lecturing, those are the ones that weren’t the greatest dentists. There’s a few out there that are kind of good, but they’d rather talk about it than be in the trenches doing it in and out every day. Again, that’s probably with a lot of things in different professions. Tell me, did you start out as an associate? Did you purchase a practice? Shaun Keating: You’re only three or four years out aren’t you? How long you been out of the college? Dr. Trent McCord: Oh, let’s see. I am five years. Shaun Keating: That’s such a trip. Dr. Trent McCord: I’m six years I think. Yeah, because I graduated 2013. Shaun Keating: Okay. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. I graduated and I was going to buy a practice in my home town. I graduated, got my license and everything, bought a house, was going to buy this practice and then it turns out maybe we didn’t have things as agreed upon as we thought. The doctor, I think he kind of wanted the practice a little longer and we just verbally agreed on stuff that turned out not really working out. Then I found myself an unemployed dentist with student loans coming up. So I hopped on with a regional corporate type place and worked there for about a year. It was brutal because I didn’t know how to be a dentist yet and you’re having to see a pretty full schedule and working with people. Dr. Trent McCord: Some of them are okay and some of them are awful and you can’t do anything about it. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: But it was good for me. Yeah I did that for about a year and then thought I was going to join another office. That didn’t work out and ended up at a community health center, and FQHC just seeing kids and doing amalgams and pulling teeth all day. I always knew I wanted my own office and I had a couple opportunities that didn’t work out. It was kind of like, “Well you know, maybe I just need to do my own thing.” I don’t really want to share this, at least at that point in time. Dr. Trent McCord: It was going to be hard to get a partnership to work it out and I wasn’t finding a practice to purchase. I knew I’m in Arkansas and Wal-Mart world had quarters as well. It was like four miles from my office. So people are moving in here like crazy, but dentists aren’t quite coming in at the same pace. No one gets out of school and is like, “Man, I can live anywhere in the world. I’m going to go live in Centerton, Arkansas.” I was like all right, so I’ll just open my own dang office. I found a good location and in Centerton at the time, there’s I think 12,000 people and only one other dentist. Shaun Keating: No kidding. That’s perfect dude. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. I opened up shop and we’ve been busy with a ton of new patients and everything from day one. We’ve done some marketing. We did mailers our first year. After a year we quit doing them just because they’re kind of expensive. It’s like well, let’s see how things go. We’re on the main road and we’re busy. We’re seeing over 100 new patients a month. Shaun Keating: That’s huge. Dr. Trent McCord: It’s allowed me as a not a very savvy business person, we’ve done well. We’ve grown a lot and everything kind of in spite of ourselves. We’ve got a really good location. We’ve got a good team and we’re nice. Shaun Keating: That’s 90% of it. Dr. Trent McCord: We have a lot of fun and treat people well. Shaun Keating: That’s it. What about, you getting any of that Wal-Mart family in there? They’re like some of the richest people in the world. Dr. Trent McCord: You know, I don’t … I wonder where do those guys … where do they all … they probably fly in on a jet and down in Southern California somewhere. Or they go to one of the older established offices in the area. There’s some really good dentists around here. Yeah, I don’t have a Wal-Mart family person in there yet. One day, maybe on an accident one of them will break a tooth and I’ll be the only one open on a Friday evening. Then I can say I fixed that tooth. Shaun Keating: Start hanging out- Dr. Trent McCord: On a Wal-Mart billionaire. Shaun Keating: Just have a bunch of people hand out flyers to all the Wal-Mart people on the outside. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Shaun Keating: Going hey, Trent McCord, Dr. Trent McCord, DDS around the corner. Look at him. Hollywood movie star looks. You’d be perfect. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Yeah. I won’t even have to worry about checking their insurance benefits. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: Like it’s going to be cash and you don’t even care. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Fee for service. Dr. Trent McCord: [crosstalk 00:32:13] piece of candy. Shaun Keating: 3000 a crown, man. We’re a bargain. That’s so cool dude. Tell me, describe the layout of your practice a little bit and tell me about your employees, how many assistants and hygienists and associates. Tell me a little bit about your practice if you could. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. We’ve got eight opertories. We opened with four plumbed. As we grew, we added people and finished out operatories. Yeah, that was in 2016. Now, we’re using all eight ops. We’ve got four hygienists and an associate and myself. We each work out of two rooms a piece. Shaun Keating: No kidding. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. We have five assistants and then three at the front desk. Shaun Keating: Dang. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. We’re all full. But, we work three days a week. We do 8:00 to 7:00. We work long days. My sanity is important to me because I almost lost my mind opening this office. I got so stressed out with everything. I don’t want to work anymore. We work our three long days a week. Shaun Keating: What days? What days? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Dr. Trent McCord: No. Shaun Keating: It just depends. Dr. Trent McCord: It depends on the week. When we opened, it was like well lets work Monday, Tuesday, Friday and then Monday, Thursday, Friday. We’ll just alternate them so we can provide availability. But, that ended up just being kind of a habit. Last week, fourth of July, we worked Monday, Tuesday. Then I’m going to work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday this week. We’ve got a week off, but only took a day off of work. Shaun Keating: No kidding. Dr. Trent McCord: We just change it up. When we want to do a long weekend or [inaudible 00:34:04] or holidays or something, we’ll stack those days together. Shaun Keating: That’s awesome. Dr. Trent McCord: And do something. Yeah, man, it’s worked out. It’s worked out pretty well. Shaun Keating: You’re just starting too. Most guys can’t even wipe their bum at six years. It’s like what? Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah. Shaun Keating: Tell me a little bit about your CE. What are you guys doing? Are you doing the stuff online? Are you going out to Spear or Coy’s or anyone like that? Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing for your CE. Any recommendations on something that you’ve liked? Dr. Trent McCord: Let’s see. We do some of your local meetings and courses, odds and end stuff around. My associate and I, we went to Spear, did their facially generated treatment plan workshop back in March. We both went down there and did that and it was awesome. It was really good. I don’t know. I think we’re going to join a study club up here and do some of the Spear. It seems like a good group. I’m realizing six years out. I’m really pretty good at fixing one tooth at a time. If it gets to be full mouth cosmetic stuff, I just … I’m just not too interested in it, so I don’t do a lot of it. Dr. Trent McCord: I think a lot of that is just gonna be, for me, confidence and doing it. I know how to do it. You take the Spear course and it’s like, “Okay, this all makes sense.” But a lot of it is geared on how do you talk to patients about it? Shaun Keating: Yeah, exactly. Dr. Trent McCord: And have those conversations, which actually I’m pretty terrible about because I still don’t do it very much. But I learned a lot of really good stuff. Shaun Keating: I [crosstalk 00:35:44] time in that Spears. It’s like top level, top shelf. Most dentists are, “Oh, I can’t afford it, no.” You can afford it. You need to do something like that, especially as you’re young. Give yourself when you’re 10 years in, you’re just going to be getting more and more experience as you’re in the trenches. If you can do a three in it, you can do a 12 in it. It’s just connecting the dots and just how to treatment plan a case. A great lab will always help you out there with just sense of study models and let the lab guys tell you, “Boom. Let’s go this, this, this.” Then whatever your [inaudible 00:36:18] or your PA can show you that you’re able to do, it’s pretty neat, pretty rewarding. Shaun Keating: It comes in time, but you’re on the right track, especially too, I’ve got guys 20, 30 years in that still, it’s onesie, twosies. I’m not doing anything bigger than that. A lot of guys, they might do a three unit bridge once or twice a year, but it’s bread and butter dentistry. That’s 90% of it out there is what the patients actually need. Dr. Trent McCord: It pays the bills. Shaun Keating: It pays the bills. Dr. Trent McCord: Yep. Shaun Keating: And in down times, you’re not worrying because I have a practice and I’m limited to cosmetics and all my veneers are gone home. Those veneers, I used to do 1000 veneers a week back in the early 2000, 2005 and all that. Then it went out the door. Dr. Trent McCord: [crosstalk 00:37:05] seven heaven. Shaun Keating: Yeah, exactly. Well, what happened to my big dogs? My whales man. They’re no longer. All of the other guys, they kind of weathered it and we weathered it too because we just, if we could just pay all the bills and everything else, it’s just, that’s what’s important. Money will come. I never looked at money. Oh I’ve got to make money. Money will come and it just takes time. I think if anybody in any field, if you do it long enough, you’ll be successful at it. You’ve just got to do it with a positive attitude, surround yourself with great people and good things will happen. It’s just a matter of time. You’ve just got to keep- Dr. Trent McCord: Keep plugging away. Shaun Keating: Doing the right thing too. What about any CAD/CAM technology? You doing any scanners? You thinking about that? What’s some of the newest equipment you’re looking at or thinking about? Or even have purchased recently? Dr. Trent McCord: At the moment, I’m not really looking at anything a ton. We got a cone beam after we were open about a year, which has been a really cool tool. We place implants. I’ve taken a lot of course from Blue Sky Bio. Shaun Keating: Yeah good. Dr. Trent McCord: So I’m making my surgical guides for the most part unless it’s complicated. We use that, the cone beam and the endo. Endo, having that cone beam has really helped me be a lot better at endo. You see canals beforehand, or see beforehand, okay this needs to go to my endodontist. That helps out a lot. Then of course with treatment planning implants and stuff. We’ve got a scanner, a Trios. Shaun Keating: Oh good for you. Dr. Trent McCord: That thing is awesome. Shaun Keating: That’s like the best of the best baby. Dr. Trent McCord: That thing is awesome but we bought it and then a couple months later Invisalign came out. Well, we’re not going to take those scans. Shaun Keating: Yeah. No, that sucks. That’s still, they’re trying to work that out, but there was a lot of pissed off people when Align went and did that, but they’re such a huge company. They lost [crosstalk 00:39:18] on it, but they don’t care. I don’t know. That Trios, man, you could be scanning … you should scan all those preps dude. Send them off to the lab and forget the goo anymore. It’s just so fricking accurate and so instant. You need to send me some of those digital designs. I’ll do some free for you just to show you what it’s all about. We’ll have them back to you in about a day. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah, man. Shaun Keating: Shoot out one of those and I’ll have it, and with Trios, we get it instantly. Boom, we’re already designing. It’s off to the mill and then the next day, it’s glazed and ground in and mailed. It’s just amazing. It’s just so neat. All the [inaudible 00:40:00] is good. They’re all pretty good, but the three sheep Trios, I have the CEO of that company coming to my lab. He literally sits in here for eight hours and works with our people. He’s just a down to Earth guy. I fricking love him. It’s kind of cool. Shaun Keating: So dude, let’s wrap this up with a little bit of advice from my young gun here, being out since the little that you have and you’ve just got a kick ass practice, it really is. It’s amazing. What kind of advice can you give some of the newer dentists starting off? Some of the do’s and don’ts. You kind of went balls to the wall. I think it was really good that you got in the trenches with some of the practice management type dental practices or whatever you were in. I bet you saw a lot of patients and you saw a lot of things you don’t want to do, and maybe would want to do. Tell me a little bit of advice you could give some of our people out there. Dr. Trent McCord: Man, okay. I would say if you want to open your own office, I think it’s a very viable option. It’s been really good for me. But, go where you’re needed. Don’t open an office in Southern California. Shaun Keating: Yeah, exactly. Dr. Trent McCord: Some people can pull that off, but if you’re kind of like me and you don’t know what in the world you’re doing with the business and you don’t want to sit there and crunch numbers and all that stuff all the time, find somewhere where there’s not a lot of dentists and a whole bunch of people. That was pretty helpful to me. I’ll tell you probably one of the best things for me too, was the dental town. I know you know about dental town. I got out of school. For example, I kept breaking off root tips. I didn’t know how to pull teeth. I pulled a bunch in dental school, but we never … they just weren’t hard ones. So I’m like man, what in the world am I doing? I come across some thread on dental town, just thousands and thousands of pictures of a guy pulling a tooth. Here’s the x-ray. Here’s the picture. Here’s how I did it. Here’s the x-ray, here’s the picture, here’s how I did it. Dr. Trent McCord: I spent like two weeks in between patients at my job reading that and then magically I quit breaking root tips, so I could get teeth out [crosstalk 00:42:19] Shaun Keating: I bet you that was- Dr. Trent McCord: And it was three. Shaun Keating: I bet you that was Dr. Tommy [Murphs 00:42:24]. Dr. Trent McCord: That was Tommy Murphs man. Shaun Keating: Ah, that dude is so cool. Dr. Trent McCord: I’ve got a book. He’s got a book that he wrote and it’s like an actual colored book, but I don’t know how he put it together, but it’s only one sided. The back of every page is blank and he autographed it and got it through. I’m like this is awesome. Yeah, man. Shaun Keating: No. Dr. Trent McCord: I learned so much from that. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: Root canals. There’s some really good threads on there on just how to find an MB2. How to file. Just a basic thing like how to hand file. I learned so much on there. That was probably the best thing I’ve ever done. Shaun Keating: No kidding. Dr. Trent McCord: Howard [crosstalk 00:43:05] Shaun Keating: No kidding. [crosstalk 00:43:05] of that, because that is so true. He has the model you’ll never practice alone again. You can go on there and look up [Bando 00:43:13], you can look up implants. The threads and they’re real world dentists. That’s kind of where I got my start in 2002, 2003 when I opened, 2002. I got on that. I got noticed and man that inter web. It can make or break you. I got my ass kicked a few times with a few cases here and there. You can’t please everybody. It’s a tough thing, but it really was the Facebook before Facebook for dentists. Dr. Trent McCord: Oh yeah. Well and even still, we’ve got all these Facebook groups and I’m in a lot of them. They’re awesome and everything, but with Dental Town, I’ve got the app and I’m checking it all the time. It’s easier to search for something. There’s not as much … I don’t know, so many of these groups have just a ton of trash. You get on a Facebook page and poor hygienists will say something and then you’ve got 300 dentists just you’re a hygienist. You don’t know what’s going on, blah blah blah blah blah. Shaun Keating: That’s crazy. Dr. Trent McCord: In reality, they knew … someone had a really good point. But on Dental Town, I don’t know, it’s a good community and you can get on there and search anything. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: If I’ve got a patient on a medication and I’m like what in the world is that? I’ll just go get on, that’s my search. I don’t Google it; I Dental Town it and get an answer. That was the best thing I ever did. I spent hours and hours and hours reading through threads on starting an office and doing all kinds of stuff on there. It’s all free. You don’t have any money when you get out of school. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Trent McCord: You think you have money, but you don’t. Shaun Keating: That’s great advice right there. I’ve never really had anyone say that. A few, even when Howard is on a podcast with me here. He talks about this one guy, took him 20 years to put together this whole thing on implants in this book. He goes, you didn’t go read it in a week. It took 20 years of in the trenches and all these pictures and step by step, what you need, what you can do and on and on and on. You can go listen to it online or you can read it in a week or whatever it takes you to read a book. It’s amazing, especially the way this, everything. Shaun Keating: Let’s check a YouTube video. Okay, I can do a room prep, or I can do this, or let’s do a sinus lift. Hey, I go to YouTube. Go to Dental Town because there’s a gazillion videos. There’s a bunch of continuing CE. No, it’s good advice. Coming from a young gun, man, my hats off to you dude. You really are rocking and rolling. You’ve got a great attitude. I just can’t thank you enough for coming on the podcast here this week. Trent McCord, remember Kent McCord? There was a Kent McCord, I think it was on a TV show called Emergency way back in the day I think it was, a movie star. You kind of look like him. Any relation? Dr. Trent McCord: I look [crosstalk 00:46:08] no, but he must be a good looking guy. I’ll have to go … Kent McCord. Man, I never … I’ve just got girls. If I would have had a boy, I could have had a Kent. I could have named him Kent McCord. Shaun Keating: Kent McCord. That dude, I think it was [crosstalk 00:46:24] yeah, I think that was his name, but no dude, you’re looking great. Great story. I just can’t thank you enough for coming on the Dental Up podcast. Dr. Trent McCord: Yeah man, appreciate it. Thanks for having me on here. I always tell people, or at least when somebody’s [crosstalk 00:46:44] younger dentists and stuff, feel free to text or email me. I can give my … is it okay if I share my email? Shaun Keating: Oh yeah. On the show notes, we’ll put your website up and your email, whatever. That would be neat because a lot of people do like to reach out. We’ve got a lot of downloads on this. I can’t believe our numbers. It’s kind of crazy because this is just, we’re the sponsor. I’m the dental lab, but it’s just kind of to get the story out about dentists. It’s just kind of what they’re doing in real life. No one’s getting paid. It’s all kind of a true story here. It’s just a lot of different stories on different dentists and how they do and start off. It’s a very open group too. They’re always willing to help and share, to help out fellow peers in the industry. I just think it’s a great thing. Shaun Keating: I just love it. I love when I see a young dentist starting off and there’s ups and downs and everything else, but man, you’re down to three days a week already. You don’t even have to market basically. But I think what you said truly is so important with the area. Like you said, here in Southern California, dude, I got 400 dentists in a one square mile all fighting for these patients. L.A, we’re Orange County, but we’re about 40 minutes South of L.A. it’s even worse there. There are just dentists every which way. It’s tough, it’s tough. Dr. Trent McCord: Oh yeah. And where I am, people might even hate me. They don’t even like me. You know what? They still have to come see me. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Trent McCord: No. There’s nobody; they don’t have a choice now. Thankfully I’m a pretty nice guy and they do like me for the most part, but you know, I’m not fighting for patients. I’m just … we opened and there we are. Okay, we’re in Arkansas. Let’s go get our denture today. Shaun Keating: Yeah. Dr. Trent McCord: That’s what I’m here for. Shaun Keating: That’s so cool dude. Well hey, Dr. McCord, God bless you and your family. Thanks again for coming on. If there’s anything I can ever do, please let me know. Dr. Trent McCord: Appreciate it. Thanks Shaun. Shaun Keating: All right, buddy. We’ll talk to you later. Bye bye. Host: Thanks for joining us on the Dental Up podcast show this week. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or search the Dental Up podcast on Itunes for our weekly feed. Don’t forget to visit keatingdentallab.com/promo for exclusive offers. Keating Dental Lab is a full service dental laboratory and we’re nationwide. We’d love for you to send us a case so we can show you the Keating difference. If you dig what you heard, please leave a review on Itunes and we’ll be back next week. [/bg_collapse]
