| Shaun Keating CDT + Dr. Scott Brookshire DDS |
Growing up in Southern California, Dr. Scott Brookshire graduated from Loma Linda University School of Dentistry in 1993. Soon after, Scott bought his first practice in Craig, Alaska which is a tight-knit community of ~1,200 citizens located on a large island off the coast of southern Alaska called Prince of Wales. Scott moved to Alaska not knowing anyone and started running his newly bought practice in pursuit of his passion for providing dental care. Although Dr. Brookshire had enough education to practice dentistry without hurting anyone, he did not have the necessary knowledge of running a business. This part was especially hard due to the circumstance that Dr. Brookshire was in being the only dentist on the island. The power of the internet played a huge role in Dr. Brookshire’s development as a business owner and is how he learned about Keating Dental Lab 15 years ago. Dr. Brookshire did most of the business operations on top of practicing dentistry and believed he could do it all, however, he realized this model was impossible. Learn how Dr. Brookshire started his practice and the importance of having an outside consultant for business operations and accounting. Scott and Shaun discuss the benefits of using a digital scanner for taking impressions to save shipping and product costs, increase turnaround times, and the benefits of digital precision.
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Full Transcription:
Shaun Keating: Hey, everybody. Shaun Keating here. I want to welcome you to this week’s episode of the Dental Up podcast brought to you by Keating Dental Lab in beautiful Irvine, California. This week, we’ll be featuring a practicing dentist who has been operating Southeast Dental Centers in the Alaska Wilderness. Learn how the power of online media can drive patient traffic no matter how remote you are. We are amongst a passionate dentist who is practicing dentistry and running a business on an island off the coast of Alaska. Please welcome Dr. Scott Brookshire, DDS from Craig, Alaska. Hey, how’s it going, Scotty boy?
Dr. Brookshire: Keats, it’s going great. One of our few beautiful, sunny days here in southeast Alaska.
Shaun Keating: Dude, that is so cool that you did this with me. You’re like the only dude from Alaska that I’ve ever worked with and it’s like … We met like years ago, and it’s just so cool.
Dr. Brookshire: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Shaun Keating: I’m looking at your website, never really looked at your website, and you’re just on a little island off of the side of Alaska there, southeastern side of Alaska, but …
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah. If you look at a map of Alaska, we’re on where Alaska, British Columbia, and the Pacific Ocean come together. The island’s kinda big. It’s about 140 miles by maybe 40 miles, but the population is small. It’s about 5,000 residents, multiple communities, but we really think of the whole island as a community because the population’s so small, but it’s just a great place to live and raise a family.
Shaun Keating: Oh, it just looks beautiful, though. You look at it and, heck, has it been light for a month? When’s the last time the sun went down? A while ago?
Dr. Brookshire: We’re in the southern part of the state, so the days are definitely getting shorter. In maybe early to mid- November, I’m sorry, December is when it gets its darkest. It’ll get light at about 8:30/9 in the morning, and then the sun will start going down at around 4:30/5 in the evening.
Shaun Keating: Huh, that’s not bad.
Dr. Brookshire: So you definitely notice a … No, it’s not that bad. You get used to it. Fall is when the days get shorter, and that’s when the deer hunting gets good and you’ve already done all your fishing, and the weather kind of gets crappy, so you end up spending more time reading books and spending time on Dentaltown and listening to podcasts.
Shaun Keating: No kidding. That’s just amazing, man. I mean, it really is, just something that, you know, you hear about it and with the sun and everything staying up and people … I always thought it was light out for a month or two out of the year. What is it?
Dr. Brookshire: Well, yeah. The winter is when it gets darker. The summer is when it gets lighter. We will have during the summer, sunset will be at around 11 o’clock at night, and sunrise at around 3:00 in the morning.
Shaun Keating: Oh, okay. So it’s not sun up all consistent day after day. It’s just later in the day it goes down and stuff?
Dr. Brookshire: Right, where we are that’s true. If you go further north like in Fairbanks, what you are saying is true. There is a couple of weeks when it’s completely, the sun is out all the time. And there’s a couple of weeks in the winter when it’s dark.
Shaun Keating: Oh, man. That’s gonna mess with your psyche a little bit.
Dr. Brookshire: Yep.
Shaun Keating: It’s like, we ain’t going to bed. Let’s stay up and party. Maybe that’s why all the people out in Alaska like to party so much. It’s like, the sun ain’t going down.
Dr. Brookshire: Most of us do hold our own in a bar. Yeah, that’s a lot of drinking.
Shaun Keating: Dude, I always like to start it off talking a little bit about sports. Tell me, what are you guys, what’s the closest team out there, the Seattle Seahawks? Are you a football guy, baseball guy? Tell me a little bit about what you like and don’t like when it comes to sports.
Dr. Brookshire: Well, being that I live in Alaska, hunting and fishing is one of my things I enjoy doing the most. The Seattle Seahawks are the most popular team around. Lots of bumper stickers, lots of shirts. Number 12 shirts, that kind of thing. But the majority of the folks here, they live for hunting, they live for fishing and going outdoors, and just enjoying the natural forest here, which is the Tongass Forest. Yeah.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, I’ve seen on your website how you work Monday through Friday, but Saturday and Sunday, you’re closed for hunting and fishing. I like that, man. That’s so cool you say that.
Dr. Brookshire: Yep, that’s me.
Shaun Keating: Didn’t your brother own a fishing lodge? I remember way back you said something about that.
Dr. Brookshire: I have a very close friend who owns a fishing lodge. There’s a number of lodges here. The silver salmon and the king salmon are prized sports fish, and there is a lot of folks from the lower 48 that come up here for three to five days at a time, go to the lodges, and they will head home with between 100 and 150 pounds of fish, with a big smile on their face.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, I just had a buddy of mine just get back from Alaska last week, and he got a bunch of fish like that. They prepared it, and he brought it all home, and I’m like, “Dude, that’s crazy.” I always think Alaska, I always think of the big ass halibut that they catch.
Dr. Brookshire: There’s a lot of halibut, yes.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, and they’re just so huge. Where we get ones here, you have to have a certain size. I think it’s 24 inches or something. You’d be lucky to get a 30 pounder or 40 pounder, and that’s big for us. But I remember I went on this little half day boat with my son years ago, and I won. They do a jackpot, I think you all put 10 bucks each, everyone on the boat, and then whoever gets the biggest fish gets the jackpot. I remember it was like the last five minutes before lines were up, and I felt a tug, and it was just on the bottom, and it just had a weight on the bottom of it, I don’t know what’s called. But I can’t even tie a hook, I got a freaking boat. But …
Dr. Brookshire: Yep
Shaun Keating: So I felt a tug, tug, and I didn’t think nothing was on it, and the thing swam up to the top, and it was a big old halibut and I won the jackpot, man. Shit.
Dr. Brookshire: Yep. The locals refer to those as barn doors.
Shaun Keating: Why is that?
Dr. Brookshire: Because they’re just so darn big and flat. It’s like a barn door coming up.
Shaun Keating: No kidding. Yeah, they are flat and kind of scary looking, man. It’s like a space ship looking dude, you know, with the teeth the way they are? Scared the hell out of me, man. I’m like, “How do you get the hook out of him? It’ll bite your fingers off. Yeah, I was screaming like a little girl out there. Well, dude. Tonight we have the Rams playing the 49ers, man. We got the Rams back here, so I’m pretty excited. We’ll wrap this up before you know it, because Daddy’s going to be hitting old Tony’s pepperoni’s at the little pizza parlor.
Dr. Brookshire: Excellent!
Shaun Keating: My wife’s like, “No, Shaun, it’s Thursday.” “You know, it’s Thursday night football, baby. Come on”.
Dr. Brookshire: Got to watch the game.
Shaun Keating: Got to watch the game. And I’ll get at least a half with her. We’ll stay for a half probably. Probably not the whole game. Got these damn puppies. I don’t know what I was thinking. Brought home a couple …
Dr. Brookshire: At least you’ll get that.
Shaun Keating: Yeah. So that’s good. It’s kind of cool. I love any reason to get out to a food establishment with TV’s and beer. I could watch ice skating for all I care. It’s like, “Let’s get out, baby. Come on, get me out of this house.”
Alright, dude. Well hey, let’s Dental Up a little bit.”
Dr. Brookshire: Sure.
Shaun Keating: Let’s see. Okay, why did you get into dentistry, and at what point did you think, “I want to be a dentist”? Tell me a little bit about that.
Dr. Brookshire: I didn’t realize I wanted to be a dentist and decide to apply for dental school until I was in my second year at University California at Santa Barbara. I grew up in southern California, Ventura County. At first I wanted to be a vet, but I made the mistake of deciding that before I actually went to see what the heck a vet does. Spent a couple of days with a vet, and decided that wasn’t for me. Started going to the University Health Center and followed the dentists around, and nobody’s miserable. They’re kind of fearful, but by in large, they’re leaving with a smile, and the dentists were very engaging. You got to work with your hands. It was love at first sight, and so it wasn’t until my sophomore year that I really decided that I wanted to go into dental school.
Shaun Keating: No kidding. Shit. I didn’t even know … see, and I’ve seen you several times maybe at the dental, different conventions, dental town meetings, and then you’ve come to our lab for two or three of our seminars through the years, but I never knew you were so cowboy. You lived here in the stuff?
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, yeah. I was Oxnard, just surrounded by lemon orchards and strawberry fields up until I went off to college.
Shaun Keating: No kidding.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, I’m a local boy.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, you are.
Dr. Brookshire: I never surfed, but I did lots of boogie boarding and body surfing, and that sort of thing.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, we all say we surfed. I tried surfing, too, and that always … it’s called going over the falls where you get on the wave and you just … it’s called pearling, where your nose goes in the water and you go flying over it? That was me, man. I got on very few waves in my life, but if anyone asks, “Yeah, I’m a surfer”, but phew. That was like … I almost died out there many times, but I’m a good boogie boarder. Give me a good boogie board, and I’ll act like a professional out there.
Dr. Brookshire: It’s a lot safer.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, make sure you strap that … they have a little leash, and you strap it to your wrist because I can’t tell you how many times when I was younger, getting pulled out of riptides by lifeguards, and I still panicked every time. I know you’re supposed to swim parallel to the shore or whatever it was, and I just … that’s scary stuff when those rip currents pull you in and you just kind of panic and now, I can only imagine …
Dr. Brookshire: A lot of power.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, it’s so crazy. Well dude, so tell me about, what are you passionate about in terms of dentistry? What do you like doing? What don’t you like doing there?
Dr. Brookshire: What I don’t like doing is pretty short list. I find myself, especially as I’m getting older, getting more frustrated when I’m working on a four year old. I don’t know if it’s my pet … what am I trying to say? That I’m just not as …
Shaun Keating: Patient?
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, yeah. My patience just isn’t what it used to be, I guess.
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: But I find myself having to step back. I’m the only dentist, for profit dentist on the island. There’s no specialists shorter than a three hour boat ride away, so consequently, I have to do a lot. I ended up having to do oral surgery, which I enjoy. I really enjoy all the various aspects of dentistry, with the exception of pedes. The thing I enjoy most about dentistry is how it’s multi-faceted [inaudible 00:10:17] but there’s a lot of phycology in dentistry and dealing with patients, and then you’re a small business owner. So all of that melded together is just a wonderful combination for me, and I just really enjoy looking at the numbers and figuring out to incorporate Facebook and how to … which my wife does mostly, and how to deal with other team members. I just love being a dentist.
Shaun Keating: You know, you do. And across the board, I was just looking at our numbers, and we’ve been together for years, and we’ll get into that, but …
Dr. Brookshire: Yep.
Shaun Keating: You do everything. You everything across the board. Tons of removal, implants, fixed and now here you’re doing children. I mean, you’re on a darn island. You best do everything like McGyver, and you really … and you are, and you’re passionate, and you do a lot of CE. You’ve done CE with me, where you’re flying out here and I don’t know if that’s just to get away from the wife, or you just really like the CE or … I think you bring the wife, too, actually. I’m just kidding.
Dr. Brookshire: Well, yeah. When she finds out I’m going to southern California, she usually comes along because there are Nordstrom’s in California, so for sure she’s going to be here. Gentletown is great. The internet is a godsend for someone in my situation where there’s just no one else to talk to about dentistry.
Shaun Keating: Yep.
Dr. Brookshire: But nothing beats going down and taking a class that’s face to face with the instructor. The best part about that is lunch or the bar afterward where you’re talking to other dentists, and you’re elbow to elbow and you’re just talking about, “How do you handle this situation? What impression tool do you use? Do you have a laser? Why do you not have a laser, if you don’t have one? What’s best about 3D planning, if they’re starting to get into that?”
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: It’s just that elbow to elbow experience with other dentists is something that I’m not going to get here on Prince of Wales Island, and so that’s why I travel so much for continued ed.
Shaun Keating: That’s really awesome, dude. You’ve always been that way, and I think we met … I think you found out from my lab way back was on Dentaltown, wasn’t it?
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah.
Shaun Keating: Is that how you found out about me?
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, it sure is. Let’s see, I was … Dentaltown Magazine was relatively new, so I’m going to say 02/03. When did you open your doors?
Shaun Keating: 02. So, yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: Okay. So it must have been in 02. I was just getting into Dentaltown on Alaska.doc on Dentaltown. In the magazine, I think there was an ad that you had, and then I saw you posting and gave you a call. You answered the phone yourself, and we talked for awhile. I had been using for maybe three years Glidewell Dental Labs, and for maybe two, two and a half of those years, I had a good experience and had nothing but positive things to say. For about six months, that kind of changed, and I’m not here to badmouth another lab, but things were inconsistent from that point, and so I was looking for a change. You were very personable, you were engaging, I could get ahold of you directly, and since then, we have had a very good business relationship, excellent lab communication. That’s why I stay with you guys.
Shaun Keating: That’s so cool, dude.
Dr. Brookshire: If there’s an issue, I can get on the phone and I can talk to Jim, or I can talk to you, and figure out what it is that I’m doing wrong, or what it is that I’m not saying in an RX so that I’m getting what I think I should be getting back. It’s not about right and wrong. It’s about as a team, what can we do to best serve my patients, and the attitude that you guys have is excellent.
Shaun Keating: That’s so cool. I love that, man.
Dr. Brookshire: And it’s been, what? Fifteen years now?
Shaun Keating: Yeah. We’re celebrating our fifteenth year after Labor Day. September 3, 2002 is the day I opened my doors and, man …
Dr. Brookshire: That’s a hell of a long time, and your average dentist … any idea how long they usually stay with a lab?
Shaun Keating: I don’t know, but I just know a lot of guys that I’ve known … they’ve been with me fifteen years, but a lot of them have been with me before when I worked at that other lab, and I’ve had guys twenty, thirty years.
Dr. Brookshire: Excellent.
Shaun Keating: Once a dentist gets in with us, and we kind of work things out and get things dialed in, they’re kind of here for life, really. It’s kind of a neat thing. I know they probably use some labs for some different products maybe that I don’t do, but more so than not, most of them will send most the stuff, and it’s just a neat thing, it really is. There’s always going to be guys that are going to bounce a little bit here and there, but then, it’s just something with good service and good products and stuff, and you have a good attitude, things will happen and most dentists will stay with you. I find that if you can get a relationship and build it, you’re pretty locked in with them, and I like that.
Dr. Brookshire: Well, my experience with your lab is that there’s continuity, consistency, value, and all of those are important. Could I save five dollars, ten dollars here and there? I assume I probably could, but then, there’s not the continuity.
Shaun Keating: Yep.
Dr. Brookshire: The service has value in itself, and so there’s no reason for me to look across the fence and look at another lab.
Shaun Keating: That’s awesome. I love to hear that, Scotty!
Dr. Brookshire: Well, it’s true. It’s true. Fifteen years.
Shaun Keating: Aw, that’s awesome, man. Well, thank you for helping me stay alive and stay open. I mean, it’s guys like you that have helped us stay open, and we’re very thankful for that, man. That’s really cool.
Dr. Brookshire: Well, I’m sure in fifteen years, especially with the financial crash of 08, I’m sure that affected a lot of labs, and it was the continuity that you provide for your lab that I’m sure was a big benefit to keeping your doors open where other labs weren’t able to stay open.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, it was tough. It was tough for us even …
Dr. Brookshire: I bet.
Shaun Keating: When my doctors all fifty states I got a couple from at least one every state that will send to me, but a lot of those guys were hit 30,40,50% and some even more, on traffic and patients that they didn’t have anymore. It was just a tough time for a lot of dentists, too. Yeah, there were thousands of labs that had to shut down, but …
Dr. Brookshire: My practice is mostly onesies and twosies. Single crowns, implants, single tooth replacement implants. I don’t do a lot of veneers, but I’m sure that the guys who were big in the cosmetic back then, just got nailed.
Shaun Keating: Oh, they did. All my guys practice cosmetic dentistry on their big signs and stuff, and they were doing roundies and full rehabs, and a lot of six through eleven, four to thirteen veneer cases. Those were gone. All that discretionary and non-discretionary income with all the houses rising with equity, and all that stuff was gone, and then all those patients. And all the guys were doing bread and butter, the singles, the onsies, twosies, doing the endo when you had to do it. The ones that were not pushing it each day and trying to just grow it and push the limits, they were fine. They survived fine, and they’re still doing great.
It’s just the ones that really limit it to cosmetics only, and I’m not going to work on anyone but this type patient. Unless you just really got the name and really got the pull, they were few and far between those guys that survived. It’s the ones that were in, I call them the little ‘poke and plum’ towns, where you poke your head out the window and you’re plum out of town. Those guys that were just practicing good dentistry and bread and butter dentistry, they’re fine.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah.
Shaun Keating: It really worked out, but it’s never going to get back to that. I remember big time, double digit growth every year …
Dr. Brookshire: Right.
Shaun Keating: Then it kind of went flat, and it’s still tough. It’s tough with doctors, and with overhead, and debt and patients not having as much money and not as robust economy. It’s starting to come back a little bit, but I don’t think it will ever be back to the heyday of the wild days of high double-digit growth unless you’re doing acquisitions and all that stuff.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, I opened my doors in 93, had a two chair office, continuously grew. Expanded by an acquisition in about 02/03, and really started to grow. When 08 hit, I would say that we went flat probably until about 2013 …
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: Five years. It has been trickling north of that now, and this year I’ve been using the consultant. We’re probably about 20%, 25% growth this year …
Shaun Keating: That’s awesome.
Dr. Brookshire: Which is a very pleasant surprise.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, congratulations, dude.
Dr. Brookshire: Well, thank you. It’s my team members. Sandy Pardue, and a lot of midnight oil.
Shaun Keating: That’s cool. You use Sandy. Sandy a Louisiana girl, huh?
Dr. Brookshire: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and it gave my staff and I, my team, an opportunity to go down to Baton Rough and have some gumbo …
Shaun Keating: Oh you’re kidding.
Dr. Brookshire: And some red fish, and have a lot of good training.
Shaun Keating: I had Jerome Smith from Louisiana on I think, on my podcast last week or a week or two ago, and that dude is a frickin stud, man, isn’t he? Don’t you love Jerome? I mean, he’s …
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah.
Shaun Keating: He’s a good guy.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, he’s an implant monster.
Shaun Keating: Oh, he is, man. He used to have a drill press like you do for fricking making ammo and stuff like that or whatever it was. He used to do things that you couldn’t even imagine, but he is really great when it comes to implants, and just a good, good guy, too.
Well, that’s awesome, dude. Tell me about your location on your practice. You’re on this island, and it’s called Craig, Alaska. Is that the name of the island, Craig Island? Or no?
Dr. Brookshire: No. The city we’re in is Craig. The island is called Prince of Wales.
Shaun Keating: Prince of Wales.
Dr. Brookshire: The locals refer to it as POW, not prisoner of war. We were actually let off the island, but the abbreviation is POW. The population is about 5,000. Commercially, the economic activity was largely logging and commercial fishing. A lot of the logging has tapered off, due to government changing whether or not they want more roads, and what land they’re allowing to be logged. So we’ve lost a lot of jobs the last fifteen years.
There’s about seven or eight villages, total population of about 4,500. Most of the roads, probably they have about 1,000 miles of road. I would say maybe 100 of that is paved. Everything else is dirt.
Shaun Keating: No kidding.
Dr. Brookshire: And when you move to here from southern California, that’s really weird. But now I’m totally use to it, and it’s part of life. It’s no big deal. You don’t go more than forty miles an hour, that’s for sure.
Craig has a population of about 1,200, so it’s considered the big metropolis. Everything else is between a population of 50 to a population of about 400.
Shaun Keating: No kidding.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, and it’s very different. I grew up in Oxnard, California, and you knew your neighbors and maybe the people who had kids a block down, but people three doors down you really didn’t know much about them. But here you know about most everybody, and everybody knows about you. At first, that’s very unusual to have someone … you’re in the grocery store and someone you don’t know will say, “Hey, did you catch any fish last Friday when you were fishing?”
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: And you’re trying to figure out, “How the hell do you know I was fishing?” Well, they drove by and they saw your car, and they know that’s Dr. Brookshire’s car, and he must be fishing because there’s nothing else to do there. So it’s unsettling at first, but after a couple of years it’s very comforting. Everybody knows one another. We look out for one another. There’s depth to the community. So your social world down south may be thin, but the social world here is thick because you know more about the folks. And it’s very nice.
Shaun Keating: It looks beautiful, too. It’s just like a little paradise, looks like. Any pubs or good little seafood place, restaurants there, mom and pop …
Dr. Brookshire: Oh yeah, yeah. There’s about four restaurants on the island, maybe six. Pizza parlors. The lodges have restaurants that are open during the summer. Some ex-assistants of mine … their passion was cooking, and so they quit. They opened up their own little roadside stand, and they make some of the best fish tacos you can imagine. The place is called Fish and Chicks, and they are just … it’s so wonderful. I go there and have lunch, and Liz is back there and various ex-staff of mine. It’s a wonderful continuity.
Shaun Keating: That’s awesome. It kind of reminds me of Hawaii where they got the little pokey stands and the little trucks outside, and the locals all go there because it’s the best food, and it’s probably the same thing with you guys there, just to have that.
Dr. Brookshire: Oh yeah. Well, it’s locally caught food. It’s locally made by people who grew up here, so it’s great.
Shaun Keating: That’s awesome, dude. So tell me, how was your experience starting your practice there? Was it tough? Tell me a little bit about that.
Dr. Brookshire: Oh, yes. There’s a story. In 93, I am just finishing up my fourth year of dental school at Loma Linda University, and I meet this guy …
Shaun Keating: You’re kidding. Are you kidding me?
Dr. Brookshire: No, I went to Loma Linda.
Shaun Keating: Dude, you should see Loma Linda University now. I just went there about a week ago or a month ago, listen to me. But I’d never been there, but we do the VA’s work there, and Loma Linda just had a brand new dental wing, and the thing is I don’t know how many thousands of square feet. The government paid for it, obviously. We paid for it, but …
Dr. Brookshire: Uh huh.
Shaun Keating: But the Loma Linda guys are so fricking good. We do all their lab work, and we met about forty of the doctors and all their staffs, and we brought lunch and bought pizzas. We just kind of went through. I brought my staff in. But what a high end, high tech type thing now. I bet you go to Loma Linda now and look. When’s the last time you’ve been to Loma Linda?
Dr. Brookshire: It’s been … I have a brother in law who graduated there about ten years ago, and that was the last time.
Shaun Keating: Dude, it’s all redone.
Dr. Brookshire: So it’s been a while.
Shaun Keating: Whole new facility. But anyways, go ahead. I’ll shut up there.
Dr. Brookshire: No, no. That’s fine. So I’m just graduating and really had no plan. I figured I was going to work for somebody for a while, and then at some point get out on my own. I knew that I wanted to leave California and go somewhat rural. I wasn’t thinking Alaska. I was thinking Arizona, Oregon, Montana. This guy in Ortho school … I was working the front desk of the dormitory. He comes up, and he’s asking for somebody. I realized who he was, and I said, “Hey, I’m just graduating from dental school. How do I go about finding a job?”
Well, it turned out that he was in the process of trying to sell his practice that was up in Alaska …
Shaun Keating: Oh, you’re kidding.
Dr. Brookshire: And so he started talking to me about it, and I found out later that the reason it’s for sale, and the reason he was in Ortho school is because he was in the process of getting indicted by the government for Medicaid fraud. So he’s in his office, he’s drilling away, and all of a sudden twelve uniformed troopers come in with a search warrant and they start tearing through his stuff, and interviewing his staff and what not. He apparently knew that things were going to go bad for him, so before anything became public, he had applied for Ortho school, got in and that’s how he and I met. So he, of course, didn’t say any of this. I found it out on my own. Long story short, I ended up buying the practice for about ten cents on the dollar, what typically …
Shaun Keating: I want to say a nickel on the dollar. Ten cents, man.
Dr. Brookshire: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, it was 62,500 as is. It was in place, but the kicker is the deal was, “You’re going to be the bank. I’m going to make monthly payments to you”. And if I’m not happy … If it turns out the local people want to tar and feather me because they think I’m associated with him, then all I have to do is give him ninety days notice and the payments I had paid would be seen as rent, and I could walk away.
He was extremely unhappy about that, but I told him … I was kind of sarcastic, obnoxious maybe, but I said, “Look, there’s no one standing in line behind me to buy this. If I leave, you have nobody.”
Shaun Keating: Yep.
Dr. Brookshire: And I’m not willing to take a risk based on things that he’s being accused of, so we signed the paperwork. He handed me the keys, and I bought a 1968 beat up F150 and put a camper shell on it, threw some boxes of dental books and some old clothes and a rifle, and headed north to the ferry in Bellingham, Washington, and then got on the ferry and slept on the deck of the ferry to get to Ketchikan, and then came on the Prince of Wales.
I had about $200 cash in my pocket, and about $800 left on my credit card, and the keys to the office. I walked in there, and it still smelled like a dental office. Everything was dusty, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, didn’t know what I had gotten myself into. I go to one of the greasy spoons on the island here that was a trailer ninety degrees connected to an old school bus. The school bus was the kitchen, and then the trailer was where you eat. I go in there, and somebody asked me who I am, and I tell him my name and they go, “Oh, are you a crook, too?” So that was the welcome that I got coming to the island.
After about six months, people started knowing me for me, and not the fact that I was following this guy, that whether he deserved it or not, didn’t have the best reputation. And things started to go. I never had a losing month, and things just slowly plodded along. I had an assistant. I had a front desk, and I had two assistants. I was doing my own prophies.
There was another dentist on the island that had a hygienist, and he was very much less than pleased that I showed up. I think he’s the one who dropped the dime on the other dentist, and he came into my office and said, “You’re an idiot for coming here. You have no business being here,” and then he said, “Let’s have lunch real soon.” I kind of smiled, and I go, “Okay, I’ll call you.” And of course, I never did.
But I determined, when that happened, I’m like, “Dammit, I’m going to make this work.” I just doggedly kept my nose to the grindstone and spent a lot of time just trying to become a better dentist, and Loma Linda did a great job of teaching me the basics, by the way.
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: And then, about seven years later, that other dentist gave me a call, and he wanted to leave the island. That’s when I did the acquisition, and things really started to perk up from that point on. I’m now the only for profit dentist here, and that’s been the case since 02/03. There is a native health office here. It’s them, it’s me, and then you got to go three hours by ferry to get to Ketchikan where there’s another dentist.
Shaun Keating: No kidding, dude.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah.
Shaun Keating: Isn’t that dude on Ketchikan? That guy’s on Dentaltown, too. Wasn’t that the guy …
Dr. Brookshire: Hold on. Yeah, yeah.
Shaun Keating: What’s his name? Dave …
Dr. Brookshire: Super Diver.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, Super Diver.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, he and I know one another quite well. He’s a great guy.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, he seemed like … I remember seeing him, and God, I remember when … I love that Alaskan Bush people show, and I watch it. Those poor people’s teeth are so jacked up.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, I got to be careful. Those folks are locals.
Shaun Keating: Are they really?
Dr. Brookshire: It happened a number of years ago. Yep, yep. It’s my opinion that there’s nothing … what do they call those shows? Reality shows? Reality television. Let’s just put it that way, and that’s my opinion.
Shaun Keating: Yeah. Browntown looked kind of scary town with them bears. I could never have done that, but …
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Browntown was a hundred yards from a hotel. My personal opinion
Shaun Keating: Aw. That one girl, the poor teeth. I just wanted to … I think I called them. I said, “Dude, man. I’ll volunteer the teeth if you get that girl fixed up, but I guess, they had some issues or something. Yeah, they wanted to switch it up or barter for fish.”
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, yeah.
Shaun Keating: It’s crazy, dude.
Dr. Brookshire: I don’t think Dave went for that well.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, I don’t think so. But I remember meeting Dave, too, at one of the Dentaltown meetings in Vegas and his wife or whatever, and just fun guys. Two guys I know all parts of Alaska and they have dental practices, and I know them both. That’s so cool. What a small, frickin world, dude, when like you said, on the internet when we met, and that’s kind of what blew us up, too, being able to get guys to meet them and stuff, and it’s all through that darn inner web. So …
Dr. Brookshire: That must have been quite an experience for you. I mean, starting your practice. It had to be scary, just like when I came here. On your own, and then becoming the success that you are and the large lab that you are.
Shaun Keating: Oh, it’s crazy.
Dr. Brookshire: There’s got to be a story there.
Shaun Keating: Well, yours is pretty great, too, to go there with a couple of hundred bucks in your pocket and taking a ferry to a place that you know nobody. That’s …
Dr. Brookshire: I knew no one.
Shaun Keating: At least when I started, I was making four bucks an hour, making thirty-two bucks a day, but a lot of times I could only work seven hours, so it was like 30,35 hours a week. I remember taking home ninety bucks a week, and we had a one year old or a one month old son, our first son, and we just made it happen. You work, and then when we started our own company after working for someone for seventeen years, and I started. It was kind of like what you did, just all the money … had to take a second out on the house. It was all a leap of faith, and the good Lord blessed us because …
Dr. Brookshire: I agree, and those little babies have a middle name, and that’s called incentive.
Shaun Keating: Yes. And it makes …
Dr. Brookshire: You look at those little ones, and it’s like, okay, daddy has to bring home the bacon.
Shaun Keating: Oh, it really did. You got a knot in that stomach thinking about the … then we had another one, and it was like, “God, I got to supply food and keep these kids alive under my watch, and it made me work. And now, I work with them every day, and I don’t want to see them anymore. No, just kidding.
Dr. Brookshire: He wants to go away.
Shaun Keating: I’ve got one of my sons right here watching me talk in this thing. He’s in my office and he’s sitting back reading a Zig Ziglar book. It’s like, “Travis, you’ve been in here for forty-five minutes, man. Why aren’t you out working on that bench?” He’s like, “We need more work, dad.” He’s like my head cat cam guy. It’s like funny.
Naw, that’s awesome, dude. What a great story for you, though, because you just got a real big heart. You got a real good work ethic, and you got mad skills, dude. You really do great dentistry and …
Dr. Brookshire: Thank you very much, but I have to say two things. My team. Without a team, without people that believe in you and that you work with well, you just can’t be a success. That’s just my opinion. And then, Loma Linda University. I have some detracting things to say about the administration, but they taught me … I didn’t know it at the time, but I was good enough to go from the clinic floor at the university to running my own office and not hurting somebody.
Shaun Keating: Exactly.
Dr. Brookshire: And they were able to do that in four years and a whole lot of money. But in four years, and my hat goes off to them. I had enough crowns under my belt and had done enough amalgams, extractions, that when these loggers came in all swelled up in pain, I knew what to do.
Shaun Keating: That is so cool. You know what? We got to get Loma Linda’s guys to listen to this so they could say, “Scott Brookshire. Yeah, we remember him, but … ” No, that’s a testimony, man, because a lot of guys from different schools, they come out and they’re for the worse off. But Loma Linda is a pretty awesome school. I’m not saying that the other dental schools aren’t as good, but I’m just saying Loma Linda has been known for high end dentistry for many years. I remember back in early eighties doing implants … we’re doing implants, and there’s a monkey’s heads are doing Aussie integrate with different implant abutments. They were on the cutting edge back then, and to see what they have now … it’s come a long ways and they have all their little meetings, and the way they teach. I was going through and listening to these guys on the meeting after we were leaving, we got a tour of everything and all the different classroom areas. It’s like, I don’t miss school, man, because it’s a lot of work, and you got to be at attention and you got to learn.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, well. Dental school was very stressful for me. I had a heck of a time with the actual book work the first year and a half, two years. Once I started spending the majority of the time in the clinic and the lab, it was still grueling. It was still difficult, but nowhere near as difficult. I was much more comfortable working with patients than I was with the head/neck anatomy and the pharmacology. I passed my grades and all that, but man, it was tough.
Shaun Keating: Oh, I bet. I bet. It really is.
Dr. Brookshire: But they formed me into the dentist that I am, so I have to thank them.
Shaun Keating: Well, dude. Tell me a little bit … what tips do you have for some of the younger dentists out there thinking of starting their own practice? What kind of tips do you got for some of my guys out there?
Dr. Brookshire: Learn about business. The books, Good to Grade, The E-Myth, Robert Kiyosaki’s Cash Flow Quadrant. In dental school, they teach you how to be a dentist, how to drill a tooth.
Shaun Keating: Yep, exactly.
Dr. Brookshire: When it comes to payroll and how to really look at the true expense of a piece of equipment that you’re taking a loan on, how to do the difficult things, how to look someone in the eye and say, “You’re done. Get out of my office. You’re fired.” Or how to look at a patient and say, “You’re done. Don’t ever come back.” Sometimes that’s the cheapest thing to do is to tell a prone patient to pound sand and go away. It’s hard, and I’ve done it a few times more recently, but for a number of years that was scary.
But back to a young dentist who knows that he or she wants to go into business. You’ve got to become a better dentist, of course, more endo, surgical extractions, but it’s the business side. That’s where you’re going to be blindsided and realize that you know enough to be a dentist, but not enough to be a business owner.
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: As soon as you say, own a practice, you’re a business owner and there is so much to that. Like you, you started a business. Well, beforehand you were sitting at a bench and you were putting porcelain Noritake on a [inaudible 00:39:07] And now, you probably don’t do that. You’re looking at screens, and you’re looking at payroll, and you’re looking at all the various things that you need to do when you run a business, and it’s no different being a dentist.
Shaun Keating: And I’ve always said that with dentists. I mean, I wish they had more business sense. A lot of them do, but a lot of them don’t, and they really work on getting their skills down, but they should bring in … if they can’t do it and they can’t read in and get better business wise. Hire some people, and they say, “I can’t afford it.” You can’t afford not to do with it.
That’s just a big thing. With me, too. I’m not real good on all the numbers, but I surround myself with the right people. I’ve got a CFO, and Operations Manager, and we got different management and different layers because any great company or any company that succeeds has people in the spots to do what needs to be done. Then it’s just basics, especially when it comes to accounting and taxes, and all that stuff. I couldn’t sleep at night without having all that in line and it took a while to get all the people in place, but thank God they did, because with me, I’ll usually give the store away, or I can’t even do subtraction and addition and multiplication. I forgot about the zero you bring over, and even on a calculator it’s hard for me to put the damn point in the right zero. I’m an idiot. I swear to God, I haven’t balanced a checkbook. I sign checks for many years, and I haven’t … it’s crazy, but it can work and you can be successful. All great guys just have great people around them and great companies are just the same thing.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, being that I’ve been a dentist for pushing 25 years, I always try to do everything. My wife and I would run the business, but it turns out once you get to a certain level, production, however you want to say it, patient load … that becomes a detracting factor.
Shaun Keating: It really does, and you think you’re doing a good job, but you’re doing a half-ass job usually more so than not, and all the time …
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, you always can do a better job kind of attitude didn’t work, and it wasn’t until I started working with a consultant, and now you need to let go. Hire someone to be the manager, get out of her way and let her lead. We started doing that just a few months ago, and the numbers just went up immediately.
Shaun Keating: That’s so awesome.
Dr. Brookshire: I guess that would be … you said what would you tell a new dentist, and she wants to own her own practice? Spend the extra money to get the right people in position to do the job.
Shaun Keating: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Brookshire: I did not learn that lesson until about five months ago.
Shaun Keating: Well, you get what you pay for, too. Sometimes you got to pay a little bit more, and it will come back, usually more so than not, tenfold with you, but it’s something you live and learn with it, but you guys, I could tell that you’re crushing it lately. What’s going on with Brookshire’s practice, man? So you’re doing some things there and you’re letting other people come in and do what they need to be done, and before you know it, you’re going to have guys taking a boat over from Ketchikan and saying, “I’m going to see Scott Brookshire. Guy can sink implants, do a 4 on 1 on me, or we could do a full rehab, and he’s doing fifty percent off this month, or fifty percent off the lab bill or something. I mean, we’ll help you out, whatever you got to do with certain patients to help you grow your practice. That’s what it’s all about.
Dr. Brookshire: You guys have helped out. About every year, for a number of years, my staff and I go on a search for one individual in the community. It’s someone who can’t afford good dentistry, needs it. It’s visually something that’s affecting them emotionally, and it’s something that I can do. We send them a card and we say, “We have selected you to receive free dentistry. Please give us a call.” Then they never call us, so we always follow up with my wife giving them a call, and if they need implants, if they need an immediate denture, if they need a bridge, veneers, whatever, it’s about making their dentistry as ideal as possible, regardless of the cost. I have approached you guys in the past, and you have given me decreased fees for those cases. It is a wonderful practice builder. We never say anything to anybody else. The patient does.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, they’re telling ten people, and then they’re telling ten people. That’s just good to give back like that, dude. That’s awesome, man.
Dr. Brookshire: We have our staff do it. I tell my team. I said, “Find somebody, but the requirement is it has to be somebody who is going to appreciate it, who needs it, and they’re busting their tail to try to make it on their own. If they’re on Welfare, and they don’t lift a finger for themselves, then they don’t qualify. Usually it’s a single mom who is busting her ass with two kids.
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: And I’m more than willing to give her free dentistry.
Shaun Keating: That is so cool, and you know what? We’ll always be good on that. We discounted obviously, and we can give back, too, on some. I have several organizations, battered women and neglected and this and that. It’s just good to help people out when it comes to their teeth when they can’t afford it and stuff, and for you to do that, hat’s off to you, baby. Love that, man. Love hearing that.
Now hey, let’s wrap this up here a little bit. Tell me what you’re doing to drive patients to your practice. I know you’re pretty good on the internet and stuff, and I know my creative guy here was talking with you and he’s saying, “Hey, they got some pretty neat stuff. They’re doing. Facebook, this and that.” So that’s kind of cool, you’re going in that direction, and if we can help you in any way there, let us know. We’re trying to find our way there, too. But what are you doing to drive patients to your practice? I mean, it’s a smaller island there, a smaller place, but tell me … a little word of mouth, marketing, website … What do you find working for you?
Dr. Brookshire: In this island, with this community, word of mouth is king. If you piss somebody off, everybody hears about it. If you really do someone good, everybody hears about it, so being consistent and the “we care” calls. Having my staff a week later call and ask, “How’s everything feeling with that crown or that night guard, or whatever it is.” Then if there’s an issue, being johnny-on- the-spot, and really making sure that we’re really trying to take care of it. That goes a long way.
As it pertains to electronic and Facebook and the internet. For here, everybody talks about Instagram and that sort of thing. Here it’s Facebook.
Shaun Keating: Okay.
Dr. Brookshire: The community is really tied into Facebook, so what we do is … an example is Fourth of July is a big deal here. There’s a parade, and I’m not exaggerating, half the town is in the parade and the other half of the town is watching it.
Shaun Keating: Cool.
Dr. Brookshire: And it lasts all of about twenty minutes. But it’s a big deal. And we all have sack races and three-legged races on the baseball park. It’s very iconic. It’s very Norman Rockwellesque. And it’s real. It’s community. But taking photos of us in the parade. I was dressed up as a giant tooth molar, and I had a crown, so I was a crown molar, and my staff had little wings on their back and they were tooth fairies. We’re throwing sugarless candy out to the kids, and pencils and toothbrushes to people. But you take photos of that and you put it on Facebook, and people just love it because it’s not stodgy Dr. Brookshire wearing a shirt and tie with his funny orascoptic glasses looking like a nerd. It’s me in a giant tooth suit throwing candy and a toothbrush at a five year old kid.
Shaun Keating: And pulling kids in a Radio Flyer. Are those your kids? I’m looking on your Facebook right now. You’re pulling a couple of kids there.
Dr. Brookshire: Oh, you know what? Those are the children of some of my team members.
Shaun Keating: Oh, okay. Look at you with the molar. That’s so cool. Looks like Swiss Family Robinson or something. That’s on the island, man. That’s just so cool, dude.
Dr. Brookshire: And for me, I’m pretty introverted. I should have done that Day 1, that type of thing. We just started doing that within the last year, and it pays dividends.
Shaun Keating: Oh, it does.
Dr. Brookshire: It endears you to the community. Here’s Dr. Brookshire. Look at him. He’s dressed up like a giant tooth.
Shaun Keating: That is so cool. You know what you got to do? You’ve got to find someone that’s in town that just has got their upper grill just jacked up, where they’re missing two or three teeth or find something where we could do like a 3-15 or a 4-12 or 13, where we got to do some bridges or some crowns or all the way around the horn. Let’s change someone’s life that way. We could do a whole grill up front, where it changes …
Dr. Brookshire: No what? I am going to talk you up on that.
Shaun Keating: Seriously.
Dr. Brookshire: We just had our staff meeting two days ago, and the staff came with some candidates, and we’re looking into it, and seeing some of those candidates who we want to approach about a full smile.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, a full smile upper. If we have to do lowers, too, that’s fine. I always like doing my buddies and friends. We’ll prep it on Tuesday and seat it on Thursday, but we’ll do whatever you want to do on yours. We could do it where we do wax-ups first to kind of work out the whole inclusion thing, or just go balls to the walls. Give me the pre-op and just go ahead and prep it. We’ll do it in a couple of days, man. I’ll just prioritize it.
But that will go really far when they see Mrs. Smith, like “She has teeth now.” You know, you could always throw a denture up there to look good, but someone that has existing teeth that we could do a fixed bridge would kind of be up in my wheelhouse there, but we’ll totally donate it. That way you, too, it’ll help you, and that’s just for fifteen years of giving me work. I want to give back to you, too, there, man. Just seeing your little town like that would be great for you, but to do your yearly thing, this is our giving back for … it’s coming up Christmas. It will be a Christmas treat or whatever.
Dr. Brookshire: You know what? I’m going to take you up on it. Thank you very much. It’s going to mean a great deal to whoever it is that receives that.
Shaun Keating: That’s awesome, dude. Well hey, we’d love to do it. So hey, under seminars here, did you come to the Foran one way back, or no? Which one of those?
Dr. Brookshire: Let’s see. The most recent one I did was a veneer case. That was where …
Shaun Keating: Hornbrook, I think. Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: Yes, it was. Yeah, it was with Hornbrook. I’m going to say two years ago. Does that sound about right?
Shaun Keating: Yeah, couple of years. I thought you were here before that, too, weren’t you?
Dr. Brookshire: Oh yeah. See, because of where I live, I never have salesmen come here. There’s nobody trying to sell me something, willing to do a demo. So I find it very useful about every two years to get on a plane and go down to Orange County and tour your facility and ask questions.
Shaun Keating: I knew I’ve seen you a lot.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, yeah. Because say there’s a new material. The real thing is to sit and talk to the guys on the bench who are doing my crowns and say, “Okay, what are you not telling me that I need to improve on?”
Shaun Keating: Absolutely. I remember you do that every time, too. And they love it, because everybody knows Scott Brookshire, man, and it’s just kind of a neat thing.
Dr. Brookshire: Well, the thing is, I know I practice in a bubble, and I can’t … there’s no other dentist really to talk to, and it’s got to be hard for a lab tech or for you to tell the guy who’s cutting him checks every month that he’s messing up in a certain way consistently. But I will never become a better dentist if I’m not humble enough to say, “Shaun, where am I screwing up? Let me know.”
Shaun Keating: Absolutely.
Dr. Brookshire: It makes your job easier. It makes fewer remakes. Everything becomes easier. All I have to be doing is willing to accept the fact that I’m not perfect, and I’m not perfect, and to figure out to become better. It’s an attitude.
Shaun Keating: That’s awesome. It’s a great attitude, and I love it. I’ve known you’ve always been that way, and I’ve got other guys the same way. They kind of put their ego aside, and say, “You know, what can I do to do a better job for the lab?”. We’ll go through walls for doctors like that, and that’s why we go through walls for doctors when they care, and they’re asking us for help.
We love that, and then we all ask for advice, too, through the years, and we’ve gotten a lot of great outcomes because of dentists working with us. “Hey, you guys should do it this way and this way a little bit”, and we can take it and say, “Yes, you’re right, and let’s give this a shot.” Or we could say, “Dude, we know what we’re doing here, and that ain’t going to work”, but more so than not and times pass and we still learn stuff to this day. Not a lot, but we’ve done this for so long, there’s only so many ways we can do it, but it’s just amazing, too, with all the digital stuff … so
Dr. Brookshire: Oh yeah.
Shaun Keating: Let’s finish up with this on our shipping. I know we ship to Alaska on the U.S. mail, and it works pretty good.
Dr. Brookshire: Yes.
Shaun Keating: You send it to us on the U.S. mail, and we send it back U.S. mail.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah.
Shaun Keating: What do you think on the digital impression machines? That might be really kind of good for us in the future. We could save a half, ship it to you from you to me only, but we’d have it done in a day, and it’s kind of amazing. Have you looked into that at all?
Dr. Brookshire: It’s funny that you bring that up. I don’t know if you remember, but starting about five years ago, once a year I call your office and I say, “Should I go with digital impressions?” And for a number of years you said, “Hold off, hold off.” You said, “Wait.”
The last time I spoke to the fellow in your, I guess it’s in your Digital Department, he said, “Yeah, we’re getting a fair number of dentists who are doing that, and these are the three I would look at.” I have been looking at the 3shape and the Carestream 3600, and I think for the situation I’m in, I would save money. I think you give a small discount if people go digital and they go [inaudible 00:53:49] is that correct?
Shaun Keating: Oh yeah, I think it’s like twenty dollars less, and if not more.
Dr. Brookshire: Sure.
Shaun Keating: It just depends on the situation, but I think it’s twenty dollars off whatever the product because it saved me on the plaster work and all that, and it’s pretty amazing, and the consistency and everything else.
Dr. Brookshire: So that’s twenty dollars, and then there’s my shipping. And I have to ship express mail, so I’ll do maybe two cases at a time, but that’s $36, so let’s maybe call it $15 or $16 per case shipping down. Well, if I’m e-mailing it to you and I’m getting twenty dollars off, now it makes sense for me to look at, and I’m getting the product back faster, it makes sense for me to look at the cost associated with the digital scanner.
Shaun Keating: Absolutely. You’re looking at 30 or 35 dollars a restoration that you should be saving,
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah
Shaun Keating: And I think if you look at it … God, even, too, if I got to help you out a little bit on that lease payment or something, throw you a bridge here and there. I would love it for you, dude, because we’re just shipping it back and the way we ship it, it will save us … we could sharpen the pencil how we need to do it, but God, I love the digital impressions now, especially because it’s just so consistent, and the communications is great. God, It’s virtual reality, man. I don’t even need the model any more. I don’t need to pour it up. I don’t need anything, and it’s just freakin unbelievable.
Yeah, look into it. Its time is now, and it’s neat. iTtero, 3shape. Any one of them are good, but I think the 3shape in my book … it’s a little more pricey, but you get what you pay for. For forty grand or whatever … forty grand, just lease that out for a five year lease and spread it out for 300 or 400 bucks a month, or whatever.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah, but the only real complaint I have with the 3shape business plan is you spend the money for the piece of equipment, and then they want, I think it’s $2,500 a month for a year to continue using their product. So you’re spending tens of thousands of dollars to get their product, and then if you stop paying the $2,500 a year to use their product, they somehow inactivate it. I think it’s called a dongle that goes into the product. With the Carestream 3600, my understanding is you pay the money and you get the product and they can’t turn it off. And so, you use it …
Shaun Keating: Yeah, I hate that dongle fee stuff. [inaudible 00:58:51] does that, and it’s just back in the day, and I don’t use their machine any more, but I had to do a dongle every time, and I hate that so I’ll look into that, too. Maybe that’s something we could work out, or I’ll talk to the 3M. Not 3M, but 3shape. Had the CEO here a few months back, and maybe we could look into something like that and say “You know, that’s a big concern. You might be able to triple your business by dropping that or dropping it by half or something.”
We’ll figure it out, but yeah, you just got to crunch the numbers up and see what works best. For you being in Alaska, dude, to be able to wave that wand, and I could have it instantly and have it done in two or three hours and send it back to you, it could be pretty amazing stuff for you, especially being out there.
Dr. Brookshire: I think it’s something I’m probably going to end up incorporating within the next couple of months, maybe three or four months I will do it. When it comes to 3shape, they seem to be the scanner most people like, but I’m actually at this point because of the extra money, I’m leaning toward the Kodak, the Carestream.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, no.
Dr. Brookshire: But if I could figure out a way to do away with the yearly, “You got to pay us or we’re going to turn off your machine” fee, then it’s an easy choice.
Shaun Keating: Well, dude. Let me do a little work on that. Maybe we can buzz back to Bob or one of the guys here at Dean and Cadcam and we can come up with some other options that would put iTero into the mix, and 3M into the mix and let’s see what works out best. Maybe some of these guys … I got some pull, too, that I can get a demo in there for a few months to have you try it to see if you like it, or whatever …
Dr. Brookshire: That would be great.
Shaun Keating: Let’s just see what we can come up with because you would be poster child for this product. It’s just amazing. Don’t get yourself a mill, but get yourself a digital scanning device for impressions is fine, but don’t get yourself a mill.
Dr. Brookshire: I’m looking at, not a mill, but a 3D printer for guides.
Shaun Keating: Yep.
Dr. Brookshire: Because I’ve been having my guides made down in your neck of the woods, and it’s a couple of hundred bucks, and for four grand I can get a printer, and I’ll pay for it in a year or year and a half. But having a mill, for me, I don’t want to become a lab guy.
Shaun Keating: Yeah.
Dr. Brookshire: I’m a dentist, and I make my money when I’m in a chair in front of a patient. That’s my sweet spot.
Shaun Keating: And that’s where we want you, in that sweet spot.
Dr. Brookshire: Yeah. Well, you know what? I’m not Shaun Keating. I could mill out an easy bake oven [inaudible 00:58:51] but then,
Shaun Keating: I love that.
Dr. Brookshire: To make it look decent, I’m going to have to know how to shade it, I’m going to have to spend that time or train somebody. It’s not worth it. It would be better if I could just e-mail it to you. You work your magic, you ship it back to me. It’s a full zirconia. I said that wrong. I should have said a
Shaun Keating: KDZ Bruxer, or the KDZ Bruxer Aesthetic, but it’s the best of the best. Aw, dude.
Dr. Brookshire: Absolutely. Yeah, they’re great. They’re great.
Shaun Keating: Oh, it’s so cool. Well, you’re the man. Hey, Dr. Brookshire, man, I can’t thank you enough. We got to get rolling here. We got a football game to catch. I got to drive my butt home, but dude, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time today, and anything I can ever do, you let me know. Hey, I got Howard Friend Friday the 13th in October. You want to get your butt out here, man. I’ll take care of you. Yeah, I’m serious.
Dr. Brookshire: Oh hey. That sounds like fun.
Shaun Keating: It’s in a couple of Fridays. We’ll probably have 40 or 50 doctors here for it. He’s doing an …
Dr. Brookshire: Excellent.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, come in on Thursday night and maybe we can go get some lunch or some dinner with him and stuff, but Friday it will be 8:30 to 2 or 3, so make a little thing of it, man. But I’ll take care of you on tuition. Heck, get on, not first class, but get yourself on the back of a plane and I’ll pay for the air fare. I don’t know what it costs first class from Alaska, probably not too much.
Dr. Brookshire: It’s not worth it. Alaska Airlines are the only ones, so they’re pretty spendy. But it has been a joy. I have really enjoyed with Keating Dental Lab. Your entire team down there is a great group of folks.
Shaun Keating: Oh, Scott. Dr. Brookshire, thank you so much. God bless you and your family, and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks, dude.
Dr. Brookshire: Alright, take care.
Shaun Keating: Alright, man. Bye bye.
Dr. Brookshire: Bye, bye.
