Dr. Glenn Vo of the Nifty Thrifty Dentists podcast joins us this week to discuss having his wife, Dr. Susan Tran, as a dental partner and the relevance of trust. As a decade long partner of Keating Dental Lab, Glenn emphasizes the importance of having good relationship and communication with dental partners and their laboratory. Glenn explains the first priority for any dentist should be seeking out an outstanding laboratory.
Learn more about the Nifty Thrifty Dentists CE seminar with Dr. Glenn Vo and Annisa Homes of Delivering WOW podcast September 9th.
Full Transcript:
Shaun Keating: Hey, I’d like to welcome everybody to this week’s Dental Up podcast here at Keating Dental Lab in beautiful Irving, California. Today, we’re going to talk to Dr. Glenn Vo. He is from Denton, Texas, and he’s a great guy. Dr. Vo, what’s up, baby?
Dr. Glenn Vo: Sean, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I’ll tell you what man, you know you’ve arrived when you are invited on this podcast. Man, I’m stoked.
Shaun Keating: Come on, dude! You’re so nice to me. You call me sometimes when my cases are going good and say, “Sean, what’s going on, dude?” I’m like, “Dr. Vo, we’re going to hook you up, baby.”
Dr. Glenn Vo: You know what? For all the listeners out there, obviously, they’re fans of yours, but I want to say this before we go any further, we’re all humans, we make mistakes here and there, but the differences is that whenever I send my cases to Keating Dental Lab, they get it right. They might have to do it again but they get it right. I’ve worked with other labs before, and they’re like, “Whatever, dude. Thanks for the money. See you later.” That’s the difference there, and that’s why when you invited me to come to do the podcast I said yes right away because you’ve treated me and my office … Gosh, we’ve been sending cases to you guys for nine years now, nine years, and it’s just been excellent. Anyways, I want to throw that out there before we go any further.
Shaun Keating: Dude, you’re the man. Thank you so much. Yeah, let’s get into this here in a minute. I’d like to start off first a little bit about sports, you’re a big, I’m sure, a Dallas Cowboy guy out there, being in Texas.
Dr. Glenn Vo: That’s right, yes. That’s right. To the detriment to all my patients that are from Philly, from DC and from New York, when they sit down and I know they’re from there … We have little screens up on the ceiling so they can watch TV, and you know what I make them watch, right? I make them watch the ’90, ’93, ’94 Dallas Cowboy seasons when we won the Super Bowl. I make them watch the documentary the whole time.
Shaun Keating: Man. Hey, I think America grew up on Dallas Cowboys, America’s teams, but it’s been a while since they’ve been in the big dance, but I think with Dak and Zeke, if he can keep him out of trouble in the bars and stuff, and quit beating on whoever-
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah, [inaudible 00:02:24].
Shaun Keating: He’s a stud.
Dr. Glenn Vo: He just has to understand that it’s not normal to pull up lady’s shirt during a party. Ladies, they don’t like that, so he just needs to learn that. I’ll tell you what, this town, if the Cowboys do well, the economy does well, seriously, they’ve done a study already, and when they do bad, people get depressed, they don’t want to do anything.
Jerry Jones, people don’t like him, but he’s a good owner, he knows how to make money, but we just … We need to get something, we need to get something going.
Shaun Keating: Man, I remember back with Roger Staubach and Tom Landry, and it was just rodger-dodger. We used to kid around, playing football, and I’d be the quarterback going, “rodger-dodger,” and messing around, but … No, it’s neat. I thought last year was their year and it fell apart a little bit towards the end.
We got the Rams out here, dude. At least you don’t have to … We’re hoping this year, we got a new offensive line, we go the [inaudible 00:03:31] left tackle, got a few receivers, but it’s going to be work in progress. They got this coach, McVay, or something, he’s a 30-year-old … Just a stud, but I think he’s setting the difference like the way Walton is with the Lakers, bringing in the young guys with the young talent. We had Kobe and all these guys are all retired, but with the Lakers, and the same thing with the Rams, it’s out with the old and … I think everyone is 26 or 27 and under on that team, except for a few veterans, but it’s just great to get football back in this town. 20 plus years, and we have nothing. I know in Texas, it’s religion out there, sports and football especially.
I had this old guy, my old friend, he helped me when I was coaching my kids in new football, we ran the wishbone, and he taught me. He grew up in Texas and actually played college in Oklahoma, but … Yeah, Robert Williams, man, that guy taught me how to run the bone, and it’s like the old days of Texas longhorns and running that wishbone. Heck, we only had five, six plays, dude, but we ran those plays over and over, and it was just misdirection and we weren’t real big but we were fast and smart. Yeah, it’s cool dude. I love football, man.
Dr. Glenn Vo: You know what? This is a true story in my practice. A couple years ago, both the high schools in my city, they were different divisions, so one is a bigger school and one is a smaller school, and they both went to the state title game. That’s how crazy it is. Two of the coaches are my patients, and I asked them, I was like, “Coach, during the football season, I don’t see any of your players, man. They need to come in to get their cleanings done.” He goes, “Doc., I’m going to tell you this right now, and don’t take offense to it, but during the football season we tell them not to see you and that to see you only in off-season.” I’m like, “Really?” He goes, “Well, yeah. I can’t have you taking a wisdom tooth out or doing a root canal, we need these players.” I’m like, “Okay, I understand. I understand.” True story!
Shaun Keating: That’s a good coach, man, “Don’t mess with my boys.” Like the boxing coach for Tyson, “Don’t mess with women, man, while you’re boxing. We want you focused.”
Hey, you know what? We do a lot of custom mouth guards, you never know if you have some of these teams … Maybe we can do something with some mouth guards, donating our services, but … Yeah, I figured that out. That’s a good thing. I have doctors, dentists, do that. It’s just more of getting to know the community more, and the patients come back when they’re older and the parents and stuff come in and see it, so it’s a good win-win when you start helping out the sports teams and, “Dr. Vo is doing our mouth guards.” “Well, let’s go see Dr. Vo when I have this tooth that needs to be filled.” It’s a good thing. Give back in the community but it usually comes back to you ten-fold when you do that.
I remember doing that where the doctor would bring his staff in on a Saturday, on a football field, and put up these tables and we’d have the water and just pre-mixed [inaudible 00:06:35] and the plastic bags, and we’d have one after another come in and put the bag, do the marker on it, their name. Then, with the little kids with the little braces, that was always … That was a bitch because we got to box it out with utility wax, and we never really got good at the braces-taking impressions, but it’s neat, dude. But I’m excited, man, it’s coming up here in the summer time. It’s August. The Rams are right here at UCI Irving, the University of California Irving is right in my backyard here, and the Rams’ pre-practices are at UCI now, so it’s cool. They come down Orange County instead of practicing up in LA, but we’re excited about that.
All right, dude, hey, let’s Dental Up a little bit, tell me a little bit about, Dr. Vo, how you got into dentistry, what college you attended, and tell me a little bit about your story there, buddy.
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah, yeah. I went to Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, Texas, and I’m very sad to say that Texas A&M took over our university so now it’s called Texas A&M Baylor College of Dentistry, which, [inaudible 00:07:43] University of Texas and I had to deal with all those Aggies. It’s like if you went to UCLA and then you had go to the USC Dental School, and you’re there with a bunch of Trojans, listening to that stuff all the time. Unfortunately, it’s Texas A&M now, but it’s all in good fun. It’s all in good fun. I worked for a few years, and I open my practice up in Denton, and my wife’s a dentist as well, so our practice is Denton Smiles and Dentistry. Been at it for nine years.
True story, one of the first labs I used, and I still use it today, is the Keating Dental Lab, so been with you guys for a long time, and just love the service. The only complaint I have was I was in Fantasy Football league and Sean was in it the first year, and I got my butt kicked so bad, I think Sean won that year, that I never came back because I knew had no chance. That’s the only complaint I have with Sean, but he won that year, the inaugural game on the dental town team, and he kicked everyone’s butt. I think I was last place. That was so embarrassing I just never came back. I just didn’t want to get my butt kicked again, Sean, so thank you.
Shaun Keating: That was luck. I actually got my operations manager, Patrick Ramsey, he pretty much had been doing it all these years so-
Dr. Glenn Vo: That’s right. That’s right. I remember one year I made fun of him because I was like, “Dude, you must be Patrick Ramsey from the Redskins.” I remember making that joke.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, and he goes along with it, but he ain’t no quarterback-looking dude. He’s good at helping me run this lab, but he’s a real sports nut too. Even this year, you got to get up on it again in dental town. I’m going to step off and I’ll still do sponsoring and all that, but I’ll let Patrick get in it, and my son is going to probably get in on it, one of my sons. Yeah, you got to do that. I think we give a couple grand away for it, and … It’s all luck and it’s a crap shoot, dude, you don’t know what injury is going to come on and … The way it goes in a centipede, 1 to 12, then 12 down to 1, it’s pretty … You can let the damn computer pick them, and you’ll probably do better off than what your heart wants, and that’s what I always do. I was always picking my favorite guys, but they are not really good in stats, but a lot of times we’re right up there, but it’s pretty fun. Yeah, I love that Fantasy.
Dr. Glenn Vo: Think about last year, who would’ve thought Dak him, you didn’t even need to draft that guy, you can get him off the waiver wire. Of course, Zeke, everyone knew Zeke was going to get the ball up, but whoever got Dak, they hit the jackpot that year.
Shaun Keating: What about Gurley on the Rams? He was a stud, and crushed it the year before, and last year everyone got him, he didn’t do squat, man. He didn’t even have a 100-yard game the whole season, I think.
Dr. Glenn Vo: Man, yeah, yeah, yeah … It is lucky. It’s luck sometimes or whoever’s the quickest on the waiver wire. That’s the key in there.
Shaun Keating: You got to know how to manipulate it and be on top of it, who’s, like you said, on the waiver wire, it’s pretty neat. It’s one of the phenomenon to come around because before we’d always look at a football team and, “Hey, I only like the Chargers. I only like the Rams of Saint Louis,” but now, you look at every game out there, if you have a player on that team, it gets your interest in what’s going across the board like, “What the heck? Cincinnati Bengals’ quarterback doing there?” Miami Dolphins, they got their running-back, so it’s a neat thing wherever it came up with that, that it gets interest in all teams, so a neat thing.
Dr. Glenn Vo: The NFL owes a lot to fantasy football. That’s the reason why people get NFL Red Zone, all those things, so they can see the guy scored, so they owe … Whoever came up with that, they owe him some money or whatever, bonus or something.
Shaun Keating: Absolutely. That Red Zone, I love that thing. That’s the only way I can watch football now because it’s only in the 20-yard line in and it’s only the best plays. You go to the regular game on channel two or in CBS or whatever, it so slow and not moving. It’s like, “Dude, I need some fast results. Give me the action.” That’s a neat thing. I think it’s $30 or $40, whatever it is, what a great thing they came up with, yeah. For sure.
Dude, tell me, your wife, she works with you, what’s it like working with your wife? Your wife’s crushing it too, man, she really kicked some ass, and I like the way husband-and-wife teams that work together … I got a few of them that work with us. What’s it like working with your wife and how is it in the business together? You get along and everything?
Dr. Glenn Vo: Some people say, “Man, it’s hard to work with your spouse.” With us, it actually works out really good. My staff knows that as long as they keep us busy, that we won’t really run into each other, and it’s a great day.
We’re really busy so I don’t really talk to her because I’m so busy running around seeing my patients. We’ll have breaks, and we have the office together, and we’ll talk, run things by each other, but really the only time I really get to talk to her is during lunch. It’s cool to have lunch with your wife.
Our office is at the point where it’s pretty established, and now she works the princess scheduled, she work like three days a week, and I tell here, “What do you do the other day?” She’s like, “Well, I need my massage. I need to go shopping and stuff.” I’m like, “You know what? As long as you’re happy, I’m cool.” Yeah, she only works three days. I’m here for four days. There’s two days out of the week where we work with each other, and it’s not bad, it’s not bad at all. It’s like having an associate or a partner that you know that you can trust. She’s already taking all my money at home, so there’s not much more money she can take in the office, so there’s no conflicts there. It works out great. It works out great.
For the young bucks out there who are sending cases to you and starting out, hey, I’m proof that you can work with your spouse if they’re a dentist as well, and be pretty successful at it.
Shaun Keating: That’s so cool, dude. I love hearing that because it is true. A lot of dentists like to go mess with their assistants, this and that, but that messes up their practice a little bit. It always seems like it. Dude, why do you guys do that? When I go to the [inaudible 00:13:57] Meetings and all this stuff, it’s like, “Dude, get a wife as a dentist with you because that way you can’t mess it up at work and mess around with those hot assistants or hygienists or whatever. Keep you in check and keep you working,” I said because-
Dr. Glenn Vo: If it ever goes south, and if you’re married to another dentist, then financially it’s not so much of a hit, but if it’s someone else’s, maybe the pay scale is a little bit lower, then you’re going to get taken to the cleaners.
Shaun Keating: Yeah. Instead of 50/50 rule, you’re going to be the 70/30 rule because, “Momma the homemaker didn’t make no money, she need to take care of the kid.” That’s funny, dude. Man, that’s so cool though when you say that.
What about with you guys and decisions going forward? Do you guys come together in a consensus and just say, “You know what? Let’s do it when you’re buying maybe equipment,” and/or moving forward on growth, stuff like that, you guys talk it out? Are you more the business guy and she’s more of the … How does that work?
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah. The great thing about working with her is that she’s very good with money. She’s very good with money, she’s always on top of those things, she reigns me in because I’m the spender. On my end, I like to market. Obviously, Sean, you’ve known me for a while, you know what I do on Facebook, so I like to market, and we’ll go into that, but I like to market. I like to do that with a practice. That’s just what I like to do. I think it’s fun. I don’t think it’s work.
Actually, right now, we are at the stage where, “Okay, we need to put some money down and get our own old building.” The debate we’re having is, “Okay, she wants to get a building.” She just wants our practice in there. I told her, “Well, I’d like to get a larger building and have tenants. Why not turn this in a little passive income because my goal is to sit on a beach one day and relax and go fishing, instead of like [inaudible 00:16:02] away in operatory.” That’s where we’re at right now, and I think she’s leaning towards my way because I told her, “When we sell our practice, we can sell the practice, we don’t have to sell the real estate, so the doc can just keep renting from us.” That way I can go to go eat some dungeness crab in Santa Barbara and not worry about things. That’s where we’re at right now. That’s what we do, we split it up, and it’s a good team effort.
Shaun Keating: That’s so cool, dude. You’re right on the money and other people’s money, OPM, man. You get other people’s money, paying your mortgage there and stuff like that, and that’s what it’s all about, and you’re such a young gun too. It’s good that you have this attitude. I see guys like yourself out there, not many, but you got to push it, you got to push that rock when you’re young like that so when you’re 40, 45, 50, you can really think about, “You know what? Hey, I can work a couple days a week,” even if that. Get some associates and maybe open another practice here and another one here, but the real state thing too. If you can get in there somehow, then you start depreciating all that freaking property and writing that off, and then you open up a separate company and, “You know what? Hey, I’m renting my building back to me for 50 grand a month instead of … It’s 20 grand payment, but no, I’m renting it back to me for 50 grand.” Blah, blah, blah. It just goes on. A million things you could do when you go that way.
But, dude, you’re crushing it too on social media. We’re new to it, and I’m just a little dental lab and I’m out there. I just got on it recently. My guys have been doing it for me for a few years now, but I just got on and I’m not really good on Facebook. But, dude, it’s so cool, you have a thing called Nifty Thrifty Dentist, and I think you have your own podcast too, you really are really out for your dental colleagues on helping them get better pricing, be it for … I don’t care if it’s for anesthesia, it’s for masks, it’s for everything, and it’s a neat thing what you’re doing. I really like seeing that and I’m real excited.
Even yesterday, I got on the little Facebook thing and I go through where you push home and I can see what everyone … I still don’t even know how to … I’ve never posted a picture myself, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even have it on my phone. I just have it on my computer at work. But it was so cool, and I’m like, “Look at this dental office, all these women and you got this dude in the middle, and it’s Glenn Vo, and you guys are singing happy birthday to your patients. I guess, you do this thing. Just the need to sing and you got these girls playing guitar, and it sounded good. Remind me, we do a monthly birthday here for the company, we get everyone into the lunchroom area and we do everyone’s birthday one time a month because everyone … Yesterday, we did birthdays, and so it’s in July, but we go through each one’s name born in July, and this and that, and then we all sing happy birthday, and I thought, “We’re the only guys that do this.” Then, I see Dr. Vo on Facebook with his staff singing. Tell me a little bit about that. How did you come up with that?
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah, yeah. Here’s the thing, whenever you go on Facebook and you see a video, it doesn’t matter what it is, you always stop and click on it. If you have friends like mine, it’s always some kind of prank, like a guy is walking around, he gets pied in the face or something, and my friends always … Whenever someone [inaudible 00:19:27] it’s like, “Who are these neanderthals you’re friends with?” There’s always something like the guy getting pied in the face or a guy hitting a hammer on his finger or something … Anyways, it’s funny, but the point is, is that when you see a video, you can’t but help but stop and click on it and watch it.
Now, sometimes people will write something really long, “Okay, it’s too long. I don’t have time to read that. Okay, I’ll just skip it away.” Or, a picture of their food, and you’re like, “Okay, that looks good. I’ll look at it.” But whenever there’s a video, it doesn’t matter what it … It could be you reading a book, and people will click on it and they’ll wonder, “Okay, Sean’s reading a book. Is there going to be something funny here?” They’ll watch the whole thing no matter what. Then, they might say, “He was just reading a book. I’m going to cuss him out later,” or something like that, but we did the video because we wanted all our patients to stop and look.
We put it on our Facebook page, and it blew up, man. They were clicking and stuff. You also saw that I put it on the different groups. People post those stuff all the time in their groups, but if you look at my video, it was like 90 people. People were saying, “Man, this is so awesome,” or whatever. Look, man, I was doing maracas, I know I looked like a dork going it but that’s not the point. The point is I wanted people to watch it.
For the young docs out there, and I would even say for you guys, if it’s a doc’s birthday, dude, shoot a video of you fishing like, “Hey, what’s up, buddy? I got this fish here, happy birthday. I wish I could give it to you.” Just email it, and we’ll be like, “Man, Sean, Man, that guy’s awesome, man. I’m going to ask him for some fish when I see him or when I go to Irvine or something.” But we send that video to all our patients on their birthday. On their birthday, it’ll be happy birthday, they’re going to see a video, and be like, “What the heck is this?” They’re going to click it, and they’ll be like, “Oh my gosh.”
What I want them to do is I want them to go to tell all their friends, “Dude, my dentist, this dude freaking sent me a video singing happy birthday. That guy is the coolest guy.” That’s what I want because most people think of dentistry like, “Man, I’m going to get a shot in the mouth and, man, it freaking hurts, man.” I want people to talk about other stuff like, “Dang, Dr. Vo has got some arcade game in his office.” People are like, “What? An arcade game?” Or, he sends that video so it’s all about … If they’re talking about you, then they’re thinking about you. That’s the thing.
Shaun Keating: Absolutely. That’s straight up genius, dude. It really is, especially if it’s individualized to different patients. That’s cool. It makes them like, “Well, I better go see Dr. Vo again. The dude sang me a birthday song.” Hey, you can’t teach that, dude. That’s really good thinking there, man. That’s so cool.
Tell me a little bit about … You got a CE course coming up in September, is that in Denton or where is that going to be at?
Dr. Glenn Vo: That’s in Dallas. Yeah. We had the Facebook group, Nifty Thrifty Dentist, and we got our website, we got a podcast as well, and so we wanted to do a course because I’ve heard so many doctors, they’re like, “Man, I went to this course and they needed me to buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff before I could even do the procedure. Man, that sucks, man. I don’t want to do that.” I hear it everywhere, they’re like, “I wish I could learn something. I’m going to go back and do the next day.”
What I did was I talked to a few people I knew that are on the lecture circuit, I picked people who are really generous, people who weren’t cheap with the information, people you can message and say, “Hey, I’m trying to do this thing on Facebook, man, can you help me out?” And they would say yes right away because that’s the type of people I want teaching the course. We want people who want to all out, just give up information freely. We don’t want stingy people keeping info back.
We got Dr. Nyasa Holmes, she’s the Facebook queen, and she’s going to talk about how to market on Facebook, stuff that you can do the very next day, getting butts in the chair. We got Dr. Kenny Wilstead, who … I’m working on him because I want to send him to you because this guy, he does cosmetic [inaudible 00:23:24] have huge cosmetic cases in a small Texas town, a town of 5,000 people, he’s killing it. He took the office from 40 K a month to now 140, and I told him, “Dude, if you’re doing that, then you need to start sending some cases to Sean.” Because he did complain, he was like, “They sent me some stuff back!” I was like, “Dude, you need to start sending,” so I’m gong to definitely send him in. It’s Dr. Kenny Wilstead, and he going to talk about how he does it because if he can do it in a small Texas town, he can definitely … You can do it anywhere if you have a … Anywhere.
Shaun Keating: That’s huge.
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah. The other doctor is Dr. Chad Perry. He’s going to go over some posterior composites, just ways where you won’t screw up, and people are like, “Well, I don’t need any help there.” It’s like, “Are you sure you don’t need any help there? Because each time you have to redo a filling, that’s money out of your pocket.” Each time someone comes back, complaining that their tooth is sensitive, that’s money out of your pocket. You got to learn to do it the right way. He’s going to do that.
The last guy, he’s a California guy as well, is Justin Morgan. He goes by the name Dental Marketing Guy. If you go by the name the Dental Marketing Guy, you better bring it, and he does. He’s like an SCO genius. He’s helped so many doctors, and he’s just going to go over a few things that you can do, when you get back, to get yourself up in the rankings because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good a dentist you are, if don’t you have eyes on your practice, then it doesn’t matter. He’s going to help that.
All those guys together, four speakers, one day, eight hours a CE credit, CE credit if you’re trying to get your mastership, your fellowship with AGD, it counts as it. It’s like $550.
Shaun Keating: $550. What’s the date exactly on it?
Dr. Glenn Vo: September 9th. It’s in Dallas. The venue that we have, we negotiated an awesome deal, you get breakfast, you get lunch, at the end we have an open bar, happy hour.
Shaun Keating: Heck yeah!
Dr. Glenn Vo: Come on, man. Come on. Okay, let’s say that you’re not there to learn, okay, make your money back in the food and the alcohol, it’s open bar, man, just drink $500 worth of drinks.
Shaun Keating: Absolutely. You know what? We’re one of your sponsors on that too, I think. Maybe we can throw a crown or two in there for new customers, so it’s not costing you nothing. Basically, a couple hundred, maybe that, but you’ll drink that and eat that, so it’ll be free at the end of it with the value that you’re getting, man. That’ll be cool, dude.
Well, I’m going into Austin, the fourth and fifth, I’m … You know Tuan Pham, Dr. Pham.
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah, yeah, Dental Maverick.
Shaun Keating: Yeah, he’s a real go-getter too. I like you young guys, you got freaking full of energy, man, it’s cool to see it. But I got a good friend that lives in Austin that I’ve never been so I’m going to there. I’m going to by the meeting for a little bit and say hi on Friday night. I’m just going up Thursday night, I’m going to be Friday all day and I’m flying out Saturday, but I’m excited to go to Austin … But, heck, I might just go to … I’ve never been to Texas, and we got quite a few different dentists from all over Texas, and like you said, the economy out of Texas, man, it’s pretty good. There’s a lot of guys doing pretty well out there, and I love the great state of Texas, man. That’s for darn sure.
Dr. Glenn Vo: I’ll tell you what, if you come out here, even when you go down to Austin, you have to have the barbecue. That’s on your agenda. You have to. I’ll give California, seafood in California and sushi, all that stuff, you can’t beat it. But my kid’s sister lives in California and when she comes to Texas all she wants to eat is steak and barbecue.
Shaun Keating: Can you believe that?
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah. You have to do that. When you go to Austin … Austin is a hotbed for barbecue. There’s a couple of really good places.
Shaun Keating: Dude, you don’t think I know that? I’m licking my lips just thinking about going there. You know what, dude? You what’s so messed up? Is I’m showing my wife, I’m going, “You know what, honey?” She goes, “I don’t want to go out to Austin. It’s going to be freaking 100 degrees, 100 degree humidity.” I go, “Baby, we’re going to go Friday morning, there’s a place Franklin, Franklin Barbecue, there and I’ve just seen it on TV and the dude, there’s lines … So we to go there four or five in the morning just to … I think it opens at nine, we’re going to just make a party of it or whatever. My buddy Mark Adler and his wife and some of us are all going to go down there.” Then, I go on his website and they’re on vacation August 1st and 10th, so they’re not even open. My whole thing is like, “Well, but, hey, they say Franklin’s, he’s got a lot of publicity and TV star, but he goes there’s 10 other places, and yes, it’s good. It’s just everywhere out there. Texas, man, that’s what they do. I’m go to go breakfast, lunch and dinner on a few places, I think Friday night they’re doing stubs, I guess stubs has got some barbecue, but … No, I’m excited about that, dude.
I got this little place here called Lucilles, and it’s barbecue place. I love it. They got these burnt ends. Brisket burnt ends, is my thing, dude. My cardiologist would probably kick me in the you know what if he heard me talking about it. “Quit eating all those burn ends.”
Dr. Glenn Vo: Life’s short, man. You got to live it up. But when you’re in Austin, you can … There’s La Barbecue and then there’s also Lamberts, so just check those two places out because they, depending on who you talk to, they think those two places are better than Franklin.
There’s another place, if you really just want to hunker down and chow down, there’s a place called Salt Lake, it’s good and it’s all you can eat. It’s all you can eat.
Shaun Keating: I love a Salt Lake. That’s so crazy. Yeah, I guess we’re staying at the Omni [inaudible 00:29:13] or doing something, but the rooms are so cheap it’s like they’re giving me the super-duper room and it’s $180. I go, “Dude, what do you got better?” Some of the best rooms they could find is like, “Well, it’s $280 for this one.” I’m like, “You got to be freaking kidding me. You got a presidential suite or something?” “Yeah, let me look.” They sent me to a different operator, “Yes, we have a presidential suitE that’s 1,800 square feet,” blah, blah, blah, and this. I go, “All right, I’ll take that. How much is that?” “It’s $580.” I said, “Heck, we got Motel 6’s out here in California that cost that by the ocean.”
Dr. Glenn Vo: You know what? When I was in Santa Barbara, man … It was actually a pretty good hotel, but they’re like, “Okay, we got you a sweet deal. Okay, sweet deal.” I’m like, “Okay. What’s the sweet deal?” They said, “$300.” I’m like, “What?” I’m like, “Because in Texas with those $300, I’m getting a penthouse.” Yeah, you’ll see that and you’ll see the food too when you go. They’ll give you the barbecue and you’re like, “Did I order half the cow here? My gosh, that’s all I paid for?” Yeah, you’ll have a good time.
Shaun Keating: Dude, that is so cool, man. Well, it’s great talking to you. I know you got to get back, you’re in your lunch here, but just last question here is, we do have a lot of young dentists here, but you’ve been in this for a decade plus, but some of my guys are starting off, and so what advice can you give some of the younger people starting off? Just not, “Buy too much equipment. Don’t get this. Buy this or not. Just hunker down and put in five days, six to eight,” tell me a little bit of advice because I’m sure a lot of people would love to hear from … Even some of the older veterans, they want to get a kick in their steps. What do you got for a little bit of advice for some of the guys trying to build their company a little bit bigger and starting off?
Dr. Glenn Vo: Well, I’ll tell you what, it goes in the reason why I started that Facebook group, I started it because I had so many docs asking me for advice about saving money and whatnot, and I told them, I was like, “Okay, so I created a group, it’s called Nifty Thrifty, okay? It’s not called cheap asses or anything like that. Okay?” Nifty means you got to be skillful and thrifty is you’re not necessary cheap, you just got to be careful how you spend your money.
I had these young docs say, “Okay, I’m buying a cone beam. I’m buying a trios. I’m buying all these things.” I’m like, “Dude, you just opened, right?” They’re like, “Yeah,” but they’re like, “But it’s going to pay off.” I was like, “Dude, the main thing is you need to get some butts in the chair and some money in your pocket first before you even go there.” They’re like, “Well, you go the cone beam.” I was like, “Yeah, dude, but my office is established. I’ve been at it for a while and I slowly build up toward it.” The thing is that you got to be careful about what … Buy just the absolute minimum of what you need and make sure you have good partnership.
When I say that, a good lab, like your lab, Keating, goes a long way, nowhere do they save money. You can save money by not buying all of these hundred thousand dollar equipment, but you know what? You got to spend a little with and have a good relationship with your lab because at the end of the day, time is money. If you’re using some cheap old lab where you got to spend 30 minutes adjusting that’s a freaking waste of time, man. I’ll tell you what, using a really good lab where you don’t have to do too much adjustment, that you have good communication … I have good communication with you, Sean. If I have an issue, I’ll talk to you or I’ll talk to your other staff members, but I’ll tell you what, not every lab is like that. If you’re spending all all your days talking to your lab, making mistakes, sending stuff back-and-forth, you end up losing money. Don’t spend money on the big gadgets. Spend money on the stuff that you need right now, that is good partnership with a good lab and also using good supplies.
You can be cheap and buy the knockoff brand dental supplies on eBay, and then when you get it you’re not sure if it’s expired or not, you end up spending more money fixing all your mistakes. That’s the thing, and that’s what I told this guy. He was like, “Okay, so I can’t have the cone beam?” I was like, “No, man, not until you start making money.” “I can get that trio [inaudible 00:33:28]? It’s so much better than taking impression.” I was like, “I can buy one. You can’t buy one. You got to use the regular impressions ray.” You know what? Most labs … That’s another thing he said too, he was like, “Some labs me that I need a scan.” I was like, “You know what? A good lab will accommodate every doctor. That should have been your freaking red flag right there. A good lab will accommodate with the doc because they understand that every doctor is going to be thinking … And you want me to grow because at the end of the day, it helps you out.” I told him, “Look, that lab that tells you, you need scanner and to do this with them, you got to go somewhere else.”
Shaun Keating: Absolutely. Take a good impression, get that down and 90% of this is going to be … Yeah, that’s sent great advice. It really is. Get in the trenches and just hunker down and don’t buy any of that stuff till you start like you said. I’ll get a cone beam when I start sinking implants after I put in a couple hundred here and there with an oral surgeon doing that with you. What about a new CE aid? Any particular CE you’ve done lately that you like? Any other Koise or spear thing or anyone like that?
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah. Obviously, I’ve done the spear, I like him as well, but for new docs what I would suggest is something on the surgical end, like an implant continuing … You can do it with Dr. Gard. Actually, my Facebook group, we negotiated a sweet deal with him, but because the future … That is the future, is learning how to do your implants, doing your surgery, that’s the future there. You definitely want to get in on that because that’s one thing that they don’t really teach you too much in dental school.
But also a cosmetic course, an over-the-shoulder type of course. A lot of lab that sponsor … You guys have a really great instructor … That’s the thing too is look at the lab because what happens is that the lab understands where your skill set is. If you took a course at a Keating Dental Lab, then they know your style, and it helps them out as well. The course you guys do is pretty affordable. I need to go out there, I need to come out there.
Shaun Keating: We’re going to get you out there. We had a full-house on Friday here, and it was great, but we’re going to do some more full rehab uppers, but the way you can do it is where you see it on Friday prepping it and [inaudible 00:35:48] it, and then we do it that night and the next day you seat it, and you’re all getting your hands in the mouth and seeing things. It’s a real great thing. It really is. To see it is one thing, but to get in there and do it a little bit here and there and just … It’s a real neat thing, and then you can see the lab. We love doing that.
I want to do one where we have something every month. Yeah, we’re definitely going to get you out Dr. Vo. You know what? Shoot me the information on your seminar and CE event coming in September, I’ll put it on our website and we’ll promote you too and we’ll try to fill the house for you, dude, because I just know what a great dentist you and your wife are and I know the passion you have for dentistry. When you do what we do and you love it like we do, it’s not a job, man. I come to work every day, especially since we own it now I love it even more, it’s like not going to work. I just love going in. It’s not a job when you do something that you love and it’s a cool thing. Even, know, what we do is not a perfect medium, there’s a lot of variables, you got teeth that like to move, you got patient’s gums that like to flop around a little bit more, I got liquid-powder ratio issues of [inaudible 00:36:56] and working with silly humans. It’s not a perfect medium, but when we work together as a dentist in a lab, we come together, we can nail this 99% of the time. It’s pretty productive moments, pretty bitching when we can practice great dentistry.
Dr. Glenn Vo: I, actually, before I got on the call with you, I sat an interior crown that you guys did. The patient loved it. It took me literally like five minutes, and the whole reason why it took any longer is because I was working with a new assistant. She had to learn how to get the cement ready and stuff, so it was faster.
Shaun Keating: We like to say five-minute seats or less, man. If it’s more than minute or two or under five, it’s got to be that way. Otherwise, there’s an issue and we got to come to our minds together and say, “We got to figure out what’s going on.” But, yeah, five minutes sits or less. Like you said, chair time is money, dude, and it’s probably $300 to $500 an hour to run that chair if someone is in it or not in it because of your overhead and everything as a company, how you run a business … So chair time is really money.
That’s why I say, you might save $20, $30 or $50 on this lab here and there, but at the end of the day, you want raving fans. You want fans like that dude that’s doing 140 grand a month. Work with my lab, you might go up to a quarter of a million a month just because of the difference in the wow factor, of the aesthetics and the patients talking to other people and not just it’s in the mouth that fits behind the lips, and that’s it. You got to have that wow factor when you try to do that but … And I know you do that too in your practice and even the way you do your marketing and everything else, dude. My hats off to you Vo. V, you’re the man. We got to wrap this up. Thank you so much. I’m going to see you real soon. If you need me at all, you know where I’m at, baby. You be texting me at night time, “What’s up Sean?” I’m like, “Hey!”
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s why I love working with your lab, you’re so easily accessible but just your staff as well. I remember when I first was starting on, I was doing some 6 by 11 cases, and one of your lab techs actually took the time and was like … I asked him, “What do you want? What would make your life easier?” That’s one thing that docs should do. Look, just get off your high horse, talk to your lab and ask them what do they need. It’s just like your lab always asked you what you need, you need to ask your lab what they need, and he laid it out, he was like, “Okay, what kind of facebow?” “I used a Koise facebow.” He was like, “Perfect, we love the Koise facebow. Dude, can you do these extra impressions for me? It’d just make my life easier.” I was like, “Sure, I can do that.” “Can I get a full [inaudible 00:39:28]?” “Yeah, no problem. Would that make your life easier?” He said yes.
That was years ago. That was probably seven years ago that I had a conversation, and ever since then I know what you guys like, I send that and I don’t have any issues. That’s my final lesson before we get off here to all the young docs, just get off your high horse, talk to the lab and see what they need. It’s like blindfolding a guy and telling him to paint the Mona Lisa. Take the blindfold off of them. If they have that mindset, then they shouldn’t have any problems. That’s my advice.
Shaun Keating: That’s so awesome, dude. V, you’re the man dude. I thank you so much for taking your time. Get back to work, cut me some more crowns, baby.
Dr. Glenn Vo: Yes, sir.
Shaun Keating: I’ll see you real soon, man.
Dr. Glenn Vo: All right. Bye, Sean.
Shaun Keating: All right, dude. Later, man. I want to thank everybody for listening to this week’s Dental Up podcast. If you can, go over to iTunes and subscribe to us on our Dental Up podcast, leave a review if you could, and again, we’ll see you next week. Thanks again.
