Our guest this week is Dr. Chadwick L. Williams, DMD, he sits down with Shaun Keating and talks about his experience of being a dentist that was available 24/7 and the downsides that taught him to set personal limits. He also shares how he creates a positive impact by being involved with his community, and how he helped create a charity called “Dentists give Back”, whose mission is to provide funding for teachers and their classrooms. You will hear all of this and more on this episode of the Dental Up Podcast.
In this Episode you will hear about:
-The Good and Bad side of being Available 24/7
-The Power of Word of mouth and its overall benefits for your practice’s growth.
-Understanding your limits, know when to refer to a specialist.
-Why mentorship is key and the importance of meeting your fellow dentists in town.
For more information on Dr. Williams and his practice click the links down below.
Practice Website: https://www.smilesbychad.com
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2JCtNwC
[bg_collapse view=”link” expand_text=”View Full Transcript” collapse_text=”Hide Transcript” ] Host: Ladies and gentlemen, this is The Dental Up Podcast, brought to you by Keating Dental Lab, a full-service, award-winning dental laboratory. Each week, you’ll learn tips and techniques from real-world dentists, bringing you in-depth interviews, motivating stories, current events, and sports. Here is your host, Shaun Keating. Shaun Keating: Hey, everyone. Shaun here. Welcome to our 169th episode of The Dental Up Podcast. Man, that’s amazing. Can’t believe we’ve done that many so far, so that’s awesome. Our guest this week graduated from the University of Louisville Dental School in 2001. His passion for CE and new cutting edge technology ensures that his patients receive the most comprehensive and advanced dental care in the industry. Currently practicing from Lebanon, Tennessee, please welcome back Dr. Chadwick L. Williams, DMD. How’s it going, Dr. Williams? Dr. Williams: It’s going great, Shaun. How are you doing? Shaun Keating: Man, I’m doing fantastic. Thank you for coming back on, dude. I know how busy… heck, you were just drilling and filling a couple of minutes ago and you’re jumping on in real quick here to… I appreciate it, man. I love talking with you and you’re a great dentist and you’re just crushing it, dude. How’s it going with you? How have you been lately? Dr. Williams: I’ve been doing well, doing well. Chasing kids and trying to keep the practice going at full speed ahead. We try to treat everybody the way we want to be treated, and that includes family and friends and any patients that happen to walk through the door. Shaun Keating: That’s the way it should be and I know that’s how you do it. Man, you’ve just got the most beautiful practice. I remember when you built that thing and it just looks like a beautiful piece of architecture. Man, I just love it when I see your picture. We’ll put your website up and stuff, too. You just got a beautiful family, your boys, your wife Betty. Your boys Jonathan and Jackson. Man, those guys, I remember when they weren’t even born, and then, heck, they’re getting big now. How old are those boys now? They’re like 10 or 11? Or… Dr. Williams: Jonathan is 13, Jackson is 11. Shaun Keating: Dang. Time goes so fast, dude. I remember when we first met way back in Vegas at a Dentaltown convention, like 2004 or something. Dang, it’s just amazing how fast time goes, but you’ve been doing work with us ever since. Man, I can’t thank you enough. You just crush it. You’re doing all sorts of different kinds of work. It’s just awesome. Hey, I always start off talking a little bit about sports, man, and how’s your Tennessee Titans and football? You think you’ll have a good year this year? Or it’s… Dr. Williams: Well, they are as unpredictable as any team in the NFL. I think that if Mariota stays healthy, I think that he’ll do well this year. They picked up some key players in the off-season. I think that they’ll do well. If Mariota is made of glass like he’s been in previous years, I think we’re in trouble. Shaun Keating: No kidding? He was such a stud his first year or two, and then he kind of trailed off a little bit, but he’s a very, very good athlete. If he’s healthy, man, he definitely… he’s one of the top-tier quarterbacks for sure. It’s just something. Gosh, I just remember way back with Peyton Manning, man. Dr. Williams: Peyton Manning, he’s a remarkable player, but he played hurt a lot and he still won. The problem that we have with a whole lot of the quarterbacks, not just Mariota right now, if they get a little sprain or if they get a good bump or bruise, they want to sit out and it seems like if they’re behind when they get that injury, they definitely end up on the bench to where it’s not their fault they lost. Shaun Keating: Oh, I know. It’s even like Brett Favre and some of the studs back in the day, they played through it. Now, you’ve got these guys that are just, “I’m going to sit on the bench. I’m feeling a little achy here and there and I’m going to make a million dollars not even playing.” It’s like back to college football. They’re playing for the love of it and that’s why those games are great, but it’s just something with the NFL. Shaun Keating: Our Rams did pretty good this last year, but it’s like our quarterback, first half he was really good. Second half of the season he got pressured. He’s not the greatest quarterback, I’m just hoping they’ll be able to protect him and he’ll have some time, but he’s a young kid, too, but he showed great signs of just greatness, throwing balls unbelievable and then he got a little rattled, and even in the Super Bowl, we couldn’t score one point. It was just kind of weird, but I love the football. It’s coming up, man, in August. August, the preseason and then it’s back, but it just gives me a reason [crosstalk 00:04:50]- Dr. Williams: I’m looking forward to it. Shaun Keating: It’s the greatest thing to go get a pitcher of beer and pizza, go with a buddy down to the sports pub, or in the house or whatever, it’s almost more convenient in the home looking at our big TVs and having the restroom right there. It’s like I think [crosstalk 00:05:07]- Dr. Williams: We’re 30 miles from downtown Nashville [crosstalk 00:05:37]- Shaun Keating: No kidding? Dr. Williams: I have four seats at the Titans’ stadium. To go there and feel the electric atmosphere is just absolutely phenomenal. Shaun Keating: I bet, man, and my sister just moved to Nashville. I didn’t know you were that close to that, man. 30 minutes, man, Lebanon, I thought you were over there in the Middle East or somewhere, isn’t it? No. Dr. Williams: No, we’re 30 miles direct east on 40 from downtown Nashville. Shaun Keating: No kidding? Dude, I think we talked last time about the chicken and stuff, hot chicken and Nashville hots or- Dr. Williams: It’s become a national sensation the Nashville Hot Chicken. The funny thing about that is is when Kentucky Fried Chicken did their tour with their signature hot chicken, Nashville was the big city in America they skipped. Shaun Keating: Really? I tried [crosstalk 00:06:01]- Dr. Williams: Yeah. Shaun Keating: Theirs at Kentucky Fried Chicken, it was horrible. I didn’t like it that much, but I like… I think I ordered some… there’s a thing called or company called Goldbelly and you can get Carnegie Deli sandwiches and you get Lou Malnati’s Pizza. It’s just got all the best restaurants and they ship the stuff overnight, but I got some Nashville Hot whatever, I forgot the name of it, and it kind of came in tinfoil all set up. It was like the best damn chicken. I fricking loved it, and it was already sauced up and everything else and you just had to put it in the oven at like 350 for a little bit, but dang. Dr. Williams: I bet it was either Hattie B’s or Prince’s Hot Chicken. Shaun Keating: I think it was Hattie [crosstalk 00:06:43]- Dr. Williams: Those are the two originals. Shaun Keating: I think it was the Hattie B’s or whatever. That’s some good stuff. I’m going to have to order up after this, baby, but even too [crosstalk 00:06:52]- Dr. Williams: No, just get on the plane and come to Nashville, it’ll be my treat. Shaun Keating: Dude, I have to, and you know what? We’ll be going to see my sister and her husband and their children. They’re kind of getting older, they just finished college, but they just moved out there a couple of weeks ago. It’s kind of a trip. The kids are all done with college and they just rented out the house. My brother-in-law, he has like a waste disposal company and it was getting all of the registrations and all the hoops you had to jump through here in California with all their laws. He couldn’t even… he had to change over all his trucks and all this stuff. He said, “I’m just going to move my company to Nashville”, so he’s opening up down there and they’re going to do good, I bet. You always need to get [crosstalk 00:07:40]- Dr. Williams: Well, give him my number. Whenever my contract comes up, I like doing business with family. Shaun Keating: Yeah, and he even had it to where he came and did our disposal here. He can go to any company he want and instead of using what’s mandated in the city, pay them, you can pay your own and he saved us a lot of money and stuff. It’s one thing recession-proof. You’re always going to need to get rid of the trash somewhere, so trash, but he’s Armenian, too. It seems like there’s a lot of Armenian waste disposal dudes. It’s kind of crazy. Dr. Williams: That’s awesome. Shaun Keating: Yeah, it’s pretty cool, dude. All right, dude. Well, hey, let’s go ahead and Dental Up and let’s talk again about your little college experience. Tell me a little bit about college and dental school and some of the likes and not so much things you didn’t like if you could. Dr. Williams: Well, I went to Morehead State University in Eastern Kentucky for undergrad, and I obtained a chemistry degree and thought that I was the smartest kid around. Shaun Keating: That’s awesome. Dr. Williams: Tried to get into med school. The MCAT just whipped me every time because I was stressed whenever I took the test. A friend talked me into taking the DAT and turns out that I did absolutely phenomenal on it. I scored a 21. Didn’t know what the grading scale for it was. 21 sucks on the MCAT, so I talked to a pre-dental about it. He’s like, “You can get into dental school anywhere you want. Where do you want to go?” I said, “Well, my brother’s in med school at the University of Louisville. Let me go there.” He picked up the phone and made it happen. Shaun Keating: No kidding? Dr. Williams: I went to the University of Louisville and my intent was to go the first year of dental school and transfer to med school. It was about, I don’t know, six or eight months in, I thought, “This dental school thing, it’s all right. I think I like the teeth better than what I would dealing with the rest of the body.” Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Williams: I stuck with it. Shaun Keating: Unbelievable. That’s great, dude. That’s smart. You’re smart. I know you got a degree in chemistry, too, man. I couldn’t even do chemistry in high school. I was like, “What the heck?” I was lighting things on fire. Dr. Williams: Shaun, I’ve seen you do chemistry. I’ve seen you put a certain amount of whiskey with a certain amount of Coke. Shaun Keating: Exactly. It bubbled up and it made my stomach hurt the next morning. Dr. Williams: That’s right, that’s right. Shaun Keating: Oh, man, that’s so cool. Well, tell me about on your journey when you got out of school. Did you start off associate? Tell me that. Or you went straight and bought your practice? Dr. Williams: I had a latex allergy that developed in dental school and I had to go somewhere where it was latex free, and there wasn’t a whole lot of latex-free practices in 2001, so I was either going to have to go in with a latex-free dentist or I was going to have to find my own practice that I could buy and afford. Being a young man straight out of school with no credit whatsoever, paid everything in cash, my parents were a school teacher and a coal miner, so to say that were were middle class would be [crosstalk 00:10:52] calling us rich the way that I felt because Mom and Dad struggled to make sure that me and my brother had everything that we needed for school and whatnot and they didn’t splurge on much. They didn’t have a whole lot of money to help us get started in our professional lives. Shaun Keating: No kidding? Dr. Williams: Started in Clarksville, Tennessee, under the advisement of a retired orthodontist and was going to put in a practice there, and every single bank told me, “We would love to have you, but you have no credit. We could finance you quicker if you had bad credit.” Shaun Keating: Oh, geez. Dr. Williams: I kind of was a little frustrated and depressed, so I was thinking, “Hey, I’m going to have to move back to Louisville and live in the house that my parents own and kind of drop back and punt.” Then, the guy who owns Nashville Dental Incorporated calls me and says, “Hey, there’s a dentist in Lebanon, Tennessee, quitting dentistry to become a fireman and he needs somebody to run his practice for the next five months. Are you interested?” Shaun Keating: Hell yeah. Dr. Williams: I said, “Yeah, I’ll take it.” He said, “You have any questions?” I said, “Where’s Lebanon, Tennessee?” I came to work for him. He compensated me well, better than a whole lot of my friends in other associateships were doing, and he had a small, off the beaten path three-operatory practice, three employees. It was just barely chugging along. He was this guy who would put a patch on an amalgam patch. He just hated dentistry. He never really cared for it. Wanted to be a fireman his whole life and it was his last opportunity. Dr. Williams: I was doing a whole lot of crowns because I had these monstrous amalgams that had been patched two or three times and they had recurrent decay because amalgam really don’t bond to amalgam. I took his practice up probably 20, 25% in the five months that I worked for him. Shaun Keating: No kidding? Dr. Williams: At the end of the five months, I decided that he had walked away from a gold mine, so I bought his practice. Shaun Keating: No kidding? Good for you. Dr. Williams: We fit together like a hand in a glove. I wanted in, he wanted out. Shaun Keating: Perfect. Dr. Williams: We agreed on a price and I bought the little three-operatory practice and treated folks the way I wanted to be treated. I made myself available. My personal cellphone number was on my answering machine, and if somebody needed to be seen, I would come in and see them. Shaun Keating: Awesome. Dr. Williams: If it was an extraction on Saturday night at 2 in the morning, I was there. Just wanted to be there and be everything to everybody. As you get a little older and you get married and you have kids, you start thinking that you don’t want to go out at 2 AM, so I took my personal cell off of the answering machine. Bought another phone line and put an emergency cellphone that either I or one of my dental assistants carry. We’re still available, but we are less likely to come out at 2 o’clock in the morning for free than what I used to be. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Williams: I learned my lesson of having my cellphone number on my answering machine right after Betty and I got married. A guy calls about 3 in the morning and says, “Doc, you got to help me. I’m not a patient of yours but I got a terrible toothache. I need to be seen.” I said, “All right. I’ll come in and see you. I can be there in about 20 minutes.” He’s like, “Great.” I said, “Now, let me get a little history. What’s you name? What’s your insurance? How long has this tooth been hurting?” “Man, it’s been hurting like this for six weeks.” I was like, “Six weeks? Why didn’t you come in in the last six weeks while the office is open?” He was like, “Well, it wasn’t convenient.” I said, “Oh my God, do you think it’s convenient for me to get out of bed at 3 AM to come and see you?” Shaun Keating: Oh, geez. That’s so [crosstalk 00:15:03]- Dr. Williams: He basically said, “Screw you”, and hung up on me. Shaun Keating: Unbelievable. Dr. Williams: That kind of ruined my experience with having my cellphone number published on my answering machine. Shaun Keating: No, it’s crazy. I have a friend whose wife is a nurse, and she has to be on 24/7 to come in emergencies and it’s just are certain days she has to be on call 24/7 and we’re going out to the pizza parlor or whatever and she can’t have a drink or nothing. It’s been like that for years and years and it’s just like, “Man, that’s tough.” That’s commitment to your job for sure, but I wouldn’t put my cellphone [crosstalk 00:15:45]- Dr. Williams: That’s where we got it. Shaun Keating: Yeah, we got it. Dr. Williams: That’s where we in dentistry have it on the people in medicine. They take call and they have to take call. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Williams: Their employers, the hospital, whatever, you have to take call these certain days. Well, in dentistry, if I get off from work and I want to go have a couple of beers, that means I’m off call. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Williams: That’s my decision. I can tell a patient, “Hey, I can’t come and see you tonight. If you’re hurting bad enough, go to the ER.” I have an avenue to send them somewhere else, but for my own peace of mind, if I want to get off work and have a beer, then by all means, I’m going to do that. Shaun Keating: Absolutely. No, that’s what I say. It’s just you’re 24/7 a lot of these doctors and it’s like… that would just be tough working on people in pain or just having issues all the time. It’s tough enough to be a dentist in the mouth, imagine just day to day seeing these people that are always sick. It’s kind of the same thing in dentistry. You get guys coming in that… I think it’s different. I think a lot of times, too, they’re coming in, yeah, it’s pain, but they’re also coming in for cosmetics and look beautiful. I think dentistry is just great in that aspect. I love doing those front teeth and rehabs and just change a person’s [crosstalk 00:17:05]- Dr. Williams: My favorite thing is doing what I call the Hollywood Six Package. You get the six anterior teeth, if they’re viable at all, I can make them look better. Shaun Keating: Heck yeah. Dr. Williams: Just like the case that you and I recently did. Guy comes in, he’s had porcelain fused to metal crowns for 20, 30 years. He’s got a touch of recession, so you can see the metal of the crowns. This guy is very public here in our town and just a super nice guy. I run into him at a gas station one night and he says, “Hey, can you fix this?” I said, “Sure.” I said, “Come by the office and we’ll talk about it.” He comes in, he says, “What can we do here?” I sit and talk to him about it. He says, “All right, let’s do it.” We prep his six anterior teeth, send the case out to you, get some temps made for him, and you make the crowns and I’m tell you, I could have thrown those jokers in from across the room. Shaun Keating: That’s awesome. Dr. Williams: The cosmetics was perfect, the occlusion was perfect. The contacts were perfect. He is so happy that as he was walking out of the office the day that we put his crowns in, he saw one of his friends in the waiting room. His friend says, “What are you doing here?” He said, “I just got a new smile”, and he shows him. He’s like, “Man, that’s what I was going to ask Doc about when I saw him.” He comes back and I sign him up for the exact same thing. He’s coming in at the end of the month. Word of mouth is by far the best. Dr. Williams: The largest number of patients come in because their insurance has me on a list and they say, “Hey, I know that guy because I follow his practice Smile Gallery on Facebook or I see that he and his wife, they’re partners in the community.” I have formed a charity called Dentists Give Back and we give cash money to teachers to do whatever they please with in their classrooms, or they know me from being in my Rotary Club. Or, recently we have had a billboard for the past year and I don’t know if that has brought a whole lot of patients to me, but it has definitely has given my friends a whole lot of ammunition to make fun of me. Shaun Keating: You got your mug on there and everything? What’s it look like? Dr. Williams: Oh yeah. It is a great billboard. My practice is Smile Gallery and we have a logo that has a big smile in it and it’s got me on one side of the billboard, a picture that Betty took that was just a candid photo, and then she has our logo on the left side with our phone number and website, and then the smile comes off the side of the billboard and that’s what catches the attention. Shaun Keating: Really? That’s awesome, dude. We got to pull that up. I want to see that. My guy is looking for it right now. That’s neat. I always wanted a billboard, man, just to say, “What up, baby?” No. Dr. Williams: Well, Shaun, it only takes money, man. Just go ahead and do it. Shaun Keating: I know, but it’s like, I’m a dental lab. Thousands that go by, there’s going to be three dentists, but it’s just not… I always try to get [crosstalk 00:20:18]- Dr. Williams: If you get those three dentists’ business, that’ll pay for your billboard. Shaun Keating: Oh, I know. Hey, that’s what… Even, too, I just do a lot direct mail lately. I don’t do the big dental journals. I used to just always do pages in Dentaltown and ADA News, and they’re like 10 grand. It’s just tough after a while. I just mail the heck out of like letters each month and we’ve got our own shipping department and our own thing that costs so much money that sorts your letters and does it all. I get it all sent out. 30,000 mailers a month and 29,995 will probably get thrown away and I might get three or four doctors out of all of that or maybe one, but if that dude does a thousand a month, that’s 12 grand a year. Sometimes they do 2, 3 grand a month or 5. It’s kind of a neat thing. Shaun Keating: It’s just like fishing. They don’t call it catching. Same with the marketing. It’s just old school direct mail, but I find it better with the money I spend on that to get new dentists to try me, then all the other money I was spending on all this stuff and… It’s good to see your face and your company out there and brand yourself, but at the end of the day, I think the digital world is taking over there, too. Everyone is going to your phone, so we’re trying to do all of that Facebook and all that interweb stuff. I don’t even know how good that works, but we’re growing and everything else. I think it’s just a little bit of everything. I think the podcast helps. We’ve been doing this podcast since May 21st, 2015 is when we started these, and so [crosstalk 00:21:54]- Dr. Williams: Very nice. Shaun Keating: Long time, man. Every week we’ve had one. It’s kind of cool, but it’s just awesome to just to see the stories of all the different dentists throughout the nation and just what you guys go through. It’s a tough business, but it’s very rewarding. I just love you. You got a big heart and everything else and you treat people the way you want to be treated. I think that shows for it. I think in that part of Tennessee, they know Dr. Chadwick Williams. I love that name, Chadwick, man. How did you get that name again? I have never heard of another guy named Chadwick, man. I think it’s pretty cool. Dr. Williams: You have, you just don’t know it. My mother was a, she still is, a huge Elvis Presley fan, and in 1974, Blue Hawaii came out and his name was what in Blue Hawaii? Chadwick. Shaun Keating: You’re kidding? Dr. Williams: I was born in ’75. You do the math. Shaun Keating: That’s unbelievable. Dr. Williams: Thanks for that, Mom. Shaun Keating: No, it’s very unique. I love it, man. I always call you Chadwick. “What’s up, Chadwick?” Oh, that’s so cool, dude. Tell me a little bit about your digital. You still got the same digital equipment? What have you got in the office? Tell me a little bit about your little gadgets? Dr. Williams: Well, the latest gadget that I bought I guess is the Omnicam. I bought it I want to say about a year ago. I already had the MCXL with our Bluecam. I didn’t want the Omnicam. Here’s a little plug for Sirona. I had a rep that said, “Hey, I need somebody to demo this Omnicam.” They’re wanting all the reps to have one demo at least, so he brings it to my office. I was like, “Dude, I’ll use it for a couple of weeks, but I have no desire to buy that.” After two weeks, I bought that because it is [crosstalk 00:23:53]- Shaun Keating: Awesome. Dr. Williams: It was far superior, saved a ton of time over the Bluecam. Whenever I send you cases that I have taken on the Omnicam, it seems like they come back and they require less adjustment than what the ones with the Bluecam did. Shaun Keating: That’s so awesome. Dr. Williams: If you have listeners that are contemplating whether they want to upgrade their Blue or Redcams, if you’re back that far, I would definitely go up at least to the Omnicam. I haven’t demoed or saw the new one yet. I forget the name of it, but it is a good unit as well. Shaun Keating: I think it’s the Primescan, is it? Dr. Williams: Primescan, that’s it. As far as what I’ve read about it, it’s as far superior to the Omnicam as the Omnicam was to the Bluecam. Shaun Keating: No kidding? That’s amazing. Hey, they started it, man, Chairside and my hat’s off to them, man. I embrace the doctors doing that. I’m still getting the hard cases and I’m still getting some of the bridges from these guys and everything else, but I got a lot CEREC guys and a lot of guys that do Chairside Digital, but hats off because I think they respect us more, too. Once you start doing that in-office and seeing what… a lot of moving parts and pucks can break. It just can have a mismill and there’s lots of things that could happen, I just think it makes dentist’s practice better because you’re under such high magnification and just seeing everything blown up so much, but it just turns [crosstalk 00:25:30]- Dr. Williams: When you’re the one that has to make those margins meet and those contacts meet and the occlusion right, you start thinking more about your prep. It has to make us as a profession better dentists because we know what the laboratories have to deal with whenever we leave a big clump of enamel on the distal buccal corner of number 15. It makes it a lot more difficult for the lab because it makes it a lot more difficult for us when we’re trying to mill it with a CEREC. Shaun Keating: Exactly. That’s awesome, though, man. It’s come so far, everything. I love that. What about your practice, man? You think you’re going to outgrow it? Are you going to open up another one? What do you think? What’s your idea going forward? Dr. Williams: There for a long time we toyed with the idea of getting a second location, maybe a third. There was a practice in a neighboring town that was coming up for sale and we thought about purchasing it and getting an associate and whatnot. What I realized is that right now I’m really comfortable. I work three and a half days per week- Shaun Keating: Beautiful. Dr. Williams: And my staff loved that- Shaun Keating: Yes, absolutely. Dr. Williams: And Betty and I can go to lunch on Thursday. I don’t work on Friday, so Friday is date day. If we’re friends on Facebook, you can see where Betty and I go eat and explore on Fridays. It’s a real good thing for us, and if we were to open a second location, that’s going to make us work harder, double our overhead, and I don’t want to work that hard and neither does she. We’re comfortable where we’re at. We’re successful and we’re busy, so I don’t want to fix it if it’s not broken. Shaun Keating: Oh, absolutely, and peace of mind and… that’s even like with me, man. I’m comfortable with where I’m at and it’s a neat thing. You always got to push it and grow, grow, and I’ve kind of just stepped back the last few years and said, “You know what? We’re going to have slow growth because we want to have a regular life and we want to be able to service our dentists and stuff properly because there’s always going to be dentists kind of falling off the bottom.” A lot of guys are retiring, a lot of guys are getting Chairside stuff, so we need to keep adding a few dentists here and there because our people are pretty loyal and stuff, but a lot of them, they do. Shaun Keating: They go Chairside, and sometimes they’ll go to those cheaper coupon labs and stuff like that. It’s just something… we got to keep our growth, but I don’t need to push that rock so hard that… I don’t know. I think it’s neat when you have controlled growth and just be able to live your life. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’m just like, “You know what? I don’t need to… I don’t want to be this big and this and that. We’re doing just fine and it’s just kind of neat.” We’re in groove here and it’s just kind of a neat thing. Shaun Keating: Hey, man, I know we got to wrap this up, but last question I got for you. What advice can you give some of our newer dentists just starting out? Let us hear a little bit about that if you could? Dr. Williams: Well, if I were a new dentist, I would want to know that I had a dentist that I could listen to and trust, so you would look for that guy in your community. If it’s the guy who has a successful practice and he is nice enough to tell you some nuggets, then listen to the nuggets. We don’t come out of dental school knowing near as much as we know- Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Williams: And once you get the patient in the chair, you can’t guarantee that they’re going to stay in the chair, so you have to something to retain that patient. If you’re nice to that patient and you’re honest with that patient a hundred percent of the time, whether it was your fault that that crown margin was open or not, then you’ve got to be honest that it’s still your fault because the patient didn’t make the crown. If you see your own crown six months after you have seeded the next prophy and you see your own open margin, you have to be honest with the patient and replace it for free. Shaun Keating: Absolutely. Dr. Williams: Once you are honest with patients and you treat them the way that you would treat your Mom if she was in the chair other than not charging her, then they will come back and when they come back they’ll be bringing friends and family. Shaun Keating: Absolutely. Dr. Williams: That’s the best thing is to try to do the absolute best work possible, which i think everybody does. Some of us are a little more handsy than others, which is not a bad thing. Everybody has their niche, and if you’re interested in doing surgeries and implants and whatnot, then make sure you’re as good as your specialist at doing it, and know whenever you’re not as good as your specialist and don’t be afraid to refer something out that you think is just a little bit above your head because the last thing you want to do is to fall into the hole and the water will go over your head. Shaun Keating: Exactly. No, that’s great advice, dude. Dr. Chadwick Williams, man, I love you, man. God bless you and your family and… Dr. Williams: We love you, too. Shaun Keating: That’s so cool, dude, and you know what? Now that I know you’re 30 minutes from Nashville, we are definitely hooking up because I just want to go eat in that town. I’ll see my sister for an hour and I’ll say, “Okay, we’re going into town, babe”, because it’s such a foodie destination. Heck, they just had something really big… I forgot what it was for a couple of months back. Dr. Williams: We had the NFL Draft here. Shaun Keating: Yeah, the NFL Draft, and what a great… all of the people. There was like three or four days and they just- Dr. Williams: 300,000 people came to Nashville, Tennessee, for the NFL Draft. Shaun Keating: I’m telling you, when I seen that, I go, “I’m going there.” That just looked fun. It looked like a little Disneyland outside with restaurants, and I’m just a big music guy, too, and give me a guy and a slide guitar, some blues or whatever, man. Damn. Dr. Williams: There’s a different honky tonk everywhere in downtown Nashville. You will never go far without hearing live music. It is just a phenomenal town and the food here, it has exploded. It has become such a foodie town. There’s so many cool [crosstalk 00:31:47]- Shaun Keating: Oh, no. Dr. Williams: Eclectic restaurants that you can go to. Man, I’m telling you, it’s no wonder that I’m overweight because I love going down there and eating. Shaun Keating: Hey, I’m with you, dude. I’m excited every day about give us this day our daily bread, man. I love it, my food. No, it’s just neat. It’s a neat thing everywhere we go. You just see the different places, and Nashville, never been there, and I just… that big NFL thing like you said, that really just got me, and then my sister moving. It’s like one of the number… I think you guys and Austin, Texas, it’s like everyone is moving to those areas, but I just think that’s really neat, man. Good job, dude. Dr. Williams: They’re estimating right now that 125 people per day is moving to Nashville. Shaun Keating: You’re kidding? Dang! That means more teeth, baby! We got a- Dr. Williams: It is exploding, and then we’ve got the Nashville Predators here, too. They’re in the top echelon of the NHL, and people who never knew anything about hockey… I always said that hockey was just soccer on ice. It has become a big thing here, and we’re getting a new MLS stadium that’s being built right now, so we’re going to have an MLS team. Shaun Keating: That’s so cool. Dr. Williams: The amenities and the things to do in Nashville, man, it’s just great. Shaun Keating: It totally is. That’s amazing. No, it is. It’s a destination and it’s just something… it’s exciting for them. Good for you, and heck, you got to market in to the Nashville area and get your mailers or whatever and pull them in from everywhere, man. Tennessee is a big place. That’s awesome. Dr. Williams: It’s a big place and we’re getting tons and tons and tons of people from way out of state like California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho. I don’t know what you guys are doing wrong out there, but you’re sure pushing people this way. Shaun Keating: It’s just too expensive. I’m telling you, all the laws and taxes, it’s not very business-friendly, but it’s kind of just booming in tech and everything else. Man, the single home basic price is like 700 grand in Orange County for the minimum prices that average out to about $700,000. That’s just so ridiculous. I remember buying my first home like 180,000. That was a lot. Five years before that it was 90,000. Everything just keeps going up and I feel for these younger kids, man. It’s just tough. I’m glad I’m at where I’m at. It’d be tough starting off again, man. It’s like, “What the heck?” Gosh, it’s just [crosstalk 00:34:30]- Dr. Williams: It’d be a nightmare to start off again. Guys coming out of dental school right now, Shaun, they’re coming out 4 and 5 and $600,000 in student debt- Shaun Keating: I know. Dr. Williams: And that’s just ridiculous. Whenever the previous administration, I don’t know if it was the Congress or the Senate or the Presidency or who it was, but they took the cap off of federal lending so the dental schools and med schools and some of the higher end colleges took their tuition through the roof. I came out of dental school somewhere in the neighborhood of 250, $270,000 in student debt. Shaun Keating: No kidding? That’s still a lot, but yet now it’s doubled from that in a lot of places. Here we’re hearing like USC, man, with on-site staying, it’s like 600 grand for your dental program. Man, that’s a lot of money, and then- Dr. Williams: These guys getting out of dental school right now, there’s no way that they can service that debt and start a practice or buy a practice. I think that’s the reason we have so many of the new graduates that are getting into the corporate dentistry, the Heartland dentistries, the Marquees, the Aspens, and they’re getting pushed into a corner and they’re having a hard time getting their debt paid to where they can get out on their own. Shaun Keating: Exactly. No, it is. Unless you got a rich mommy or daddy or something, you’re just going to have to bear down and buckle up and just put your worker pants on because you’ll be getting a hundred, 150 grand maybe and you got all these bills. You think you’re going to be able to buy a home and raise a family, it’s tough. I think with everything, like 10, 15 years in, if you can just put your nose to the grindstone, you’ll probably get out of it at about 15 years, 20 and start making the money then, and I think with any business… I didn’t make a cent my first 10 years in the business and that’s what they say. One to 10, you build it. 10 to 20, you enjoy it, and 20 to 30, you try to keep it on a business. Dr. Williams: Try to keep it or try to retire, one or the other. Shaun Keating: Try to keep it or sell it and try to make some money off it, but it’s tough, man. I dread even [crosstalk 00:36:52]- Dr. Williams: The first five years out of dental school, I had my school loans paid off and my practice paid off. Shaun Keating: Dude, see, that’s just awesome. It really is. Dr. Williams: I lived in a meager house. I drove a single-cab Toyota Tacoma that had a salvaged title. I didn’t do anything super flashy. I took my money and I paid my debt, and whenever I got out of debt, that’s whenever I bought a sports car and a bigger house, and then whenever I started having growing pains in my three-operatory practice, I had to buy a building or build a building. I built a building and we had 5,000 square feet of lease space, so it set empty for the first few years because it finished in 2008 whenever the recession hit. Shaun Keating: Exactly. Dr. Williams: Right now, we have one tenant. It’s a live hospice. They’re a great tenant. They’re a great business. They do a great service for our community and we’ve got a 2,000 square foot space that’s still available that I’m hoping we’ll get leased soon. Shaun Keating: A little business entrepreneur. That’s how you do it, baby. They’ll pay your whole nut. You get that other place rented out and it’s like [crosstalk 00:37:54]- Dr. Williams: I was thinking that it might be a great place to put a Keating Dental Lab East location. Shaun Keating: That’s what I’m thinking, maybe. We could pull in the… call it the KDA East Coast. That might be neat. I’m thinking about opening one up all over, man. Let’s do it. Dr. Williams: That’s right. Shaun Keating: Chadwick, I love you, man. Great podcast. Dr. Williams: Shaun, I appreciate all you do. Shaun Keating: No, we appreciate you. We thank you for all the years and I just love it man. I love to see it rocking rolling and love seeing you and all your places. You eat on there Fridays. I love that. I work half a day Friday, so me and my wife do date… we go to the… it’s called the Irvine Spectrum and we do it every Friday, man. We go over there and we have a place called Wood Ranch. It’s like a barbecue place. We always eat there and then we walk the whole Spectrum, and then sometimes I stop by this little Chinese place called Capital. Shannon will go over to Nordstrom’s for a little bit and I’ll go in there and pull a lobster out of the tank and have my little surf. I had my turf already, and then I’ll have my five-pound lobster. They just steam it for me and I’m like, “All right, Shannon.” We double up on those Fridays. It’s kind of fun on the court, and that’s tomorrow, baby. Dr. Williams: That’s tomorrow. Right now, my Mom has my kids, so we’re looking forward to our date day tomorrow. We don’t have the kids out of school that we have to please and we can do whatever we want, but as long as we get home to let our dogs out in time. Tomorrow, we’ll probably go downtown Nashville, walk around, maybe go to one of the malls. Pick up some food, maybe even stop by one of the fresh markets and bring home something to cook for dinner. Shaun Keating: That’s it. That’s what we do, too. Man, sometimes we go to like get a movie. We got a place called Cinepolis. It’s fricking unbelievable. We got like lounger chairs. Waiters come up to you and you push a button and they can get your beers. You watch these fricking movies. It’s like unbelievable. It’s like pretty cool. Dr. Williams: It’s awesome. Shaun Keating: Life is good, man. Thank you, Lord. Dr. Williams: That’s right, that’s right. He gives it to us all. Shaun Keating: Yes it is. All the glory goes to Him, man. That’s awesome. That is so cool, dude. Well, hey, great talking to you again. Thanks again for coming on The Dental Up Podcast, and have a great day, Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams: Thanks, Shaun. I appreciate it, brother. Shaun Keating: All right, babe, we’ll talk to you real soon. Dr. Williams: All right. See you. Shaun Keating: All right, man. Bye-bye. Host: Thanks for joining us on The Dental Up Podcast Show this week. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or search The Dental Up Podcast on iTunes for our weekly feed. Don’t forget to visit keatingdentallab.com/promo for exclusive offers. Keating Dental Lab is a full-service dental laboratory and we’re nationwide. We’d love for you to send us a case so we can show you the Keating difference. If you dig what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes, and we’ll be back next week. [/bg_collapse]
