How To Become a Successful Dentist With Dr. Paul Goodman

Tiger Performance Podcast

How To Become a Successful Dentist With Dr. Paul Goodman, Founder of Dental Nachos

00:00 / 00:46:03

Dr. Paul Goodman is the Founder of Dental Nachos, a continuing education and professional development company for practicing dentists, dental students, and dentist office team members. He is also the Founder of Dentist Job Connect with a mission to solve the biggest problem dentists face by bonding them together to increase success, decrease stress, and help improve the morale of the dental practice.

Dr. Goodman is a practicing general dentist and the managing partner of a group practice with two locations in Mercer County, New Jersey. He is a broker for the United Dental Brokers of America, which helps dentists buy and sell dental practices. Dr. Goodman is passionate about teaching, speaking, and giving back to the dental community. He lectures at many local dental schools, including the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Dr. Paul Goodman shares his background and how he got into dentistry
Challenges entrepreneurs in the dental industry face
What makes Dr. Goodman a good entrepreneur?
Dr. Goodman talks about Dental Nachos and Dentist Job Connect and what they offer
Things that motivate Dr. Goodman to help other dentists become successful
Dr. Goodman talks about his dentist study clubs and Rittenhouse Consulting and what they offer
Lessons Dr. Goodman has learned from previous mistakes in the dental industry
Dr. Goodman’s mentors and his advice to dentists
Who are Dental Nachos’ ideal clients?
The daily rituals that make Dr. Goodman successful

In this episode…

Are you a dentist facing challenges in the dental industry? How do you overcome those barriers and remain competitive?

Dental education is excellent for teaching dental technology but not so great at preparing dentists to be professional and interact with other dentists. This has made having a dental practice amazingly difficult and complex. Dentists are doing an exceptional job with their patients but aren’t connecting and offering support to one another. With many years of experience in dentistry, Dr. Paul Goodman has overcome many barriers and learned a lot of lessons throughout his career. Now he shares how he’s created platforms to provide practical education and an ecosystem of success for dentists.

In this episode of the Tiger Performance Podcast, Steve Adams sits down with Dr. Paul Goodman, the Founder of Dental Nachos, to discuss how dentists can be successful in the industry. Dr. Goodman explains how he got into dentistry, the challenges entrepreneurs face in the dental industry, and how he assists dentists to become successful with his businesses and study groups.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode…

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Episode Transcript:

Intro 0:06

Welcome to The Tiger Performance Podcast where we feature high achieving entrepreneurs and coaches and share their performance journeys. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Steve Adams 0:18

Steve Adams here founder and CEO of Tiger Medical Institute. I’m the host of The Tiger Performance Podcast where I interview thought leaders about their unique stories, and specialized knowledge they can offer the world. It’s time now to acknowledge our sponsor for today’s episode, which is the tiger Medical Institute. Our focus is on the mid-career C-suite executive entrepreneur and dental professional, many of whom are depleted and that showing up as the best version of themselves. The Tiger system is a personalized root cause approach to health optimization. Our system is a one year health transformation journey empowering you so you can show up as the best and healthiest version of you. Visit us at tigermi.com today to learn more. Well today we have a very interesting guest, Dr. Paul Goodman. And Dr. Goodman is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Goodman has been practicing dentistry for over a decade works with his brother in two locations in Mercer County, New Jersey. Dr. Goodman has purchased multiple dental practices and shares his personal experience with retiring dentists and managing the expectations of their patients and their team members during the transition process. He’s also the founder of Rising Dentists Study Club and the Rittenhouse Consulting Company, both based in Philadelphia, also Dental Job Connect. I think I talked about that before. We’ll get into all of that. And then we’ll also well chief dental resident during his general practice residency and hospital fellowship at Albert Einstein Medical Center, Dr. Goodman received advanced training and also placed and restored 150 dental implants. He’s been a faculty member of the Hyson Dental Implant Training Program for the past 10 years it has helped over 100 general dentists place their first dental implants. Additionally, finally he teaches dental residents at Albert Einstein Medical Center lecturing on placing and restoring implants. Dr. Goodman, it’s a pleasure to have you on our podcast.

Dr. Paul Goodman 2:22

Thank you. So you’re really excited. Like I like what you do here. Like the whole concept of total wealth, health and wellness. So important and excited to chat.

Steve Adams 2:29

Yeah, great. Well, I like to start personal. So we’ll tell me first. I mean, do you have a family you want to talk about brag about that first?

Dr. Paul Goodman 2:37

Yeah, having a family is we know when they say when they say you’re going to have a child people tell you, it’s the best thing ever. They just don’t and it’s the best the most exhausting thing ever. So I have a eight and a four year old that live in our house with my wife Mary and I we have a golden doodle tilly, we live in Center City Philadelphia. I love city living. I was a suburb kid and my practices in the suburbs, my two dental practices, but I love living in Center City. And we like all the things the city has to offer from walkability museums, great restaurants. I’m a huge fan of Philadelphia.

Steve Adams 3:08

Yeah, me too. I’ve been there many times and up and down the main line. And yeah, obviously the historical stuff there with the Independence Hall and all of that. So yeah, it’s a cool city and it’s got attitude, and you’re a sports fan. I don’t know how coaches holed up in that city.

Dr. Paul Goodman 3:24

Yeah. There’s a lot of passion. If someone call it obsession, that would be me. I call people obsessed. They’re obsessed, passionately obsessed especially with the Eagles.

Steve Adams 3:34

Yeah. And so I used to be from Michigan. So I’m a long suffering Detroit Lions fan. Guys first game of the season.

Dr. Paul Goodman 3:44

I thought that a funny lions. They were a meme or something that said, we’re proud of that the quarterback used to play for us won a Super Bowl.

Steve Adams 3:53

Yeah, well, hey, so tell us a little bit. Are you from Philadelphia?

Dr. Paul Goodman 3:58

I’m from the whole Bay Area. I’m from central New Jersey area near Princeton. Our practices are in Pennington and Ewing’s about 45 minutes from here, but I’ve been in this area my whole life, but I was born in New Jersey.

Steve Adams 4:08

Okay, so what was it like growing up in your parents household? Like what did you take away from that, that you can kind of point to today, it’s kind of that was real formative for you?

Dr. Paul Goodman 4:18

I’d like to use a prop for your audience. I forgot I have an apparel. I don’t know if this will be a video but I’m holding a basketball. So I would like to share that this was my failed dream. I wanted to play in the NBA for the Philadelphia 76, but when you grow to almost five,10 you have to get different dreams. Some parents say all your dreams can come true, that’s not always true. So I say that jokingly that I grew up with the amazing parents. Unfortunately, both of them are not alive right now. But they’re phenomenal parents. Like I want to be a dentist doctor, a lawyer. My dad was a dentist he didn’t not pressure me to become a dentist in any way. I grew up in the practice helping out but he did say that being your own boss. was something he really liked. He liked helping people who was financially rewarding career if you’re really lucky to how I grew up with a lot of opportunities. So I did the seven year dental program at Villanova and Penn Dental, dental school. I really, the academic aspect. It didn’t come easy for me but I was fairly strong in that some of the arts and crafts aspect of Dentistry was a struggle to me. So at some point, I was like, I don’t know if this is for me, that I’m not sure maybe I should do something that’s really one of my strengths. And he said, Paul, do whatever you want with your life, I support you. But you wanted to be your own boss, and I’m glad I stuck with it. I really found that dental implants was something I really loved. I think art. There’s a great book my friend Dr. Mitchell Rubinstein gave me they’re called Steal Like an Artist, because it talks about how ideas get repurposed and things like that, art history can be a lot of different things. I’m a fairly creative guy, I write a lot, but in terms of like painting, or drawing, or doing clay work, that is not my thing. That a lot of times dental school, the first two years is a lot about that, which does not always reflect how real dentistry is. Dental School has a lot of problems in teaching real world stuff. I always say that if dental school taught parenting classes, they would teach you how to knit your own onesies, even though you could buy them at the store. They would have you read articles from parenting in the 1960s. And then you would say, what about learning how to feed the baby, now you can learn that later. And I found that a lot of those schools just do not place the value on the real world survival skills you need. Now they have a ton of they have a difficult job, whether it’s dental school, medical school, optometry school, but I really will share that I am concerned for the future of our profession and they don’t really embrace what is practical learning, so I struggled with some of that. But I love dental implants. If it did my residency, I love it. You could create something from scratch. I love you can get people there smile back, I do it today talk to patients, I say, you’re so lucky. A lot of people see which I think is interesting. They play some weird. They have dysfunctional ways in how they spend money, right? I have a 65 year old. This is a true story. Okay. And the house in New Jersey, New York, and Florida. Okay, three houses, three houses, one body, three houses, okay. And I’ll say, hey, Molly, hey, Millie, we need to replace these two teeth, they’ve lived a good long life, you eat 1000 meals a year, you’ve gotten 30,000 meals, the investment in doing this is going to be $11,000. And they react sometimes like I would call with like, emotional instability and be like, this is so crazy expensive. And some of you might know him well enough, because I’m kind of like, joking person. I’m like, you know you have three houses, right? Like, you don’t need a third house. And they laugh a little bit. But I think that what’s hard about dentistry, even if your other guest said it is very difficult to be sitting six inches away from a customer who does not want what you’re selling. It’s not a fun experience. It doesn’t matter if you make seven figures. It doesn’t matter. If you have Wednesday’s off, I just want to share that with your patience. And I know when dentists don’t like patients to be called customers, but we’re not funded by the government. These are private clients, man, or our clients, when you go to we had a nutritionist in the beginning this year was a great guy. We were excited to talk to this nutritionist. He gave us programs. I felt it was a great investment, what some people would call expensive, but when my wife and I would get his check ins or whereas if we were excited because we wanted to eat better. Right? You sign up to go to France. You’re excited because you want to go to France. Right? When you are a dentist, you got to embrace that you are selling people things that people don’t want. And that can be emotionally exhausting.

Steve Adams 8:57

So with our company, we have the same thing, Paul, we’re selling a preventative, they don’t have a bleeding juggler. And it’s not cheap. And it’s incredible to me that, a lot of the people that we work with, they’ll spend 20 30,000 on a vacation, first class tickets for four people plus everything. And then they’ll only want to do what insurance will pay. And we’ll talk about how you let the insurance company decide what you’re going to do with your one body. I’m with you. So I know that feeling.

Dr. Paul Goodman 9:33

We have those challenges. I have this next me I say I called dental insurance is like a coupon if everyone called it just a coupon. These are like from the New Jersey Bed Bath and Beyond. It would be better but dental insurances have created a lot of challenges for healthcare practitioners to do help patients do what’s in their best interest.

Steve Adams 9:51

Right. I agree. I agree. You’re obviously creative because you got your study clubs that you started? You’ve got the Dental Nachos, which is a training platform and you’ve got Dentist Job Connect. So have you found that being an entrepreneur is really maybe even more of what your calling is, in addition to make him he’ll have a great smile.

Dr. Paul Goodman 10:23

I think so, I’m a big fan of this guy, Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee. And he’s like, my age, I find him to be amazing. I was on his team with Gary Vee show over the pandemic. And he grew up in New Jersey. And I think when you are a child of the 90s, in New Jersey, you think I’m going to be a doctor, dentist or lawyer. Not many people think of doing other things. I also have some really smart business finance friends. But my generation, it’s not really a criticism, just more of awareness, that sort of doing what you’re passionate is was not really, totally embraced. It was sort of like these are good careers. Pick a good career, right. And he said, that has led to a lot of unhappiness for people. I am like, I have a lot of super strengths. I have a lot of super opportunities for improvement, what my wife calls weaknesses. So I have a lot of super opportunities for improvers by the few super strengths. And one of my super strengths is mental flexibility, and kind of trying to find the best and things. So what you said was interesting. I have a business coach, who was very lucky to meet Donna Ambler, she changed my life mentor in 2018 minutes, one of my coaches, I was not going to have you know, people say, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. It’s kind of dramatic, right, I was going to have an exhaustion problem. I was selling practices, being a dentist starting Dental Nachos, and I needed her help. And I remember our first call with her. And she said, you don’t want to stop any of this. You just needed to full members like six months ago, you can’t do all this by yourself for that one conversation. She’s still my coach, today’s she’s helped me build this. But when I met with her in person, and she saw me, she’s like, you could do this for any profession. You could do this for any industry, Dental Nachos could be accounting nachos, or nurse nachos for teachers. This has to do with you, who happens to be a dentist. So probably what you had said is my most the thing I look for is helping right doesn’t help. It doesn’t matter is what I say. But then be proud to sell help, right? I’m not really running a non-profit. I think non-profits are great, but it’s a true business, right, that strives to be profitable. But I think that my entrepreneurial nature, I always just like that, as a kid, I look into different things. And I really, dentistry is great. Some of the great parts about dentistry to be talking to Dentist is also some deployment parts. And this is what I’ll share. Dennis graduated from dental school, dual residency work for two years and then age 31, they’re a practice owner. Yeah, they’re making excellent income. And they’re working four days a week, but dental hours are dog years hours. So there’s no such thing as daddies. Yeah, but age 31 and age 61 don’t always look dramatically different in for how their life is. And for some dental personalities. That is awesome, right? They crave stability, build my practice up, to me, I like growing scaling, changing new things. So when I joined my dad’s practice, we added specialist we bought another location. I’m not very risky when it comes to personal things, like I don’t need to skydive, Steve. Like whatever’s in someone’s brain who was like, I want to skydive. I’ve had the opposite thing in my brain. Okay.

Steve Adams 13:40

Why do you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?

Dr. Paul Goodman 13:44

Probably was financial risk. I do a lot of financial risk things that are like skydiving, that would make other people freak out. And I understand that, right. And I mean, I have like a tremendously high tolerance for financial risk and like thinking like, hey, I like doing this and I’ll figure out how to land up my feet. I had us about my parents had the most amazing mom, sadly, she died when I was 20. But she really raised me to be like, if I was a restaurant manager in Philadelphia, I could do that. I would make that work for my family. No judgment on it. So it’s, I don’t have this like, by practice, working, practice, retire from practice. To me, it’s exciting to do other things. But it’s also entrepreneurial things can be incredibly intense. I’ll put towards stress testing.

Steve Adams 14:37

Yep. Well, and I’d say I grew up in Mid-Michigan. My dad worked at General Motors, that’s what you do in Michigan, okay. People build cars and so he worked 33 years, same place, his whole life, and I got out of school. And he’s like, and I went to a big bank called National Bank of Detroit, which is now they merged with Chase. So they’re part of Chase. And I was in the corporate lending area doing really well. And he was like, now see, you got the perfect gig, you can do this till you’re 65. And I thought, I’m going to die if I do this till I’m 65. And so I quit when I was 32. About the time you started your dental practice, I was on top of the world making great money and I quit. And I started I bought into a pet franchise in my move my wife and two year old new baby to another state, and we started our first store. And my dad just was like, you’re crazy. You’re doing this and but it ended up turning out, okay, it turned into a big 40 some store chain that I was able to sell five years ago and do pretty well from it. And but it was that I wouldn’t trade that journey for anything because of the people I met. You know what I mean? So I’m with you.

Dr. Paul Goodman 15:50

I think that’s a great story about what you told them and you just have to cultivating what’s important to you in life. I think we’ve just overvalue it as money. It’s not always money. It’s waking up and doing things you enjoy doing. And there’s funny Seinfeld is one of my favorite comedians. And it’s a story that he tells a story where there’s a band that breaks down on the side of the road in the in the winter, and they go trudging through the snow, and they see a light on with a family inside and a nice, warm by a fire and they look inside they go, how can anyone live like that? Because and they’re both bright, you know, the people inside the fire. They’re right. And the people who like trudging through the snow, because they’re going to the next gig there. They’re right too, so your dad’s right. And you’re right, you’re both right.

Steve Adams 16:34

Right. It’s just what you want to do. Right? So why don’t walk us through the different businesses that you have, right?

Dr. Paul Goodman 16:42

So I have this not your T-shirt on your name your company, if you’re an advertiser, you expect to get questions. So when I’m on the street, I could use this you know, when you’re I was walking down Broad Street, Philadelphia, lived here for the past two decades, and I hear someone shout from behind me. Hey, you, right. So when you’re in Philadelphia has happened. You got to be ready for anything, right? disgruntled Eagle fan tours. And it was this 50 year old woman who looked at me and said what is Dental Nachos. Right? What is Dental Nachos. And I always have this line that I give because dentists gas, a lot of questions. So when anyone asks you a question, you don’t know the answer. It’s a weird question. I always say, that’s a great question. A lot of people asked me that gives my brain a chance to think I said, great question. A lot of people ask me that. Dental nachos is a lot like a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood for dentistry, where we come together online and in person to learn how to be nice to each other to learn how to care about each other. Dentists are great with their patients, they’re not always great with each other dental schools like the dental student Hunger Games, there’s tremendous toxicity. I have a four year old who lives in my house, you go to dental school for four years. If you told the child from ages zero to four, you’re not good enough, compete with your friends, you’re not going to make it this isn’t right by older people, you would develop a real big personality problem insecurity of self-esteem. So it is a sad the of the state of dental education, the great job of teaching technology but not so great with teaching you how to be a professional and interact with each other. Dental Nacho serves as Philadelphia is known for its Park Steve like think of a giant free park like Rittenhouse Square, where people can talk or people can meet each other. This is all online and in person. But we’re well known for our 40,000 member online community. And the way this is funded, is we have sponsors that sell things in this park, if anyone likes to buy. So just like your sponsor for the podcast. So that’s one of the ways Dental Nachos is able to do what it does. We have awesome sponsors, continents, equipment companies, technology companies that pay, everyone knows that this story, go to convention walk around convention, people have stuff they’re trying to sell you, right. You may want to buy coaching for your business, you may want to buy new floors for your dental office. I’ve kind of taken that experience of the Greater New York dental meeting and put it online. But in the sense, right when you’re walking around the exhibit floor and you see a friend, you say oh, you’re my friend from dental school and let’s chat. Well, I’ve made that in the online experience for dentists. And when being someone who’s out there online, you can get some arrows tossed at you, right? What inspires me is people send me messages like they just did recently. This makes me feel less alone. This makes me feel like someone cares about me. So to me, dental Nachos is here to help dentists feel less alone, learn together, laugh together, and this is my big one be less annoyed together because it’s very, it’s very annoying at times to be a dentist.

Steve Adams 19:48

It’s easy to say that one of the reasons that we have a specialty area with dentists is because it’s not easy to be one and by the time people we’ll get, because our target our primary audience like 45, to 50, up to 70. We actually have quite a few dentists that are like retiring, and they’re 68 to 70. And so they have different reasons they want to do what we do than a 45 or 50 year old. But we’ve learned that from them. And years ago when I was a corporate banker, I had a customer who built the largest dental floss private label dental floss and toothbrush in America, called Grineer Corporation ended up selling it to Johnson and Johnson in the 90s. And Dr. Najar was his name. And he told me back then it was this is like 91, 92, as a young lender, and he said, you know that we have the highest suicide rates in our profession. And he kind of unpack why. And I was just saying, I was shocked. It’s just really hard to be a dentist.

Dr. Paul Goodman 20:54

I mean, and that’s such a poignant part of our profession doesn’t have to be that way. Other things we do is help dentists sell their dental practices, we help them as by dental practices, Dentists Job Connect, helps dentists to connect for associates, because sometimes they need help. So those are all some of our paid services inside of there. I do a lot with continue education, we have a platform where people can watch 200 hours on their phone called Nacho on demand, see platform. So I also want to know, by dream, Steve is like some dentists in their operatories like new dentists and their patients, like, you look young, or I hate my work, or why is it so expensive, then they go to my app, and it tells them what to say next, I’m really into work.

Steve Adams 21:38

So you’re really in business in solving problems for them. And in providing.

Dr. Paul Goodman 21:43

I would say there’s plenty of dentists to help patients and I still do that with implants. But I like to be the dentist to help dentists, because then they can go out as dentists, Dr. Dennis Tarnow, says and help more patients.

Steve Adams 21:52

That’s really cool. Yeah. Interesting. So what motivated you to go beyond the chair to do all of that?

Dr. Paul Goodman 22:01

I think that, I’m the type of person who likes change likes diversity. Prior to this online things, I was doing dentistry, like three or four days a week, I was speaking on implants. I became a practice broker, I was running that rising dentists Study Club well before the Facebook world. So connecting with people and trying to be someone that they could count on. But then I’m also really into, one of my favorite companies is Canva. Canva, it’s like $6 billion company. And that woman I think, is just amazing. Her whole company is built on this premium model, right? So I love the meritocracy like I Gary Vee is great. Like, I could not have built this company, if there weren’t free social media apps, right for me to get this attention, the 80s, I’d have to buy commercials. I never would afford that, as you said. So Canvas, like, hey, here, use our Canvas stuff, to make a flyer for your kid’s birthday or something like that. Use it as a growing company. But then once you need more from us, you got to start paying, right. Once you need more from us, you got to be a member. That’s kind of how you do everything. Like I give so much free stuff you have in an authentic way. Of course, I’ll follow up with people and ask if they want something more or upgrade, but we have so much free stuff on how not to mess up buying a practice how to talk to patients, but then for the people who want more, we have deeper, more significant products and services. And so I love the Canva founder listener on how I built this more than once. I think that in this world of being able to scale services, like e-courses, or webinars, that there’s just such a great opportunity to help people who wouldn’t be able to get help. And then see who wants to do more with you.

Steve Adams 23:48

Right. That’s exciting. Tell us about and study clubs.

Dr. Paul Goodman 23:52

I mean, the study clubs that we have, we have Super Bowl style events, we have one coming up. I mean, like 150 to 200 people to Philadelphia, we have two days of lectures we have networking is fun. People stay in hotels, that’s kind of like our big in person stuff, which we also still live stream. So I love the pay per view model where hey, you can’t come from Kansas to Philadelphia, but you still want to learn, we’ll give it to you on Pay Per View. So just like are you WWF wrestling for when I was a kid or boxing. So, but then I also do things. I’m a big sitcom fan from the 80s. The family ties, the cheers, The Wonder Years. So I also do these programs where I bring 20 dentists around the country and put them in a small room and we lecture to them all weekend. It’s called Super Dentists boost-camp, instead of boot-camp, boost-camp, and it’s able to feel the energy of lecturing and meeting people in a group, but not having to deal with 200 people at once, which is more like a wedding. So I do these type of study clubs that are small, medium and large in size, to deliver the recipe for whatever success the dentists Is wants at that time, maybe it’s high level, crowns and veneers, maybe it’s buying a practice. You know, managing your team, I try really hard. I’m big fan of menus, like eating out at restaurants and I try to create a menu of options for people so that they can pick what helped them most.

Steve Adams 25:17

That’s interesting. One of the questions I wanted to ask you with all of this that you have going on, I think it’s fascinating because it is, it’s like whether it’s your job connect or the study club or the dental nachos, you’re creating this ecosystem of success for dentists. I think that’s great visions. And what about the Rittenhouse Consulting, is it Rittenhouse Consulting?

Dr. Paul Goodman 25:45

Well, that Rittenhouse Consulting kind of represents more of an entrepreneurial, we could talk about basic, that was like my first foray into making something from your thoughts into a business. So Rittenhouse consulting was a Rittenhouse Square, and Philadelphia is my favorite places. So, it was my way of, I still do advice related coaching. I don’t know if you’ve been to the dentist, this a good fun for your listeners. This way I do a lot of for people who want to buy or sell practices. Someone hasn’t seen a dentist since the pandemic and they break their tooth, and they call my office and they say I’m a new patient, I need to get it. Yeah, they may need a root canal and crown which might be like $3,000, they might need their tooth extracted and get an implant might be $5,000, they may just need a small filling, which is $300. But if they go right to the root canal person, they’re going to talk about a root canal, they go right to the implant, they’re talking about an implant person, they come to us as general dentists. And for an x ray and exam for like $120 we evaluate their problem, and then decide what’s next. And actually, I do that with someone says, Paul, I might want to sell to a DSO but I don’t know if want to sell somebody else. So confused. I talked to an accountant, I said, you really need a strategy person you need like a general contractor for your house, you need a general dentist for your mouth. Come to me, I’ll charge you a nominal fee, we’ll go into a deep dive on this. And then I’ll get you to the right place next. So that really is the Rittenhouse consulting arm of the I call it a dentist’s talk about treatment plans. I’m sure you guys have nutritional plans and health plans. So I call it that treatment plan your hopes and dreams with Dr. Nacho and sit down, you’re going to pay like less than 500 bucks, right? And you get these assets with it. And then what’s interesting, too, and I mean, maybe this adds value. Because I’ve gotten a reputation of, you give too much out away for free people, everything you do is free. And no one’s going to value. I said, that’s not really true. When people want my time, I don’t give that away for free. It’s mine. For two reasons. One, there’s only one of you, you can’t scale yourself, two if somebody has a big picture issue, right, buy a practice, sell a practice, and Associates, and they’re not willing to invest a few $100 into solving that problem. They’re not the right fit for me for raving fans, because their mindset is not in the right place. And let me explain your dental audience. I do a lot of dental implants. So when you do a dental implant, you take a special X ray called a CBCT to three dimensional X ray, you’re my patients. And I said, hey, Steve, we can replace this, will remove this tooth, preserve the bone, replace it with an implant, it’s going to be like a $5,000 investment. The first step Steve, is this X rays $350. It goes towards the cost of your treatment. And it lets us see how much bone you have. If you don’t want to do that X ray, you’re never going to undo the implant.

Steve Adams 28:42

You’re not going to do the 5000, that’s really interesting. Yeah, I think it’s wise on especially on your digital stuff to give a lot of away free because that’s how you probably have gotten 40,000 dentists now that you can then there’s a certain percentage and then we’re going to kind of swim upstream and want to do one on one with you. Right? So that makes total sense. So talk to me about in the last five years say like, when did you first start your dental practice, in the early 2000s?

Dr. Paul Goodman 29:17

I mean, I was lucky my dad was a dentist this partner I came in his partner had stayed for a few years he had left we brought my brother on. So that was like in 2005 range 2010 we bought a second location. So then add another practice. We’ve added specialists like paradise I mean, I think there’s one thing that people will pay a lot for okay. It doesn’t matter how much money you have and that word is seaward convenience. Okay. They will pay, people will pay for convenience, especially for services they don’t want. So what I thought would be great is bring in the periodontist, bring in the endodontist have them work with us in our location. So patients when we say oh, you would need a dental implant, you come back here. So I’ve expanded our services by having other providers. There’s no disrespect to the traditional model that still has great but like, you send someone to a periodontist, then you go over here, and the patient kind of gets exhausted by going to 15 different places. So I’ve brought more into our office, we still refer things out. But that’s one of the things I’ve added to our practice model. That’s I think patients appreciate.

Steve Adams 30:26

Yeah, I have not heard a lot of that. So that’s pretty cool. And we do that. I mean, our whole model is virtual, and they have to come to Seattle. And then the rest of the year is all at home. Yeah, Doc, treads, great lunches, everything. So I have a question for I say, so you’ve got, you know, almost 20 years in business. What’s been a big challenge you had to overcome or mistake that you made in your years of business that really has been beneficial to you is now in your best version of you today?

Dr. Paul Goodman 30:58

The easiest answer not paying for help on how to manage people early enough. No matter what you do. So in 2010, when we were going to expand, I really my dad and I, my dad was amazing. That was never just a cheap guy always want to invest in stuff. But we had somewhat of a battle over getting coaching for our team management, because I had an amazing person, Khalil Kibler is still no. And back in 2010 is like, I guess that’s that was 32 rows down, I want to invest $20,000 This year, and how to manage the team, because that’s no good. Everybody leaves. We don’t have to do that. But I knew for us to grow, we’d have to get the team on the same page. And then more importantly, we have to get the leaders on the same page. And I wish I did that sooner in the world. In the world of dentistry, I did a lot sooner than most dentists, because they usually mean I’m sure you deal with this people usually, sometimes people wait until they can’t get out of bed to try to go get held back. Right. Ideally, you’re the first day when you’re like my backers. So I did it earlier than many dentists. But I still wish I’d done it sooner. And I wish that someone had told me as soon as possible, because the tools you need to manage a team is either going to help you with your dream or make you scream if that’s a bride, right?

Steve Adams 32:16

I had to learn the same lesson. I was not too much different time than us in the late 2000s. We’ve done an acquisition from going from two stores to nine. And I realized right then, like, I can’t do everything anymore. I’ve got to get help. So I got some coaching on how to scale and build a high performing team. And that that really was critical for us because we then we went to 850 employees after that. And I learned how to leverage through people, so great lesson, thanks for sharing. Yeah. So who’s an early mentor in your business career?

Dr. Paul Goodman 32:56

I mean, you’re an early mentor in my business career by a doctor I Stephen Brown was just talked to recently, he was a periodontist, or he is a periodontist still. The fact that we don’t teach people about money earlier in our society is a major problem. And the fact that dental schools talk about money as a real problem, dental school charges $500,000. Doesn’t teach us how to talk about money to patients. No problem taking all the money, right? You make a topic weird, like money, people become awkward talking about. So even though I had a dad and his partner as mentors, they never really explained how they talk to patients about money. And they didn’t have the greatest systems either. But sometimes things were just easier. So one of the best parts about my dad was he was very secure. And he would never say, well, I had it tough to don’t complain. At the end of his life and career, we work together for 11 years. He said, patients have always been tough. They don’t want to open their mouth. That happened in the 1970s and the 2010s. Team members would cause you problems in the 1980s and in the 2000s. They said running a dental practice has become so amazingly difficult and complex. First of all, there was no computers when he started. They just wrote stuff in a paper notebook. So the business skills you needed to survive and thrive have gotten different. And my mentor Dr. Stephen Brown, he sat down with his fancy boys and Brooks Brothers suits, monogram cups and he said, this is how you talk to patients. I said, he’s just this rich guy and all his patients are rich. I know this rich, Periodontist doesn’t know what’s going on. But then I met one of his patients, who was doing a very expensive case. And she had the very high paying job, Steve, a professional clown. So I said maybe this guy Stephen Brown. Maybe he’s able to do some amazing things. Maybe he’s able to talk to people and share the value in an authentic and genuine way. And that was transformative me. I just did a podcast with my office manager today, I give every single patient that if someone said to me, Paul, you have one thing you can tell me as a dentist, and you can ever tell me anything. Again, this is what I would tell them. Give every single patient the chance to say no to the best treatment, do not judge anyone, give every single person, all the options, give them I’ll just use a cliché thing. Give them the Mercedes, the Volvo and the Honda options. Don’t look at someone and say they can’t afford a Mercedes. Don’t look with someone with a beaten up car and say they’ll never take care of a Mercedes because I’ve changed people’s lives on my own in the best way, by not judging them in any way. And just simply saying them, here’s a, b, and c, here’s what happens if you do nothing, which one sounds best to you?

Steve Adams 35:48

And so many people Paul, with something so personal as their smile. You can’t judge that book by the cover because they’ll find the money. When I was in the pet business, I used to tell my managers don’t sell out of your own pocket because they would see people come in 24 years old, have a dog they were working minimum wage job and they’d spent $90 on origin dog food, because that was really important to them they want to take care of them. Right?

Dr. Paul Goodman 36:24

Stop trying to live in other people’s minds. Like it’s a lot more relaxing. I mean, I don’t care what shoes i given the menu. Someone goes, Paul, your expensive, I don’t want your implant. Okay. Someone has three kids in college, they want to finance it because they really want to smile. Okay. Right. I mean, who am I to judge how people spend their money? Right? Um, I will say this, I feel good about what I put on my menu, you know, fixed implant cases, removable this. And then I just simply say which one do you want to order at our restaurant in dentistry? They laugh, you get to do some cool things. And if people tell you no too. I mean, one of the things I think, Steve, that is really difficult. And if a pre dental student was asking me I’d say what are the skills you need to be a dentist good at models? Nope. Good at science, no. Good at being rejected a lot with the thing you want to sell? Yeah, good. And just living, resilience and living for those few wins. Yep. Big for those few wins.

Steve Adams 37:27

You can change somebody’s life, and it makes you feel great. Yeah, that’s great advice. So if you were to describe who’s the ideal client for you in the dentist’s, because it’s a dentist, obviously, because you have this ecosystem of support for them that they can enter. What would you say is the profile of your ideal client?

Dr. Paul Goodman 37:52

I like that, I think it’s a really good business question. And I have a lot of sponsors. And I don’t judge how anyone runs their business, I you might not sound I talk fast. I’m animated. But I’m actually a really patient person. So for me, I’m going to use an example if you are going to hit a grocery store, would you want a 50 year old couple that makes $300,000 a year to shop at your grocery store? Or would you want a 29 year olds at their first job who’s going to live in the area for the next 20 years? Then we’ll use that 50 year old couple as a family that 50 year old couple obviously going to spend a lot more now feeding their family. Yeah, but you’re 29 year old if you can get them to understand how you sell food, and why it’s important. They’re going to be your customer for life. So in my world, it’s a dentist that’s about to buy their first dental practice. And we help everyone we help dental students we help. Sometimes people throw those still Nazism, Steve, and people send me messages 62 year old Dennis says, Paul, keep doing what you’re doing. I wish I had you when I was younger, I’d be happier. I wish there was a dental nachos when I was younger. These people who are threatened by what you do. They just it’s because they get easily, I mean, here’s the thing. I’m not a vegetarian at all right? But at times my wife has been way more into ordering buying less meat, right? If I sit down at a restaurant and I say, oh, hey, I’m not eating as much meat someone who gets threatened goes well, meats. Not bad for you. I didn’t say I was bad for you. I just said I’m not eating as much meat right? So sometimes if I say, working as a solo dentist is a recipe for a lot of stress. And maybe look for a partner someone will shout but I’m a solo dentist and I’m not stressing. Well, the way you’re showering kind of sounds like but for me the ideal profile of who I think I could have the most impact on, I think the best ROI Steve is very important to me. And ROI to me is relationships, opportunities and impact not how we think. The dentist about to buy their first dental practice.

Steve Adams 39:53

Yeah, because you go on a long journey with them. I love that.

Dr. Paul Goodman 39:57

I think I kind of guessed your world, I don’t know if I know it is well, it’s because I can give them fundamental changes for them to be healthier long term, instead of trying to fix an unhealthy situation, right. So it’s a journey together. But it’s also a little bit of the blank slate stuff, where I love helping everyone. I need to help myself with stuff, right. But when you have someone when they’re early in our journey, you can kind of put in fundamentals right, basketball, like fundamentals of dribbling and shooting that they can use forever. And I think that’s more fun.

Steve Adams 40:31

Real interesting just because of where you’re from. He’s a friend of mine. He was one of our early clients. He coached at Villanova and at Penn State Patrick chambers. He’s a Philly guy. Yeah. I learned quite a bit about the Philly basketball culture from him, which is tremendous.

Dr. Paul Goodman 40:51

I mean, I love basketball. I think that entrepreneurship is a lot like basketball, especially dentistry, you’re not going to make all the shots, you’re going to turn the ball over your teammates going to throw a bat, I keep playing. Got to keep playing.

Steve Adams 41:02

All the time. Yeah.

Dr. Paul Goodman 41:05

Dental School teaches you like this, Steve, I don’t have time left. They go, you missed a shot. We’re going to stop the game. And we’re going to analyze why you missed this shot in the next three hours. And I go, but what about the game, right? So while you need to learn from drop passes, you need to develop a strategy to dribble, pass, shoot and play the game. And many of these professional schools are just not delivering on that. And then if you get into an environment where you don’t have a mentor or someone to help you, it can be really, really difficult for new dentist.

Steve Adams 41:38

Yeah, boy sounds like it. And that’s what your ecosystem is about. It’s about helping you through that and providing practical education. That’s, that’s brilliant. Real quick. I like to ask this of everybody. Do you have any daily rituals you do that you think make you successful because you’re doing a lot?

Dr. Paul Goodman 41:56

I really liked that. I mean, one of my quotes that I say is everything that matters need to system and everything matters. Plus make the best decision in the moment. One of my biggest daily rituals as a 40, almost 45 year old is walking, I really commit, I have to actually hear me I get plugged in. I actually have a walking treadmill underneath here. Gary bird, SMC national Amazon. So really getting enough steps to stay active is incredibly important, I think for both my mind and my physical fitness. So it might not be so dramatic. If I wake up at 5am, I would write in a journal, I do, do this every day. Okay, I wake up and have coffee every day. I love coffee, right? Coffee has been part of my workflow. So I would actually say steps to success are, I feel more energetic. So I’ve been in times in my life where I’ve been incredibly fit. And I’ve done all kinds of working out. And that does not fit into my life situation. Now, I still do use the gym. But I’ve have to understand, actually, there’s this high level coach. And once you get the podcast that was on David Malayalees podcast, he was great thriving dentists, I think that he said, I’m a high level coach, and I have a really hard time explaining to CEOs and executives, that it’s okay, if you don’t work out six days a week, two’s better than none. I had a big problem with that. I have a big problem with if I can’t have the whole bag of m&ms, I’m not gonna have any. I can’t work out for five days, I might as well not work out at all. And it’s taken me over the past decade to be like, don’t be so hard on yourself. Figure out what your fitness looks like for you. So taking, I average over 10,000 steps a day no matter what.

Steve Adams 43:38

That’s excellent. We have eight health habits that every one of our clients builds into their life over that eight over that year. And one of them is daily movement. And we have all the data, the research supporting it, if all it is, is 20 to 22 minutes a day of walking briskly, good enough. And you know what everybody can do that. If you don’t work out at all, but you do that you’re healthier than the person that doesn’t either.

Dr. Paul Goodman 44:10

And I love that which then I also think that I probably did maybe what was called I don’t know what kind of like over exercising were sometimes I probably wasn’t so sick. I wish we’d done that for the whole time. I have this walking treadmill. It’s great. I can walk. That’s how I get my steps. And that’s actually for your clients. It’s like 900 bucks, and it’s changed my life. And the best way is when I’m on zooms with my team. I just walk. It’s just a walking desk I have here.

Steve Adams 44:40

Well, we’ve been talking to Dr. Paul Goodman from Dental Nachos, among other companies and The Tiger Performance Podcast, Dr. Goodman, where can people find you?

Dr. Paul Goodman 44:52

I really am proud of our websites that dentalnachos.com is really a great place to see all the things that we do but I’m also a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. And I joined what he does with his tech community. So if people would like to text the word Nachos to 215-543-6454, Nachos to 215-543-6454, they’ll get a totally free resource. And they’ll be in my text community to get what I think are funny jokes, inspiration stuff daily. So those are the two ways.

Steve Adams 45:21

That’s awesome. And our production guys are phenomenal. That’ll all be in the show notes. And so this all format goes into our YouTube channel. It goes on our website, and then it goes into a blog so. When all that comes out, we’ll make sure to get it to you. And thank you for being on the podcast, Dr. Goodman.

Dr. Paul Goodman 45:41

Oh, my pleasure. Really great talking to you. Thanks for your time.

Outro 45:48

Thanks for listening to The Tiger Performance Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get the future episodes.