Transcript
Speaker: Dental Fuel, the podcast that focuses on what no one else is talking about. Mistakes. The dental world is full of before and afters and no one is talking about the middle. Dental Fuel brings you the unspoken in -between. Dental Fuel is brought to you by 90 Day Jumpstart, a program to help you increase production and break free from financial stress.
Speaker: Dental Fuel is back with Dr. Gabriela Flores talking about a financial mistake. Dr. Flores reflects back on her professional journey and talks about the importance of financial literacy in dentistry. On the topic of finances, I would love to know, and it may just be this, but I would love to know a financial mistake that you've made in your career and how you have learned from that. All right. A financial mistake that I've made in my career.
Speaker: What do you think? Yeah, it can be anything from working at that DSO and maybe not knowing what you were going to expect. That's good. I had an answer for that, but I like that prompt better. Definitely the first biggest financial mistake is even going as far back as your loans is understanding how many loans you're taking on.
Speaker: really understanding how payable that is, what your future is going to be after dental school, because the reality is the way insurances are going, it's very hard to just
Speaker: do the bare minimum and make enough to pay back your loans. So that's definitely the first financial mistake I would say I made was under, or I was overestimating how much I would make straight out of dental school. Oh yeah. Because the story is, oh, dentists are fine. I've never met a broke dentist this, but we're talking about dentists that paid maybe a hundred thousand dollars total for their dental school.
Speaker: Not half a million or more. So that's the first financial mistake. I would say the second would be not understanding what a draw was completely and letting the DSO just kind of tell you, no, if you're going to be fine, this is our best location. You will not have that problem.
Speaker: Why did I believe it? Thank goodness I know how to sell and I know how to produce and I know how to work on my toes because if not, I mean, that would have been a disaster. I don't know what that is. Can you tell me a little bit more about what it's a draw? Is that right? Yes, a draw is when they pay you a daily rate. But if you don't, so basically, and then it's kind of on a system where let's say,
Speaker: Theirs was tiered, so let's say it's 28 % of collections. So if you're not making whatever, so it was $500 a day, right? If you're not making enough for your commission to be $500 a day, you end up owing that money back. So they pay you $500 a day, but at the end of the month, they'll take back the money that you didn't produce to meet that $500 a day.
Speaker: interesting. Yeah, interesting. Okay, that's a that's a business model for you. Yes. And it seems doable on a regular practice. Oh, yeah, $2 ,000 a day is doable to make good money. I think my minimum I think was I ended up being like, for what my
Speaker: Commission was I think ended up being 1800 a day minimum. I had to make okay, but when you're making $20 on a class, right? Yeah, it's hard to get there. That's hard. We're not talking little boards class twos. We're talking about bombed out class twos. Yeah, things that that'll take you time, you know, yes. Wow. That's definitely a different structure. You know, being in public health law, I'm on the salary. So if we see one patient or if we see 100 patients,
Speaker: we get paid the same. So oftentimes I hear a lot of these terms and I don't really know what they mean, but I'm learning as I go and it's just so interesting. It's just a different kind of structure. Interesting. Interesting. And I love that you talked about loans. One of the things that I often get asked by pre -dentals is, you know, hey, I got accepted by XYZ school. You need these five schools. Where should I go?
Speaker: And oftentimes, I would argue that going where your loans would be the lowest and your cost of living would be the lowest almost is probably the best bet. You're probably going to get a great education wherever you go, but coming out with half a million dollars in loans is so hard to recover from. More than half a million. Yeah. I mean, yeah. That's because I didn't have undergrad.
Speaker: Yes, exactly. So if you have undergrad loans, you know, if you went to some kind of Ivy League school or somewhere where you change majors a few times, and you have loans from there just to stack that on top of your dental education loans can be really, really difficult. Yeah, that's hard.
Speaker: I think a good way to advise these pre -dental students would be, because in the end of the day, sometimes you have your dream school, and I see there's two sides of the coin. I have had a lot of situations where I was selected as the primary provider in a practice by a patient because of my education over someone else's education. I'm not saying that that's necessary. They're all amazing, but sometimes if you go to
Speaker: a university that resonates with the person a little bit more, especially in the Northeast. I would say if you're dealing with Northeastern patients, they're going to choose you based on your university. It's funny because in South Florida, they don't care as much, but the patients that are snowbirds, they do actually pay attention.
Speaker: people do comment. And also it just depends what you want to do if you want to specialize. So I think if you're going to specialize or own a practice, it's not as bad because specialty, you will be making more only a practice, you will have equity. So at the end of the day,
Speaker: you sell that and you can pay off all your debt, right? So I think it just really depends on what course you're taking and I think what's lacking in dentistry are mentors to teach you these things because most of the people that are advising these students are people who have interest in their decision, whether it's a PSO or a physical practice broker, but it just really depends what's best for you. Sometimes the only school you got into was the most expensive one. And if this is really your passion and you're okay,
Speaker: If you do well under pressure and that financial burden won't weigh you down, then sure, you can do it. But I do agree with you in retrospect. I think that if I knew more, I would have considered maybe doing something like my associate did, where she actually, on her second year, she applied for in -state.
Speaker: and then not even lower tuition. Yes. Very smart. Very smart. There are people who, the reality is their parents pay for their dental school. Yeah. No, it's true. If they're paying for your dental school, then go for it. Go wherever it is. I definitely did not have that luxury. Same. How did you get so business, Abby? I feel like you've got the business under lock here a little bit.
Speaker: I've always inclined towards business. I've always worked in sales one way or another and then I married someone with an MBA. He's very entrepreneurial and that inspired me even more and I love the business aspect of it. I always knew I wanted to be a business owner. I always was pretty good at sales and I always loved interacting with people.
Speaker: I always wanted to be a business owner, but then marrying someone who has the business bug just made it even more. So I read a lot of books on business and that's something else that if you really want to perform above and beyond in dentistry these days,
Speaker: you have to take a couple of classes or read a couple of books. I don't take any business classes. I do just read books pretty much. Drop a book for our listeners. Tell me one that you think is a good one for our listeners. Really, really, really basic that will help you in dental clinic is an old school book. And I feel like a broken record of it's how to win friends and influence people.
Speaker: people management. It's not even, if you can manage people, you're already 10 steps ahead of the game in dentistry because that's 90 % of it because I know amazing clinicians that you would, that they just
Speaker: don't know how to deal with people. I've met doctors that are not even the best clinicians, but they were great people, persons, and they were so successful. That's a pattern. I observed these things, and that's something I saw. So books like that. If you really want to get a really, really salesy book, there's one called It's a Hundred Million Dollar Deals by Alex Parmozzi. That's a great one too.
Speaker: We will include those names in the show notes for sure for people to check it out. That's a great one. If you want to get real salesy, but it's kind of hard to apply in dentistry. You have to really take that one with a grain of salt. But I would recommend both that are on people. Yeah, dealing with people would be the best. Very cool. Very cool.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Dental Fuel. We're back next week with Dr. Floodis and another mistake. Trying to reach your goals faster? Check out 90 Day Jumpstart on IgniteDDS .com. Be sure to check us out on Instagram, at Dental Fuel and at IgniteDDS.
