Dental Unscripted | Getting into Ownership and Practice Management Insights

Welcome to Dental Unscripted,

where Mike Dinsio and

Paula Quinn break down the

practice ownership journey,

one episode at a time.

Starting up, buying,

and running a successful dental practice.

What up, what up, guys?

How you doing?

Another episode of Dental Unscripted.

We are right in the middle

of Dental Shark Week,

bringing it back another year.

And this week is all about construction,

dental construction,

so how to build a dental office.

All the questions that go into that,

all the concerns, challenges,

partnerships and questions

that we could get into, we're going to.

And so thanks for joining us again,

Mike Dinsio,

one of the co-founders of

Next Level Consultants and

co-host of this amazing program.

I've got a request, folks,

since we're right in the

middle of Shark Week, I've got a request,

an ask of you.

I really need you to give us five stars.

Hell, if you want to give us four stars,

I'll take it.

But I want you guys to give

us some ratings.

Review us.

I talk to you guys.

There's hundreds of you out

there every single day.

I'm getting positive

feedback on the program.

Yet we only have ten reviews.

What in the heck?

Please get on your program,

whatever you're into.

If it's Apple, Spotify, I don't care.

Just hit the five stars or four, whatever.

I just need more ratings.

All right.

That's my ask of you before

we get the program started.

So without further ado.

today I am interviewing

another friend and partner

someone that I've done a

lot of business with over

the years um a fantastic

dental contractor in the

colorado market chad hill

with hill commercial

construction chad what's up

how you doing brother

thanks for being on the

program I'm good I'm good

mike thanks for having me

on I appreciate it it's good to see you

Yeah, man,

it's been it's been it's been a

minute since I've seen you.

You look great.

Chad and I did a lot of

projects while we were in

and when I was at B of A in Colorado.

So he's primarily serving

the Colorado market and he

has done some work

nationally and he's a

wealth of knowledge when it

comes to anything really

construction related.

I ask some questions all the time.

he'll he'll convouch like

Chad just saw this not sure

what that is and he'll pop

me off the answer so uh

today it's all about Chad

Hill and Hill commercial

construction so Chad why

don't you give us just like

a like a literally a two

minute like elevator kind

of pitch on you and how you

got where you got and the

company and um what makes

you guys so great

Yeah, you got it.

Uh,

I grew up with the construction trades.

My dad was a, uh,

owned a small residential, uh,

concrete company, um, and, uh,

worked for him from the

time I was until when I graduated college,

not a doctor, uh, but, uh,

took me a hot minute, um,

and got a construction

management degree from, uh,

Colorado State University

Bachelor in Construction Management.

Great program.

Love it.

It's one of the best in the

country and it's fed a lot

of high quality construction companies,

not only in Colorado,

but throughout the country.

I started with a small GC,

a friend of my dad's golfing,

like as we all know, golfing for work,

right?

That does lead to contacts.

And it's like, hey,

I want you to check this guy out.

And I

I met my mentor.

My dad was a great guy.

At the time, I realized, gosh,

I don't know if I want to

lay concrete for the rest of my life.

I liked it.

I was in great shape.

I was strong as an ox and

worked really hard.

And the best part of it was

tangible progress.

I'd show up.

There'd be a bad driveway, a bad patio,

bad steps.

When I left, it looked perfect.

And really proud of the work we did.

And I got to work closely with my dad,

which was fantastic.

So there's parts of that I missed.

It's funny.

When I started in the

general contracting world, it's funny.

You push paper all day and you're like,

I don't know if I did anything today,

but when I poured concrete,

I could walk away and go,

that's what I did today.

Yeah.

And I know that was a

special time in your life

because you and your dad

were super close.

That's special.

That's super cool.

I didn't know that story, buddy.

All these years,

I didn't know that story about you.

Yeah.

Yeah, super nice.

This is really dumb and this

is kind of a dumb movie,

but I was with my wife and

I'd met my wife, who I'm still married to,

twenty six years later.

And God bless her.

And I went to a movie and I

and I didn't know what I wanted to do.

Right.

Like when I grew up,

even though I was twenty five years old,

twenty six years old,

twenty five when I met her.

And I saw a movie called Multiplicity.

which is Michael Keaton, random movie.

And if you watched it, you would never say,

that's what I want to do.

The whole premise of the

movie was Michael Keaton

was a residential

construction superintendent

slash project manager.

And-

He was just going a hundred miles an hour,

too many hats and heads and

just couldn't get it all done.

And he, and he went to bed and he,

and he made a wish and he said, God,

I wish there were two of me.

And he wakes up and there's two of him.

And so the rest is the

comedy of the two of them

never being in the same room.

And most people look at that like,

Oh my God, what chaos?

That looks crazy.

I finished watching a movie.

I turned to my wife and I go,

that's what I want to do.

And she's like,

Okay, well,

let's go up to CSU and check it out.

My brother went there for a little bit.

So went and checked out the

construction management program.

I'd always gone to college,

but never really knew what I wanted to do,

but was always helping my dad.

And then I got a degree there,

went to work for a small

general contractor in Broomfield,

worked for him for about six years.

Yeah, about six, six and a half years.

And mentor, great guy.

I wish every worker,

every entrepreneur has a

mentor like I had.

It just was a gift.

Just a giant of a man in every way.

And even though he's about half my size,

I was scared to death of him.

He was like perfect typecast

for a mafia movie.

But he owned a construction company.

But he was a taskmaster.

We were...

Low bureaucracy, high accountability,

and was really a great fit.

Okay.

And is that when Hill Commercial,

when did Hill Commercial

jump into the dental scene?

Yeah.

So it's funny.

I was doing that.

My father-in-law was expanding.

He was literally expanding from

a retail strip that he had

been in for twenty five

years to a pad site,

which is a common term in retail centers.

They'll build a retail

center and then they'll

have a handful of pad sites

out front where you can

build freestanding buildings.

So you can build a McDonald's,

you can build a yoga studio,

you can build whatever you want.

You can build a bank building.

And he bought a plot of land and he's like,

hey,

not really a lot of guys in

the market would you think

you guys would price it we

priced it we were low um

you didn't do me any favors

we were a little bitter and

uh we got the job and I

felt like it was a super

easy crossover yeah I was

you know as as much

technical things as I

learned about uh

convenience stores um heavy

infrastructure underground

storage tanks which had to

be certified in the pumps which

Fuel pumps,

just for your general knowledge,

fuel pumps are underground

where you deliver the gas to your cars,

the dispenser.

So people call those gas pumps.

Those are gas dispensers.

Just a little thing that I

learned along the way.

But and then we got the PLS system.

We've got car washes, lots going on.

And the similarity was is

I've got a ton of third

party equipment that's

provided by others that I

receive a bunch of specs on.

I coordinate with them

throughout the project.

when they show up on site

with the dispensers, the pumps,

the canopy, the carwash equipment,

the point of sale equipment inside,

the walk-in coolers,

all of that has to be

what's called plug and play.

So they plug it in,

or it gets hardwired and

hooked up and it's ready to go.

So my father-in-law trusted

us to build his dental office.

Um,

and we did that and it was a really

easy crossover.

So I kind of cultivated that market,

did a bunch of work in

there while I worked for, uh, uh, Bonnie.

And then I, uh, transferred over to, uh,

he'd merge with somebody.

Wasn't a great fit.

I was there about eight

months and I felt like the

culture shifted from, uh,

low bureaucracy to high

accountability to just the

opposite which didn't work

well with me so I stayed

about eight months I did a

couple big projects and I

just went to him I said hey

I gotta strike out on my

own if you're gonna stay

here I tried to get him to

leave but he wouldn't leave

so in oh seven uh with uh

no sense no no money uh no

idea what I was getting into uh

I started a construction company.

My wife created our logo,

which is super simple and super cool.

And here you are.

Here you are,

one of the biggest dental

contractors in dental.

I think that's a great pivot

point to really start

diving into some of these

dental projects and all the

things that you've learned

since two thousand seven

and just all the practices

that you've been a part of,

the knowledge that you have

now from that journey that

you just shared to getting into dental.

The first question, Chad, that I have,

buddy,

is when you're looking at a startup,

like a lot of our viewers

and listeners are startups, right?

And they're trying to figure

out where the best place is to go.

And they're looking at

demographics and they're

doing a business plan with

me or whatever.

And we finally find a space.

I think that one of the

highest values of a GC is

looking at that space and

really helping us determine

if it's the right space.

Can you just get into a

little bit of the things

that you look at in the due

diligence process that you

think is important for a

dentist to look at,

for a GC to be looking at

to help maybe the real

estate guy negotiate or for

a dentist to think about

before they actually take

this space on for ten years or more?

Yeah, a hundred percent.

I usually encourage

clients,

whether they come to me first or

they come to me second, I always say, hey,

pick two or three spots

that kind of meet your needs,

square footage-wise, geography-wise,

demographic-wise.

I'll visit each one.

I'll evaluate each one.

I'll produce for you pros

and cons of each.

Hey,

Need to update ADA

accessibility at location

A. Location B is a little too big.

We need to see if the

landlord will subdivide it.

Location C, gosh, great building,

good bones,

Built a little older,

probably going to run into some asbestos.

So it's going to raise some costs.

We look at what kind of

infrastructure they have.

And so when I say infrastructure,

I mean dental, sewer, HVAC units,

water tap,

what's available currently,

and then what are they

going to need to put into

the space to make it a

working dental space?

Love it.

So we evaluate each site and

then I kind of say, here's my thoughts.

This is my favorite,

but I'm not attached in any way.

I'll make anyone work.

Just know here are the pros and cons.

Some will cost you money.

Some will save you money,

but ultimately location's important,

right?

Line of sight's important.

Yeah.

So there's a, there's a business.

That's kind of how we go about it.

That's why we like the worst

thing ever is when I have a

client come to me and they say, Hey,

not a great space, just signed the lease.

And I go look at it and I'm like, okay,

well you got a three quarter inch tap.

You've got a hundred amps of

power and you've got heating,

but no cooling.

Okay.

That's a problem.

So that's why we want to be in early.

Yeah,

and that makes a ton of sense because

I love that you said multiple spaces.

I've found a trend,

and I said it in the last interview,

that some real estate

people aren't doing

multiple locations these days.

It's like it's too much work

for them to put LOIs in in

multiple spaces.

I do recognize that some markets...

it's difficult to find space.

And I do want to touch on

the due diligence of ground

up because sometimes

there's no spaces available

and we got to look at a plot of dirt.

So,

I think we covered pretty

well here on Shark Week

with the rest of the

contractors around the rest

of the country.

Top, top,

top dental contracts are in the country.

Chad,

you got like this Southwest because

Southeast, I don't know what Colorado is.

I guess it's West.

This market that we've

carved you out of for the

expert in your area.

Yeah.

We covered due diligence on rented space.

Let's talk really quick

about due diligence on

ground up because I know

you've done a lot of ground

up in the last two years.

And I think Shark Week needs

to cover due diligence of ground up,

not to open up a huge,

huge can of worms here.

We could probably talk the

entire episode just on due

diligence of ground up,

but you want to hit the

highlights on that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll try to highlight and keep it concise.

What you want to do is you

want to look for the right

square footage in the right

location you want.

You want to have a rough

idea of how many square feet of a foot,

you know,

what kind of footprint you need

for a building.

I think I've shared with you in the past,

you know,

an acre is forty three thousand

five hundred and sixty square feet.

A loose, loose, loose rule of thumb.

architects don't cringe when I say this,

is you take the square footage,

divide it by six,

and that tells you what

your footprint can be.

Now, depending on the zoning,

you can go up, you can do one level.

You also want to look at soil, right?

Whether you've got expansive soil,

the history of the property,

did it get a phase one report?

So phase one is going to tell you,

okay here's what the space

was before it used to be a

uh and the big scary one is

used to be a uh dry

cleaners well historically

dry cleaners yeah gas

station's easy because you

can never sell contaminated

soil so and I ran into that

my father-in-law's job and

helped him get rid of that

through uh uh shell they

were fantastic uh he had some

tanks leak into his property

and they remediated all

that no questions asked so

that part's easy but um you

know you're kind of taking

the ground as is and you've

got to take the good with

the bad right so ideally

what you want is some good

stable soil that lends

itself to shallow um

footings and shallow walls

where you can do a slab on grade um

and then uh it's zoned

properly for medical use

and you're able to park it

right it's got the

visibility you want so

those are the kind of

things that that that we

look at and then also just

price point right because

that's a huge factor in uh overall cost

I love that.

So soil and the right amount of space.

I think that's an important thing.

And you're right.

We just more recently talked about that.

And I think startups are

getting more inquisitive about

about owning their buildings.

They're listening to

podcasts just like this and

the benefits of owning your

building right out of the

gate versus literally

giving a million dollars to the landlord.

So if they can find

something they can purchase

right out of the gate,

they're interested.

The lending is a different conversation.

It's always a very big part

of the conversation with lending.

But if you can get

yourselves the right amount

of money and Chad can build

the building for the right

price that fits the budget,

hell, that's the best deal you can get.

But then it turns into some

kind of investment

conversation about renting

half the building.

And gosh, like I said,

we could go down a crazy path here.

I want to transition this

conversation to this idea

of plans to permit.

That's the next segment of the program.

And I think, again,

we've had a lot of conversation about it.

There's like this idea where

you hire an architect to

drive or architect space

plan or whatever to drive

the whole project or the

contractor to assist you or

even have in-house this

idea of plans to permit.

So there's these...

these sections along the way

that you've got to get it

from plans to permit.

And then Chad, the GC picks up and builds,

but the plans need to be created to,

Chad,

walk us through your collaboration

with designers, architects.

Obviously,

you're a big fan of working with them.

You don't want to alienate that,

but is there a preferred method?

Is there challenges,

pros and cons of working all in-house?

What's your take on it?

yeah so step one would

always be if you find an

existing building get a

dental equipment rep that

you trust and they will

give you a initial floor

plan for free I mean it's

implied that they do that

upfront work that you're

going to buy equipment from

them so they'll do a layout

and I'll tell you what those guys do

Each one of those CAD

draftspersons does dozens a day.

So they've seen way more than I've seen,

right?

As far as layout works, as far as access,

as far as flow of the office,

as far as squeaking number of ops in,

making sure you account for

All the treatment areas and

patient areas that you want

to incorporate into that space.

So that would be the first

start is to just, OK,

let's see if this pencils

because let's say I got a

site in downtown Denver.

Right.

Well,

that price per square foot is going

to be way different than if we are in.

Timnath or we're in Colorado Springs.

It just it makes a big difference.

So it doesn't cost anything.

You find a GC that you trust

and you like and you can say, well,

that's two thirty five a square foot.

Downtown Denver,

you're probably two seventy

five a square foot because

I've got parking requirements.

I don't know where to put a roll off.

So I've literally got to

haul trash every night.

um and I can't uh parking

you've got to pay a premium

for parking those things

now granted there's a

premium you can charge for

your services but again

that goes along with really

the space diligence but as

far as the process and the

flow once we get a floor

plan we like hand that off

to an architect that that

they enjoy working with um

and it understands their

vision I always encourage

dentists to create a

pinterest board to say and

They seem to focus in on things they love.

And I love for them to put

things they hate.

So I want them to have two folders.

I love this.

I hate this.

Because that's good.

What they don't like is just

as important as what they like.

Right.

because you want to steer clear of that.

And the architect then takes

that vision and you want to

make sure that the

architect you hire is

somebody that is a good

listener and is building

a practice that speaks to a

your budget be your level

of service um and then um c

speaks to your vision right

uh I've never I've never

met I've I've never met an

architect that talks too

much about budget that's a

joke that's a joke uh but

you're you're spot on

absolutely right I love I

love that feedback on

what makes a great architect in your mind?

It's one that communicates

super well as creative and

does have a general sense of the budget.

Is that what I heard you say?

Yeah.

They want to be,

you want them to be budget

minded and you also want

them to capture the vision

because there's really, you know,

guys have, you know,

doctors have ideas in their minds of,

okay, this is my ideal practice.

I absolutely want this.

I want a toy, you know,

a pediatric dentist.

I want a prize bin right here.

I want it to be this kind of theme.

I love these colors, all those things.

And then you get a design back and it's,

You know, when you got the wrong architect,

when it's like, OK,

I don't see one element I

spoke about and I don't see any, you know,

there's none of my vision in this.

Right.

It's more of a monument to themselves.

And there's a lot of those out there,

a lot of them.

And so you want to steer

clear of those guys are

usually more expensive.

And it's going to drive the

cost of the space up.

So and we're always cognizant of, OK,

is this a startup doc?

Is this a second location?

Is this man?

I've had two offices.

This is my Taj Mahal.

Right.

Right.

And I always try to find out from them, OK,

what's your what's your hot

button points like?

What?

What do you hate at your current office?

Like what aggravates you?

Is your sterilization way

too far away from hygiene?

Do you not have a place for cart storage?

Is your x-ray too close to the front?

So you want to think about

those things that don't

work because a lot of docs, you know,

some of them do this once,

some of them do it twice.

three times in their whole life.

They'll do a startup,

they'll do a mid-range,

and then they'll do a

freestanding building.

That's the evolution of them.

Then you've got the DSOs who

Just kind of go to town on those things.

But we really kind of focus

on patient impact areas and

then try to make some shush there.

You want to balance the

level of the finish of the

office with the level of

service they provide.

So if it's a cosmetic dentist,

that build out is going to

be different than if it's a

general dentist or if it's

an orthodontist.

I just literally had a

conversation with one of my clients,

a pediatric dentist,

and he's going to be

serving a Medicaid population.

And I looked at his Pinterest board,

and it looked like one of

the most high-end websites.

uh cosmetic dental offices

I've ever seen before and I

was just like hey maybe we

need to talk about what

what what what this looks

like I I think that's

perfect chad that you're

getting into a lot of this

stuff my my my key

takeaways is do what you

don't like I I find that a

lot of clients don't go to

like a dental assistant

friend or another dentist friend

and get their opinion

because those poor dental

assistants are doing are

they're putting the steps

in they're going to the

sterilization they're

they're they're doing all

the hard work and and the

dentist has their feet

kicked up in the back room

waiting for their next

hygiene exam um you know

what I mean figuratively

but but yeah you don't have

too many cooks in the

kitchen but you want to

yeah you where I was going

with that was to your point

you don't want to you don't

want to have too many cooks

in the kitchen but you do

want to involve your key

staff to say okay where

we're at now or in past

offices what worked well

what didn't work well right

again you don't want ten

opinions but if you could

get two or three of your

top people to say

Hey, front end,

what is the most efficient

way for us to do check in, check out?

What's the most efficient

way for us to present treatment plans?

When we're doing treatment,

what does the layout look like?

Do you want a counter on both sides?

And tell me why you want a

counter on both sides.

You got to push them because

these things cost money.

And is it a want to have or need?

so uh it's important to

involve the whole team if

you've got a trusted team

around you to really want

Well, I want to kind of pivot then.

So what we've covered is due diligence.

We've covered architect and that process.

I'd love to ask the question

of this idea of a hard bid.

Hard bids are becoming few

and far between these days.

There's a lot of reasons for it.

Back in the day,

there used to be what I

call the negotiated bid

where you could just talk

about a percentage and then

it would be open book.

That's old school.

But this idea of hard bid,

I think there's a lot of

challenges with it that

we've kind of already

talked about this week.

What...

What do you find when you

get like this high-end

architect that isn't sensitive to budget?

How does that impact the hard bid process?

When it hits your desk and

you bid it out based on

what was provided to you,

and then the number

obviously isn't really

where everybody wanted it to be.

Can you go through that

process or how you

communicate that to the

dentists out there?

Communicate that to the

dentists out there?

Yeah.

Yeah, communication is key.

I always say C is the most important.

C for communication is the

most important C in construction, right?

Everybody has to be reading

from the same sheet of music.

And you want to make sure

that as you've got design development,

you're seeing this kind of

come to fruition.

And yeah,

this speaks to what we talked about.

You go back and yep, this makes sense.

uh because the worst thing

you want is okay we started

here uh startup dentist

medicaid um you know to

your point earlier why do

we have a fountain in the

waiting room like who's

who's that for like I'm not

sure this is the plastic

surgeon's office let's what

are we doing um so you you

want to speak to the level

of service they provide um and

Uh, so what we do when that happens and it,

it does happen is we

identify those things.

And like, I always use a simple example of,

uh,

our particular architect who is

phenomenal.

They do a crazy laundry area

that's built in.

It costs like forty five hundred dollars.

It looks beautiful.

And I'm like,

let's spend your money front of house.

Let's spend your money on

lab sterile treatment, reception,

patient waiting room.

and let's make sure that we

spend your dollars in the smart places,

right?

It doesn't mean that the

back of house areas are

dumbed down or that the

break room needs to be subpar.

It just needs to be nice enough, right?

Because really what's bringing you back,

what's bringing patients

back are your staff and

then just the environment

that you bring them into to

do practices and selling cases.

I'll just use the example of

my father-in-law

He practiced for twenty five

years in a retail center.

Great dentist.

We built him that building.

I could throw a football

from his retail old

location to the new location.

He quadrupled his practice in two years.

And he told me one time at a holiday party,

you know, it's funny in my new building,

he goes, people walk in and it's nice,

but it's not over the top.

But all of a sudden,

the level of my office

finish tells people I'm a good dentist,

right?

So it gives them confidence

to spend big money on larger cases,

right?

So the environment you work in is great.

And again,

speaking to Medicaid and Medicare,

you want those to be very nice.

You want to be back a house to be hard,

durable surfaces, very functional,

long lasting.

But, you know,

maybe we don't have a coffee bar.

Maybe we have just a beverage bar.

Maybe we have a water filler.

you know water fillers since

covet are huge those ones

that tell you how many

plastic bottles they say

and nobody wants to put

their mouth on a drinking

fountain anymore anyways

right so um that's uh

that's a problem but yeah

we just pull those things

out and we say hey doc I

love this what you don't

want to do is get into

to let the architect,

if you're working as a team,

you don't want them to get

so far down the road that when you say,

hey, wow, this is a great design, but

You're here, you can afford this.

And then you get design regret.

And then the rest of it

feels like a compromise to

them because the architect

has gone bananas with, oh, well, yeah,

you like that wallpaper?

We can do this wallpaper

here and there and there.

And let's do this niche and

let's do this artwork and

these vaulted ceilings and

all those things that cost money,

but take away from their patient base,

take away from their vision,

take away from their bottom line.

Yeah,

I think that's exactly how I would

describe the situation

because you can really get

off kilter quick with budget.

That's why I made that joke

earlier about do architects

really pay attention to budget?

Of course they do.

But when you're a startup

and if an architect,

I think that's a good

question to ask an

architect space planners.

How many startups do you do a year?

dental startups do you do a year?

Because if the number is a lot,

let's just say five.

Let's just say I do five startups a year.

Then they know how to design

a budget-friendly startup.

They also know that you

can't afford all glass and

you can't afford the curved

walls and all that.

So

And it's really tough for a

contractor to have that

conversation because

they're already thinking

that Chad's the guy that's

making all the money and

with all the margin.

But really,

a lot of it is the design features.

All right, let's pivot.

Let's pivot to the last question,

the last topic here.

And that is,

where do you see construction right now?

Kind of like a market watch situation.

Where are we at with construction?

I mean,

there's a lot of conversations that

people ask me all the time.

I definitely don't want to

get political on the show,

but with the tariffs and

there was a problem with

inflation a minute ago.

My eggs are still ten bucks.

I don't know what's going on there.

But whatever.

Is that affecting construction right now?

And are you seeing projects slow down,

pick up?

What are you seeing out there?

uh we've got a great back

backlog um I'm seeing about

the same right um number of

projects it was funny right

around the first of the

year we got all these scary

tariff notices and I had a

steel guy on a on a vet

space we were doing and he

said well unfortunately

because of the tariff this

has gone up thirty five

percent so quick ai search

the tariff is twelve

percent and and the twelve

percent tariff does not

mean a twelve percent

increase in cost right

There's many factors that go

into that that I won't deep dive into.

It usually boils down to by

the time it gets to that guy,

a three to five percent increase.

So I sent it back to him and said, hey,

I'm only seeing the twelve

percent there if he never got back to me.

A lot of suppliers will use

that as an example, right?

One of the best things that

came out of COVID was it

made us more creative.

So that was a bigger blow to

everything because

literally we had rooftop

units that were eight months out.

You've got a twelve to

fourteen week build that doesn't work.

So

What we learned to do there

is we've got a rooftop unit

and it's brand A. We would

find brand B that is same performance,

might cost a little less,

might cost a little bit more.

You never know.

But, you know,

the opportunity cost of not...

being open makes a big

difference so we just go

out and we source things do

that all the time did that

with doors we do uh we have

a large veterinary practice

we do in town um and simple

doors and we work with the

biggest door manufacturer

in the western united

states they could not get

these eight foot maple doors for

Fourteen weeks.

I bought the doors from

Minneapolis and same cost with shipping.

It's fine.

Same door looks great.

So it just makes you more creative.

Keep showing your toes.

And same thing with tariffs.

You just got to be creative

and try to find other alternatives.

And that's why that's the

difference between a

We talked about delivery

system a little bit.

We might get more into that later,

but there's the traditional design, bid,

build,

a model and then there's the

design build model where me

and the doc and maybe the

equipment rep and the

architect for sure are

sitting around a table and we're going,

okay, what do we want to do?

How many ops are we going to equip?

What's the feel of the office?

What's your vision?

Give a Pinterest board.

And then we're all, like I said, again,

reading from the same sheet

of music and we go down the road.

Yeah, we collaborate.

It's a collaboration.

Yeah.

I love that.

At the end of the day...

No, no.

At the end of the day, go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say.

Well, at the end of the day.

Go, go.

It's your turn.

Well, at the end of the day,

it's going to cost what

it's going to cost for a startup.

a specific location and it's

going to cost what it's

going to cost for a oral

surgeon at a specific

location right to be done

by a qualified um

contractor who knows what

they're doing um you know I

know a lot of guys give

teaser rates for oh square

foot wise yeah when when

the whole market is

to fifty, they'll give a teaser rate of,

well, this guy's to fifteen.

And, you know,

I never sell myself on my competitors.

I always sell myself on service.

I look at my job as

education and communication,

and I want my clients to

know everything about the process.

I want them to be as

involved or as uninvolved

as they want to be.

but still make sure they get

the right finished product they want.

Yeah.

I love, I love that, Chad.

Um, I, this is, um, one thing that's, um,

I think you nailed that.

I think, um, I agree with you.

Projects are not slowing down.

They, um, startups are happening.

Established doctors are remodeling, uh,

expanding, relocating, you name it.

So, um,

I think the overall mood is

if you want to make a move

with your business, expand,

make it better, get into business, do it.

There's no better time than

now because it's probably

only going to go up from here.

This is the last part.

We're at a forty minute mark

and I hope we haven't lost

anybody on the drive.

You know, Chad,

you're one of my go to's

for leadership tips.

I know you're constantly reading stuff.

You can see these books behind me.

I've probably read

Most of them, not all of them.

Chad,

what's your leadership tip for the day?

You're a big leadership guy.

You own your business.

You took the risk and now it's paid off.

For the listener right now

that's thinking about

getting into ownership, isn't sure,

not sure if they want to

bet on themselves or whatever,

what might have you,

what's your tip for them?

What advice do you have to

business owners or future business owners,

leadership-wise?

Well, just do your homework.

Communicate clearly with the team.

Make sure you've got the

right people in place that

are looking out for your interests.

um do your research make

sure you understand things

we love to look at leases

we love to be involved I do

a lot of free work up front

so you know I I've done I

can't tell you how many

jobs I've taken to the goal

line and not and never

gotten and I don't care if

my partners in the market

get it and it's a winner for the doctor

I'm good with that.

But what I don't want them

to do is is go down the wrong road.

You know,

business ownership is not to be

taken lightly.

And you want somebody who

you want a contractor who

is not afraid to tell, you know, because,

you know, example, I had a doctor say,

gosh, you know what?

We got four ops.

I've got two equipped.

I've got those other two.

And there's a little embarrassment.

Right.

Which you shouldn't be.

those other two ops are

empty and I just kind of

feel like you know it

wouldn't cost me much to

equip those and I go doc

that money right now is

going to look way better in

your account than it is in

my mill workers account and

the dental equipment guys account.

And trust me,

if you want to equip those ops,

we build them to the point

where they're plug and play.

So literally all I need to

do is send an electrician

to wire the light.

Other than that,

dental guys can hook up

everything and they can go.

So I'm a big, big part of the bucket,

but I know there's other

parts of the buckets.

There's operating capital,

there's marketing, there's staff,

um you know there's signage

um all those things that go

into the picture so you

want a contractor who's not

afraid to tell you you know

what not now and when I go

to cut things I try to cut

things in a way that cut

things that we can add later right so man

This this niche at the end of the hall.

I really want this to be a waterfall.

Right.

Water runs all the way down.

Or I saw this really cool

geode in Santa Fe and I

want to buy that and hang it down there.

And I'm like, hey, Doc,

let's get a print for now.

Right.

And hang that up.

And that'll be your gift to

yourself at month three

when you're killing it and

you're expanding other ops.

So I love that.

That's the important thing

is just be honest with you

and just and find somebody

who's solution minded.

I always pride myself on

never sending a doc an

email or a text at a Friday and say, oh,

man, bad news.

Rooftop units are another

three months out.

I know we're supposed to

open in two weeks.

I'll find out more Monday.

You know, that's why I have the gray hairs,

because I figure out how to

make that happen.

And then I'll bring them at

least one solution.

So if I know there's no way around it,

it's going to cost them money right now.

I tell them.

If I can do that sausage

making and then present

them with the challenge and

then the solution,

I'd much rather do that

than them to worry because

I know whatever I worry about day to day,

they got a hundred other

things because more times than not,

they don't know what they don't know,

right?

About business, about construction,

they're good dentists.

It's no different than being

a contractor when I started, right?

I didn't know what I didn't

know about being a GC.

I knew what it was to be a

great project manager,

but there's all this other

accounting piece,

there's this marketing piece,

and I did a lot of that before.

I love that.

Really,

that's where the education piece

comes in and just find

somebody you trust.

I think that's great advice.

I love that.

I don't think enough

professionals out there say no, Chad,

to your point.

And I think that goes for all of us.

My biggest job is to tell

people no all the time.

But I would love to share

that responsibility with the contractor,

the equipment people, all the people.

And I think that's really good advice.

And that tells you you've

got a partner in this.

It's not just a vendor, but a partner.

And I think that's really, really key.

Well, with that being said,

we're forty five minutes in.

Great interview, Chad.

Thank you so much for your

time and your knowledge and

investing in all of us today.

Folks,

I just want to give you another

reminder that we need some reviews.

Please pop us off a review

if you can for a quick second.

If you're

Spotify or Apple Tunes.

And stay tuned.

We're gonna keep Shark Week

rolling here this week and

continue to give you great

information about this

whole idea of construction.

Thanks so much, Chad,

for being on the program.

We're gonna put his contact below.

If you have a question for Chad,

I know him.

He would love to invest in you more.

If you've got a question,

he'll be happy to answer,

so we'll put his contact info below.

Thank you so much, Chad.

I appreciate you, brother.

Yeah, thank you, Mike.

Good catching up,

and thanks for the opportunity.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely, man.

Be good.

Talk soon, guys.

Bye.

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