The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry

Ranked the #1 DSO Podcast!

Welcome to The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry!

In this episode, we welcome back Brian Colao, the Director of the DSO Industry Group at Dykema, for an insightful discussion on the current state of the DSO market as we move through 2025.

Join us as we dive into:

Current challenges and opportunities in the DSO space
Impact of economic factors on mergers and acquisitions
Rise of same-store growth strategies
Updates on the upcoming Dykema DSO Conference, including exciting workshops and networking events

Show Details:

Dykema DSO Conference Dates: August 6-8, 2025
Location: Gaylord Rockies, Aurora, Colorado
Discount Code: Use GDN25 to save $250 on REGISTRATION!

For more information, visit https://dykemadso.com/

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Dykema DSO podcast transcript:

Welcome to the Group Dentistry Now Show, the voice of the DSO industry. Join us as we talk with industry leaders about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry. With over 200 episodes and listeners in over 100 countries, we’re proud to be ranked the number one DSO podcast. For the latest DSO news, analysis and events, and to subscribe to our DSO Weekly e-newsletter, visit GroupDentistryNow.com. We hope you enjoyed today’s show.

Bill Neumann: Welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now show. I’m Bill Neumann, and thanks again for joining us. We are recording this in early April, and this is now the third time we’ve had Brian Kaleo on the podcast. this year. So he’s been on plenty of times before that. So he’s becoming I mean, if this isn’t a regular, I don’t know who is. But thanks for jumping back on. Brian’s been traveling across the globe. So we’re able to get him settled somewhere for at least an hour to sit down and talk to us.

Brian Colao: You know, Bill, when it comes to the Group Dentistry Now podcast, too much is never enough. You know, too much. I hope I’ll be on again next week.

Bill Neumann: There you go. That sounds good, Brian. Well, so again, I always say this and kind of laugh, but I do feel like there’s maybe one or two new people that come in every couple of podcasts and may not know who you are, new to the DSO industry. So we’ll get through the formal introduction here for the one or two people that don’t know who you are. Brian Kalaya is the Director of the DSO Industry Group at Dykema. He’s been in the industry now, how many years? Is it 30 years? By 30th year. Yeah. So he has been around for a while. He was definitely around before DSOs were DSOs. That’s absolutely for sure. They were group practices or whatever the heck they called them back in the early days.

Brian Colao: Oh, yeah, the DPMs, you know, Dental Practice Management. I mean, you know, MSOs, Medical Service Organizations, you know, those were sort of what they called them before the term DSO even existed.

Bill Neumann: So, Brian, again, just for the people that may not know who you are, can you talk a little bit about Dykema and what your role is?

Brian Colao: Yeah, no, I’m in a ringmaster of the circus is one way to describe it, but formally I’m the director of Dykema’s DSO industry group. I’ve got 72 professionals that work with me. We’re the leading law firm in the dental space and we represent hundreds and hundreds of DSOs. We do more DSO transactions to my knowledge than anybody else in the United States. And this is my 30th year doing it and we put on the biggest DSO conference really in the world, to my knowledge. That’s the Dykema DSO conference, and we’re in our 12th year of that event.

Bill Neumann: And that’s one of the big reasons we’re here today. But I figure before we jump into that, and like I mentioned, you were on the podcast two other times this year, we’re talking a little bit about women in DSO, I think was the first one we had. And then we’re talking about the GLOW Lounge, which will be at the I’d like my SO conference, still with me, we’ll touch on that a little bit more. Maybe a couple of things that I don’t think we really spoke about on the other two podcasts, and people are always, want to pick your brain, right? Don’t you love that when people want to pick your brain, but maybe we could pick your brain for a couple of minutes. And then people don’t have to ask you that because they’ve heard it on the podcast, but A little bit of an update, maybe, on what’s going on in the DSO space and the dental industry as we sit in early April 2025. What does 2025 look like so far?

Brian Colao: Yeah, I mean, it’s sort of tricky, just like the end of 2024. You know, we had a new election in November, and I was very optimistic that the new administration would start to do things that would jumpstart the M&A markets. Because the whole issue is, if people that are listening don’t know, some of the main issues we’ve encountered is You know, you got to grow these organizations. And the traditional growth model was through M&A activity, mergers and acquisitions. And then around June of 22, you know, the interest rates skyrocketed almost overnight, inflation skyrocketed, and that really slowed down the M&A market. For most of 2023 and 24, the name of the game was same store growth because that’s the only other real way you can grow your EBITDA. You can’t do M&A. It’s got to be through same store growth and, you know, maybe cutting expenses. That’s the only other way to do it. So DSOs have been focused on all that, but everybody still want to get back to the tried and true method of growing, which was M&A activity and Not a lot of that occurred in 2023 or 2024, but we were hopeful for 2025. I was saying, look, you know, I think we got a new administration. They’re going to start to be, you know, regulatory friendly environment. They’re going to start to do everything they can to lower the interest rates. And we’re going to see, you know, a pretty robust M&A environment. Unfortunately, we’ve gotten bogged down now on tariffs and other sort of economic instability trade wars. It’s just as tricky now as it was the fourth quarter of last year. I did have a forecast that I thought the M&A activity would really start to pick up in third or fourth quarter of this year. Now, I’m starting to doubt that. We might be looking at 2026 or fourth quarter of this year at the earliest. It’s still a little tricky for all that, but on the issue of same-store growth, I think that’s you know, still very much the biggest focus of the industry right now, because the M&A markets have not really jump started. So everybody is focused on, you know, trying to, one, reduce expenses as much as possible, and also implement as much measures as they can, whether they’re innovative technologies or just tried and true things to increase same store growth.

Bill Neumann: Any thoughts on DeNovo versus MNA? Have you seen more of groups leaning towards that? Or is it pretty much still like, hey, you know, neither is really a huge focus and it’s more same store growth.

Brian Colao: Yeah, it’s one of those things, you know, where if you follow the stock market, there’s been stretches where they’ve said there’s no safety, you know, not stocks, not bonds, you know, it’s just tough. And, you know, the problem with the DeNovos are the cost of construction has gone up because the cost of materials have gone up, the rents have gone up. So, you know, a DeNovo is not a magic I have seen more de novos lately than I have because some organizations have been able to make that work where they couldn’t make M&A work, they were able to make de novos work. So I have seen sort of a slight uptick in that, but it’s not been any type of magic bullet that solved the fundamental problems of high interest rates, high cost of goods, shortages of labor. None of that stuff has really been solved yet.

Bill Neumann: And I think there’s things that go on that you probably see in the background, you know, as some large DSOs may still be struggling and dealing with, you know, the lenders aren’t super happy with the way things are going and private equity backers. So there seems to be all sorts of turmoil and things that we don’t necessarily hear about. But it seems to be a lot of challenges with some of the bigger groups. Not all of them, of course. Some are doing well.

Brian Colao: Stable a lot, but that’s different than saying you’re going to go out and buy a whole bunch of stuff. I think most of the instability that we saw in 2023 and 24 on things like the landers coming in in some cases and appointing receivers or taking the keys, we saw a lot of cost cutting measures, a lot of layoffs. you know, certain practices that were unproductive being sold off. We saw some C-suite changes at some DSOs, you know, this went on in 23, 24, most of that stuff has passed and, you know, things have stabilized substantially, but we’re still a bit away from saying, okay, now we’re going to go out. It’s like, if you have a major surgery bill, you might be in a good place, but are you going to run a triathlon that afternoon? Not really. So I would say most of the organizations are in a good place, trending upwards, stable, but that doesn’t mean they’re fit to go run a marathon. So it’s still gonna take some time.

Bill Neumann: Well, that’s good news. And we just did our DSO deal roundup for March and seemed like there was a slight uptick in activity. Now, again, these aren’t like mass, the big groups out there buying.

Brian Colao: By the way, everybody should read Group Dentistry Now’s deal roundup. It’s very well done. You’ve had it for several years and I read it. But yes, you know those middle market deals, you know, onesie, twosie practices, small groups, they were going even in 23 and 24, not as rigorous as they were going before that. But yeah, those type of deals are getting done. And I should have said that at the beginning. You know, if you’re looking for those type of deals, they can be had and they’ve been consistently occurring. And if you look at the group dentistry, Now, Deal Roundup, you’ll see even specifics and names and things that are named there, and that’s great, but that’s a far cry from the bigger, more substantial transactions that have to happen to recycle the money. You have to be able to recycle the money.

Bill Neumann: Last question on that, and then we want to talk about your event for sure. We’ve got, there’s still a lot of big deals to your point that should have happened, some recapitalizations that should have occurred a year or two ago. At what point do those have to happen? I mean, they’ll happen even if the outcome isn’t what is really desired.

Brian Colao: You know, it’s an individual PE by PE situation to answer your question, but the concept is at least simple to understand. You know, the PE groups go to their investors and they collect money and put them in funds or raise money, you know, and put them in funds. And then those funds usually have a shelf life of three to five years. Unfortunately, because of the challenging economic conditions, Some of those funds have extended six, seven, even eight years, which is way past where they would want to extend. So at some point, and we don’t know, it depends on the group, depends on the organization. At some point, logic would suggest one of two things are gonna happen. The market is gonna improve and they’re gonna recycle the money and sell the organization, and that would be ideal for everybody. Or these conditions are going to remain and maybe they just have to lower the price to something that’s less than ideal because they still need to recycle the money. And right now, nobody really knows. When I talk to the PE guys, nobody’s there yet. Nobody’s saying, hey, we’re forced to do that. And I don’t think we are there yet, but if this thing went on for years, it’s conceivable that certain people might decide on an organization-by-organization basis that they may have to make some compromises like that. But I think the M&A activity is poised at least for an uptick in 2026 if it’s not going to be this year. And I think most, if not all, are going to wait it out that long.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. All right. So we have something to look forward to, hopefully sooner rather than later. Moving on to the DICOMA DSO conference, it is the 12th annual conference. It is back in Aurora, Colorado at the Gaylord Rockies. I think you have like an extended agreement there, right, in Colorado.

Brian Colao: Yeah, we signed a five year contract. Last year was the first year. So we’re there like four more years for sure. And, you know, they’re already talking to us. That’s the crazy thing about running these events. They’re booked so many years in advance. You know, we’re wondering, God, are we all even going to be here then? And they’re asking us to sign, you know, a contract even further. And I don’t know what we’ll do, you know, on the next renewal. But right now we’re there for four more years. That’s for sure.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. So August 6th through the 8th. And again, I said this on the last podcast, but it will sell out. The hotel will absolutely sell out. So you better make sure that you book the hotel ASAP.

Brian Colao: Yeah by May. I mean I know we’re talking here like very early April. You’re probably going to release this in a couple of weeks. So people will probably see this if I’m guessing by like mid to late April. I would tell you if you haven’t booked your hotel room and you’re looking at this in mid to late April you really need to because historically the hotel hasn’t lasted through the month of May. You know it’s been sold out sometime in May.

Bill Neumann: Right. Yeah. It happens every single year, and it seems like it happens earlier and earlier each year. So, again, August 6th through the 8th, and I do want to kind of go run through things. Well, first off, throughout the coupon code, it’s GDN, like Group Dentistry now, GDN25, and that saves you $250. It’s a lot of money, so it’ll save you $250. Make sure you use that code. Brian and the team at Dykema were kind enough to give us that offer for our listeners. So make sure you take advantage of that. This is a meeting that seems to get longer and longer each year. More and more events seem to get attached to it, whether they’re Dykema events or other organizations kind of jump on and say, hey, we know everybody’s going to be at this event. So let’s do our thing there in Colorado. So I think we should probably go through that a little bit. Wednesday is the traditional day that people come in and get ready for the event. But a lot of things are starting early in the morning where you’re coming in the Tuesday to get there for early Wednesday for things to start. So do you want to talk a little bit about what’s going on on Wednesday? You’ve got Tusk and Dental Pitch and all sorts of things.

Brian Colao: Yeah, I mean, or even, yes, we’ll talk about that. But let’s talk about the reason, you know, this has become, Bill, as you know, the best networking event in the history of the DSO industry. It really has. I mean, you know, I said that back in the day and people would go on the message board, oh, how can you say that? At this point, I really think that’s the way it is. I don’t think anybody can argue that. We have more people at our event than any other event. We have more decision makers and owners and folks there. I feel like it’s not that controversial to make that statement anymore, that this is the best networking event in the history of the industry. But because of that, people have said how, you know, traditionally, you’d come, people would come late afternoon Wednesday, it would kick off with the woman in DSO Ascend event, four o’clock Wednesday, and then it would be like a absolute barn burner on Thursday and then people would leave, you know, midday Friday and so many people said it’s just not enough. You’ve gathered all of these folks here and we run out of time to do the networking we want to do. You know, we got 15 meetings in, but we wanted 30 meetings. I mean, you know, how do we do this? So that was the impetus behind the workshops and some of the other events. So believe it or not, Bill, some people are coming in Monday night for Tuesday events. Like, for example, Tuesday, there’s going to be a huge cabana party that Planet DDS is putting out at the pool. There’s going to be golf events that Woman in DSO puts on. on Tuesday and some evening happy hours on Tuesday that are absolutely terrific for networking. And I’ve heard lots of people say to me, no offense, we love the event, but we got most of our networking done on Tuesday and Wednesday because people weren’t distracted. If you’re a vendor, we closed accounts. If you’re a seller, you talk to buyers. If you’re a buyer, you met a seller. If you’re a consultant, you met some people that might be clients. You know, we heard all of this. So right starting Tuesday, we’ve got the Woman in DSO Golf event. Plus we’ve got, again, the Planet DDS Cabana Party. Plus there’s several happy hours that are going to be announced, like evening receptions that are not like Dykema official receptions, but they have sponsors and they’re going to get announced and they’re going to be tremendous networking events. Then you start on Wednesday, you’ve certainly got, you know, the Tusk event that we’ve had to give the sell side event for several years that’s going on you’ve got dental pitch brokerage event is going on they’re going to introduce buyers to sellers right at the conference, which I’m really really excited about, you know, DIA, Dental Innovative Alliance, Innovation Alliance, is putting on a symposium for the first time for dental technology companies, which is absolutely going to be a terrific workshop and event on Wednesday, which is terrific. I know that Verisave has a workshop going on that’s called How to Boost Your EBITDA and Slash Your Credit Card Fees. This is a company I’ve been watching very, very closely, and it’s terrific. They’re going to have one. And then There’s also going to be Jill Nesbitt, my friend Jill Nesbitt’s putting on, I think it’s called DSO Tech Stack Benchmark Real World Insights and Emerging Innovations. Lots and lots of people are trying to update their tech stack or upgrade it and they’re unsure which company they should go to and what are the pros and cons of different options, what’s integrated, what’s not integrated. Jill does a great job of that. So that’s going to be the workshops. And then we’re going to go right into the Woman in DSO Ascend event. And then, of course, the reception. And then there’s an event Wednesday night. So you got a full slate Tuesday, a full slate Wednesday, before you even get into the event on Thursday.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, that’s actually a really good point about coming in early and getting a lot of your networking done early. And then you can actually sit in on some of the actual sessions that you may miss if you’re networking. And that’s always one of the challenges is you’ve got breaks and you have plenty of breaks set up throughout Thursday and Friday. sometimes it’s not enough. So to do some of that networking ahead of time and then get in there and make sure you don’t miss any of these sessions, because come Thursday, you know, you’ve got you’ve got a lot of really great content that you don’t want to miss. So I hope that the data will get in trouble.

Brian Colao: Amal Nagarkar is putting on as a workshop, building a 10x DSO. And I don’t want some phone call from him or him banging down my door because I went through these and I forgot about, you know, one of my best buddies, Amal. And I’m participating. And, you know, it’s something that I really feel strongly is going to be a great workshop. I just simply forgot to mention it a minute ago. So I want to just make sure everybody here knows that it’s building a 10x DSO and he’s bringing in experts from all across the industry, all facets of the industry to talk about how to build a powerhouse organization. And that’s another thing going on Wednesday.

Bill Neumann: So we make sure that everybody knows about that too. And we’ll update the agenda on our website as well so everybody knows, because there’s a couple that you mentioned that I don’t think we have on that agenda yet that we need to. Now, for people that will be attending these different sessions on Wednesday, are they registering separately for that? How does that all work?

Brian Colao: Yeah, you know, we have a lot of room at the Gaylord. That’s the good news. You know, that’s why I keep coming back there year after year. They give us that entire floor that we’re on. You know, I think we’re on the first floor again this year. We’ve been on the third floor before, but they give us the whole floor. So I really, really like that. So we have room, but it’s not limitless. You know, these workshops can all hold a couple hundred people. So they’re not, you know, sometimes people hear workshop and they’re like, It’s 30 or 40 people and it’s all sold out. No, we have room, but it’s not limitless. And, you know, while there’s going to be, you know, based on last year and the year before, well over 2000 people at this entire event, we’ve been seeing a huge uptick in who shows up on Wednesday early. And, you know, it started off being a couple hundred people. Now, I mean, I’d venture to say There’s probably 758, 900 people there coming in, say, Tuesday night for Wednesday. So it’s getting quite competitive to go to these workshops. They’re not sold out yet. And probably by the time everybody sees this, there’ll still be some room if people want to register. But they do sell out relatively quickly. I don’t think they’ll survive May, put it that way.

Bill Neumann: So we move into Thursday and things open up. You’ve got, we mentioned the Glow Lounge. We have a podcast that we did on that with JC Memminger. I’ll drop a link to that in the show notes. Everybody can kind of understand exactly what’s going on at the Glow Lounge, but kind of start things off early with Headshots and Glow Lounge. That runs through all day Thursday and Friday, the half day Friday that things are going on. You kick things off at 9 a.m. on Thursday morning, and then you’ve got Dr. Solman Ahmed who comes in after that, and then you’ve got these 15-minute sessions that you go through, so you’re getting a lot of different content in throughout the day. Talk a little bit about that format that you have there, the real quick 15-minute sessions.

Brian Colao: Yeah, it got such great feedback. Last year, I said, let’s try something different. Let’s do what I call the most powerful three hours in the history of the DSO industry is what I called it. And it was like 12, 15 minute segments. And I wanted to make sure nobody’s attention span got challenged. Everybody could make it through the whole presentation. I wanted to challenge our speakers that I thought were best in class to really streamline their message. You know, some of our speakers, as great as they are, and I love them all, if you give them 45 minutes, they’ll take all 45 minutes. If you give them 15, you might get a real powerhouse thing. And that’s what happened. I loved every presentation we did. And when people gave the reviews after, they said, please don’t eliminate that format. We love that format. So this year, it’s the most powerful three hours in the history of the DSO industry part two, I’m calling it. And we’ve got, you know, I think eight or nine. I did extend a couple to a half hour, like Dr. Salman Ahmed, because he’s such a great speaker and he’s a dental titan and he’s done such incredible things. I got to give him 30 minutes. And he’s got such a great message building a powerhouse DSO while making a difference. But we’ve got from Disney to dentistry, how to wow patients. Can’t wait for that presentation. Stephanie Moritz had a long career, was at the ADA for a long time, worked at Disney. I can’t wait to see that presentation. Successful case studies and same store growth. Amal Nagarkar’s gonna talk about that. Really, we’re going to talk about what we learned in the last two years about these innovative technologies and what they’ve done for same-store growth. Revolutionary new technology. I’ve got Vivarda sisters, Haley and Goli, all the way from Switzerland, are going to come and talk about their incredible product that has the potential to regenerate enamel. I love that product, and they’ve never presented at Dykema, so that’s going to be terrific. The Dykema team is going to talk about all things DSO, sort of like we did a little bit today, fit for August, what’s going on in the market specific as of August, things can change really quickly with these tariffs and everything is going on. So we’re going to give an update of what is happening as of August. There’s something really incredible called All Things EBITDA. Matt Ornstein, serial entrepreneur, owner of Oak Dental Partners, he’s wrote a book on EBITDA, and he’s going to talk about ad backs and everything you really wanted to know about EBITDA, but maybe you were afraid to ask. You thought it was a stupid question. Matt’s going to go through all of it. We’ve got something brand new this year, maintaining clinical excellence while scaling up. We’ve got world-class clinicians from some of the best DSOs in America, and Jen Durst from Aspire is going to moderate that panel. That’s going to be absolutely terrific. We’ve got a, you know, we’ve got a presentation on joint ventures and successfully aligning interest, Jay Hedrick from small doctors is going to appear there. We’ve got something on surgery center partnerships, this is a new emerging trend to increase your EBITDA, and Jeff Wheeler from I think Core Dental Partners is going to, or New Core Dental, I want to get the name right, I think it’s New Core Dental is a great guy. Jeff, I’ve known him a long time. He’s going to make a presentation there. Then we’ve got a presentation on revolutionizing and streamlining labs. Kevin Mosier, CEO of National Dentex Labs is going to talk about this because that’s a big, big issue of inefficiency is labs. And we’ve never talked about it at Dykema and I’ve researched it and there’s a tremendous potential to increase your EBITDA. So, you know, we’ve just got a great, we’ve got the Dental Titan Award, you know, later in the day. Bob Fontana is going to get the Dental Titan Award. There’s incredible breakout groups that we’re going to have. Then Woman in DSO has one of their best panels that they’ve ever, you know, put on. And then we’ve got something that I can’t wait to see. There’s a Lessons in Leadership panel with Stan Bergman from Henry Schein and Bob Fontana. And then we’ve got Inspiration. from Olympic ski jumper to DSL owner Ryan Heckman private equity guy two time Olympian is going to make an inspirational presentation on, you know, how he went from an Olympian to a PE guy that now owns a DSL so couldn’t be more excited, you know about Thursday, you know, obviously, Friday, John McEnroe’s our keynote speaker. He’s never shy about speaking his mind. Somebody, I can’t wait. We’ve got an international DSO panel. We’ve got folks from all over the world that operate DSOs that are going to come. And then we’re going to have sell side and buy side and other things. And then Steve Thorne is going to be, as if we don’t have enough power packed folks, he’s kind of going to close the event down before John McEnroe. with, you know, navigating the 2025 landscape. So this is, you know, Bill, this is as powerful an agenda as we’ve ever put out there before.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, and I want to jump back to Thursday, but while we’re on the topic of John McEnroe, that’s one of the reasons not to leave early because you save him for the end. And then there’s the meet and greet after that. So if you actually want a chance to actually meet John, right, that is like the last thing you can do.

Brian Colao: And nobody should be leaving early because we’re a day and a half like we’re designed for nobody to leave early. I mean, every now and then, you know, there might be a CEO of a billion dollar organization that’s got to leave, you know, because he’s got to go somewhere. I get that. But for most people that attend this event, nobody should leave because we don’t we don’t make it three days. You know, it’s a it’s Thursday and half a Friday. And even if you waited and got John McEnroe to sign, you know, whatever you wanted him to sign, you’re out of there by twelve thirty one o’clock. So, you know, it’s designed so everybody can get on a plane Friday afternoon. The Gaylord’s very close to the Denver airport. Denver airport has nonstop flights to almost everywhere. So we do these things thoughtfully on purpose, like it’s no coincidence that we’re wrapping up 1231 so everybody can get on their evening flight. It’s no coincidence that the Gaylord is close to the airport. It’s no coincidence that it’s Denver and every airport has non-stops to Denver just about. So, like, these things are well thought out. So, you know, there’s no reason to leave is what I would say.

Bill Neumann: And that’s good. And some people actually will hang out an extra day, too. So we talked about people coming in early, but then there are people and I know there’s been some rafting trips that have happened afterwards.

Brian Colao: We want to get you and Kim on the rafting trip. We haven’t seen that yet, but we’re waiting for that one. I know you do so much for our event. You might be tired and you got to go. But one of these times we’re going to get you at the rafting event on Saturday. And there’s a godsend. That sounds good.

Bill Neumann: And I do like rafting, so that would be fun. Let’s go back to Thursday, because there are a couple of things that you mentioned that I had on my list that I thought were pretty interesting. So you mentioned the breakouts. You’ve got accounting, you’ve got lending, revenue cycle management, cybersecurity. You’re going to talk about benchmarks and metrics. So there’s a lot that go on during those breakout sessions, too. I really have gotten a lot out of them. I’ve gone to the lending one before. and the accounting, so it’s good to kind of get caught up on those things. Because like you said, things change so fast from year to year that you have to kind of keep up with everything.

Brian Colao: Yeah, I mean, lending and accounting are like death and taxes. They’re an absolute certainty, right? I don’t change them at all, and I’m shameless about it on your show. We’re not changing it. I mean, the presentation might be different because the market conditions are different, but The format’s the exact same as it was every other year and it will be packed like it is every other year because people need to understand their accounting and they need to understand their lending every single year. That will never change. We might be here three years from now saying that those panels are staying the same because people always need credit facilities and they always need to straighten out their accounting, but they’re critical. So we’ve got those two. The revenue cycle management is a new workshop this year. I think that’s terrific. It’s become so critical, revenue cycle management. And then cybersecurity, unfortunately, never gets old. It’s not an exciting topic, but these criminals have not stopped their behavior and cybersecurity needs to be top of the list for everybody. So we’ve got that. We’ve got DSO benchmarking. This one I want to talk about for a second. It’s brand new. Planet DDS came out because they’re uniquely situated with Dentecon to record KPIs and metrics all across the DSOs that are using their platform. And for the first time, they published a report and published data. People have come to me over the years, what can we get good data on DSOs? Some of the stuff the ADA puts out is great for practices, but it doesn’t really encompass DSOs the way it should. How do we get dedicated DSO statistics? And this is the first really good attempt at it. And PlanetDDS is gonna present their report and talk about the highlights. And I’m really, really excited about that. And then we’ve got a presentation on boosting your EBITDA. And then we’ve got, you know, National Dental Health Care REIT. There’s opportunities for people that own their real estate that, you know, maybe they do a transaction, but they want to find a buyer, you know, for their dental or medical real estate. And, you know, that’s always, you know, a great they’ve done this a couple times. It’s always a well attended workshop. So yeah, I mean, these are I’m saying workshop, it’s a breakout. But yes, these breakouts on Thursday, you know, they become really packed. I mean, some of these breakouts, Bill, you’ll go in there and there’ll be 250 people and they’re the size of like a mid-sized conference. A lot of conferences would be delighted to get 250 people at it and our breakouts draw that.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, that is a good point. So finally, Thursday night, there is party. You’ve got the spasmanics back, always a crowd favorite for sure. And then I saw that we’ve got Club Fuego after party until 2 a.m. I saw two, is that right?

Brian Colao: Yeah, they’re right before you sleep, but let me tell you about this, okay? Let me tell you about this. As everybody knows, you know, there’s an incredible young generation that I love getting to know that attends these events. A lot of folks, some of them work for the vendors, for the DSOs. These are, you know, as I get older, you know, I don’t want to call them kids or anything, but they’re young people. They’re in their 20s, 30s. And they’ve always said to me, look, we love going to the party Thursday. And you go out there and there’s a nice dinner and then the spasmatics historically have done their set. There’s a drone show that’s just breathtaking. Everybody loves that. Then the spasmatics finish and there’s a curfew, you know, because there’s a lot of houses in that neighborhood outside and there’s a curfew and they say you got to wrap it up by 11 o’clock. A lot of people were like, well, what do we do now? I mean, maybe people like you and me are like, we’re going to bed. But a lot of the young folks that attend the event are like, what are we doing now? Hey, we want to go have a good time. What are we doing now? So this year, what’s going to happen is a couple of things. You’re going to go out there Thursday. There’s going to be great dinner, like always. Ray Caruso, CEO of Lone Peak Dentist Band, called About a Girl, is going to open up. And they’re really good. I mean, they’re really, really good. I watched them perform at a DSO networking event in Dallas recently. They’re local to Denver. Ray’s come out. We got a sponsor. It’s a serious deal. So he’s going to come and he’s going to open. And that’s terrific. Then after Ray’s Band opens, there’s going to be the Spazmatics. Everybody loves the Spazmatics performing 80s, and it’ll work well because Ray’s Band is 90s and 2000s, and the Spazmatics are the 80s, so that’s a great variety of music. Then there’s going to be the Drone Show. Then I believe there’s going to be a final set from the Spazmatics. It’s all going to wrap up at 11, and now when I say we’re having a club, I’m not talking about like some room where somebody’s got like a little music playing, okay? We’re in the late stage of having a sponsorship with a very well-known sponsor. I don’t want to announce it until it’s done, but it’s going to happen. And what we’ve got is Lane Thoreau, the CEO of Independence Dental. He was a big-time DJ in Canada before he ever became CEO of Independence. I tried to ask him various years, just the timing wasn’t right. This year, he wants to DJ. He’s agreed that for Dykema, because it’s such a fun event, he’s going to DJ. And we’ve got a big time sponsor. So think about this stuff, Bill. Think about elevated platforms. Think about red velvet ropes. Think about LED lights. Think about pyrotechnics, like a Vegas club. That’s what we’re putting on. So when we say Club Fuego, we’re not talking about some little thing with a little bit of music. We’re talking about an extravaganza along the lines of the other things we’ve put on. And that goes 11 p.m. or two. I promise everybody, look, I’ll be there at 11, because I want to introduce Lane, and I can’t wait to see a little bit of this. I don’t know if I’ll make it till two. I will be there 11, but there’ll be a lot of people that will make it till two. And it’s, you know, it’s going to be in the same room where the woman in DSO Ascend event is. So it holds five or 600 people. So it’s going to be, you know, it’s going to be a very serious sort of event from 11 to two. And I’m excited about it. Excellent.

Bill Neumann: So every year you try and up your game at Dykema. So it’s becoming more challenging, but it sounds like you’re doing it. Maybe next, maybe the year after that, it’ll be 4 a.m., but I definitely won’t be there till 2 a.m., but I might be there to see the introduction at 11 for sure.

Brian Colao: Okay, well, this is- You can do 11, you’re not that old. You can stay up till 1130 or something, but you should see the beginning of it. It’s gonna be a big deal.

Bill Neumann: That sounds good, I’ll be there for sure. Before we just recap everything here, anything you wanna say? Because I wanna make sure everybody has the website and the discount code again, but any final thoughts before we let everybody go?

Brian Colao: Yeah, I mean, we’ve got more people registered now than we ever had at this time. I mean, we have, you know, last I checked, it was something like, you know, 450 people or more already, like in its five months, you know, before the event. So if you can believe that, and those numbers usually are pretty good, statistically, as we, you know, kind of track those numbers. I think we’re looking for a record turnout this year and that will mean we’ll have to beat like 2040 or 2050, whatever our record was. So what that means is the hotel is not going to survive May. These workshops are going to be sold out in May. So I would encourage as many people as possible to at least get your hotel room booked. If you want to go to a workshop, get that thing booked. Don’t wait because we’re looking like we’re going to break our record.

Bill Neumann: Well, it sounds good. It’s a great time for us to mention the website is daikamadso.com, daikamadso.com. For the people just listening to this and not watching it, it’s D-Y-K-E-M-A-D-S-O, so daikamadso.com. The discount code to save $250 is GDN25, Group Dentistry Now 25, like 2025, so GDN25 to save $250. So do that. Also, if you, for whatever reason, forget to go to Zycoma DSO, you can go to Group Dentistry Now, go to the events and you’ll find it there. And we’ll get you linked up to the Glow Lounge. You can find out about that. That’s another thing that we didn’t, we mentioned on the other podcast, didn’t really mention on this podcast, but Glow Science has a whitening lounge and this will sell out as well, or it’s free, but it will fill up. So you need to make sure that you register for this and we’ll let you know, because registration has not opened, but when it does, it will fill up really, really quick.

Brian Colao: We did what we could, Bill. Like we said this on the other, we don’t have to repeat it here, but we quite equaled it practically. You know, the first year they did it with like two chairs and the thing was gone in like 10 minutes, you know, we quadrupled. I think they’re gonna have four chairs and that’s just the fire marshal won’t let us do any more. So we heard everybody, we’re trying to do as much as we can, but I think four chairs is pretty much the best we can do. So maybe it won’t sell out in 15 minutes, but it’d be an hour or two or something. But yeah, you need to, it’s been very, very popular and glow. Science has been a big supporter of DICOMA and we appreciate that.

Bill Neumann: So just to recap a couple of things here, August 6th through the 8th, but you may want to come in on the 4th or the 5th. If you’re definitely want to come in on the 5th, if you’re planning on doing any of the workshops on Wednesday morning, be sure you use the $250 off GDN 25 code. DICOMADSO.com is the website. And oh, make sure that you book that hotel room early because that will disappear quickly. So I think that’s it. It’s great to have you back on, Brian. And thanks for that insight on what’s happening so far in 2025. And we hope things start to change quickly and we get a little bit more momentum going on. I know it’s been that feels like. quite a few years now where we’ve been kind of waiting for things to kickstart again. And hopefully we’ll start to see that sooner rather than later.

Brian Colao: I mean, that’s the good news. I know we’re wrapping up, but the good news is some of this stuff can change quickly. OK, some of this, some of these policies, some of the things that are holding everything back, you know, by the time this is published a couple of weeks from now, some things might have changed. So that’s the good news. But yeah, We do need some things to change. And, you know, Bill, thanks again for having me. Always a pleasure. Never gets old. Too much is never enough of your show.

Bill Neumann: Well, thanks, Brian. It’s always great to have you on. It’s always a lot of fun. And thanks, everybody, for listening and watching us today. Until next time, this is the Group Dentistry Now Show.