The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice Of The DSO Industry – Episode 56

Mike White CPA, Partner at CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA) joins the GDN Show for a second appearance. Mike discusses DSOs and emerging groups and how they are performing 15 months after the start of COVID. He also talks about industry trends and predictions, KPIs and what accounting and financial services are important for dental groups now. If you want to understand the financial side of DSO industry, this podcast is for you!

Make sure you visit CLA’s Accounting and CFO Services page on Group Dentistry Now to find out more – https://bit.ly/3yax8tA

Our podcast series brings you dental support and emerging dental group practice analysis, conversation, trends, news and events. Listen to leaders in the DSO and emerging dental group space talk about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry.

The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry has listeners across North & South America, Africa, Australia, Europe, and Asia. If you like our show, click here to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5-star review.

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Full Transcript:

Bill Neumann:

Hi, welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now show. I’m Bill Neumann, and we always have great guests here, and I think you know this guy, hopefully you do. He’s been on a podcast several times. He contributes to a lot of our DSO thought leader articles, has written some articles for us, as well as standalones, regarding what’s going on in the DSO and emerging group space from a financial and an accounting perspective. So we’re going to have a deep dive today with Mike White CPA, of CLA, CliftonLarsonAllen, he is the Principal there. So hey, Mike, thanks for coming back and joining us once.

Mike White CPA:

Again. Yeah, thanks for having me. We always enjoy our conversations and see where we are at that point in the year when we chat. So [crosstalk 00:01:13].

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. I think it’s a great time to talk about things. We’ve got 15, 16 months into COVID we had some conversations about a year ago. What do we do? How are things looking, as maybe practices just started to open back up. Now we’ve got quite a bit of history from the shutdown, to reopening, to now. So it’s going to be really interesting perspective how your clients are experiencing things. I got to ask though, before we get started, what is that behind you, in your office, that’s not your garage, that’s your office?

Mike White CPA:

Yeah, that’s my office. That’s my piece of art, if you will. It’s a 2016 Kawasaki 900. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved motorcycles and I’ve always dreamt of having one in my office. There’s a long story, I won’t bore you with the details of how I got that one for practically free. I just spent a little elbow grease of putting it together and making it look pretty. But yeah, so it’s now in my office. So I have a very understanding wife now and trying to increase the coolness factor of my myself as a CPA. But yeah, it’s my little toy back there. I’m not allowed to ride it, by the way. I can look at it and polish it, but that’s it.

Bill Neumann:

So you’re not allowed to ride it around the house?

Mike White CPA:

No, no, no. That was where my wife drew the line.

Bill Neumann:

That’s pretty cool. I’d love to hear the backstory on how you actually managed to get that in your office, because your office is not your garage. This is really an office.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah. It is not and just the simple math of 32 inch handlebars and 26 inch wide door, it was a fun adventure of getting it in there, but we made it and it’s got it on stands now. I polish it up once a week. It looks great.

Bill Neumann:

It’s very cool. Who would’ve thought that the conversation would start off about motorcycles, when we’re supposed to be talking about finance and accounting, but anyway.

Mike White CPA:

Absolutely.

Bill Neumann:

Good stuff. Let’s talk a little bit, well, first off, why don’t you introduce yourself to the folks that… introduce the audience to a little bit of your background. You’ve been in the industry a while. I think again, most people know who you are, but maybe there’re a couple new listeners to the show.

Mike White CPA:

You know what, I’m always fascinated, I mean, it feels like almost each week, I’m getting to meet somebody new to the industry. So, for that, my name is Mike White. I have been in the industry since 2010, where I made DSOs, or multi-site group dentistry a focus, a primary focus for the firm. We merged in with CLA for us to become more of a national dental physician leaders for the group.  We have a great team all across the United States, some folks in Boston and Texas and California, interviewing some folks for Wisconsin, Minnesota later this week, continue to expand the footprint, but CLA is the eighth largest CPA firm in the nation, but we’re a really big, small firm, is how I like to describe it. So our DSO team, we’re about 60 people that are focused on this industry from accountants, to tax, to quality of earnings and that that team continues to grow within the firm, but we’re excited to service this and excited to continue to work in the industry today, but yeah.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. Let’s talk a little bit more about Mike and certainly his reputation in the industry, which is a great one. In fact, Group Dentistry Now has been partnered with Mike for… working with you for quite a while, and now have the benefit of the team at CLA behind you, to back you up. So you’re not doing everything on your own, which is great.

Mike White CPA:

That’s right.

Bill Neumann:

But if you go to the Group Dentistry Now website, we actually have a tab that is Dental Industry Services. Then under that, we have accounting and CFO services and we partnered with CLA and Mike specifically, to be able to assist anybody, any of our customers, any of our readers, or listeners to the podcast. I wanted to talk a little bit more about that relationship, Mike, what you’re offering there?

Mike White CPA:

Well, it’s such an important one, as you and I have worked together so long to provide podcasts and educational articles and trying to get information to the community, as you do in most podcasts or interviews or presentations, you speak very broad-based. The goal that you and I had together here was, “Let’s take that broad-based conversation as deep as we can and offer a free courtesy assessment.” So that was one of the things that you and I came up with, we’re working through. So if you go through the website, if you go through the Accounting DSO Services, there’s an area to request that hour consult.

Mike White CPA:

We’ll ask for some information. It’s usually more than an hour, because there’s about an hour conversation, times two, pre and post, obviously looking at some data and we’ll just walk through, “Where are the opportunities for you as a practice?” Or spend that hour just asking us questions. It gets a little bit more specific into your life cycle, if you will, and where you are, what you’re trying to accomplish and what questions you may have from advice you may not be getting. So that was the goal of it. We’re excited that launched, and hopefully everybody takes advantage of it.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, that’s great. I can attest to the value of it. I’ve been on a couple of conversations with Mike and some emerging groups and they can certainly feel free to pick his brain and he’s a wealth of knowledge and has worked with, I don’t know, you tell me, what’s the number? Do you have any speculation on the number of platforms you’ve worked with?

Mike White CPA:

If you look at just platforms, it’s 100s, if you look at locations, it’s 1,000’s. We work with some of the largest DSOs in the nation as a firm, which is great, but then we also work with onesy and twosy locations. So, we’ve really tried to run the gamut of helping people at various stages. We’ll get into a little bit more of what we’re seeing a lot more in the consolidation, and some of the bigger groups and where people are in the life cycle of their DSO and what’s changing there, but definitely, we’ve touched a lot of lives, which is always powerful when you think of what you’re trying to do in your own personal life, so.

Bill Neumann:

Absolutely. Wow, we really appreciate working with you. So let’s get into the Q&A section here.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah, sure, sure.

Bill Neumann:

So last we spoke, again, it was pretty much right after the lockdown.

Mike White CPA:

Right after.

Bill Neumann:

States were opening back up, practices were opening back up [crosstalk 00:07:30] states beyond emerging care. So now we’ve got about 15 months, 16 months after the lockdowns first started. So, I’d love to get perspective on individual, solo practitioners, how they fared and are fairing now, and then also some of maybe the emerging groups that you’re working with as well, and any differences you might be seeing.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah. It’s interesting when you look at the solo practices and how they’re faring through, it’s very community-based. They’re in the community, they’re part of it. They’re living the COVID shutdown and the rebound and all that stuff as part of that community. So very much you’re seeing that they’ve done pretty well. They’re trying to get the patient base back open, and back into where they were before. Many of them are outperforming last year’s numbers, of course, from COVID. A lot of them are even outperforming their 2019 numbers, be as patient care is still a massive need in the communities that we all serve. A lot of them are deciding, as we look at the aging population of the community, of the nation as a whole, a lot of them, five to seven years within retirement anyway. So this may have expedited some of the conversation, which lends into some of the more aggressive consolidations we’re seeing today in a very, very busy and active acquisition marketplace. We’ll touch on that in a bit more.

Mike White CPA:

On the emerging DSOs, what I love to see it through all of this, of course, being an accountant and trying to stress over the last 10, 11 years, the importance of good data, what I have seen is this renewed interest in understanding where their business is at any given time. So we’re talking a lot more about sophistication of accounting softwares. We’re talking a lot more about the conversion to accrual and taking a lot more practices to that gap and accrual basis that they’re seeking. So they’re matching a lot more of information around that. They’re of course, thinking about where they go from here, “Hey, there’s an active community. Do we start acquiring practices? We start adding more de novos? What are we doing to position ourselves well?”

Mike White CPA:

New lenders are in the marketplace, certainly new equity folks are in the marketplace, but on the lending side, you have some of the same players that have been there for awhile that are still doing some activities. Some that have stepped up more and some new ones that are coming to market to see the resiliency of dentistry. I mean, when you go from a complete shutdown to coming back within a year, a little over a year or two, where you were pre-pandemic and beyond, and of course, healthier balance sheet, because the PPP and EIDL, lenders are taking notice.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. So you touched on it a little bit, but as far as some of this consolidation at the top, that it had been rumored for years and didn’t happen. Then all of a sudden we had three, four, five deals seem to happen back to back to back. So do you think that is a result of COVID? Did COVID help push that forward? What are your thoughts on that? Will we see more?

Mike White CPA:

Yes, to the start with the last question, we’ll absolutely see more. I think, you started looking at the top 20 and there’s really not a top 20, top 30 list. You know who the big ones are, the big DSOs, big groups, but I do think you’ll continue to see consolidation at the top. In addition, you’ll see a lot more mid-market consolidation, those 50, 60 location groups coming together to try to compete, to try to get better buying power, to try to get better resources.

Mike White CPA:

The biggest challenges today that we’re seeing is people. People who are going to run these practices, people who are going to check in your patients, be the assistance with you chairside, be the hygienist, have the doctors that are wanting to be a part of something bigger than their own, so that people factor that you still have to have for running a dental practice, that’s where some of the consolidations being driven. The multiples are great, the valuations are high, but that people side of the businesses, I also think is what’s driving some of the consolidation today.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, great points. Let me touch on something that you mentioned earlier. So you talked a little bit about acquisitions. Do you feel, because valuations are pretty high right now, at least that’s what I’ve been hearing, so do you see maybe some of these groups going, “Hey, we don’t want to overpay.” Some are because they may be up for a recapitalization, so they might just want to buy, but what are your thoughts wrapped around more de novos being built, versus acquisitions? Any talk about that?

Mike White CPA:

I think we’ll see it. I think we’ll certainly see it going into next year after you get past some of this acquisition activity, and what’s driving some of this is the potential changes in tax law as we go into next year. I’m sure as we sit here next year, we’ll be talking about the impact of what those tax law changes may have been, and I think de novo’s going to be one of those things. What’s interesting for a lot of DSOs, they either had a de novo strategy, or they had an acquisition strategy. It’s really hard to pivot your regional managers, your billing staff, your operations folks, to be one or the other. If they were only an acquisition folks and they knew how to onboard a practice and implement it, you’re almost looking at a different mindset of somebody who’s trying to onboard and build that de novo from ground up, depending on where they are in that life cycle of that practice.

Mike White CPA:

If they know how to turn it up, great. But I still see a lot of acquisition activity today, as I look at the calls that I’m getting day to day for quality of earnings on a constant basis, due diligence projects, M&A, cashflow modeling, budgeting. Those are a lot of the calls that I’m getting today on a consistent basis. I do think we’ll see some pivots to de novos, as people have built out their platform, they have the right staff and they know what their model is, the replicability of their model. So that’s what I’m seeing right now, it’ll be interesting to evolve the next 12 months.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, that’s great. So you’re thinking more, a lot of acquisition activity through 2021, into maybe the beginning of ’22, find out what the tax implications look like, and then possibly more de novo?

Mike White CPA:

When you get on that valuation side, where I’m really seeing the valuations inch up higher, tends to actually be on the lower side, those half a million, million, million and a half EBITDA practices, where there’re a handful of locations, where that’s getting more and more competitive. Where you could have historically purchased a practice like that for four and a half, five times EBITDA, maybe even a little less, put in a little cash, borrow some money to leverage the position and grow it, now we’re seeing these practices trade at six, seven times multiple, where they don’t really have a whole lot, other than they’re just trying to be aggressive in the acquisition. So they’re trying to bolt on, because maybe today they’re valued at 10, 11, 12 X as a platform.  It increases their valuation. They have immediate pickup and value in that practice.

Mike White CPA:

So if they, let’s call it over pay, if they overpay for that practice, it’s okay to them, because their valuation still absorbs that hit, that cost hit. So that’s where we’re seeing some of these valuations. Now, the big guys at the 12, 13, 14 X, these 10, 15, $20 million EBITDA organizations, their valuations aren’t being as driven as much as what we’ve seen today. They may still inch up, but some of these bigger transactions are happening at less multiples than some of the biggest ones we’ve ever seen, but it’s that mid-market competitive, well, we’re just trying to gobble up a bunch of individual practices where we’re seeing valuations drive high.

Mike White CPA:

I’ve had a couple of calls today already about the same, “We’ve tried to go at this. Find five multiple, we set our standard. We weren’t going to pay more than that. We just can’t compete. What do we do?” That’s the conversations we’re having today. “How do we pivot our model? How do we compete when it’s not just about money?” When a lot of times it is just about the value.

Bill Neumann:

Really interesting. It’s amazing how things have changed in the past year.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah.

Bill Neumann:

Just amazing. Let talk a little bit about emerging groups now. What should they be doing? If they get on our free consult with you, what are you going to be telling them? Because inevitably they’re going to be like, “All right, give us some guidance.”

Mike White CPA:

No, absolutely. I think the accounting fundamentals, what I’ve been preaching since 2009, 2010, the getting your story right. A lot of people have heard me say, “Tell your story. How do you telling your story?” We’ve even written articles about telling your story. But what we’re going to talk about is, when I look at your financials, when I hear what you’re having to tell me, what your DSO is about, how you’re differentiating yourselves, then I look at your financials, we’re going to be talking about where you are in your life cycle. “Here’s where you are. This is what I see today. Here’s areas of opportunity.” Whether it be, accountability on supplies and marketing dollars and staffing matrix and all that good stuff. But it’s also going to be like, “What do you want to do in the next three to five years?”

Mike White CPA:

So we talk about positioning you to be competitive. Maybe our staffing matrix is good today, but we’re going to have to hire ahead to be competitive, to add three to five more locations over the next 12 months. How are we going to add them? Is it going to be a de novo strategy? Is it going to be acquisition? What are we doing to capture new patients? Are we losing sight, we’re only focused on acquisitions, but we’re losing sight on actually integrating those acquisitions and improving the performance of those practices. Have you built a DSO, or have you built a management company? Where are you in that life cycle? What are you trying to accomplish? What do you need to do?

Mike White CPA:

There’s been a lot of context or discussion around cash-to-accrual conversions this year. We’re doing a lot more conversions to accrual this year than we’ve ever done, which has been great, but we used to see it at 20 to 25 million, is where we recommended you making that conversion to accrual. Now, we’re doing it with practices that are 10, 15 million in revenue, because they’re wanting to position themselves for better lending, better partnership opportunities and understand their financials better. So then we talk about software and integrations and automation and all that good stuff, but those are the discussions we’ll be having when somebody reaches out to us individually. Those are the discussions we’re having each day now with our existing practices as well.

Bill Neumann:

Interesting. Based on what you said there, do you feel like the sophistication level of emerging groups is growing? I mean, are you getting questions from them? Do they seem to have a little bit more information than they’ve had in the past?

Mike White CPA:

Yeah. I do think the software and some of the technology at the practice management level is catching up. Some of the biggest challenges of the past has been getting good accounts receivable data, because there’s not really a closed cycle. It’s not like an accounting system, it’s not really a closed cycle, but now we’re starting to see software starting to build that into their modules, starting to have conversations with folks like us, CPAs, to say, “What do we need to do to make the accounting process better?” We’re starting to see softwares talk to each other. We’re working on one group now and we’re going to have four different softwares intersect with each other to give real time data to the investors and private equity group and the CFO, to make sure that they’re operating it properly.

Mike White CPA:

But even down to the emerging groups, those one, three, seven location groups, up to 15, 20, that emerging life cycle, if you will, we’re still starting to see great questions, good vision, a good foundation, but maybe the story doesn’t quite meet what they’re trying to tell, but they’re easier changes than they used to be, but that still allows us to create some opportunities and create this ability to drive value for them. That’s the fun part.

Bill Neumann:

When you’re talking to these emerging groups, I mean, are there certain services, whether they’re financial or accounting that bubble to the top, what are the needs that you’re seeing? Just curious if that’s changed maybe in the past year?

Mike White CPA:

No, great question. A lot of folks, CPA here, so a lot of folks think of us as CPAs and think of, “Oh, Mike and his team do tax returns.” Which we do, we do 1,000’s and 1,000’s thousands of returns a year, however, we also get financials done. We also do budgets and forecasts. We also even get into operational assessments and how is Sally Jane interacting with Jim Bob and who’s accountable to what, through that process? Do you need to hire an HR person? Do you need to bring in IT? So we also get into this lifecycle and truly running them as their advisor. We always say, “We want to be the first call you make at any given time. You have something keeping you up at night, shoot us an email. We’ll talk to you in the morning.”

Mike White CPA:

Those are the kinds of relationships that we’ve been building over the years and continue to. The questions of getting sophistication, or the questions of where we’re seeing them change, I don’t know that we’re seeing them change, we’re just trying to define the roles more. Regional managers, I always pick on the regional manager, because that was a role born out of DSOs before you had an operations manager, an office manager, whatever you wanted to call the front desk, and they worried about one location and maybe two front desk staff and a few assistants and hygiene, and that was their world.

Mike White CPA:

Now, we started building up regional managers by taking that office manager and say, “You’re really good at managing this one location. Can you do it with another one?” And then another one, another one. Before we stretch their abilities and now we’re trying to say, “Okay, can you replicate yourself?” So this regional manager role where it’s so important for them to be accountable to everything we say, key performance indicators, performance, making sure people show up, making sure the culture is right. That’s where we’ve really spent a lot of time defining that role and helping them build that out.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. Would you consider a regional manager, maybe more of a mini operations type role, versus an office manager?

Mike White CPA:

Yeah, I would, because they’re interacting with finance people, they’re interacting with vendors, key leaders and executives, depending on where they are in that emerging cycle. If you’re a small group, you may be seven, 10 locations. You only have one regional, maybe two. So you’re putting a lot of pressure on them to drive your vision through the practices, because that clinician can’t be at every practice, sometimes they’re even chairside still. So they’re entrusting a regional manager, let’s call them a light COO, baby step in the administrator role, the regional role, to start executing some of the things that are maybe broken or somebody didn’t show up or a hand piece is broken, or we need to improve the performance in new patient volume. So that’s where you start seeing that role come out of the growth in this industry.

Bill Neumann:

You talked about a KPI. So you talked about performance of the patients come in, whether it’s new patients or whether it’s recall. Let’s talk about, I fill out the form on Group Dentistry Now and I get my hour with you. My question’s going to be, “What KPIs should I be, as a emerging group, paying attention to? What’s important?”

Mike White CPA:

In that consult, we’re not going to get into, unless they have an ability to share the information easily. Some of the key performance indicators that we love out of the practice management system are patient volumes, production per hour, production per day, new patient percentages. So new patients to active patients seen, collection ratio, getting into that accounts receivable discussion, because so many financial statements are cash basis today. So the thought process of going to accrual starts with just starting to look at your AR and let’s start looking at your net production and accounts receivable.

Mike White CPA:

But when we start looking at the PNLL we’re going to be looking at dental supplies spend, lab spending, staffing, assistant, hygiene, doctor compensation, what’s your rent as a percentage of income? If we can get into the EBITDA and EBITDA percentages, and we can truly define your EBITDA from your financials, that would be great. I will tell you, a lot of the assessments I do, I can’t quite define EBITDA yet. That’s probably the biggest challenge today, is so many practices are being driven off the value of EBITDA and on most financial statements I see day to day, I couldn’t tell you what EBITDA is without some work. That’s where we really try to take them to that next level and say, “You should be able to run a report really easily to show what your EBITDA is and manage to that.”

Bill Neumann:

That’s interesting. So you can get an emerging group set up, so they know their EBITDA, they can run a report and know where they stand, month to month?

Mike White CPA:

Month to month, yeah, standard chart of accounts, where your corporate overhead is as a percentage of revenue. What your practice matrix are against your budgets. I know I’ve used the word budget a lot through this call. Budgets are important, set goals, even if they’re just high level of saying, “Okay, we want to set the budget for general supplies spend at X.” That’s great. “We want the doctor, staff compensation to be sub 50, or sub 48,” depending on the state that you’re in, that’s great. We really start working through that life cycle of them of saying, “How do you get to your ideal value for this individual location? Then how do you replicate this location against all your other locations?” Because that’s the key, replicability.

Bill Neumann:

Interesting. So it’s amazing because as we’ve talked about the sophistication levels growing with the emerging groups, a lot of them still don’t know what their EBITDA is.

Mike White CPA:

No.

Bill Neumann:

They know what EBITDA is, but they don’t know what their EBITDA is.

Mike White CPA:

So many people are like, “Well, I got a 10 times EBITDA.” Its like, “Well, EBITDA as defined by you? Or EBITDA as defined by the buyer?” Because so many times that’s a different number. I’ve had so many conversations with some of the brokers, investment bankers in the industry. It’s like, “Well, yeah, the seller bought them at an eight times multiple, but the buyer thinks they got a 12.” That disconnect and just the presentation of what the seller’s perception, that should be the same number for all intents and purposes. But a lot of times the seller doesn’t always know what they’re selling and how to drive that story home to maximize and increase the value.

Mike White CPA:

That even gets into private equity. That’s also just your partnership buy-ins, your lending capabilities, your day-to-day performance of just trying to manage and maximize cashflow. I don’t want everybody to think we just talk about the people who sell, because we have a lot of groups that want to build to just hold on to, make it a succession-based business. That’s awesome. So it was both sides of that.

Bill Neumann:

Really cool.

Mike White CPA:

The story’s still the same importance.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s interesting. All right. So last couple of questions before we wrap this up.

Mike White CPA:

Sure.

Bill Neumann:

So always ask the question, you get out your crystal ball, talk a little bit about predictions for the rest of the year. Any trends that you think we’re going to continue to see, or we might start seeing?

Mike White CPA:

Yeah, no, it’s going to be fun. We’re going into conference season a little bit more here this summer, you and I will get to see each other in the next month or so, but I do think it’s going to be a heavy M&A year. I remember looking back at the articles, Bill, that you’ve done with the Top 20 and thankfully you had me in the Top 20 of industry thought leaders, if you will, that talked about, “This is going to be a heavy year.”

Mike White CPA:

We all thought that in 2021, or 2020, COVID year, and said it again in 2021. I think a lot of that pent up demand in 2020 trickled into the end of 2020, and certainly starting off 2021, a very busy year. I think we’re going to see leaps and bounds in the level of consolidation that’s in the industry today over the next 12 to 18 months. I don’t think things are going to stop at the end of this year. I know some people believe just because tax laws may change, it will stop. There’ll still be cash on the sidelines. There’ll still be people needing to make investments, but I think this year trying to lock in some lower capital gains, or potentially lower capital gains rates, it’s going to be a busy year as we’ve already seen.

Bill Neumann:

That’s a pretty fair. All right. Let’s talk about those meetings that we’ve all been really excited to get back to. I think they’re starting to happen slowly and I believe the first one is going to be in Denver, the Dykema Conference towards the end of July, and you will be there and I think you’re speaking.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah. So, I’m speaking at the Dykema Conference on a panel. I believe Mark Rudolph and I don’t know who the other person is, but typically it’s a good showing and great perspective. Mark and I get along great, always enjoy… he and I get caught up probably once a month or whatnot, but I’ll also be speaking the day before the TUSK Workshop and making it a workshop, which will be fun. Me along with five other folks from my team are going to be there as well, so we’ll have a really good opportunity to see some friendly faces and clients and have good conversations, but really excited about Dykema.

Mike White CPA:

I know they’re going as hard as they can at maximizing the capacity, because there is some pent up demand in wanting to get back to the conferences, for not only vendors like myself, but certainly the clients I’m talking to as well to be there. So for those of you who haven’t registered, I’ll see you guys in Denver and we’ll have a good time. Then I’ll be there in September with you, Bill and HR for Health and the joint group, Dentistry Now in San Francisco. I’m excited about that. I get to speak with Dr. Rowe and Mike Montgomery, amongst some other great panelists that you have as well.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, that’s great. That’s in San Francisco, September 7th through 8th, the DSL Leadership Summit, which is right before the CDA North meeting. So it’s at the Marriott Marquis downtown, which is just a really cool hotel. We’re going to be doing the Emerging Groups to Watch Awards at the bar area, which is on the top floor and has just this really cool view of the Golden Gate and downtown San Francisco. So should be a lot of fun and really looking forward to you. So you’re going to actually be speaking with Dr. Rowe, Mike Montgomery, it should be a great conversation. Of course, we’ve got a lot packed in there, so we’ve got Dykema [crosstalk 00:29:32] DSL Leadership, are you doing anything else, or to be determined?

Mike White CPA:

To be determined. I’ve been doing interviews and podcasts and stuff, but I am starting to get out and meet people again and starting to visit with folks, which is good. It’s been a nice feeling, I’m trying to do some educational eBooks, if you will, just try to get some content out. We’ve worked on trying to develop some content with many different thought leaders to get a lot of different voices into it. It’s always good to have that kind of conversation and make sure you’re getting multiple perspectives, especially if there’s some consistency in what they’re saying, but yeah, I think I’ll probably attend one or two others later in the year. I think they’re still being announced, on some of the conferences of when they will be in-live and in-person. So I’m being a little fluid on what that would be.

Bill Neumann:

Right, I think it’s going to become a challenge, because you’re getting meetings that were supposed to be in Q1 and Q2, everything’s being kicked to three and four. So you’re probably going to have some overlap and have to make some decisions on which ones you want to attend, or if you want to attend at all. But it’s nice that we get a chance to see you in Denver, in July, and appreciate you taking time today to help educate the Group Dentistry Now audience. I mean, you do that through the articles that you work on diligently with us and the Thought Leader article. It’s always great to get some insight. I always reach out to Mike last minute, say, “Hey, Mike, what’s going on?” So we certainly appreciate that, and CLA and the work you’ve done with some of the DSO customers that our readers or listeners of our podcast or of the website.

Mike White CPA:

I’m excited to see more motorcycles in backgrounds. I mean, I think Bill, next time we talk, we should get one embedded in the imagery there in the back.

Bill Neumann:

We could do that. Yeah. We could actually just have some type of hologram or maybe even have a GIF or a JIF that drives back and forth, but I think after this podcast, I might start calling you, Motorcycle Mike, the CPA.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah, there you go, Motorcycle Mike, I like it. Just the person who’s no longer allowed to ride them, but-

Bill Neumann:

That’s okay. You’ve created a new type of art, which I think is even better.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah. Yeah, I’m excited, it’s fun.

Bill Neumann:

All right, well, hey, thanks again. I appreciate Mike White, CPA, Principal at CLA for being on the Group Dentistry Now show. He’s welcome here any time. We appreciate all the great contributions he makes to the industry and into our website. Also, again, don’t forget, we’re not just kidding around, he does offer a free hour consult. Please take advantage of that. I’ll drop a link in the show notes so you can access it easily, but you can just go to our website, groupdentistrynow.com. We have a Dental Industry Services tab, click on that, and you’ll find Mike and you can register.

Mike White CPA:

Yeah, no, please take advantage of that. I always enjoy getting to know new people, listening to the story, how they built their group, but I also get a lot out of it, but I also share as much as I can within that time context and if leads to a longer relationship, great. If not, then we’ll give you some coaching notes for the future and that’s the goal.

Bill Neumann:

That sounds great. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. If you’re listening on Apple or Google or Spotify or those other audio platforms that we have, or if you’re watching us on YouTube, or you just found us on the groupdentistrynow.com website. We appreciate Mike. We appreciate you as the audience. Until next time, I’m Bill Neumann.