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

Dr. Aman Kaur, Founder & President of Women in DSO (WinDSO) and Brian Colao, Director of Dykema’s Dental Service Organizations Group, join the Group Dentistry Now Show. They discuss the Women in DSO organization and the upcoming inaugural Women in DSO event at The Aria in Las Vegas, March 9th – 11th.

Find out more and register for the event HERE.

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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, Australia, Europe, and Asia. If you like our show, tell a friend or a colleague.

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Full Transcript:

Bill Neumann:

I’d like to welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now Show, I’m Bill Neumann, and we appreciate everybody listening in today, whether it’s on Apple Podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or you’re watching us on YouTube, or somehow you just find us on groupdentistrynow.com without an audience, we wouldn’t have a show. And of course, without great guests, we wouldn’t have an audience. So I want to introduce our two guests that we have today. One, we are bringing back for a second time, I think at least a second time. And then we have Dr. Kaur with us today. So we’re really thankful to have her on to talk about Women in DSO. So we have Dr. Amman Kaur, and she is the founder and CEO of Women in DSO. And she is also the CEO of AiM Dental Alliance. And then we have Brian Colao who you may know if you’ve been in the day industry or the DSO space for the past 25 years may have seen his face. He is the director of Dykema’s Dental Service Organizations Group. So welcome both of you to the group dentistry now show.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Thank you.

Brian Colao:

Thanks Bill.

Bill Neumann:

Yep. So I’ll do a try and do some justice on these bios here, and then I’d appreciate both of you kind of filling in any blanks, since you’ve both been in the DSO space for quite a while. We’ll start off with Dr. Kaur. Dr. Aman Kaur is, again, the founder and the president of Women in DSO. And I just realized this when I was reading the bio, Win DSO is short for Women in DSO, it took me a little time to get that.

Brian Colao:

You can do it Bill. You can do it.

Bill Neumann:

You can do it. I’ll figure it out. Only seen it a hundred times. She is a trained dentist with extensive financial and business experience. Dr. Kaur has been very involved in the growth of the DSO industry. I met Dr. Kaur years ago at the Mortenson event when Mortenson used to do their event in Louisville, Kentucky. She works with DC and private equity groups as an operating member, and consultant for their DSO portfolios. So I’ll stop there. I’ll let you fill in any blanks. I did mention that you’re the CEO of AiM dental Alliance. You may want to touch on that as well.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Bill, like a lot of people talking about myself is not my favorite topic, but I appreciate such generous introduction. So, just kind of high level, I’ve been in this space now over 15, 17 years. So dental service organizations is where I’ve grown. Been very fortunate to work with for profit sector, large groups, starting from Aspen to not for profits, and state government plans. But I’m really excited about this time we are going through yes, DSOs are growing, and I’m really excited. What excites me about this is how we are improving access to care. It’s been always very near, and dear to my heart because as dentists, sometimes we have this mentality of scarcity. We wonder that we need more patients from the guy next door, but there are just so many patients we can just provide care to.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

So I feel like dental service organizations are constantly improving that access to care, education, and awareness about oral health. And it’s a very exciting time. With that involvement, there has been more financial sector is paying attention to us, and sometimes you need that attention to take it to next level, because it’s not an easy world we are living in, especially from last two years. So many unpredictable challenges we are navigating through. So it’s exciting time for dentistry, and really excited to be kind of doing what we do we have been doing, and how things are going all around us, so.

Bill Neumann:

Certainly is an exciting time, Dr. Kaur, in the industry and Brian talks quite a bit about this. So I’ll introduce Brian, Brian Colao, again, director of Dykema’s Dental Service Organizations Group. He’s been in the dental industry for over 25 years, widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities in the United States on DSO formation, DSO business structures, DSO related M&A, and the full array of regulatory compliance requirements for dental groups and DSOs. And by the way, Brian, who is a contributor to group dentistry now was a one of our 2019 DSO influencers. So he was nominated by our editorial board. So, well known to our readers. Brian, I’d love to, if you need to fill in any blanks there, please do. But also I’d love to kind of find out what your involvement is with Women in DSO.

Brian Colao:

Well, I mean two things. I mean I think all you really need to say is I was a Group Dentistry Now influencer and we probably don’t have to say anything else. That by itself speaks for itself with the audience, and that’s probably it, right? So I have nothing to add passed that. It was my honor to be awarded by Group Dentistry Now. And I think that that speaks volumes. I have nothing to add to my I bio that’s probably the only thing we should say from now on, but I’m on the board of Women in DSO. It was one of the professional highlights of my career. Dr. Aman, or Aman asked me to be on the board, along with Kathleen Titus, who I think has been on your show before. And everybody knows Kathleen. It’s really been tremendous, Bill.

Brian Colao:

I mean the only thing I can say I’ve learned a lot. I mean, I can obviously talk about DSOs all day long, go to conferences. And probably, at this point, that’s a low level of difficulty for me, because I’ve been doing it for a 25, 26 years. But sometimes you have to do something a little different, maybe even a little outside of your comfort level. When they asked me to be on the board, I said, “Okay, so I’ll write the check and that’s it.” And they said, “No, they said we may ask you for a check, but we want you to be on the board, and we want you to get behind this.” And I have just learned so much stuff. I mean, for example, women are the majority of the dental industry. And when you look at DSO rank and file employees, they make up the majority of the DSO industry, and they’re underrepresented in leadership.

Brian Colao:

I mean, it’s just so stark how underrepresented they are and they don’t get the same opportunities. And the vision of Women in DSO is to provide access opportunities, and mentorship to the majority. I should say the many talented women, but really the majority of the DSO industry. And it’s just been tremendous working with the powerhouse board we have. I mean, just a powerhouse board of directors has got behind this. We’ve built incredible momentum, Bill. We’ve probably signed up already. Dr. Aman knows is better than me, but from where I sit on the board, I mean dozens, and dozens of folks from all across the DSO industry from big organizations to individuals have signed up. They’ve not just written checks, they’ve volunteered their time. We’ve got this inaugural event coming up in March. I can’t be more excited. I mean, I guess that’s a long-winded answer, but I’m on the board, and it’s just one of the professional highlights of my career being involved in this.

Bill Neumann:

Thanks Brian. So Dr. Kaur, let’s talk a little bit about why are you the founder? So, I mean, Brian kind of talked a little bit about it, right? You’ve got, and I don’t know what the percentage is, but if you do look at women in the dental industry, assistants, office managers, hygienist, dentist, it’s got to be a… I don’t know what the percentage is.

Brian Colao:

It’s over 50%. I mean, Dr. Aman can speak to it better than me.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Overall, in just in dental offices, on average it’s around 80% of the population in office levels is typically women. Because if you go in a dental office, you’ll see maybe one male dentist, maybe an office manager, but all five to six other people are women.

Bill Neumann:

Right. And now it’s what close to, or above 50% women graduating dental school, so even the male dentist is changing as well.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

I think from last time I checked, it was around 65% of dentists, graduating dental schools were women.

Bill Neumann:

65, wow. Okay. All right, so it’s definitely. Yeah, for sure. So talk a little bit about the why. I know that this initially Women in DSO was announced that the Dykema event last year, but my guess is there was a lot of planning before that. So when did you decide that this was something you wanted to get involved in, and then, so let’s talk about the organization. So, why, and then what’s going on right now with the organization?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Absolutely. So, Women in DSO, yes, our inaugural event is in March, but originally the idea of Women in DSO came, it was many years ago, around 2018, I was actually attending a DSO conference, a DSO to be specific. We had amazing panel on the stage, lot of CEOs of great organizations, and raving about different operationals, and business functional departments they had in their organizations. And a lot of them talked about women leading those departments. And one of the women in audience asked, “How come we don’t see one on the state?” And it was just kind of real good question. And I remember one of the panelists trying to answer that question, and he did amazing job. He was very gracious and kind, but the reality of the situation is there is just no answer if we just don’t have that many women on stage.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

So, a few years from that, I’ve always been involved in this industry, been many times, I wouldn’t say women have not been on stage. I have been on a lot of these DSO conferences stages, but it just always felt like an afterthought, or maybe just sprinkling in some women. But predominantly we always felt men representing the industry that women are constantly building, and working for. So with that thought it’s been brewing on the back of my mind because I could keep asking the same question or we could do something about it. So, in 2019, I started thinking a little bit harder. In 2020 I remember meeting with Kathleen and a few other women. And I think we met at a DGP conference. And that’s when we started talking about it, but COVID came. So we took 2020 to kind of do some work.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Why do we want it? What should be the mission? Because you can do 20 things or you could do just two things really well. So we really honed on what is it that we want to achieve, and what are our core values, how we want to behave. So we took 2020 to really work on who are we, what we want to do, and getting our board assembled. And in 2021, the first live big conference was Dykema and Dykema team, specifically, Brian has been throughout my career, I’ve seen Brian supporting women. And him supporting Women in DSO the way he did by letting us launch during Dykema conference really helped us. It really helped us surface that what we are trying to achieve.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

And so that’s been the inaugural kind of our launch on event. And since then we took those six months to understand our members, because we can think we want this, but I really wanted to learn from what is it those individual women leaders in different organizations want? What do organizations want to do to lift women leaders? And we have taken a lot of those information and surveys in last six months. So membership started from this year onwards. It was an annual membership starting from 2022. And we have great support like Brian mentioned earlier, a lot of very progressive organizations that our members, and so we just started working now on those deliverables.

Bill Neumann:

Okay. So I notice, because I follow Women in DSO on LinkedIn. So there seems to be like quite a few things going on already. So you’ve got like, looks like webinars, or meetings that are going on. So talk a little bit about that, because there are things going on now, so it’s not just about out the event that we’re going to talk about in a second, but there’s a lot more to it.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

So, what to Women in DSO are if I were to say, what is our mission? It’s a real platform to promote and advance women to leadership positions, and beyond. And when I say that very specifically, we want to see more women in C level executive positions. And then on the boards running, maybe partnering with private equities, and going into entrepreneurship. That’s really what we are hoping women to go. Like not, again, working… Representing the company they will be building. So, that’s our goal. With that goal, so how do we get there? I think as women, sometimes we have this inner critic, we have learned that.

So we had exchange circles that meet monthly to talk about different business areas. So we have done about electronic record keeping system procurement, and there are a few other things coming on the horizon, how to expand different specialties in dentistry and that is empower networking. That’s solely focused on networking among women, leadership qualities, profile analysis for managing your teams better, and then how to collaborate across the gender aisle, managing up a lot of those things. And then we are also working on an internship program that we will be launching after our inaugural event. And we are going to work in conjunction with our industry partners, and DSO partners. And then finally we are launching a job board. It’s going to be a little bit different, more like a hybrid of a LinkedIn, and Facebook where we will be able to showcase companies that are promoting women, and a lot of women leaders who are doing different things. So, it can be more of a matching people, and we will have only director level and above positions available.

Bill Neumann:

Okay. Yeah, that’s great.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

…things on the horizon.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. So exchange circles. So that’s monthly. You’re working on an intern program and then you have a career board, but it’s more than that where it’s matching companies with talent. And so that’s great. Yeah. It sounds like you got a lot going on. Let’s talk a little bit about the big event. So this is the inaugural event. This will be in Las Vegas at the ARIA, great place. March 9th through the 11th. Is that right?

Brian Colao:

That’s right.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yep.

Bill Neumann:

So, tell us about that. If you can talk a little bit about the agenda, networking opportunity, speakers, anything. And then of course how do people get involved if they haven’t signed up yet?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, we are actually really excited about it. This is our inaugural event, and we launched this event in the midst of COVID, we’re really nervous how this is going to turn and out. And I am so excited to say, we are still two months, a little mid month in, half out. And we are almost 300 plus registrants. So we are really, really excited and the way we are going, I think we might have a sold out event. So last night we checked, there were only, I think, 25 rooms left in our room block. So a little bit of that anxiety is gone. So we are excited about that.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

We are starting this event on Wednesday with our advisory board meeting. So we have an advisory board of 25 members. So we are kicking it off with that on Wednesday. And after that we’ll have Wednesday reception, and Thursday, we are… It’s going to be an exciting event and we are talking, I think, a lot of this is to be throughout how to network, and network better. I don’t know how much I want to share because it changes every day like when you do an event, but we have a lot of private equity group women joining us. And lot of women CEOs, Glidewell CEO, a lot of women lead DSOs will be there. So, Holly from Rodeo Dental. I mean, there’s just a lot of names, maybe Brian, you want to jump in?

Brian Colao:

Yeah, I do want to say, thank you, no thank, because I do want to say you something about this. I really do. This is going to be a great event. I mean, I think Dr. Aman is too kind when she says I was a little nervous, I’m not nervous at all. This thing’s going to get sold out. There’s not any question about it. I mean, I’m just looking. Bill, you know a little something of we’re not going to talk about the Dykema conference. I don’t think today, but I know a little something about putting on a big event and having thousands of people there and stuff, the trajectory of this thing is incredible, okay? It’s going to be sold out the momentum behind this is incredible. And what I would tell people, two things that I really want from a guy being the only guy on the board that I want people to know is one, this is not a woman’s only event. Okay? Yeah, it is absolutely open to men. Sometimes they seem a little more comfortable Bill emailing me, “Hey, Brian are guys allowed to come to this thing?”

Brian Colao:

I get these emails and I’m like, “Of course I’m on the board. I wouldn’t be on the board if it was just women all the time. Of course it’s open to men.” So, that’s the first thing. Anybody listening to this, it is open to men, and women, and I encourage the men to come and I’ll tell you why. I don’t have to encourage the women, boy, the enthusiasm behind this is off the charts. But the reason I want to encourage the men to come to this is there’s going to be some really unique stuff. And I know you hear that sometimes, Bill, on your show where, “This is going to be the best event ever, and it’s unique”, and it ends up being the same stuff. This is really unique for the simple fact that there have never been this many talented women on stage at the same time, okay? And we all know. And we’ll talk about this, I hope, a little better before we get off this show.

Brian Colao:

I hope we’ll talk about why organizations are better with women as part of the leadership team. I hope we’ll spend a few minutes talking about that, but let me just say, right now, the statistics bear this out. There is no question it’s been conclusively proven, and I can anecdotally speak to my team. We are better having women members of the team and women in leadership and organizations do better when they have that. Why? Because you get to benefit from more diversity of opinions and perspectives and everything else. So I can’t wait, personally, to attend an event that’s got this many talented women on stage, and perspectives that really haven’t been a heard are in this type of audience before.

Brian Colao:

I mean, you always go to some of these things and we try our best. And I think anybody listening can put Dykema to the test this year at our event. You’re going to see tons and tons of women on stage doing things. But most of the events, I mean, let’s be honest, they’re underrepresented, historically. And you get one perspective. You get a lot of men talking about stuff, and we’ve got very talented men in the DSO industry. Some of them have been my mentors. They certainly say really intelligent, thoughtful, insightful stuff, but you don’t get the complete picture. I would think anybody that’s a leader, anybody running an organization, anybody that’s up and coming wants the complete picture. They want to be as well rounded as they possibly can.

Brian Colao:

And the only way we can be well rounded, Bill, is to get a complete perspective. And this event gives us the opportunity to hear from more talented women than to my knowledge have ever been on stage at any event in the DSO industry before. I can’t wait, not just because I’m on the board, okay, I’m biased. I’m on the board, but I can’t wait, because we’re actually going to get some really unique content. I know you’ll be there, Bill. We’re going to get some really unique content that we haven’t seen anywhere else before. And anytime I get an opportunity to get unique content that we haven’t heard before, I’m on the first plane over there. So this is going to be an incredible event it’s going to sell out and I’m just really excited about it.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, and yes, I’m going to be there for sure. I was looking at the website actually yesterday. I’m kind of planning out my travel for the end of Q1 and it’s a great opportunity to get together. I think what we’re going to see with this event is maybe you’re going to see a lot of new faces, right?

Brian Colao:

A lot of new faces on stage. This is the thing. These are not new,

Bill Neumann:

…that’s a great point.

Brian Colao:

But I’ve got to make the point here. These are not new faces. The majority of the industry is talented women. These are folks that you’ve seen in many cases for years, but they’ve been relegated to sitting in the audience instead of in prime time on the big stage, this event is going to put them prime time on big stage where, look, I’m not judging anybody. We don’t criticize, but you could argue. They probably should have been there from the beginning, but for whatever reason, weren’t, and now we’re going to showcase, and we’re going to put them on stage, but it’s just new faces on the stage. It’s not new faces. These folks have been talented and part of this industry for years and years and years. And I just got to make that correction, their Bill, if I can.

Bill Neumann:

No, that’s a great point, Brian. Dr. Aman, you talked a little bit about it. So Wednesday, which is the ninth you’ve got, earlier in the day, you’ve got a board meeting, and then there is a networking event that night for everybody?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, actually both of you. Thank you so much for coming. And I do want to highlight, please guys are welcomed, and you all will see some more on social media, how other guys are attending as well. So we are starting with on Wednesday with advisory board meeting, and then afterwards there will be a networking reception. And we have been very fortunate to get a lot of responses from women DJs from our industry, so maybe I’m giving some of the fun away, but we’ll have some of our women DJ on those reception events and they’re from our industry. So it’s going to be very exciting. And Thursday is all about… They’re different women leaders. We are talking about why a little bit more about why we are doing what we are doing and welcoming everyone attending. And lot of our… It is going to be a little bit workshops related to networking, and a workshop about how to connect with people better.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

And our keynote speaker, we are about to finalize by mid next week. So we will release that. It’s going to be some of… I have a couple of favorite authors. So we are planning to bring one of them as our keynote speaker and Smile Direct Club is a great sponsor. So we have their spokesperson there. Doctor, I am not at Liberty to share her name, but will be one of speakers. And we are highlighting some women’s stories. The people who, because seeing is believing. And if we have seen how there are women, we have seen in COO positions, and now leading the global companies, and how they have managed that balance, how they have managed those transition. So we have some really powerful stories. And as I was listening to them, they were giving me goosebumps. I want to kind of leave those stories out there so people can see that, and they can start seeing themselves there.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

And that, our Thursday is going to be primarily made up of, and we have a good entertainment plan. We’ll have an entertainer and a comedian for Thursday night because everyone likes some good laughs at the end of the day. We are giving out our leadership award, our first two leadership awards, it’s $10,000 each leadership award. So, and we have unbelievable amount of nominees, and we have a selection committee we have put in place, and we are working through this rigorously to identify our top five people. So that’s going to be highlight. All the attendees are going to get a fresh lifestyle, headshots. That’s something we want to give all the women who are attending. So we’ll have a kind of like a stylist, and a booth set up for that. I’m excited about that because if I’m going to a conference and I’m coming back with a fresh headshot, why not?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

And our Friday is actually going to be even more exciting. We are starting with all women CEO panels, then all women CEOs and CFOs, because a lot of times second date it dwindles down. I wanted to punch it with a lot of meat, so we could end the conference with a high note. And we see all these women lifting and elevating our industry. And in the end we have a real plan to talk with everyone to see what are we going to do different to, once we leave this conference, what are we going to do to keep this momentum going? So that’s pretty much what all the conference is going to be about.

Brian Colao:

Bill, from a high level. I mean, just why should you come to this? I mean, a couple things. One, there’s going to be tremendously inspirational stories. We’ve had some on the Dykema stage when DSO was a partner of ours, we have a Win DSO panel plus a launch event at Dykema. We’re going to do that again this year. But there are really inspirational stories that not only uplift the many, many talented women that’ll be there, but men, too. I’ve had gotten great inspiration from some of the stories that I’ve heard. But the second thing is you, just like I said, you’re going to get really unique perspectives. You’re going to have women CEOs, women CFOs women chief operating officers, women chief marketing officers. And you’re going to get really unique perspectives. And just anecdotally, I’m not conducting a double blind peer reviewed study, but I’ve got 50 people on my team, and I cannot tell you the times where we’d have three, like say we have a meeting.

Brian Colao:

And we have a lot of women on our team, but it’s still not as big as I’d like, but we might have three guys, and two women. I’d love to have three women, and two guys. Dr. Aman, we’re doing the best we can. We’re trying hard here, but we’ll have a meeting with like five people and two of them will be women. And the three guys will decisively say, we’re going to do A, B and C. And they are just like completely positive in what they’re going to do. And then the two women will wait and listen to. And then they’ll say, they’ll speak up and say we shouldn’t do that because of A, B, C, D, and E. And I get to make the final call, and I’m sitting there listening this more often than not. And I’m like, “Oh, my God. Thank God we have these women to team members to kind of explain this other perspective, because what these three guys were about to do was going to cause all these problems.”

Brian Colao:

And now, because we have the benefit of this other perspective, we can really make a smart decision here, and really make a more informed decision. And I just feel like anybody in the audience, you really need that perspective. I mean, one, I hope it encourages you to support women in your organization and make sure you always have as many women as possible in the room. But second, just listening to these things. I mean, every time I sit and listen, I’m not going to ruin we’re going to publish the agenda here in the next week or two. I’m not going to ruin it and spoil it on this show. But the talented folks that are going to be speaking there is so much insight you can get. And just as a guy, I’m speaking to the guys out there, I know it goes without saying the women in the audience are going to learn, but the guys, I can’t emphasize enough.

Brian Colao:

This is a unique perspective and stuff that you’re just not on hear, unless you make a point of making sure you have women on your team, which we do, of course, at Dykema. But if you don’t make a point of it, you’re not going to hear these perspectives and you really need to come and you need to hear this stuff. It’s just going to be terrific.

Bill Neumann:

This is exciting. So we’re getting close to it. I mean, by the time this podcast drops, we’ll probably be about a month out. Yeah. So, March 9th, through the 11th at the ARIA in Las Vegas, there are still hotel rooms available, but not many. And the rate is good. It’s a very good rate for Vegas, and the ARIA, which is a great hotel. I love what I hear about DJs, so that is awesome. Especially when they’re DSO DJs, women DSO DJs, talked about a comedian. So I hear DJ, I hear comedian that’s Vegas, for sure. So that’s really cool. I love the leadership award idea. So, that’s going to be really exciting to see who wins $10,000. Wow. That’s awesome.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

And it’s two awards. So we are hoping we could bring one of… We have lot of hygiene, dental hygienist nominations, and that’s kind of one of the area I have always felt underrepresented. And especially when group practices become DSOs, sometimes dental hygienists end up falling into that no man’s land. So I want to kind of find a way to uplift and make sure we, because I feel like they’re providers, and they’re somehow don’t get the similar recognition once DSOs come into place. I’m really looking forward to getting ADHA and dental hygienists more involved. And I know we are planning to talk about the mission of the organization is, but if we were doing some facts yesterday, and 85% of financial spending decisions are made by women in any household.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

So if we have more women in leadership roles, and then we are actually getting closer to our consumers, right? Because we know most of those spending decisions are going to be made by women. So I think those are kind of like small things in the background almost at subconscious level that help organizations be better. And there are some market researchers that have shown when women are in leadership roles, companies have better profits and their shares perform better. And I think a lot of those things play a role. And with having our dental hygienist involved, it’s kind of going to help our industry, just, we forget about them sometimes.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great point about hygienists. You kind of… You look and what’s really interesting. We’ve done articles on several that were founders of DSOs so a lot of times you typically think it’s going to be a dentist or it’s going to be even sometimes it’s a non-clinician, right, that actually is founding the DSO, the support side of it. But there are plenty out there that are on the hygiene side and hygienists spend a lot of time with the patients, right? In fact, typically more time than the dentist still. So, they have the relationship and a lot of cases, they know the ins and outs of the business more so, or as much as a dentist, as a clinician does.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Because they can know a little bit on the business side too, because they are trying to keep patients engaged. I think patient retention is huge outcome of a good hygiene program. So, and everyone wants to retain patients, so we just got to focus on our hygienists.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. A lot easier to retain patients than it is to find new ones.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yeah. Yes.

Bill Neumann:

So as we try to wrap this up here, we talked about the dates March 9th, through the 11th. Let’s talk a little bit about, so if I’m a DSO, if I work for a DSO, I can sign up for this as an individual. Can I also sign up as, or register as a company? Like what are the difference of…? I know there are some like company memberships, there are individuals, like I could just register, and then, so talk about it from the DSO perspective. And then also from the vendor perspective, what does registration look like there?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Absolutely. So first we have three different memberships industry level, which is for our vendor partners, private equity firms, financial organizations, consulting companies, those all fall into that industry partners. And then we have DSO memberships that’s for DSOs. And it’s no size specific. It’s really about mission we have DSOs starting with 15 practices, going up to 1,000 and plus like Heartlands of the world. So, there is no size specific, but what we have done is once organizations join us, there is up to 20 members that they can use internally and externally, so we award those memberships. And those are the members that have access to those networking opportunities. Our members exclusive content that we are going to have available for them. And they will be able to participate in that mentorship, and our internship programs. That’s what those memberships come from. And once these organizations become members with us, especially the industry partners, they can use those 20 memberships, not just internally, but externally also.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

For example, if they’re working with a DSO it’s smaller, maybe three to five practices run DSO by a woman. Maybe they don’t have that bandwidth to join us as an organization, but they know they will benefit from networking with other women CEOs. So they can give that leader that membership to them, because we want a lot and a lot of members working together. If I were to say at the end of 2022, we could have this close network of 50 women from all around the industry in different discipline, learning from each other, grab their phone, call each other for, “Hey, I’m stuck with this. What is the right answer?” That would be a huge, huge win, because that’s what, I think, women need to get to that next level in our industry right now. So talking about membership. So those are the membership. Industry partners, DSOs, and individual members.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Anyone can join us just as individual member. They will be able to use their… Be an individual member and have access to all those programs. And once you are registered with us as a member, I think there is around 30%, some discount on for companies for sponsorship opportunities. And we have some unique specials for companies to register their internal members for the event, and there are some free tickets. I just don’t remember all those details. I think we have changed them because as times coming close and we have more and more registrants, but there are a lot of discounts. And lot of those things available. If someone wants to come to event, please reach out, send us an email, even if… We’ll find a way to get you all in.

Bill Neumann:

So, it’s WomeninDSO.org, just remember it’s dot org, not dot com. WomeninDSO.org. And we’ll drop the URL in our show notes so everybody has access to that. And on the Group Dentistry Now website on our events tab we have your event listed there. So if you can’t remember the URL, just go to our website and you’ll see it listed ninth through 11th. So I’d love to get final thoughts on this. Dr. Kaur, I’ll let you end the show. So I’m going to ask Brian first for his final thoughts, anything that we might have missed, and then Dr. Aman, please feel free afterwards to close.

Brian Colao:

Yeah. My final thoughts on this, is this is a great organization. If it matters, it’s a not for profit organization. I mean, it shouldn’t, this is a great event. You should come no matter what, but if it matters, it’s a not for profit organization, we’re not making a profit on this. It’s a really, really, really good cause, first of all. Second of all, again, I cannot emphasize enough just how unique and incredible this event is. Look, come the first time, and if I’m wrong, you don’t got to come again. But this is going to be absolutely incredible, unique. I really can’t emphasize enough, people need to come, and they need to join. Because one other thing I’ll say before, I guess we wrap it up is it’s not just about this event, although this event’s going to be wonderful. And I want everybody to come and register. This is ongoing support. I mean, the neat thing about this organization, again, being the only guy on the board that I love is it’s nonjudgmental.

Brian Colao:

I mean, it is a verified provable fact that the industry has not done well in giving the same opportunities to women as they have to men historically, but we’re not here to judge anybody. We’re not here to criticize. We’re just saying, “Look, it’s, it’s a verifiable fact that we’ve not done as well as we could. We are here to help you.” If you join this organization we are going to help you get access to talented women, or help you basically train, and mentor the women within your organization, or do both. Help you train the women within your organization and also give you access to talented women on the outside. And we’re better. We are better as an organization, I don’t got to tell you, Bill, you’re in a tremendous partnership with your incredibly talented wife.

Brian Colao:

So I don’t have to tell you about the importance of having women in ownership, but for the rest of us that have much larger organizations, we’re better with women. And even if you haven’t, nobody’s going to judge you here, and give you a hard time about it. We’re going to help you. We’re going to help you get more women, and mentor more women and give more access, and more opportunities. So, before, I guess the final thing I’ll say is it really has been the highlight of my career being a part of this organization. I want everybody to register to the event and I want everybody to participate with us, collaborate with us, and let us make your organizations better.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. Dr. Aman, final words?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

First, Bill, thank you for doing this. It’s actually even good to hear Brian, because even though we hear talk about this stuff and Bill how you shared up all those small interjected, small thing that just validated why we exist. Final words, yes, this is an event and we are excited about it. It’s going to feel different, and you all will leave it something that is going to warm your heart. And it’s going to feel like we are doing something better as an industry. And we keep talking about women, we are better with having women in leadership, but reality is this diversity, and thought is so important. And we have that diversity and thought at our fingertips with women all around us. So if we kind of just lift and work together, it can be great. And my request to everyone is it’s, for me, it’s my life’s work and it’s everything we are trying to do.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

We feel the need for it. There is a purpose behind it, but are we expert at it? No. So if you all see us missing a point on something, please let us know. We are happy to learn, and improve because that’s what we want to do. And there has been tremendous feedback, and support and I can’t afford to not do well with this organization. So, we really need everyone’s support starting with this event, but on ongoing basis. And that support can be a thought, a comment, a suggestion. And of course we want you all, more, and more members, so we could further our mission. And we can learn… All of our members can learn from each other. So, in nutshell, that’s kind of what I would like to share. Please, please reach out. Even if it’s just a gift of your thought and advice, we need that. And we really, really want it.

Bill Neumann:

That’s a great way to finish things. And I’ll try and finish it off with something that Dr. Kaur, you mentioned when we started, which was you talked about being involved in the DSO industry, and DSOs really providing more access to care for patients. And I think what Women in DSO is doing is providing more access for women to leadership roles in the DSO industry. So I see that parallel. It’s interesting, and it’s wonderful. I’m looking forward to seeing everybody in Las Vegas, March 9th, through the 11th, at the ARIA, again, it’s WomeninDSO.org, right? Dot org. And again, if you can’t remember that you can go to our website, and go to the events tab, and make sure you sign up for the event. So thank you, Brian. Appreciate you being here. Dr. Kaur thank you. First time. Not going to be the last time that you’ll be on the podcast. And again, I always say this, thank you everybody for listening, being part of the Group Dentistry Now show again without the audience, we wouldn’t have a show I’m Bill Neumann, and until next time, that’s it.