The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry – Episode 86

Dr. Ryan Hungate, CEO & Founder of Simplifeye, Dee Fischer, Founder & CEO of Fischer Professional Group and Kim Fuller, Director of Marketing Events & Promotions, join Bill Neumann on the Group Dentistry Now Show. Simplifeye is partnering with Group Dentistry Now and Fischer’s Professional Group to create the future of dentistry as they host the first annual AMPLIFY dental conference in May. On this podcast they discuss the upcoming event which will highlight innovative technology and actionable thought leadership in the DSO and high-end private practices space.

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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:

Kim Larson:

Welcome to The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry. Kim Larson and Bill Neumann talk to industry leaders about their challenges, successes, and the future of Group Dentistry. Visit groupdentistrynow.com for more DSO analysis, news and events. Looking for a job or have a job to fill? Visit joindso.com. We hope you enjoy today’s show.

Bill Neumann:

Hey, I’d like to welcome everyone to The Group Dentistry Now Show. I’m Bill Neumann. Thanks everybody as always for listening in, whether it’s Apple, Spotify, Google or you happen to be watching us on YouTube, we appreciate you being a part of the show. And, of course, without an audience, we wouldn’t have a show, and without great guests, we wouldn’t have an audience. So we’ve got some great guests on today. We’re going to talk about a new conference in the DSO dental space, it’s called AMPLIFY. It’s happening May 19th through the 21st in Tampa, Florida, one of my favorite towns. We’ll talk about the cool venue, we’ll talk about why this conference is different and why you should be there. But let me run through the guests really, really quick here, we have Dee Fischer with us. She is the founder of Fischer Professional Group. Dee, welcome to The Group Dentistry Now Show. Thanks for being here.

Dee Fischer:

Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Bill Neumann:

We have Kim Fuller. She is a veteran dental events planner. Kim, great to see you again.

Kim Fuller:

Great to see you again as always, Bill.

Bill Neumann:

And we have Dr. Ryan Hungate. He is the founder and CEO of Simplifeye and also a practicing orthodontist. Thanks Ryan for being here.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Great to be here, Bill. Thanks for having me.

Bill Neumann:

Hey Dee, do you want to kick things off a little bit on your background and a little bit about your company?

Dee Fischer:

Sure. My background is, I’ve been in the single practice space and I’ve been in the DSO space coaching, and team building, and taking practices to the next level, getting ready to scale. I’ve worked with numerous DSOs across the country and just really getting them, I think scalable, profitable, an honest happy culture. So that’s kind of my niche.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. We’ll get into a little bit more about what you do and also about your role at the AMPLIFY Conference. Kim, a little bit about your background.

Kim Fuller:

Sure. Well, I’ve somehow been in dentistry about 20 years now, who knew that would happen? But I really love the DSO space. I’m really happy to be with Simplifeye right now. And we are really excited to be bringing our first conference out there. We think we have a lot to say and we’re bringing something new to the space and that’s a thrill for me.

Bill Neumann:

And that’s what we’re going to talk about. And Ryan last but not least a little bit about your background.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Yeah. So I’m an orthodontist, that’s where everything kind of started. Also the founder and CEO of Simplifeye. Prior to all of that, designed what all of you now experience as the Apple retail workflow. So whenever you walk into an Apple Store, I designed the whole Triage Program. Triage, where you walk in, strategically routed around, and then we secretly kick you out without you knowing right after you spend around $600 or more. So we got to deploy that back in 2007, 2008, when really there was no such thing as the iPhone and it just came out. And been trying to bring that technology and that know-how to the DSO space and the dental space ever since.

Bill Neumann:

Pretty cool. Interesting background, Ryan, for an orthodontist for sure. So let’s talk about not only are you an orthodontist and the founder of Simplifeye, and you worked at Apple, and you’re like, “Well, we should do a conference too.” So let’s talk about AMPLIFY and why you felt like there was room for another conference, what was missing? So talk a little bit about the why behind this.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Yeah. Well, I don’t know if anybody else has felt it, but I feel like this profession might be changing a little bit lately. We’re trying to figure out how we can deal with and thrive in these new situations. And what’s interesting is more and more, it used to be, we were trying to explain technology to people and we were trying to get them to embrace it and move forward, what? I think our situation that we’re in, whether you call it pre-pandemic, in the middle of the pandemic or post-pandemic, at this point in time, we are dealing with all kinds of weird stuff. Staffing shortages, we’re dealing with increasing wages. People who worked at the front desk for 30 years are now saying, “Oh, I’m going to look for another job.” That was never a problem we had. So now we’re having people clamoring for technology. How can I turn two people into one?

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

And the other piece is that, when I go to these conferences, simply hearing a great sales pitch is no basis for making a very important critical decision in technology platforms, right? In the era that we have right now. Okay, in this era of transformation in our opinion, it includes crazy innovation that are coming about, ones that we don’t even know how we’re going to apply to dental just yet. And there’s people all over that are starting to do this. We’re going to be talking about things like artificial intelligence, but actually how we use it, not just, “Hey, there’s this thing called AI.” Right? I hate hearing AI and then it’s talking about a bot. That is not artificial intelligence. My car driving itself to work, that is artificial intelligence, right? Blockchain and Web 3.0. I don’t know if anybody’s heard of an NFT lately.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

I’m sick of hearing about this stuff. I want to know how the hell I apply it to my life, how I apply it to my practice. We’re providing a slate of technology experts and a really comfortable environment. Because I always hate it when you sit there in an audience and you don’t have a chance to ask questions, right? You can’t understand it. And if you don’t understand, it’s frowned to upon if you ask questions. You feel like a dumb dumb in the audience if you raise your hand or if you don’t quite get what’s going on. We want to bring intelligent people, and experts, geniuses that can talk about this stuff in an understandable way. And in the end, we need to think about technology as not just a tool that’s going to replace a lot of the stuff that we do, which is nice, right? I want to think about technology as a tool that can allow human beings to be more human. That’s what we want at the end of the day.

Bill Neumann:

So, Kim, talk a little bit about, what you’re doing. So, Ryan has this idea and totally agree with you. I mean, there is technology everywhere now. And in the dental industry, I think in the past couple of years in particular, DSOs and solos realize that in some ways they have to use it because they don’t have the human resources. There’s so much information out there, but it’s almost too much. It’s overwhelming with all the opportunity. Can I apply this, and am I capable, or is my team capable of understanding this, absorbing this, and using it day-to-day? And is it going to make us more productive? Is it going to help with patient outcomes? Are we going to be more profitable? Kim, talk a little bit about your why as Ryan had this idea with AMPLIFY.

Kim Fuller:

Sure. Well, yeah. Ryan really nailed that. So he really said it. What I love is that, “Let’s let the humans be more human.” Technology can be scary, right? And so we want to be presenting this in a way that they can really grasp, as he said, we can ask questions. And then at the end go home with a playbook of, what is it that we need? What’s good for now? What we can do later. And what is really important and what might they be missing right now that could help them as Dee says, how it will help them scale, help them get to the next level and in a way that makes it not so scary.

Bill Neumann:

Makes sense. And, Dee, you’re probably running into this with your clients where there’s questions about AI and technology, what should I use? What shouldn’t I use? How should I use it? So is that why you’re involved with this conference? Talk a little bit about your involvement.

Dee Fischer:

Well, the reason why I’m involved with this conference is because I believe artificial intelligence can bring great change management to the practice level. There’s two things that are going to really affect your practice if you want to scale. One of them as we know is culture and the other is EBITDA. And how do you take artificial intelligence and apply to change management that is positive at the practice level and also can affect your EBITDA in a positive way? As Ryan pointed out, we’re struggling with staffing costs, we’re struggling with a lot of things. So how do you right size your P now, give great culture, understand change management. I don’t think those have been answered in the dental space yet. And I really would love people to be able to sit in a conference and say, “Okay, give me the playbook, show me how I’m going to do that.”

Dee Fischer:

Have a tactical Monday morning that they’re going to go home with and say, “Okay, I can explain to my team now why we are doing this.” I don’t think the why for the team has been explained. And as Ryan said, when they hear AI, they’re thinking someone’s going to take their job. Absolutely not, it’s going to enhance it. And what is the teaching mechanism for people in our space, team members, to really understand artificial intelligence? We read a book, we hear Tesla, we hear all these things, but do we really know what it is? So, give them the know. And you have the why, you have the know, you have the golden circle. And I think, when Ryan spoke to me about this, I jumped on board right away because I said, “Ryan, this would be so valuable.”

Dee Fischer:

Let’s talk about the team member at the front desk. Let’s talk about team member with the virtual dental assistant. They see it as a threat. It’s really not a threat, it’s a compliment. And we in the dental space need to explain that compliment. I think that is so lacking right now, in my opinion. And I thought no one better than Ryan with his technical background, bringing this to the space. And look, we have to start somewhere. I can remember going to conferences when there were 10 people, 20 people, now they’ve got a thousand. But I said, “Ryan, come on, let’s kick this off. Let’s go, we start small, we’ll get bigger and bigger and bigger. But if we don’t populate the space with knowledge, people are always going to be scared of AI.” So that’s my why.

Bill Neumann:

It’s a great point, Dee. And you mentioned something early on, you mentioned playbook. So there are some things that you thought were lacking with some of the other conferences. Talk a little bit about what you’re going to bring to the table for AMPLIFY, what you feel was missing.

Dee Fischer:

So I really want to see workflows. I really want them to understand the workflows. And I don’t think it was intentional on any conference to miss that. But I think if you’re doing an artificial intelligent workflow to make humans understand how to use this, you really have to lay out the workflows. It has to be from the bottom up. How does that work? How does that affect me? How does that affect my department? And have a domino effect that it’s all positive through the culture of the company. I just feel that that workflow has not been laid out clearly. And I think what Ryan’s key thing is, who and when can we ask the question and not feel like we’re a dummy in the audience? I mean, it’s so true. How many times do you want to raise your hand, because like, “Oh, I don’t want to be the one that doesn’t know.” And so for me, I think Ryan giving them the space to do that is going to be key.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Yeah. And how many people have actually walked home at the end of conferences, in my opinion, where they’re like, “I just had a really, really fun time, but I’m not changing anything.” Right? I’m not going home and I’m not making a decision on what I just did because I don’t even know how to apply what the people on stage just talked about, right? We want to give those people, we keep saying it, a playbook, a cookbook, to go home, understand what’s urgent needs to be addressed now. Because there are some things that if you don’t have them in your practice yet, you need to get on it because other people are doing that and your patients are expecting it. When is something going to become a problem? Understanding it, when you see that hit, right? What’s a nice to have at the end of the day? Like, “I don’t really need this that much, it’d be cool. Maybe I should pay attention to it to have it one day.” Right?

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

And then understanding how they can measure that. That’s what Dee is unbelievable at, right? Helping practices understand how to measure the outcomes of what they’re applying, right? The 101 on this stuff, maybe even the 401, right? Whatever we might want to do out there to actually take immediate action and make immediate differences in your bottom line. That’s what we want to be able to do to walk away and go home and say, “Here’s what I’m going to do to make things better.” And I hate the term future proof, but really it’s what it is, future proof my practice for what people want immediately.

Dee Fischer:

And I’m going to give you a real quick example of a workflow that can change a situation. And just an example, to give you an idea. So we had a team, and we said, “Why don’t we have the hygienist take the payments in the back at the chair?” And they were like, “We’ve never done that.” I said, “Well, let’s talk about this. If we have the hygienist take the payments at the back of the chair, we could dismiss them just to go home. They’re not stopping at the front desk, doesn’t tie up the front desk. But if you take this, every time the hygienist walks up to the front, it takes about 58 seconds. Four hygienists at 58 seconds, times 10 practices cost what? When they could be in the operatory, breaking down the room and getting ready for the next patients.”

Dee Fischer:

That’s what we want to teach. I think that’s a little bit different. And so when Ryan and I, and we’re all talking about this, it excites us because right there, like I said, if you even took that to over 50 practices, save the 58 seconds per employee walking up. What does that do to your EBITDA on your staffing cost? So things like that. I think, Ryan and I, we just, I guess, we could be two nerds going and doing this all. But that’s an example of a workflow to be taught.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. Great stuff. So just a couple of things I’m taking away here, workflow, playbook, AI. So we’ve got that covered, right? So, we’re also going to be talking from a technology perspective well beyond AI. So let’s talk about some things, Ryan, that you’re seeing, and love everybody to kind of chime in, that are revolutionary right now. It doesn’t necessarily have to be healthcare or dentistry, but some things that you see that are going to be talked about at this conference that I think we as, whether you’re a clinician or whether you’re somebody that’s working in a DSO setting, need to really understand, because it could be applicable whether it’s now or down the road for a dental practice. So go for it, Ryan.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Yeah. So there’s a few things. We’ve talked about artificial intelligence and how that’s going to be enhancing things both on the clinical side, which a lot of you have seen how we are actually enhancing vision on radiology, right? Being able to assess X-rays very quickly. Look at things that we might have missed or even better yet know for a fact that they’re going to be approved by the insurance company. My God, could you imagine the keys to the castle being in your back pocket whenever you want them? Talk about efficiency, right? The other piece is cryptocurrency. And a lot of our payment processing and how we’re moving things through there. People look at that and go, “Okay, I’ll buy Bitcoin, or I’ll buy Ethereum.” Or whatever it might be that some fancy name out there, Solana blockchain, US Dollar Coin, all these different things that people don’t understand.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

What if we told you that you don’t have to pay processing fees because of cryptocurrency. Now, do I have your attention? Right? Do I have your attention that I could save you 3% on your business by doing absolutely nothing? That’s interesting. What if you could apply cryptocurrency in that manner to your practice? I mean, what’s funny is that would make a difference to a one location practice. What if you have 30 locations? My God, right? These are the things that we have to pay attention to because look, one day somebody’s going to have a click of a button and you’re going to be able to apply that to your practice. No problem, right? But that’s going to be 10 years from now. Do you want to wait 10 years to save 3% on your business? Or do you want to know how to go apply it tomorrow?

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

That’s the question you have to ask yourself. Both work out, it’s just one of them you have three extra vacation homes and you get to pay for your kids’ college a little bit earlier. So that’s what we want to help people understand. How can they apply all these crazy buzzwords out there, NFTs, Web3, all these different things. How do we apply that to these practices in a practical way today? Because there’s some unbelievable companies that have been doing the research, figuring out the why behind these things. And if we can tell people the why, and really the how, later on is what Dee is going to focus on, the how is what they need to be able to understand and go home and take care of. And that’s what’s so excited about all of our panelists, all of our speakers, that’s all we’re talking about. And we’re going to tell a coherent story from point A to point Z, that you’re going to be able to understand the why and the flow that you’re going to be able to experience in the future and that you can go apply today.

Bill Neumann:

Great stuff. And I remember seeing Ryan speak years ago about cryptocurrency and I probably should have bought in then and darn it, I didn’t. But now I’m in.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Here you go.

Bill Neumann:

Good stuff. You want to tie into this a little bit, some of the ways you see technology almost as a bridge, the gap between what practices want to do and the information that they need to be successful. And again, we’re kind of bringing it back down to the practice level, but there’s so much out there. Maybe we can let Dee talk a little bit about that. She talked about workflow and I would just love to… Do you see things being used today, technologies, or maybe that can be used tomorrow to really help dental practices? And maybe this is a teaser for what we’re going to talk about at the conference, dental practices excel.

Dee Fischer:

Absolutely. And for me, I think once they get the clear understanding, they will know how to put it in their practice and they can excel with it. Now I’ll give you a funny story. I was in California, I was talking to this practitioner and he said to me, “No, I just can’t get my people to work on time.” Because they say they are too tired to drive to work. I said, “Get a Tesla, put them in the car.” I said, “The car could drive them to work. We got solutions with artificial intelligence here.” And he started laughing. He said, “You know what? That’s not a bad idea.” And so he bought a company car that’s a Tesla. And he just said, “When anyone’s tired, I just put him in the Tesla. I show him how the car can drive.” And humor though, he learned that, maybe I need to bring artificial intelligence to the practice level. What does that look like?

Dee Fischer:

And explaining to him those things that can really enhance your practice, and not threaten your workflows, and also not threaten your teammates. So I think that that’s the biggest key here is, I think, for us, how do you enhance a practice with artificial intelligence? Where do you start? Because all of a sudden, one of the things I see, “Okay, we’ll get 15 artificial intelligence packages, we’re going to put it all at the practice level. We’ve bought this package, this package, this package.” They don’t talk to each other. It’s clustered up. Where do you start? What is your first purchase in artificial intelligence? So let’s look at your practice, your individual practice, because on one end, it might be one, on another practice it might be something else.

Dee Fischer:

And I think the one thing that Ryan has mastered, which really impressed me, is how they compliment each other. And that’s going to be a discussion at the conference. We don’t need 15 things. Maybe you start with one, or you start with two, but let us give you advice on what those one or two might look like. And once your team gets comfortable, one or two, they’re going to want to soar. They really are going to say, “Hey, now I understand.” And for me, I look on the business side, if I have a great cost savings, it’s going to my EBITDA. And if I want to scale and go for merger and acquisition, I want that EBITDA to be healthy. So if artificial intelligence can take me there, “Bring it on.” Is what I tell everybody. I say, “It’s going to play well at the table if you go for a merger and acquisition.”

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Yeah. How many people out there have you seen where they’re like, “Man, if Bobby at the front desk left, I’d be screwed.” You are not able to be merged in with a DSO. You are not able to be rolled up by a private equity group if that is the case, okay? You cannot have these stopgaps. What people don’t understand is that by applying technology and making things more scalable, you get more multiples on your EBITDA. If you walked up to a practice and you said, “Tomorrow, if everybody left, everything would just magically keep on going.” That’s what I want to buy if I am rolling up practices. I want that model. Oh, if that’s what I need, I can insert anybody tomorrow. I can hire anybody and train them within 48 hours. My Lord, right? Your whole segment that you’re doing, Dee, working smarter and not harder, that’s beautiful, right?

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

And I don’t know if anybody else has seen this. Has anybody else heard that their front desk is a little bit more stressed than they used to be? Right? I sure as hell have, right? Your front desk right now can only make five outbound calls a day, right? That’s a Dee Fischer statistic. So you know it’s right, right? So this is the stuff we don’t think about. Why are these patients not coming back in? Oh, they’re doing 10,000 things at the front desk. How do we free them up to be able to take care of these things every single day? The rudimentary stuff, not to complicated stuff like verifying insurance that everybody hates, right? These are the things that we need to understand how we can automate it, how we can make those people’s lives better. You’re going to get less turnover. You’re going to get better margins on your business. You’re going to get a stickier person. It’s awesome.

Kim Fuller:

I was-

Bill Neumann:

So thank… Oh, go ahead, Kim.

Kim Fuller:

I was just going to add that the other piece of this is everything that they said, but also how do you get your team to buy in on these two decisions? And we’re really going to get into that. How are we going to make sure that your team understands what you’re doing and how do you finance it? How do you get the money to pay for technology? And what do investors want to see if they’re going to come in and examine your practices? So we kind of specifically did the second day as a deep dive into those topics. So it’s not just, what are we going to do? Let’s think about it. But let’s actually figure out how you can implement it.

Bill Neumann:

So great segues, both Ryan and Kim, because I wanted to talk to Dee a little bit more about her specific segment, the work smarter not harder. It’s not just you, Dee, you’ve got a couple other people that are going to be involved in that. So talk about that. I mean, sounds great, but what are you going to talk about?

Dee Fischer:

We’re going to talk about bringing your team through change management and bringing your team on board and how this all becomes really successful. So for instance, you remember this is going to date me, I’ll never forget this. Many, many years ago, we had this paper appointment book, and I can remember that change management had to go in fact to get the team to buy in and go to a computer, because we were starting to work smarter, computers were coming in. And I’ll never forget, we were in the process of doing a merger and someone walking through, one of the CEOs that was going to purchase and said, “Well, they’re not computer savvy yet. This is going to cost us $30,000 to buy all these computers. This is what it’s looking like. This is going to hit our bottom line.” And a light bulb went off of me and said, “Okay, we need to teach change management. So we’re working smarter.”

Dee Fischer:

So we realized when we went from writing down on an appointment book, to going to a computer. Again, what were the efficiencies? What were we saving in time, employee cost and not only satisfaction to your customer across the desk, you could actually talk to them now instead of having your head down and writing. So working smarter comes to customer service. I think it’s a point that is missed sometimes. But what do you really need? You need to understand your customer, you need to understand that customer service, and you have to have all those tools to allow you to do that. That’s working smarter. Because I’m sure when you walk through the doorbell, and you have someone who has their head down like this, and says, “Hello.” It’s not a friendly feeling. That’s not working smart. So we’ll take you through flows. We’ll take you through change management. And I think change management shows you how to work smarter.

Dee Fischer:

And if you think of five points on change management, technology is coming in, right? We’re hearing technology. We’re hearing, retraining team, a lot of new team members are coming in, right? You’re looking at the cost of that. You could keep going down to the five modules, self-awareness, what’s going to happen here? How do we make that change management? Walking through that. And that’s working smarter. Instead of going in blind, here’s something and you figure it out. That’s not working smarter. So I think, we’re going to tie that circle together on bringing AI to change management, to team involvement. That’s always working smarter.

Bill Neumann:

So, Dee, your session is going to be on may the 20th. That is entitled Awesome Day. And right before that, the arrival day, which is the 19th, there’s going to be optional golf. There’s going to be some networking and a reception. So you’ll be kicking that off. Actually it looks like AI, so we’re going to start off on the 20th, Awesome Day with AI and the future. And we’re going to talk a lot about that or future. And then we’re going to get into Ryan’s passion besides dentistry, and besides AI, cryptocurrency. So talk about that. And then it’s going to be Dee, work smarter not harder. Kim, do you want to fill in any blanks there because you’re the one planner. I know there’s a lot of cool things that I missed. And then also the fun that happens after that.

Kim Fuller:

Well, certainly. I mean, we’ve all gone to lots of conferences and so I feel like we know the flow of what we want to do. We want to get people in, get them registered, have it be a nice experience that happens on Thursday. Friday, we start not too early, but just early enough to make sure we’re packing in a lot of great information. What we’ve also done, I mean, across the board, what do people say? They want more networking. They want more time to talk to each other. So we’ve extended all of our networking breaks to be at least 45 minutes. During those breaks, we’re going to kind of do some optional kind of guided conversations through the room. So everything from medical dental integration, and just Web3, some of the things that might need a deeper dive. So we’ll get some people who are going to lead those conversations around the room.

Kim Fuller:

But if you don’t want to do those, we’ve got people to talk to. This space is one where everyone learns from each other, we know this. The people on stage, the people in the audience, they’re all connecting and learning from each other. So we’re really trying to make sure that that’s the vibe. That’s what we’re doing on Awesome Day. At the end of Awesome Day two, we’re going to do a cruise. I mean, who can beat that? Get all this stuff on a boat. Ryan, do you want to talk to a little bit about the cruise?

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

Yeah. No, I’m all about the cruise on Friday. And not to mention, I mean, look, the cruise is going to pull right up to the hotel. We’re going to have the old fashion red carpet, and pictures, and dinner. And the most exciting piece for me is that we are going to have The Group Dentistry Now Tech and Innovation Awards. It is time that we actually recognize practices that are doing innovative things, tell people what they are doing, how they’re doing it, so people can understand how that’s influencing their practices so they can go back and do the exact same thing or something similar to actually roll that out. And then, next year, get that Innovation Award themselves, right?

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

That’s what we want. We want them to be able to understand those things, right? Make it the Oscars of how awesome these practices are and really award these practices for what they’ve put into place. So the cruise is going to be really cool on Friday, should be a lot of fun, should be a lot of dancing under the stars, and lots of time for networking, and hanging out, and a couple drinks involved as well.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah.

Dee Fischer:

And I also think one of the things that Ryan missed here is, I think, Ryan, I, and Kim, we had this conversation, and we put a lot of networking time in. It was because we wanted the speakers to be touchable and teachable. And I think those are two keys. I think that Ryan and I talked about, were like, “Leave a lot of networking time in there. We want anybody coming to this conference that’s going to speak and be there. We want them to have teaching moments 24/7, and also be touchable, be approachable. Let’s be able to talk to you all. And let’s be able to see, maybe I had that little question I just didn’t want to ask.” So I think those were two things that Ryan and I, we kept throwing that word around. Let’s be touchable and teachable, just in a fun way. And the cruise is going to bring it out. Because when you’re drinking alcohol, there’s a lot of things that could come out on that teachable and touchable.

Dr. Ryan Hungate:

All right.

Bill Neumann:

Dee, that’s a great point regarding the networking, because a lot of times we think about networking, it’s just the attendees, right? But the fact is, and sometimes you go to some events and the speakers are there and they’re gone. So it’s great. A lot of people don’t either feel comfortable asking the question or it doesn’t come up until maybe some networking they have with other people and like, “Oh my gosh, yeah. We never really found that out.” And they can go to the speaker and have that conversation, whether it’s on the floor during those longer networking sessions, or whether it’s on the cruise. And I’ll just give you my two cents about Tampa. And,

Bill Neumann:

I mean, I spend a lot of time there in that particular part of Tampa. And there is so much to do.

Bill Neumann:

I mean, it is a great place for a conference. It’s a great place, there’s restaurants all over the place, everything’s walkable, you’re right on the water. And to Ryan’s point, you just basically leave the restaurant and you hop on the boat and you’re on Tampa Bay cruising around. So it’s going to be pretty cool. And the awards that we’re going to have there from technology to the DSO influencers, we’re going to celebrate people that maybe haven’t been celebrated before. And we can find out from them, they’re going to get the opportunity to speak and tell us about their successes, which is really important and another great way to find out how people are doing things in different practices or different DSOs that maybe you can learn from. So certainly excited about that.

Bill Neumann:

Let’s wrap a couple things up here. I know, Kim, you probably have a couple things you want to say. I want to make sure that we talk about some of the other speakers that are going to be there. We’re going to have Dr. Cindy Roark from Sage Dental, Dr. Tariq Ali, Rondi Michaux from 42 North, Cassie Tallon from Partnerships for Dentists. We’re going to have Nabil Dr. Fehmi, Mike White, Mike Montgomery, Brian Colao, Fred Joyal. I’m sure I’m missing some people, but that should be enough, right? And of course, Dee Fischer, and Dr. Ryan Hungate, and some others, and, Kim, I’m sure you’re going to be moderating something and be involved and you always do a great job.

Kim Fuller:

Thanks, yeah. One of my favorite things is throwing some fun into the segments as well. And I know that Dee does that too. So yeah, our fad or future technology segment, we’ll do that in a fun way. Make it interesting, but also fun. One of the things you just talked about all these speakers, I think we’ve covered basically everything, but I did want to throw in that when you listen to that list of speakers, these are end users. These aren’t people telling you, “This is how you do it.” And not actually doing it. We have people on stage speaking who are using these things, who are bringing them into their practices and understanding how they work and wanting to help explain to everybody else how they’re doing it. So we want to make sure that that’s noted too. We’re not up there kind of just talking about how we would do things. It’s we want to bring the people up who are doing them and have them explain.

Bill Neumann:

Right. These aren’t just product pitches. These aren’t vendors up there, yes. That’s important to note. So, yeah, absolutely. That’s great.

Kim Fuller:

But yeah, that’s it. I think we’ve done it. I mean, we got cruising, we’ve got lots of education, we’ve got technology questions, all that good stuff. We’re going to do it.

Bill Neumann:

So I think we’ve probably forgot one of the most important things is, how do I sign up, right? And can I get a discount? So yes and yes, we’re going to give you both. So it’s pretty easy. It’s amplifycon.com. So con like conference, not com like .com. So go over that a couple more times. Amplifycon, C-O-N .com, amplifycon.com.

Kim Fuller:

Yes.

Bill Neumann:

And if you use code GDN, like Group Dentistry now, GDN22, like 2022, you’ll get $100 off. So again, amplifycon.com, use code GDN22 to get $100 off, it’s May 19th through the 21st in Tampa at the Marriott. Right downtown, right on the water, great restaurants, hop on the boat, go cruise around, get dressed up, celebrate, learn a lot, figure out how you can actually use technology in your practices. Get the playbook from Dee. Learn about cryptocurrency. Learn about things that maybe have been a little mystical to you, mystifying, but you can take and actually implement in your practices when you get back on Monday. Which is one of those things that a lot of times you come out of conferences and you just don’t know how to do. So any final thoughts before we sign off here?

Dee Fischer:

I would just like to say, encourage everyone to bring teammates. To bring a teammate to understand, because so many times we have the practitioners sitting there and they go home with the playbook and the teammates are like, “Well, that’s great. You heard that.” I’m going to encourage everyone. I think that, Ryan, and Kim, and I, and the team that’s teaching here really sat down and said, “Let’s make this, affordable for them to bring teammates into this space, because I think that would only enhance the experience that you’re going to bring back to the practice level.” So I would encourage one or two teammates, bring them along. And we might do a pre-op team thing, you never know.

Bill Neumann:

No, that’s a great point there, Dee, is that it’s not just for the owners of the practices, it’s just not for the clinicians, bring the teammates as well. So with that, I think we’ll end things here. Appreciate everybody being involved in this. I’m really looking forward to this conference, it’s going to be a lot of fun and we’re going to learn a lot and it’s going to be different. We’ll make sure we drop the code to save $100. And then also amplifycon.com the URL to sign up in the show notes. So that’s it. Until next time, I am Bill Neumann. Thanks everybody for joining us. And this is The Group Dentistry Now Show.

Kim Larson:

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