Episode 229 – Will It Be Rough or Beautiful?

“It cost about $100,000 for me to sit down, find the right person and guide that associate into the following years.” ~Dr. Maggie Augustyn

Dr. Maggie Augustyn, speaker, author, dentist and owner of Happy Tooth in Elmhurst, Illinois, joins Regan Robertson and Dr. Chad Johnson on this episode of Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. Today, they discuss the costs, benefits, and potential challenges of bringing on a dental associate. Dr. Maggie shares her experience of being an associate, and offers invaluable insights into the symbiotic relationship between associates and practice owners. 

The trio also explores the financial investments involved in hiring and training associate dentists, shedding light on the opportunity costs for both parties. Dr. Maggie’s recent experience of hiring an associate prompts a deeper discussion into the true costs and rewards of mentorship in the dental profession. 

This candid discussion is a must-listen for anyone who is considering bringing on an associate, or for anyone who wants to be an associate dentist. 

As you listen to this episode, think about the following:

• What are the financial and professional implications of choosing to be an associate vs. owning your own practice?
• How does the quality of mentorship and relationship with the practice owner impact professional development and job satisfaction?
• What steps can associates take to foster a positive and supportive relationship with practice owners?
• How can associates maintain a sense of autonomy while benefiting from the support and guidance of the practice owner?
• What are the risks and rewards associated with practice ownership, and how do they compare to the benefits of being an associate?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan 0:01
Hi, Doctor. Regan Robertson, CCO of Productive Dentist Academy here and I have a question for you. Are you finding it hard to get your team aligned to your vision, but you know, you deserve growth just like everybody else? That’s why we’ve created the PDA productivity workshop. For nearly 20 years, PDA workshops have helped dentists just like you align their teams, get control of scheduling, and create productive practices that they love walking into every day. Just imagine how you will feel when you know your schedule is productive, your systems are humming, and your team is aligned to your vision. It’s simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. We can help, visit productivedentist.com/workshop that’s productivedentist.com/workshop to secure your seats now.

Dr. Chad Johnson 0:47
When you treat it like a transaction, it’ll be rough, but when you treat it like a relationship, it can be beautiful.

Regan 0:57
Welcome to the Everyday Practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson and my co-host, Dr. Chad Johnson, and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice. If you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are anything but ordinary. Buckle up and listen in.

Regan 1:30
Welcome to another episode of Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. I am your host, Regan Robertson and we are having an international interview today from a national star in the United States, but she’s abroad. Dr. Chad Johnson is with us as well. Hello, Chad. How are you?

Dr. Chad Johnson 1:46
Hello, hello. I’m doing fine. How are you?

Regan 1:51
Well, I’m always doing fantastic, right? This particular topic, though, is really exciting to me because it is discussing associates and the cost of associates and the benefits and maybe the cons, maybe the challenges and roadblocks. I am going to be a fly on the wall and observer today. Our guest is Dr. Maggie Augustine. Hi Maggie

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 2:11
Hi. How are you?

Regan 2:14
I’m fantastic. A practicing dentist at Illinois. You may have heard her on the circuit. She’s got some speaking coming up. You may have heard her in Singapore, you may have heard her at the productivity workshop and IGP summit that just happened down in Texas just a couple of short weeks ago as well or seen one of her many, many articles online. Dr. Maggie, you are a voice and you are transparent and it’s an honor to have you as a guest today.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 2:45
Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you, this is gonna be a lot of fun.

Regan 2:49
Absolutely. So Chad, frame this for us with associates.

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:55
All right, so my background is I opened up straight out of school. So I have a bias from dental school as a business owner, not as an associate, I have never been an associate except to help someone out somewhere or, you know, a side gig kind of stuff here and there. So like I’ve had a couple of technical, fun associateship, model ideas where I’m a guest at an office but overall, I come from a bias of an owner and so Maggie, you wrote this article and I could definitely see it from the owners perspective and I, I then was able to through your verbiage, crafting, you do a great job at your, your writing skills. So I was able to better understand it but helped lead us into understanding. I have a conclusion but I’ll kind of let you dial it in better once you’ve framed it. Give us the premise of your article and, and the symbiosis that’s happening, the mutualism between an associate and the opportunity costs and the business owner and the opportunity costs involved with both parties.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 4:20
So part of the reason why I wrote this is because I had just hired an associate and that puts us in an interesting scenario because both Chad and I hired the associate the same time, which is what kind of drove the idea of recording this podcast. Now, unlike you, Chad, I was an associate and my first job out of dental school I worked for this fee for service doctor. He was incredible. He had all the bells and whistles. He was a great provider patients loved him, and I completely took it for granted. I was an arrogant, new dentist and I really thought that I knew everything, and I just wasted that incredible opportunity. My second associateship was in what you would consider now a DSO working for very little money, I was getting paid $10 for a pro fee and my days were filled with literally eight pro fees and now, yes, this was 2005 but I was taking home $80 a day and it wasn’t a great fit and so that’s what led me to open my office 80 years ago, and since then, I have not been an associate but looking at, you know, it’s interesting, because I just kept going, right, I put in an ad while we decided we were going to hire an associate. He put out an ad, I started interviewing, and I hired my associate and it wasn’t until I started writing this article, that I started to put in perspective, holy cow, this is actually costing a lot of money and if you read that article, you know, yes, there’s the cost of putting together a contract paying for an attorney, putting ads out but, but really, then there’s the coaching of the associate, like we’re with productive dentist Academy. So she was she was able to go online, and do the modules and that I paid her for watching that, right, rightfully so, and then the coaching with PDA, and that is a significant investment that my practice makes that comes to her at, you know, no fee. So when I gathered all this documentation, when I looked at it, it costs about $100,000, for me to sit down, find the right person and guide that associate into into the following years and I did not, so one, I am putting in perspective, what I walked away from in my first job, right? I mean, there’s the paradox of, I have no regrets and, and oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I gave up on that opportunity. Right? So you kind of live in that paradox of I shouldn’t have, but it’s okay that I did. Yeah but I had no idea what I’d given up until I really looked at those numbers and I said, it’s $100,000 and part of the reason why I’m coming up with that number is because I spent at least an hour a week with my associate, and I think it’ll be longer now that she’s got she’s come back from the productive dentist workshop. And I in while I’m spending the time with her I’m not producing Now, last month, my production was like at $1,500 an hour, right? So you take that every week for a year, that adds that adds up very, and that’s how I came up with that $100,000.

Dr. Chad Johnson 7:41
Yes. No, I have no qualms with that number. I mean, in let’s just say someone said, Well, I did it for a bargain at 50,000. I mean that you might be shooting yourself in the foot if you’re not investing in the person and someone might say I actually spent 250, I wouldn’t be surprised because if you set someone off to some expensive courses, if you did four hours a week, let’s say you did an hour a day of of coaching. I mean, all that can add up, we’ve interviewed some people before, who are producing three or 4000 an hour. So I mean, that can, that can just take a half a year at one hour a week, you know, so all that can add up really quick. When you in the article in the first half, we’re talking about the sowing seeds, and that it was like a seeds, the only thing that I thought of in a in a trance, like dream state was that these seeds that were planting can get up and hop to another farmer’s field. That’s the trouble with our oh,

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 8:47
Oh my gosh, that is definitely something that is on my mind. Yes, very, very much. Now the reward on that, even if we were to be like, Oh crap, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean

Dr. Chad Johnson 9:00
It’s okay. The FCC is not overseeing us.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 9:04
You know, even if, and I worry about that too. If the associate moves to somewhere else, and they take all the knowledge that we’ve given them, the beauty in that is that we have helped prepare that clinician to ultimately do good somewhere else.

Dr. Chad Johnson 9:22
Yes.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 9:23
Right but and then the other thing about the $100,000 Is it opened my eyes to actually how much effort I have to put into this. Yes, because it’s like when we ask a patient to spend $7,000 on an implant and I always tell them treat it like you have a $7,000 watch like legit, you know, floss around their brush around there because surgery renowned it is expensive. I gotta treat my associate like it is $100,000 investment. Yes and that was a mind shift for me. They’re not disposable. They’re, they’re just not something that you can get rid of and get another one tomorrow. I mean, you could but it’s going to cost you,

Dr. Chad Johnson 10:00
Yes. Right, and it’s tough because we want to say, don’t put baby in the corner but then sometimes that baby is and it’s not meant to be derogatory, but if this baby is being obstinance, or, you know, pretentious, or you know, stuff like that precocious in there, you know, like, I’m important. It’s just like, come on, you know. So that’s tough, too, is the very baby that you shouldn’t put, put in the corner is also, you know, giving you a little attitude, you know, or something like that, where it’s just like, “Come on, would you work with me?” Regan, your thoughts?

Regan 10:43
Well, Maggie answered my question. You said a little bit back, you said you would have no qualms in spending or investing the $100,000 and the hiccup point for me on that was, well, that’s your relationship with money and investing too. So I don’t think everybody has that opinion of I have no qualms with that. So on all the, you know, podcasts that we’ve done together, you do boldly go forward and bravely go forward and you have that abundance mindset that says, if I lose it, I’ll get it back and and then there’s others who are far more risk adverse and so Maggie, you just answered that for me? How do you wrap your head around it? Well, you treat it like your $7,000 Watch. So you, you, you give it the appropriate weight, so that you value it, whatever it is, that will help you translate that and understand that that’s the weight that you that you give it. Yeah,

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 11:35
And you know, you know, you’re always gonna get complete transparency for me, so I’m not gonna lie to you. There are moments where, you know, you’re thinking, “I shouldn’t take that money and spend it on something else. What am I doing here?” Like, in the moments where it’s just not going? Well, there is fear associated with hiring an associate and keeping them with you and training them and the amount of work and, and ultimately, are you going to, are you going to get hurt? Right? Like, is this person just going to walk away from you when you’re when you’re trying to give them the best that you can, that scares me, that scares me too. Are they going to bring out the best in you, are they going? You know, there’s this, I was talking to a couple of friends and I and I said, “When did mediocracy become the new excellence?” Because I feel like I am finding that in people. Chad and I, we’ve been practicing this for a very, very long time. Our mindset is very different. Like the other day, Chad shared that he went to the office a couple of times to and spent some significant time and looking for patients to place implants in, right. I don’t know that I would find an associate that could that could do that and I don’t mean to be making a disparaging generalization. That truly is just my experience but these new kids, they just have an entirely different mindset. They don’t have ownership, ownership changes the way that you look at things.

Regan 13:06
Oh, my gosh, it does so much and think about when you said you started out as an associate, and you were very cocky. That’s, I feel like that’s my tail. As soon as I started at a newspaper right out of high school and I the arrogance that I had astounds me to this day. I mean, I had no, I had no portfolio, I had no proof and I just thought, “Oh, but just you wait, I’m just the bee’s knees,” and I had no one. So when I think about who had to manage me on air apology, for a fun, I think I was probably difficult. I was constantly jockeying for a raise or a better position. I mean, I had the world is my oyster and so Chad, thinking about some of the associates today, or, you know, we could call them the kids these days. I think there’s differences in generational we know that as a fact because the technology and what’s available to them and socio-economics and all that stuff, but it’s still it’s still a lot the same. They’re gonna go after it and and how can we be as leaders, because I had some amazing leaders that that looked past that they were able to see and know what I was going for, and nurtured it in a really gentle and firm way. At times. It was really fascinating. So my question to both of you, is, as you, as you have your associates or have you as you have over the years, what are some of the ways where you’ve caught yourself and you say, “Oh, okay, they’re being cocky or they’re being a little bit entitled, How do I leave them in a, in a productive way?”

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 14:42
That’s a good question. I am rough around the edges nd I can sometimes write a sentence without padding of without being patted of compassionate language and send that out and really depends how the other person receives it. Right? So I did that the other day with my associate, I wrote her like three sentences nd then my partner says, “Dude, that just that’s not going to be taken the right way?” And so what I did is I supported that with a Marco Polo and I was able to show her what I looked like, as I was saying those things, but I mean, some of the things that that happened, and I think I did the same things when I was an associate myself as if something isn’t working out well. For example, you know, a kid comes in, and you’ve given them three cups of anesthetic, and they’re still not now you’re, you’re new, you’re new and you’re newer doctor, you don’t know this is a patient management issue of their sincerely in pain, which is why I stopped treating kids. I just that again, that Paradoxa they’re not, they’re not, is what got to me, but you know, so that they associate can say, “Your anaesthetic isn’t working correctly, I think you have a bad batch. Right?” And what are the chances of that we’ve been using the same anesthetic, the two other doctors are using it, it has been working fine. Is it possible? Yes but it’s just rather unlikely. So kind of combating or like, “You know, these crowns are not staying in it, I think, I think it’s your cement again.” Well, is it really?  We’ve been using it and it’s been fine. So the advice I’ve received is, is just to placate that the associate by having their favorite cement there. And but it gets it gets, it gets tricky, you know, because they themselves are a doctor, they have a license, they have the right to create and perform treatment that they think is fit. How does your opinion fit into that whole thing and how do you address that with the associate? Was Caudalie do it? Yeah.

Regan 16:53
Well, and you just had a lot about relationships, Maggie. Like, to me, that was all about relationships, giving a Marco Polo, which is a great app, if you don’t know what it is, it’s a video app. I’ve been lured to it a few times and I, I choose not to make the time for it but it is a really great append so context is everything and words even with Smiley’s and emojis can be taken the wrong way and generationally speaking even you know, a thumbs up can be considered offensive

Dr. Chad Johnson 17:23
Which is hilarious to me,

Regan 17:26
Of course, old man.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 17:28
I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Dr. Chad Johnson 17:32
Okay, watch this, here’s, here’s the thumbs up thing, like between you and me if I said, “Hey, Maggie, have a great day. See you later and stuff like that,” but if you said, “Hey, have a great day,” and I went like this. It’s It’s the attitude that, that some people perceive that as it’s just like, “Okay, whatever.” You know, so who knew that the I don’t know that the thumbs I suppose that’s the issue is the context, the way that, that millennials have received a thumbs up, must just be writing it off, like, okay, whatever and so that’s how they’ve received it. So they see the thumbs up as an fu is what they you know, I’ve seen a video recently that said that and I was just like, I you know, it’s context. So I can see how that but at the same time, I just go guys get over it, because it’s a thumbs up. Now, if someone gives you a thumbs up with the context of whatever or F U or, you know, stuff like that, then then that is what it is but you know, like to then therefore decide when my grandpa gives me a thumbs up, that it means F U, it’s just like it’s your grandpa, you know, that’s not that’s not the context. So like to oversimplify the context.

Regan 18:46
Well, there’s that and then there’s also having the associates favorite cement. So that’s the equivalent of of picking your battles but also, that can be a really great relationship builder. I had a one one publisher, he’s passed now, which makes me sad some of a moment for, for Greg McConnell. I’ll say his name. He’s a great teacher and mentor for me. Very serious man and I was very bubbly. He taught me so much about publishing and he was doing budgets and he was really really serious and not real happy about it either and I came floating in like I did bouncing around and I and he said he was doing budget, so don’t bother him and I said, “Oh, I want to pony,” as a joke which if you just picture a room full of news people, right Chad like I was a tour de force. So like a week goes by and I get a calendar of ponies on my desk. That little tiny movie Yeah, tell me I wouldn’t work for that man. I gave it everything I had. He meant my stupid little sense of humor. So I favorite cement. That could mean the world to somebody and even if it doesn’t seem to on the surface, it does. It means you see them and you hear them which surprise surprise Maggie’s practice is based around being seen and heard.

Dr. Chad Johnson 19:59
Well, now, Maggie, I need to flip this around because I need to better understand and I think I understand it a little, but I acknowledged my bias. How does this cost the associate?

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 20:12
That’s a really good question and I’m actually curious what associates think about it themselves. The way that I see the shared cost is, I cannot give you the kind of per diem that you’ll get at a DSO, I simply can’t work where, you know, insurance driven ppl practice, what I can give you in my time, you’ll never get at a DSO and what ends up what ends up happening is they’ll, they’ll be lured in by these ads have earned $300,000 In a year, which I don’t know how accurate they are, because some of them at least around where we are, is all Medicaid driven practices where you get $58 for filling. So how many fillings do you have to make at 30% in order to take home $300,000? I mean, it just does the math doesn’t make sense but there’ll be Lordan and they’ll stay there for that per diem, and it might be a handsome per diem, and it might be 800 $900 $1,200. I don’t know, depending on the area, but the per diem expires after a year and so what ends up happening is then they’ll sign another contract that were there where they don’t have a per diem, they are not in production, and then a production completely plummets. They’re taking not a whole lot home, if they can get out of the contract, which often I don’t think they can, they’ll go find another clinic where they’re making a per diem. Yep. Right. Now, now granted, and this is this is why I really want to know what the other side is thinking. These kids are coming out with substantial loans, right? I mean, their debt could equal some of the debt that we carry for practice ownership, in terms of how much they have to spend a month on it and so it’s very hard to ask an associate, give up this really safe per diem to work with me for less, but I will teach you and the thing is that when you have to earn more when you have to, how do they say it when you have to eat what you kill? Yeah. You kill much more efficiently and much faster. Yes. Right.

Dr. Chad Johnson 22:26
So when it’s producing time, and you don’t have anything in the refrigerator, all of a sudden, you know, cutting the grass in your lawn, and making it your vegetable for the night sounds a lot more delicious, you know, when you don’t know anything.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 22:39
If someone’s paying you, $1,200, and you’re being asked to ask for reviews and referrals, and you don’t feel comfortable doing that, are you going to do it? No, you’re getting paid $1,200. But if you’re taking home $300 because you’ve had it, you know, slow day, you are going to start asking that. And that translates into significant financial stability. Five years or even less than that a year after that, within that mentorship, I would think

Dr. Chad Johnson 23:07
So if I did understand the article, right? Basically, it’s the opportunity cost that the associate loses out on, that’s part of their equation. It’s not necessarily, like you’re,

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 23:21
They are not writing a check,

Dr. Chad Johnson 23:22
Dollars out of pocket, right. and something that I find interesting, like you said, it’s, I think it’s a cousin idea to what you were offering was that, you know, if the associate sticks around for a year or two, and then leaves, they also don’t get to see their failures. They don’t get to, to see the the, the relationships build, they don’t get to see, you know, it’s kind of like if someone dated, you know, a different Barney, you know, that when he dated a different girl every week, and not on every episode of How I Met Your Mother, you know, that it’s just like, is he ever, you know, Seinfeld was the that was even the joke, he always was dating someone new? Is he learning the depth of a relationship without going in, you know, with, with only seeing a girl twice? And then, you know, Jerry, he’s like, “Well, you know, they have small hands,” or, you know, she had too big of hands and stuff like that. It’s just like, that’s what you’re gonna base it on but this is like dating, because the the associate can get up and leave I’ve had, sadly, I think this is my eighth associate that’s working with me right now over 19 years. I know it sounds horrible but you know, I can get someone to stick around for two or three years, sometimes four, or maybe five but I’ve never had anyone purchase in and so then you stop and you go, “Okay, what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my scenario? What’s wrong with them?” You know, so like, do you put it 100% on me? 100% on them, or 100% on the scenario? It’s like, okay, each situation is going to be you know, 30, 40, 20 right, or 20 at zero or, you know, something like that. It’s going to be a different percentage. So my question then to you is, do you see it like, do you see, see it like that, that it’s opportunity cost for the associate and, and then also be, you know, part of that opportunity cost is the lost potential of, you know, of owning a practice because now they start over? You know, what do you do this start over 20 times, and then your careers over, you can only do it so many times before, then you realize you’re an old, old maid, you know, that didn’t get married, didn’t have kids and that might sound cool and all but like, at some point, you’re going to be like, “Shoot, I wish I would have put down my roots,” your thoughts?

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 25:34
I think that this generation is a little bit different and I’m generalizing once again, I sure and you know, like this generation, or this next generation that comes after us old people, they’re not interested in owning a home. You know, okay, living in apartments, right? I mean, they just have a different outlook on things and I think these associates are the same way. They’re not necessarily always looking for ownership, or at least when I was interviewing, I was asking that question because then Chad, the question becomes, if we’re just being, again, completely transparent, we can sell our practice to a DSO for two or three times what we can sell it to an associate. Sure. Right and so when you’re when I was interviewing and Associates, they said, “Was there an opportunity to buy in?” I would say, “I’m going to be honest with you, and say, I don’t know. Probably no, unless you wanted to go in once we, you know, down the road if we ever go with it with a DSO,” but, but yes, everything that that you’re saying, is correct. I think this relationship works. If both sides, this is every relationship, if both sides understand what they’re giving up, I am asking you to give up an opportunity to purchase a practice, I’m asking you to give up an opportunity to earn more but in return, I will build you up and I will show you what’s possible, and even reducing the isolation in dentistry by you, because some of these DSOs they’ll have dentists practicing, you know, by them. Now, imagine being a new dad as well, you did it but being a new dentist, and then just doing everything by yourself, right? I always had a partner, it was so much easier but that’s scary to having someone you know, when you’ve had a bad day, sitting with someone and having that other person put it an all in perspective. So you’re not beating yourself up.

Dr. Chad Johnson 27:33
Yep. That’s tough. Regan, your thoughts?

Regan 27:35
I have a lot of thoughts. I, well, I’m an, I will, Victoria coins made as the intrapreneur, which I’m definitely an intrapreneur because owning a business requires so many facets of yourself and your time. And you do have to be fully prepared to embark on that journey. And so there’s a choice like I almost felt like pulling out a sheet of paper right now. And just if I was a dentist, start writing down things, the autonomy, obviously, what happens when you want to buy that a Yomi or a laser? How does that work? How do you have that discussion with a person all of a sudden, I feel like I don’t have I’m losing control in that sense, like I’m gonna have to get someone else’s by and I’m gonna have to do a lot of work to that. So there can be downsides to being an associate. On the other hand, if you are, if you are full owner, you have the administrative duties to do it, you have the lease of the building, you have all the business aspects of the practice as well, which means you don’t have as much time to devote to maybe furthering your CE, maybe you want to be a real CE junkie and you want to go deeper and deeper and deeper into clinical it’s like a given a take and it’s I think it’s actually more complicated than I realized. For me personally, it was a very easy decision. Once I met PDA, I was like this, this makes sense. I can grow in every direction I want. I can take whatever courses I want my this the growth was limitless for me. And I don’t have to worry about the aspects of ownership full on so that made it an easy choice to me. Maggie, to your point, I don’t know if people right now are truly okay with owning apartments, I think are renting apartments. I think it’s that they can’t afford to buy the houses. I know in my little pocket up here in the Northwest. It is at least a half a million to get in now and when I bought a house at 23, 24 It was $115,000 and I thought that was insanely high and, and the wages haven’t champs shifted enough to kind of flow with it. So I don’t know if it’s if it’s a desire or if it’s more of this is what’s happening and if I’m correct. I think a lot of hedge fund companies bought up real estate markets as well and I think I should go back and look this up. I always say this chat, because then I’m like now I have to go check I think at an economic forum that the new theme or whatever was, you know, everybody owns nothing, and you’re happy with that and so there’s a piece of me that’s very rebellious and there’s a piece that says, you know, keep that keep that autonomy going strong or do something different. So if you create a group do something different that honors the entrepreneurial spirit and allows them to be intrapreneurs.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 30:19
Those are my thoughts. There’s a lot to be said, for finding the home like you did. Yeah, without the very heavy burden that come in, that comes with ownership and the risk of not making it work, right. Because when we have a slow month, and we did you have to pay everybody and, you know, yeah, you come last, and there’s a there’s a risk, there’s a risk to that, as an associate, you’ll get paid. Right?

Regan 30:54
If the associate and the owner could have the EQ and the understanding of each other, I mean, I just think that’s

Dr. Chad Johnson 31:00
That’s where relationships, right, you know, when it’s like, How do men and women get together and, you know, get married and have relationships, it’s like, equal understanding, a little forgiveness, little interest in each other, you know, like, it’s some simple, you know, flower ingredients, and chocolate chips and stuff like that, you know. To some degree it is and, and yeah, it’s simple and complex all at the same time but you know, you when you when you treat it like a transaction, it’s going to be rough, Maggie, you’ll have this, when you treat it like a transaction, it’ll be rough but when you treat it like a relationship, it can be beautiful.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 31:41
That’s, that’s perfectly set. That’s perfectly said, There you go. There’s your one-liner. That’s right. Yeah,

Regan 31:48
We can end on that. Maggie, final thoughts.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 31:54
I’m speechless, I think I’m speechless and just put a bow on it. It really does come down to relationships and finding a practice where you can have, you know, someone give you the guidance, and the grace and the understanding and the mentorship, is really a diamond in the rough. There’s not that many, especially significant, significantly talented clinicians that give that away, right, we’re tired by the time we get to our late 40s. We just want to go home, you know, and have someone else take over, but be grateful for the opportunity that you’re given when you when you work with a seasoned doctor who is able and willing to hold your hand and for the season doctor that is doing the hand holding, understand that, you know, you’re making a significant commitment, financial, to this person and give it all you can I mean, it’s funny because my associate asked me for the cement and I’m like, “Oh, how much is this going to cost me? How much is it gonna cost me I’m paying $100,000 I think I could spend an extra 50 bucks on the cement.” Right. So I mean, I think keeping it all in perspective, and, and, you know, respect towards one another understanding, giving each other grace, just like you said, are the ingredients of having that relationship workout?

Dr. Chad Johnson 33:28
That’s right. Regan, I have a thought on that is when if I were an associate or if an associate came to me and said, “Chad, how do I what how can I use some magic sauce on my old jaded owner?” I would say, “Remember that he is eight associates in so like a dating relationship? If this is the person you want to marry, but they’ve been through eight bad relationships. Wow, remind them hey, you’re worth it. Can,  can I, can, can we be transparent? Can, can, can you give me that grace, you know, and find ways to be like, can you give me can you know, can you connect with me? Like it was your first love? Like it was your first day and, and that then magic can happen,” but don’t be jaded that it took you eight tries and this eighth one could be the success you know, like, fall down seven times get up eight like, can you and I don’t know what that wording would look like specific, specific to a particular circumstance but it would be telling the associate to find a way to invite the the jaded owner to pretend like it’s the first love. Yhat’s all

Regan 34:45
That’s all. I’ve met both of your associates. They’re keepers, by the way, and so we’re both

Dr. Chad Johnson 34:50
Yes, I love doctor. Thank you.

Regan 34:55
This has been an amazing episode and can’t wait to have you again Maggie. Honor.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 35:00
Thank you. Thanks, listeners.

Dr. Chad Johnson 35:03
Thanks for coming in today to Everyday Podcast, Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. We hope that you enjoyed the show today and we look forward to seeing you next time on regen and my book review. Have a great day.

Regan 35:19
Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. Chad and I are here every week. Thanks to our community of listeners just like you, and we’d love your help. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome? Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts See you next week.