January 23, 2022 • 39 mins
Episode 53: This week on "Create. Build. Manage." I talk with Dr. Aaron Swapp DMD MS, owner of Swapp Orthodontics, about why it's important to look and feel your best as a business leader, how the pandemic has affected his business, and practical tips he has learned as a business leader that were not taught in school.
More Info: https://www.swapportho.com/
Connect with Scott Miller:
https://www.facebook.com/scottmillerceo
https://www.instagram.com/scottmillerceo/
https://twitter.com/scottmillerceo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmillermedia/
More Info: https://www.swapportho.com/
Connect with Scott Miller:
https://www.facebook.com/scottmillerceo
https://www.instagram.com/scottmillerceo/
https://twitter.com/scottmillerceo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmillermedia/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Welcome to Create, Build, Managethe Entrepreneurs Toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller, and welcome into anotherepisode of Create, Build and Manage.
Happy New Year's we continue to gothrough January. If you are a business
owner, we talk about this alot on the show. It is your
responsibility to be out front talking aboutyour business, communicating it not only to
(00:35):
your staff, but also marketing yourbusiness. And if you're going to market
your business, you want to lookyour best and then includes being okay with
your smile. And I'm just goingto introduce my guest, doctor Aaron Swap.
He's with Swap Orthodonics and just fulldisclosure as we talk, you are
my Orthodonics. You've done work.So when I knew I was going to
(00:59):
get into television, going to domore TV work, I had a couple
of things on my mouth that Iwanted to get worked. I had one
tooth that shifted, one that waschipped. So this beautiful smile this courtesy
sponsored by doctor Swap Orthodonics. Welcometo the show. Thank you, thank
you for having me. I appreciateit absolutely well. I wanted to have
you on the show for a coupleof reasons. One, because that is
(01:19):
something that even as an adult,you need to consider having a good smile.
Sure, and I want to kindof talk about that, but also
a little bit about why you gotinto the field you got into, and
then later on we're going to diveinto sort of the entrepreneurship of owning a
business, even if it's a practicelike working with working with teeth. So
(01:40):
let me start with why. Becauseyou came into college and you could have
done a million different careers, yes, but you chose to work with teeth.
Why. I know it's an interestingfield because you don't get a lot
of exposure to touching people's teeth beforeyou actually become a dentist. Right,
you haven't been touching anyone's teeth notlately. Okay. Well, when I
(02:01):
was in high school, I wentthrough a variety of different professions that I
was thinking about. One of themwas I wanted to be an aerospace engineer.
So I had planned all through highschool being that, and senior year
of high school had some friends thatwere looking in the medical dental fields and
they had said something that kind ofstruck me. They said, do you
(02:23):
really want to work for someone forthe rest of your life, and I
thought, you know what, Iwanted to be my own boss. I
wanted to have control over my ownschedule, and so I kind of veered
into that area. And I hada friend whose dad was a dentist,
and I really liked the family timehe had with his kids and kind of
the way he structed his life.And so it led me down down the
(02:45):
dental field, and I started workingin dental labs and working for dentist while
I was in college, and Ireally like loved everything about it, and
so eventually that led me to dentalschool, went to my pthodonic program,
and I just, I mean prettymuch everything that I came in contact with
was just right up my alley,working with my hands, working with people,
(03:07):
and there were some things about itthat I really appreciated. Probably maybe
the thing that I loved most wasthis problem solving aspect to it, where
I could you know, you're you'refaced with someone that has, you know,
like in your situation, you're facedwith a tooth or an air of
(03:28):
your smile that you don't like,and so I have to look at how
can I get you know, theresults that you're looking for and do it
while still keeping your buy and everythinghealthy and doing the least amount of time
and the most aesthetic way possible,and so taking all those factors into consideration
and being able to deliver a servicethat you'll have you're happy with, and
(03:51):
I'm happy with. It's just somethingthat I really look forward to every day.
So it kind of got me.That's kind of what got me into
the past and kind of what stillcontinues to bring a lot of joy in
the profession for me. And itmakes sense when you took the ortho route
instead of going the dental route,right, because it's different, different,
(04:12):
different form. There is exactly Yeah, there's a there's a lot of elements
that kind of coincide. But Ithink the part that I really appreciated was
that problem solving aspect, and Ithink you faced that in almost any industry,
right, but taking but there's someelements to orthodonics that I really enjoy.
And then also the when you gosee a dentist, you know you're
(04:36):
usually going, you know, outsideof your regular checkups, you're going maybe
because you're in pain right the cavity. It's not usually the most pleasant experience.
And while I would I wouldn't saythat orthodonics is like an amusement park.
Most people are a little bit happierto be at the orthonist office.
Sure makes sense. That's one ofthe things I like about is I have
(04:58):
a strong desire. There's strong motivationjust making people happy and finding ways to
bring another aspect of joy to theirlife, if that makes sense. Now,
you probably work mainly with with kids, but how many adults and what's
the ratio do you see? Doyou see a lot of adults coming in?
Yeah, getting worked Ours is aboutseventy percent kids and then thirty percent
(05:18):
adults got you, So there's there'squite a few adults that come through the
practice for various reasons, but mostwant to get a better smile. And
then there are some individuals are lookingfor ways to improve their by it and
maybe alleviate some job pain. Andthere's some areas where we can make an
(05:38):
improvement there. Talk about the rewardingpart of it, because you mentioned about
solving that puzzle. But what aresome success stories where you've seen, you
know, patients that come in thatare not pleased with their smile at any
age and then that process you know, usually anywhere from a year too.
I guess three years right, Andthe other side of it rewarding is that
(06:00):
for you. I think the partthat I enjoy most about it is when
someone comes in, especially if they'vebeen to maybe another orthodonist, or they've
looked at maybe they've done some researchonline and they've found maybe the only way
for them to achieve the results they'relooking for is maybe through a surgery or
a removing teeth or something that maybediscourage them from going through treatment before,
(06:26):
and maybe through new advancements that havecome into the profession or just a different
experience that I've had, I'm ableto give them an option that helps circumvent
that. So if they only optionbefore was braces, now there might be
an option where you can do withinthis line or some other type of clear
line or treatment. Or I hada patient where she was told the only
(06:47):
option for her was surgery, andso she held off on do anything for
several years, and then when shecame into saw me, We're able to
find something that was able to gether results she wanted and be able to
avoid surgery and in order to fixher smile. And that was a huge,
I guess blessing to her, andit does provide a sense of,
(07:10):
like I guess, satisfaction or enjoymentknowing that we were able to give that
to her. Right. There's alot of that that goes on. So
for someone watching, you know,there's a lot of aftermarket options available right
now. Yah, So talk tome about that. I mean, how
safe are those options that you seeadvertisements where it'll drop something in the mail?
(07:31):
It just does it seem I mean, does it seem safe to me
when you're dealing with your teeth?But but but kind of talk about that.
What are your thoughts on that?You know, I think that with
some of those options, I thinkthe biggest or the hardest part with it
is there is a lot of benefitto having someone that can monitor throughout treatment
(07:54):
and not having used the service.I guess I can't say fully what the
pros and cons are, but itseems when I look at it that there
you miss out on some of themonitoring that a professional could provide. And
so I know in my experience thatwhen I work with patients there are things
that will come up during the treatmentthat I can correct the course that we're
(08:20):
heading. So they'll come in anda tooth may I may have predicted,
hey, it shouldn't move this way, and it doesn't, then I'm able
to adjust it right then and beable to save them hopefully some time in
treatment. And another big thing Isee, and this is just with any
treatment that monitoring helps. I guesswhen someone goes through treatment, the alignment
(08:43):
is one aspect. Getting straight teethis usually not the hardest part. The
hardest part is getting straight teeth andkeeping the bite good so when you bite
down it feels comfortable and that youdon't have that interrupting your life. And
so that monitoring is kind of crucialI think to being able to sustain that
because aligning the teeth, like inmaybe an at home a clear aligner treatment,
(09:07):
it can align your teeth, butsometimes it's hard to monitor that buy
it because all of the initial workis done on the computer. But on
the computer it can look perfect,but then in real life, how do
how do things play out? Thatone you have to it's nice to have
that monitoring. So I think that'swhere maybe you'll get a better of benefit.
And being in the office. Haveyou had cases where people have tried
(09:28):
that we have, yes, yea, yeah we have, and without you
know, it's hard to know didthey fully wear the align. There's so
many factors of why it maybe didn'twork out for them. But we do
have several patients that come in havingtried an alternative service at home service and
realize it didn't work for them,and then they come and see us and
(09:52):
we're able to maybe fulfill or fillthat need that they had and get them
to where they wanted to be kindabout a minute left, Yeah, let's
talk about the investment of it,because again, for a business owner who's
got that one, we're making himcringe because we're highlighting the one thing they
don't like about their smile. Talkabout the investment. Why is it worth
taking the time and the money todo it for your business? You know?
(10:18):
For one of the things that I'vealways and I'm in the field,
so I'm obviously more passionate about teeth. That's one of the first things I
look at other people. But it'sjust because it's what I do, I
think. But one of the thingsthat I think can give you confidence that
this investment is worth it is thatthey did a study a while back,
just did some eye tracking that whenyou talk to someone, what is it
(10:41):
about you know where do the eyesgo? And so when someone's talking to
you, if you have good teeth, they focus on your eyes. They
focused in the middle. Let melet me have you hold it right there
because we've got to go to commercialbreak, but I want to hear more
about this. We're visiting with doctorSwap this hour. You're watching Create,
Build and Manage. We'll be backafterwards. Welcome back to Create Building Mants.
(11:16):
I'm Scott Miller, and we're visitingthis hour with doctor Aaron Swap of
Swap Orthodonics. And I cut youoff as we were going to the commercial
break, and we were talking alittle bit about the benefit if you're a
business owner or why you want toget your teeth fixed, and you were
talking about the study of where theeyes go, and you were mentioning if
your teeth are are nice, thenthey go to the eyes. Is that
(11:37):
you're saying. They kind of justfocus on your eyes and they might look
around a little bit, but mostlyit's you know, your eyes. If
your teeth are distracting, I wouldsay, whether or not aligned as well
as you would want them, orlike I said, distracting, then they
focused your eyes. I look atyour teeth that fookes your eyes and look
your teeth, and like I said, it becomes a distraction. It's talking.
(11:58):
So if you have a limited amountof time where you're hot, you're
speaking with someone maybe in sales orfor whatever area that you work, if
you have a distractor, that maybe something that limits your ability to present
your message. Makes sense. Sohaving nice teeth helps with that. And
I think the confidence and that wasyou know, for me, I don't
(12:18):
think people notice necessarily, but Inoticed exactly, and so for me,
it's just about about a confidence level. And I think that's important. When
you when you got into this field, you didn't have to own your own
business. That's correct, there wereoptions out there. Large change you could
have worked for was did you alwayswant to be your business owner, your
(12:39):
own business owner when you set outto do this, or did it kind
of come to you? I did. That was kind of like my initial
motivating factor to getting involved with dentistry. That's it's a little different kind of
business compared to I think some others, but it's it's kind of what motivated
me to be my own boss andkind of control my own destiny, my
own schedule, all right, sothat's kind of I guess the initial stimulant
(13:03):
stimulant or sure, But when you'regoing through having never been a dentist or
an orthodonis myself, are there businessclasses that they make you take as part
of your degree to a very smalldegree. I mean went to school for
eleven years to be an orthodonis,so four years of college, four year
(13:24):
dental school, and then three yearsof orthonic training. And you know,
through all of that, maybe threeor four classes. You know, the
most I took was an undergrad Iguess. So you come out very I
guess in most cases ill prepared totake on a business. But it's still
is exciting for me. And butI had a lot of catching up to
(13:45):
do to be able to run myown office. So what did you do?
You know? At first, youyou ask a lot, you know,
you know, I've talked about mentors, and I think that's really helpful
speaking with people I've already done itbefore you. And and then the other
thing that made a big difference forme was audio books or just reading books
about how to not only manage yourbusiness, but manage yourself, and a
(14:09):
lot of self development books and thenbusiness books and then I kind of rotate
it between that and health books andreligious books, try to get well around
in that. What is there anyparticular book if you if you had to
recommend one or two books to somebodythat helped you out early on, that
you would you would go back andread again. Yeah, there are so
(14:31):
many, and it's like each onejust builds off the other. But I
would say the first one I wouldrecommend for everyone. And this is maybe
more of a self development book,and it's one that a lot of us
forget about because it's usually the firstbook most people read. But Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People. Yes,that one just gives you some tools to
how manage your time and your life. And you know, one of the
(14:54):
big things that you start out withis it recommends, you know, visioning
your life at the very end andwhat do you want it to be like
and kind of structuring your time forthat. Probably one of my favorite books
was Extreme Ownership. Okay, ifyou've ever read that one and the Navy
Seal, it's a good book.Maybe I'm just going to mention the premise
(15:16):
behind it, but it's about takingownership of pretty much everything, and I
teach a Bible study class in themorning to high school kids and and so
I bring this up sometimes, andit's a concept that's a little hard for
most people to to grasp. Ishared with them the example of imagine you're
you're in class, right, andthey've all had this experience where there's a
(15:39):
teacher that gives you a test andnothing on the test is what they talked
about in class and U and Iask them, so, whose fault is
that they gave you a test andnothing that was on the test was in
class. Whose fault is in Andthey're like, oh, the teachers,
the teacher's teachers. And then Itell them, no, it's your fault,
and they just can't grasp that.And in reality, it's probably not
their fault. But unless you takethat mind shift and realize, hey,
(16:02):
this is I'm the only one thatcan change this, that it'll never change
for the future. So for thefuture, now you know how the teacher
tests, and so it's on youto find out how do you get an
A on this test? And youknow, in my office, if I've
had if I have had an assistantand I've kind of given her some instructions
and I've done it five times andsaid hey, this is how you do
it, how you do it,and she hasn't gotten it yet. Then
(16:26):
you know, I can say,oh, that's on her, or she
just she she can't figure it out. But that doesn't really change anything.
She's still going to you know,that doesn't help her unless I take ownership
and say, hey, maybe I'mnot doing a good job instructing you.
Maybe I haven't set up the rightsystems to help her. Unless I take
that as extreme ownership, then nothingchanges and you don't see improvement. But
(16:48):
if you do, you see alot of improvement. We need more of
that, definitely. That's like aworldwide thing. We need more ownership because
that's that's the opposite of where we'veseen society go. Oh for sure,
I think that's uh. When Ifelt like I already had a little bit
of that, but when I readthat book, it helped me take it
even to like another level. Andyeah, and as a business leader,
(17:10):
you do have to think about that. So I'm guessing you're an audio learner.
I apparently because I get more outof audio books. Yes, reading,
I am too. I'm a bigaudio book book person, but not
everyone learns that way. Yeah,some people have to learn hands on,
some people have to learn visual,and so you do. I could see
that example you gave that maybe likewell maybe the sixth time I teach it
(17:33):
a different way exactly. It appealsto how how they learn. That's very
interesting. So in running your business, are you different today than when you
first started as a business as abusiness? Yeah, I would for sure
you start to you know, Ihad this um idea that everyone give them
the right amount of time, theright encouragement, could learn the same thing
(17:56):
the same way, and and andit's not the case. There's you know,
everyone has different motivations in life anddifferent things that are passionate about,
different things that care about and helpingit, you know, identifying some of
those and being able to help someonethat maybe doesn't care about what you do
(18:17):
and help them see like how howthis helps them accomplish their goals is something
that still work in progress. ButI didn't totally understand the beginning, and
now it's I'd say it's a littlebit more on the forefront, helping you
know, me achieve my goals andthen achieve their goals. And so yet
just a minute left, But whatwhat advice And this is gonna be maybe
a hard question, but what advicewould you today give doctor Swap when he's
(18:44):
first starting. Oh man, thatis a hard one. I would say
the biggest thing is just identifying people'sstrengths and then helping them be able to
express those and express that in theirwork. And I think that just comes
with working and talking and being withpeople. Over time, you start to
(19:10):
identify areas where they could improve andmakes sense, makes sense, good stuff.
We're visiting this hour with doctor Swapwith Swap Orthodonics and really just the
topic of running a business, startinga business, and we're going to get
into this next segment. I'm goingto ask you about the pandemic and how
that's affected your business, and thegreat resignation and all these topics we see
(19:33):
going on in the workforce. Ifyou're enjoying the show and you want to
see more of this content, don'tforget you can watch it on demand at
biz vod dot com. Go tob I z vod dot com. There
you can see this episode as wellas other content we hear on biz TV.
Stick around you're watching and listening tocreate, building, manage. We'll
be back right after this I guessthis hours doctor Aaron Swap of Swap Orthodonics,
(20:23):
and we're visiting really about owning abusiness and all that goes into it.
And I'm curious, Aaron, asyou have your own practice. UM,
let's just kind of go down thechecklist of things we were having to
deal with over the last two years. Obviously the global pandemics number one.
I imagine it's hard to be sixfeet distance in your business. You're correct,
(20:45):
it's uh. We actually when whenit was first going on, we
did our best and tried to keepthings distant. Um, pretty much all
the protocols, we had a setamount that we followed and I was determined
by the state in the bold right. UM. A little harder now,
and you know, we're dealing withpeople's mouths kind of the area where the
(21:07):
virus would come from, and sowe've had to make some changes in protocols
and kind of how we do things. Has it been Have you had issues
with staff getting sick because of it? Or you know, we haven't.
Almost throughout all of it, we'vebeen good. We've had a few people
(21:27):
just recently that have gone sick,but fortunately it seems to be you know,
I almost look at it as Idon't know if the blessings right word,
but unfortunately they're seemed to have beenvery much right, and so that
one's been blessing. But for themost part, everyone's been healthy and it
hasn't interrupted worth too much. SoI'm sure, well, and it's I'm
(21:49):
sure you're like everybody else, soyou're ready for this to be to be
overwheld for sure, it'd be nice. No, it's and you guys were
considered essential business, so right wedid. So we shut down for about
six weeks, okay, closed down, and then after that we were back
open. And a lot of thatis is we have patients that are in
(22:14):
treatment and can postpone seeing I don'tif it don't for an adjustment for a
period of time, but not forever, right, And so how crazy was
that period when you were shut downwhere you stir crazy? Were you driving
the family crazy? You know?I worked probably every single day just working
on some of the systems and thingsthat you that you may be either put
(22:34):
off or wanted to work on forthe practice to run efficiently. And I
had had the longest list. Ithought, I'm going to get so much
done. I got maybe ten percentof it done. It just turns out
like and anyone that runs a businessknows that anything that you want to work
on always seems to take significantly longerthan you plan for. Yes, the
(22:56):
all right, The other issue andsupply chain, is there been any supply
chain issues for products that you useon a regular basis? For sure,
glove, pretty much almost everything thatwe need has had supply chain issues,
gloves being the most difficult thing.We've been able to procure it, but
the cost is significantly higher and there'sbeen a lot of that that we've had
(23:19):
to work through. So now wejust make sure we order significantly in advance
so that we get everything in timebecause it just doesn't come as soon.
Now, your passion is really helpingthe patient. And I know for you
it's not about the money. Yeah, you really love the result to helping
people. So where's that rub asa business owner? Because if your supply
(23:41):
chain goes up, you still havethe building, you still have employees,
you still have hard costs that youhave to fulfill. You got your families,
You got to take care of youremployees families. So have you had
to adjust pricing during that or haveyou been able to weather the storm.
We haven't adjusted any pricing, andorthodomics is interesting in the way that I
mean it's almost been the same costfor the last sixty seventy years almost.
(24:07):
I mean, my sisters, myparents paid signally more than what I charge
as an orthodomist. And some ofthat is just being more efficient with how
we use our time and how weschedule. But it has gotten harder because
everything does cost more now and we'vetried to with the rise inflation, we've
(24:29):
tried to find ways to compensate thestaff more and so just making sure that
everyone, you know, they don'tfeel a hit. If anyone's gonna feel
hit at least right now, thenthat'll be on me and then be able
to take care of them. Andlike we had talked about, when I
do orthodomics, I just want tofocus on the skill and the craft of
what I'm doing and not focus onthe financial part. But in order to
(24:51):
be able to deliver that and beable to help as many people as we
can, it is something that wehave to consider. So we haven't had
to make any adjustments yet, andI'm just kind of waiting to see how
everything plays out before I make anychanges that will affect patients coming in,
and just make sure the staff ortaking care first and then and then we'll
kind of figured out after that.Listen, every business owner is having a
(25:14):
face at were regardless of what thebusiness is and it is. It is
tough decision right now, inflation beingthe other issue. And let's talk about
the great resignation, great resignation peopleleaving jobs. Have your is your practice
experience people leaving? And then hasit been hard to find new help?
That has probably been the thing thatkeeps me up most we've had We were
(25:38):
already you know, our office wasgrowing and we already needed more help,
and so we had been I remembera few years ago, even two years
ago, we would put out anadd and we would get over one hundred
resumes, so many resumes. Andnow we'll put out an ad and we
we'll get zero sometimes. And thething I noticed is that, Um,
(26:00):
occasionally we would have a staff memberthey just have a life change, They
would move, their husband would move. Um, we haven't had, really,
to me, people that have leftfor any ad circumstance. I've never
had to let anyone go. Everyone'sat least they seem like they like working
there, but people have life changesand they'll move for that. And then
with growing and having people move,maybe job promotions of our spouse, we
(26:26):
have found ourselves where we're trying tofind more help. And I'm blessed that
I have such great staff right nowthat are able to accommodate that and fill
other roles, but we still needhelp. And so just probably like it
seems like most businesses, there's there'sa lack of people out there that are
willing to work at least in thisindustry right now. Yeah, you're almost
(26:49):
having to become a kind of equateto it, like a college recruiter,
like you're yeah, you know,like a like a coach. You're having
to recruit talent a lot more thanyou than you used to. Yep,
And we've had I've tried to makesure really evaluate what's you know, with
inflation and the all the opportunities thatpeople have out there now, are we
(27:10):
able to offer them something that's appealingand be able to support their family and
something that maybe would bring them andhelp someone decide to come into orthodonics and
to be in a dental assistant.And so that's kind of what we're working
on the What do you look for. I would imagine dental assistant. They
have to have some sort of collegefor that position. They actually don't interesting
high school. It really the education. There's no additional education they need.
(27:37):
Now. There are some schools thatwill give you kind of a head start.
They'll train you on how to docertain dental procedures, but all of
it can be done within an officeif you'll if you can find an office
that'll be willing to train you.Okay, that's good to know. That
could be a career option for someoneto you can and you can do pretty
well doing it, so that's good. All right. I want to transition
the time we have remaining because yourpassion beyond your work is helping other entrepreneurs
(28:02):
and kind of a cool story you'venow that passion has gone to the next
generation. Talk about the project thatyou and your daughter are working on.
Well, my daughter, she hasa project for her school where something it
seemed like it was geared more towardsmaybe helping the environment, or what are
you gonna what can you do tohelp the world be a better place.
(28:22):
It's kind of what I envisioned,and I really couldn't think of anything better
than entrepreneurship. And you think aboutyou could have the best idea in the
world, and unless you can getit into the hands of other people and
make it something that can be selfsustaining and carry on, it doesn't really
help anyone at all. And soentrepreneurship is being able to take maybe like
(28:44):
a complex idea, or take somethingand deliver it in a way that can
be used by anyone. And soher project is coming up with kind of
business for teens and so helping teenagersget the entrepreneurial spirit, maybe create their
own business so that when they're anadult they can just hit the ground running
(29:06):
and keep going. That's awesome.Yeah, I'm excited. I read a
story I think it was in Australia. There's a I think she's ten started
two businesses with the help of hermom, and the article said that the
times she's fifteen, she'd be amultimillionaire can retire. Isn't that crazy?
Fifteen? Yeah, I feel likeI'm behind. We might be a little
behind. And you don't realize thatunless you you know, I didn't come
(29:27):
from a family that had any businessowners. And when I finally got the
spark and realized how beneficial that isfor the entire world really to have that
like entrepreneur spirit. You know,it was already an adult, right,
but it's never too late to start, never too late to start. I
think that's a great concept, andI keep us posted on that because I
(29:48):
think that would be a great show, a great podcast. I think she'd
be excited. She has a goodpersonality. The marketing trades when they looked
at Generation Z, which is ourkids generation, and they looked at key
phrases that the advertising world's looking at, entrepreneurship was number one. Really yeah,
I like that. The Generation Z. What the study conclude it was,
(30:11):
it's the first generation that doesn't believein the American dream, which sounds
almost counterintuitive to the entrepreneurship. Butwhat it basically is they dug into the
data. They don't feel like it'sgoing to be handed to them. They
feel like they have to go outand do it themselves. That's a huge,
like mind shift right there, tobe able to realize that. That's
awesome. So I think this nextgeneration, I think you're onto something.
(30:32):
I think they're looking to be entrepreneurs. Hey, I appreciate you coming into
day. Really appreciate it's been Yeah, a great topic and hopefully you got
something out of it as well.And as I mentioned before, if you
like to watch this episode again,you can do so. Just go to
bisvo dot com, bi zvod dotcom. If you're listening to one of
our radio stations, you can alsocatch the podcast. Wherever you like to
listen to podcast, simply type andcreate, build and Manage. I'm Scott
(30:56):
Miller. Will be back to wrapthings up coming up after this and welcome
(31:19):
back to Create, Build and manants. I'm Scott Miller. Thank you so
much for tuning in today on oneof our bis TV affiliates across the country
or busin talk radio affiliates. Greatinterest you, great topic there. I
wanted Doctor Swap one for a coupleof reasons. One just to encourage you,
as a business leader or anybody who'slooking maybe for a new career,
(31:42):
new job, to not be afraidto step out and do something you've wanted
to do for a long time.As I mentioned at the top of the
show, for me, I hadjust a couple of things in my smile
that kind of bothered me more thanbothered anybody else, and I finally took
the leap. I think that's oneof the things for me personally that the
pandemic did. It sort of forcedme of like what am I waiting for?
(32:06):
And so I wanted to kind oftalk about that. But then also
this story, you know, oneof my passions and why I love this
job so much as I love totalk to. When I say ordinary people,
I'm talking about people that aren't famous, but people just like you and
me that are out there trying tomake a living, working building their businesses.
(32:29):
I think you learn more from peoplethat are in the trenches, so
to speak, than you do fromsome of the celebrity entrepreneurs. Now that's
not to take away from them.They're obviously wildly successful and I learned a
lot from their books, but Ijust love the stories and because of that,
we are actually going to take thisshow to create Build Manage show to
(32:51):
a daily show. And this isa big announcement. We have a daily
show that's going to start in someselect markets in the month of February.
So we're rolling this out slowly.So if you watch us on bis TV
in Dallas, Austin, Houston,Beaumont, in Los Angeles and in Atlanta
as well as soon Phoenix, you'llbe able to catch the daily show of
(33:15):
a Great Building Manage in prime time. And then in the month of March,
we're going to roll this out nationallyto all of our markets. So
we're testing in a few markets andthen we're going to roll it out so
soon you'll be able to watch usdaily. And again, the goal of
the show is really just to haveordinary business leaders, just like the one
(33:36):
we visited with today, doctor Swap, and really ask them their passions and
get some nuggets. I think everyone of these interviews I walk away learning
something new. I loved how doctorSwap talk about the book that really influenced
him and taking ownership and taking ownershipto the next level. Russell's here with
us, of course, our producerextraordinaire and Russell. I'm curious, as
(33:59):
you were watching that interview, wasthere anything that kind of stood out of
you, anything that jumped out ofsomething that you found fascinating there that you
learned today. I definitely thought itwas interesting the fact that you know,
when you're having conversations with people,especially if you're in a sales related field
or something where you do a lotof client interaction. I completely understood it
(34:21):
immediately when he said, you know, you start out looking at the eyes,
but if they don't have good teeth, and it's really hard to keep
that. I focused. The samething if you have like, you know,
dirty stuff on your face, whatever, it's just it really draws attention
away. So I got that.I understood that. You know, a
lot of times people are critical ofthat. Oh, we shouldn't be visual,
we shouldn't be visual, and Iunderstand that. But the reality is
(34:44):
we are in a visual society.It's why we tell businesses all the time
you need to be creating video foryour business, and as a business leader,
you need to be out front andcenter simply because when it comes to
the smaller businesses, particularly if runninga local orthodonics, people do business because
(35:04):
of you. I go to doctorSwap because of doctor Swap. It's because
of his care and his attention todetail. And so the same is true.
When you're promoting your business. Youneed to be out front and center
promoting yourself. But what do youdo? How do you manage that?
There's a lot of questions we dealwith business owners all the time that know
(35:24):
they need to do something to media. Maybe they thought about hosting a radio
show or podcast, or just advertisinga radio or television or his newspaper still
a viable option. Have you everthought about writing a book? All these
different options for businesses bring up alot of questions, which is why I'm
(35:45):
excited again to announce a new bookthat I've written called Media Matters, How
to Leverage the Media to Grow YourBusiness. It's coming out on March the
fifteenth, and just to give youa little preview, each chapter, we
take a look at the different formsof media, give you some personal antidotes
(36:08):
of things I've learned in my twentyfive years of working in the business,
but also give you the history.To me if you're going to learn how
to use anything, it always helpsto know the history of that product,
where it is today and where itis heading. Media is changing all the
time. Right now, you couldbe listening to this show on a radio
(36:30):
station, listening to on a podcast. You could be watching us on biz
TV or watching on demand on BIZVO. That's just one example of how people
consume content in a variety of differentways. And because of that, man
the audience has gotten very segmented,right, how do you reach somebody today
for business when some people are indifferent places. So we talk about that
(36:52):
in the book. But as Imentioned, we go each chapter, so
we look at the world of videoand how television is change. We talk
about radio, we talk about newspaper, the written media, about writing a
book. We dive into the topicthat everybody wants to know about, which
is social media. I get thatall the time. You'll be tempted the
(37:14):
job right to that chapter on socialmedia to read about that as well as
digital marketing. We cover that inthe book, and we really our desire
with this project is to give youa resource that you can read and walk
away with knowledge. You know,there are three stages of knowledge. The
first stages, I don't know whatI don't know, and for a lot
(37:36):
of you when it comes to media, that's where you're at right now.
There's a lot you don't know thatyou don't know. The second stage is
I now know what I don't know, and hopefully as you read the book
you'll start to discover that and Ididn't realize that I now know what I
didn't know. And then the thirdstages, I know what I know,
which is really about equipping you tobe able to market your business and use
(37:59):
your marketing dollars wisely. Again,there's a lot of bad ways you can
spend marketing dollars. You want tomake sure you're spending your dollars wisely.
And the end goal is to getmore business, to grow your business.
Even as we're coming out this pandemicand supply chain issues and everything that goes
on. Listen, run into businessis hard and that's never going to change.
(38:22):
You're always going to have issues youhave to deal with right now.
It may be the pandemic, inflation. Who knows what you're gonna have to
deal with tomorrow. But the keyand I'll leave you with this encouraging note
here. Regardless of what's going onin the world, you still need to
be marketing your business. Turning offmarketing is not going to help you.
(38:45):
I know a lot of people think, oh, I've got to save money.
I got to pay you this utility, you got to pay this employee,
I'll turn off marketing. You're hurtingyour future of your business. So
you need to be marketing. Thequestion is how do you spend your marketings
wisely? And we hope to answerthat for you in the book Media Matters,
coming out again March fifteenth. Aswe get closer that date, we'll
(39:07):
give you some information of where youcan go to make a purchase of that
book. Thank you so much forwatching Create, Build and Manage, or
if you're on our radio affiliates listeningto us as well. Look forward to
visiting with you again next week.Until that time, I'm Scott Miller.
So long everybody.
Welcome to Create, Build, Managethe Entrepreneurs Toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller, and welcome into anotherepisode of Create, Build and Manage.
Happy New Year's we continue to gothrough January. If you are a business
owner, we talk about this alot on the show. It is your
responsibility to be out front talking aboutyour business, communicating it not only to
(00:35):
your staff, but also marketing yourbusiness. And if you're going to market
your business, you want to lookyour best and then includes being okay with
your smile. And I'm just goingto introduce my guest, doctor Aaron Swap.
He's with Swap Orthodonics and just fulldisclosure as we talk, you are
my Orthodonics. You've done work.So when I knew I was going to
(00:59):
get into television, going to domore TV work, I had a couple
of things on my mouth that Iwanted to get worked. I had one
tooth that shifted, one that waschipped. So this beautiful smile this courtesy
sponsored by doctor Swap Orthodonics. Welcometo the show. Thank you, thank
you for having me. I appreciateit absolutely well. I wanted to have
you on the show for a coupleof reasons. One, because that is
(01:19):
something that even as an adult,you need to consider having a good smile.
Sure, and I want to kindof talk about that, but also
a little bit about why you gotinto the field you got into, and
then later on we're going to diveinto sort of the entrepreneurship of owning a
business, even if it's a practicelike working with working with teeth. So
(01:40):
let me start with why. Becauseyou came into college and you could have
done a million different careers, yes, but you chose to work with teeth.
Why. I know it's an interestingfield because you don't get a lot
of exposure to touching people's teeth beforeyou actually become a dentist. Right,
you haven't been touching anyone's teeth notlately. Okay. Well, when I
(02:01):
was in high school, I wentthrough a variety of different professions that I
was thinking about. One of themwas I wanted to be an aerospace engineer.
So I had planned all through highschool being that, and senior year
of high school had some friends thatwere looking in the medical dental fields and
they had said something that kind ofstruck me. They said, do you
(02:23):
really want to work for someone forthe rest of your life, and I
thought, you know what, Iwanted to be my own boss. I
wanted to have control over my ownschedule, and so I kind of veered
into that area. And I hada friend whose dad was a dentist,
and I really liked the family timehe had with his kids and kind of
the way he structed his life.And so it led me down down the
(02:45):
dental field, and I started workingin dental labs and working for dentist while
I was in college, and Ireally like loved everything about it, and
so eventually that led me to dentalschool, went to my pthodonic program,
and I just, I mean prettymuch everything that I came in contact with
was just right up my alley,working with my hands, working with people,
(03:07):
and there were some things about itthat I really appreciated. Probably maybe
the thing that I loved most wasthis problem solving aspect to it, where
I could you know, you're you'refaced with someone that has, you know,
like in your situation, you're facedwith a tooth or an air of
(03:28):
your smile that you don't like,and so I have to look at how
can I get you know, theresults that you're looking for and do it
while still keeping your buy and everythinghealthy and doing the least amount of time
and the most aesthetic way possible,and so taking all those factors into consideration
and being able to deliver a servicethat you'll have you're happy with, and
(03:51):
I'm happy with. It's just somethingthat I really look forward to every day.
So it kind of got me.That's kind of what got me into
the past and kind of what stillcontinues to bring a lot of joy in
the profession for me. And itmakes sense when you took the ortho route
instead of going the dental route,right, because it's different, different,
(04:12):
different form. There is exactly Yeah, there's a there's a lot of elements
that kind of coincide. But Ithink the part that I really appreciated was
that problem solving aspect, and Ithink you faced that in almost any industry,
right, but taking but there's someelements to orthodonics that I really enjoy.
And then also the when you gosee a dentist, you know you're
(04:36):
usually going, you know, outsideof your regular checkups, you're going maybe
because you're in pain right the cavity. It's not usually the most pleasant experience.
And while I would I wouldn't saythat orthodonics is like an amusement park.
Most people are a little bit happierto be at the orthonist office.
Sure makes sense. That's one ofthe things I like about is I have
(04:58):
a strong desire. There's strong motivationjust making people happy and finding ways to
bring another aspect of joy to theirlife, if that makes sense. Now,
you probably work mainly with with kids, but how many adults and what's
the ratio do you see? Doyou see a lot of adults coming in?
Yeah, getting worked Ours is aboutseventy percent kids and then thirty percent
(05:18):
adults got you, So there's there'squite a few adults that come through the
practice for various reasons, but mostwant to get a better smile. And
then there are some individuals are lookingfor ways to improve their by it and
maybe alleviate some job pain. Andthere's some areas where we can make an
(05:38):
improvement there. Talk about the rewardingpart of it, because you mentioned about
solving that puzzle. But what aresome success stories where you've seen, you
know, patients that come in thatare not pleased with their smile at any
age and then that process you know, usually anywhere from a year too.
I guess three years right, Andthe other side of it rewarding is that
(06:00):
for you. I think the partthat I enjoy most about it is when
someone comes in, especially if they'vebeen to maybe another orthodonist, or they've
looked at maybe they've done some researchonline and they've found maybe the only way
for them to achieve the results they'relooking for is maybe through a surgery or
a removing teeth or something that maybediscourage them from going through treatment before,
(06:26):
and maybe through new advancements that havecome into the profession or just a different
experience that I've had, I'm ableto give them an option that helps circumvent
that. So if they only optionbefore was braces, now there might be
an option where you can do withinthis line or some other type of clear
line or treatment. Or I hada patient where she was told the only
(06:47):
option for her was surgery, andso she held off on do anything for
several years, and then when shecame into saw me, We're able to
find something that was able to gether results she wanted and be able to
avoid surgery and in order to fixher smile. And that was a huge,
I guess blessing to her, andit does provide a sense of,
(07:10):
like I guess, satisfaction or enjoymentknowing that we were able to give that
to her. Right. There's alot of that that goes on. So
for someone watching, you know,there's a lot of aftermarket options available right
now. Yah, So talk tome about that. I mean, how
safe are those options that you seeadvertisements where it'll drop something in the mail?
(07:31):
It just does it seem I mean, does it seem safe to me
when you're dealing with your teeth?But but but kind of talk about that.
What are your thoughts on that?You know, I think that with
some of those options, I thinkthe biggest or the hardest part with it
is there is a lot of benefitto having someone that can monitor throughout treatment
(07:54):
and not having used the service.I guess I can't say fully what the
pros and cons are, but itseems when I look at it that there
you miss out on some of themonitoring that a professional could provide. And
so I know in my experience thatwhen I work with patients there are things
that will come up during the treatmentthat I can correct the course that we're
(08:20):
heading. So they'll come in anda tooth may I may have predicted,
hey, it shouldn't move this way, and it doesn't, then I'm able
to adjust it right then and beable to save them hopefully some time in
treatment. And another big thing Isee, and this is just with any
treatment that monitoring helps. I guesswhen someone goes through treatment, the alignment
(08:43):
is one aspect. Getting straight teethis usually not the hardest part. The
hardest part is getting straight teeth andkeeping the bite good so when you bite
down it feels comfortable and that youdon't have that interrupting your life. And
so that monitoring is kind of crucialI think to being able to sustain that
because aligning the teeth, like inmaybe an at home a clear aligner treatment,
(09:07):
it can align your teeth, butsometimes it's hard to monitor that buy
it because all of the initial workis done on the computer. But on
the computer it can look perfect,but then in real life, how do
how do things play out? Thatone you have to it's nice to have
that monitoring. So I think that'swhere maybe you'll get a better of benefit.
And being in the office. Haveyou had cases where people have tried
(09:28):
that we have, yes, yea, yeah we have, and without you
know, it's hard to know didthey fully wear the align. There's so
many factors of why it maybe didn'twork out for them. But we do
have several patients that come in havingtried an alternative service at home service and
realize it didn't work for them,and then they come and see us and
(09:52):
we're able to maybe fulfill or fillthat need that they had and get them
to where they wanted to be kindabout a minute left, Yeah, let's
talk about the investment of it,because again, for a business owner who's
got that one, we're making himcringe because we're highlighting the one thing they
don't like about their smile. Talkabout the investment. Why is it worth
taking the time and the money todo it for your business? You know?
(10:18):
For one of the things that I'vealways and I'm in the field,
so I'm obviously more passionate about teeth. That's one of the first things I
look at other people. But it'sjust because it's what I do, I
think. But one of the thingsthat I think can give you confidence that
this investment is worth it is thatthey did a study a while back,
just did some eye tracking that whenyou talk to someone, what is it
(10:41):
about you know where do the eyesgo? And so when someone's talking to
you, if you have good teeth, they focus on your eyes. They
focused in the middle. Let melet me have you hold it right there
because we've got to go to commercialbreak, but I want to hear more
about this. We're visiting with doctorSwap this hour. You're watching Create,
Build and Manage. We'll be backafterwards. Welcome back to Create Building Mants.
(11:16):
I'm Scott Miller, and we're visitingthis hour with doctor Aaron Swap of
Swap Orthodonics. And I cut youoff as we were going to the commercial
break, and we were talking alittle bit about the benefit if you're a
business owner or why you want toget your teeth fixed, and you were
talking about the study of where theeyes go, and you were mentioning if
your teeth are are nice, thenthey go to the eyes. Is that
(11:37):
you're saying. They kind of justfocus on your eyes and they might look
around a little bit, but mostlyit's you know, your eyes. If
your teeth are distracting, I wouldsay, whether or not aligned as well
as you would want them, orlike I said, distracting, then they
focused your eyes. I look atyour teeth that fookes your eyes and look
your teeth, and like I said, it becomes a distraction. It's talking.
(11:58):
So if you have a limited amountof time where you're hot, you're
speaking with someone maybe in sales orfor whatever area that you work, if
you have a distractor, that maybe something that limits your ability to present
your message. Makes sense. Sohaving nice teeth helps with that. And
I think the confidence and that wasyou know, for me, I don't
(12:18):
think people notice necessarily, but Inoticed exactly, and so for me,
it's just about about a confidence level. And I think that's important. When
you when you got into this field, you didn't have to own your own
business. That's correct, there wereoptions out there. Large change you could
have worked for was did you alwayswant to be your business owner, your
(12:39):
own business owner when you set outto do this, or did it kind
of come to you? I did. That was kind of like my initial
motivating factor to getting involved with dentistry. That's it's a little different kind of
business compared to I think some others, but it's it's kind of what motivated
me to be my own boss andkind of control my own destiny, my
own schedule, all right, sothat's kind of I guess the initial stimulant
(13:03):
stimulant or sure, But when you'regoing through having never been a dentist or
an orthodonis myself, are there businessclasses that they make you take as part
of your degree to a very smalldegree. I mean went to school for
eleven years to be an orthodonis,so four years of college, four year
(13:24):
dental school, and then three yearsof orthonic training. And you know,
through all of that, maybe threeor four classes. You know, the
most I took was an undergrad Iguess. So you come out very I
guess in most cases ill prepared totake on a business. But it's still
is exciting for me. And butI had a lot of catching up to
(13:45):
do to be able to run myown office. So what did you do?
You know? At first, youyou ask a lot, you know,
you know, I've talked about mentors, and I think that's really helpful
speaking with people I've already done itbefore you. And and then the other
thing that made a big difference forme was audio books or just reading books
about how to not only manage yourbusiness, but manage yourself, and a
(14:09):
lot of self development books and thenbusiness books and then I kind of rotate
it between that and health books andreligious books, try to get well around
in that. What is there anyparticular book if you if you had to
recommend one or two books to somebodythat helped you out early on, that
you would you would go back andread again. Yeah, there are so
(14:31):
many, and it's like each onejust builds off the other. But I
would say the first one I wouldrecommend for everyone. And this is maybe
more of a self development book,and it's one that a lot of us
forget about because it's usually the firstbook most people read. But Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People. Yes,that one just gives you some tools to
how manage your time and your life. And you know, one of the
(14:54):
big things that you start out withis it recommends, you know, visioning
your life at the very end andwhat do you want it to be like
and kind of structuring your time forthat. Probably one of my favorite books
was Extreme Ownership. Okay, ifyou've ever read that one and the Navy
Seal, it's a good book.Maybe I'm just going to mention the premise
(15:16):
behind it, but it's about takingownership of pretty much everything, and I
teach a Bible study class in themorning to high school kids and and so
I bring this up sometimes, andit's a concept that's a little hard for
most people to to grasp. Ishared with them the example of imagine you're
you're in class, right, andthey've all had this experience where there's a
(15:39):
teacher that gives you a test andnothing on the test is what they talked
about in class and U and Iask them, so, whose fault is
that they gave you a test andnothing that was on the test was in
class. Whose fault is in Andthey're like, oh, the teachers,
the teacher's teachers. And then Itell them, no, it's your fault,
and they just can't grasp that.And in reality, it's probably not
their fault. But unless you takethat mind shift and realize, hey,
(16:02):
this is I'm the only one thatcan change this, that it'll never change
for the future. So for thefuture, now you know how the teacher
tests, and so it's on youto find out how do you get an
A on this test? And youknow, in my office, if I've
had if I have had an assistantand I've kind of given her some instructions
and I've done it five times andsaid hey, this is how you do
it, how you do it,and she hasn't gotten it yet. Then
(16:26):
you know, I can say,oh, that's on her, or she
just she she can't figure it out. But that doesn't really change anything.
She's still going to you know,that doesn't help her unless I take ownership
and say, hey, maybe I'mnot doing a good job instructing you.
Maybe I haven't set up the rightsystems to help her. Unless I take
that as extreme ownership, then nothingchanges and you don't see improvement. But
(16:48):
if you do, you see alot of improvement. We need more of
that, definitely. That's like aworldwide thing. We need more ownership because
that's that's the opposite of where we'veseen society go. Oh for sure,
I think that's uh. When Ifelt like I already had a little bit
of that, but when I readthat book, it helped me take it
even to like another level. Andyeah, and as a business leader,
(17:10):
you do have to think about that. So I'm guessing you're an audio learner.
I apparently because I get more outof audio books. Yes, reading,
I am too. I'm a bigaudio book book person, but not
everyone learns that way. Yeah,some people have to learn hands on,
some people have to learn visual,and so you do. I could see
that example you gave that maybe likewell maybe the sixth time I teach it
(17:33):
a different way exactly. It appealsto how how they learn. That's very
interesting. So in running your business, are you different today than when you
first started as a business as abusiness? Yeah, I would for sure
you start to you know, Ihad this um idea that everyone give them
the right amount of time, theright encouragement, could learn the same thing
(17:56):
the same way, and and andit's not the case. There's you know,
everyone has different motivations in life anddifferent things that are passionate about,
different things that care about and helpingit, you know, identifying some of
those and being able to help someonethat maybe doesn't care about what you do
(18:17):
and help them see like how howthis helps them accomplish their goals is something
that still work in progress. ButI didn't totally understand the beginning, and
now it's I'd say it's a littlebit more on the forefront, helping you
know, me achieve my goals andthen achieve their goals. And so yet
just a minute left, But whatwhat advice And this is gonna be maybe
a hard question, but what advicewould you today give doctor Swap when he's
(18:44):
first starting. Oh man, thatis a hard one. I would say
the biggest thing is just identifying people'sstrengths and then helping them be able to
express those and express that in theirwork. And I think that just comes
with working and talking and being withpeople. Over time, you start to
(19:10):
identify areas where they could improve andmakes sense, makes sense, good stuff.
We're visiting this hour with doctor Swapwith Swap Orthodonics and really just the
topic of running a business, startinga business, and we're going to get
into this next segment. I'm goingto ask you about the pandemic and how
that's affected your business, and thegreat resignation and all these topics we see
(19:33):
going on in the workforce. Ifyou're enjoying the show and you want to
see more of this content, don'tforget you can watch it on demand at
biz vod dot com. Go tob I z vod dot com. There
you can see this episode as wellas other content we hear on biz TV.
Stick around you're watching and listening tocreate, building, manage. We'll
be back right after this I guessthis hours doctor Aaron Swap of Swap Orthodonics,
(20:23):
and we're visiting really about owning abusiness and all that goes into it.
And I'm curious, Aaron, asyou have your own practice. UM,
let's just kind of go down thechecklist of things we were having to
deal with over the last two years. Obviously the global pandemics number one.
I imagine it's hard to be sixfeet distance in your business. You're correct,
(20:45):
it's uh. We actually when whenit was first going on, we
did our best and tried to keepthings distant. Um, pretty much all
the protocols, we had a setamount that we followed and I was determined
by the state in the bold right. UM. A little harder now,
and you know, we're dealing withpeople's mouths kind of the area where the
(21:07):
virus would come from, and sowe've had to make some changes in protocols
and kind of how we do things. Has it been Have you had issues
with staff getting sick because of it? Or you know, we haven't.
Almost throughout all of it, we'vebeen good. We've had a few people
(21:27):
just recently that have gone sick,but fortunately it seems to be you know,
I almost look at it as Idon't know if the blessings right word,
but unfortunately they're seemed to have beenvery much right, and so that
one's been blessing. But for themost part, everyone's been healthy and it
hasn't interrupted worth too much. SoI'm sure, well, and it's I'm
(21:49):
sure you're like everybody else, soyou're ready for this to be to be
overwheld for sure, it'd be nice. No, it's and you guys were
considered essential business, so right wedid. So we shut down for about
six weeks, okay, closed down, and then after that we were back
open. And a lot of thatis is we have patients that are in
(22:14):
treatment and can postpone seeing I don'tif it don't for an adjustment for a
period of time, but not forever, right, And so how crazy was
that period when you were shut downwhere you stir crazy? Were you driving
the family crazy? You know?I worked probably every single day just working
on some of the systems and thingsthat you that you may be either put
(22:34):
off or wanted to work on forthe practice to run efficiently. And I
had had the longest list. Ithought, I'm going to get so much
done. I got maybe ten percentof it done. It just turns out
like and anyone that runs a businessknows that anything that you want to work
on always seems to take significantly longerthan you plan for. Yes, the
(22:56):
all right, The other issue andsupply chain, is there been any supply
chain issues for products that you useon a regular basis? For sure,
glove, pretty much almost everything thatwe need has had supply chain issues,
gloves being the most difficult thing.We've been able to procure it, but
the cost is significantly higher and there'sbeen a lot of that that we've had
(23:19):
to work through. So now wejust make sure we order significantly in advance
so that we get everything in timebecause it just doesn't come as soon.
Now, your passion is really helpingthe patient. And I know for you
it's not about the money. Yeah, you really love the result to helping
people. So where's that rub asa business owner? Because if your supply
(23:41):
chain goes up, you still havethe building, you still have employees,
you still have hard costs that youhave to fulfill. You got your families,
You got to take care of youremployees families. So have you had
to adjust pricing during that or haveyou been able to weather the storm.
We haven't adjusted any pricing, andorthodomics is interesting in the way that I
mean it's almost been the same costfor the last sixty seventy years almost.
(24:07):
I mean, my sisters, myparents paid signally more than what I charge
as an orthodomist. And some ofthat is just being more efficient with how
we use our time and how weschedule. But it has gotten harder because
everything does cost more now and we'vetried to with the rise inflation, we've
(24:29):
tried to find ways to compensate thestaff more and so just making sure that
everyone, you know, they don'tfeel a hit. If anyone's gonna feel
hit at least right now, thenthat'll be on me and then be able
to take care of them. Andlike we had talked about, when I
do orthodomics, I just want tofocus on the skill and the craft of
what I'm doing and not focus onthe financial part. But in order to
(24:51):
be able to deliver that and beable to help as many people as we
can, it is something that wehave to consider. So we haven't had
to make any adjustments yet, andI'm just kind of waiting to see how
everything plays out before I make anychanges that will affect patients coming in,
and just make sure the staff ortaking care first and then and then we'll
kind of figured out after that.Listen, every business owner is having a
(25:14):
face at were regardless of what thebusiness is and it is. It is
tough decision right now, inflation beingthe other issue. And let's talk about
the great resignation, great resignation peopleleaving jobs. Have your is your practice
experience people leaving? And then hasit been hard to find new help?
That has probably been the thing thatkeeps me up most we've had We were
(25:38):
already you know, our office wasgrowing and we already needed more help,
and so we had been I remembera few years ago, even two years
ago, we would put out anadd and we would get over one hundred
resumes, so many resumes. Andnow we'll put out an ad and we
we'll get zero sometimes. And thething I noticed is that, Um,
(26:00):
occasionally we would have a staff memberthey just have a life change, They
would move, their husband would move. Um, we haven't had, really,
to me, people that have leftfor any ad circumstance. I've never
had to let anyone go. Everyone'sat least they seem like they like working
there, but people have life changesand they'll move for that. And then
with growing and having people move,maybe job promotions of our spouse, we
(26:26):
have found ourselves where we're trying tofind more help. And I'm blessed that
I have such great staff right nowthat are able to accommodate that and fill
other roles, but we still needhelp. And so just probably like it
seems like most businesses, there's there'sa lack of people out there that are
willing to work at least in thisindustry right now. Yeah, you're almost
(26:49):
having to become a kind of equateto it, like a college recruiter,
like you're yeah, you know,like a like a coach. You're having
to recruit talent a lot more thanyou than you used to. Yep,
And we've had I've tried to makesure really evaluate what's you know, with
inflation and the all the opportunities thatpeople have out there now, are we
(27:10):
able to offer them something that's appealingand be able to support their family and
something that maybe would bring them andhelp someone decide to come into orthodonics and
to be in a dental assistant.And so that's kind of what we're working
on the What do you look for. I would imagine dental assistant. They
have to have some sort of collegefor that position. They actually don't interesting
high school. It really the education. There's no additional education they need.
(27:37):
Now. There are some schools thatwill give you kind of a head start.
They'll train you on how to docertain dental procedures, but all of
it can be done within an officeif you'll if you can find an office
that'll be willing to train you.Okay, that's good to know. That
could be a career option for someoneto you can and you can do pretty
well doing it, so that's good. All right. I want to transition
the time we have remaining because yourpassion beyond your work is helping other entrepreneurs
(28:02):
and kind of a cool story you'venow that passion has gone to the next
generation. Talk about the project thatyou and your daughter are working on.
Well, my daughter, she hasa project for her school where something it
seemed like it was geared more towardsmaybe helping the environment, or what are
you gonna what can you do tohelp the world be a better place.
(28:22):
It's kind of what I envisioned,and I really couldn't think of anything better
than entrepreneurship. And you think aboutyou could have the best idea in the
world, and unless you can getit into the hands of other people and
make it something that can be selfsustaining and carry on, it doesn't really
help anyone at all. And soentrepreneurship is being able to take maybe like
(28:44):
a complex idea, or take somethingand deliver it in a way that can
be used by anyone. And soher project is coming up with kind of
business for teens and so helping teenagersget the entrepreneurial spirit, maybe create their
own business so that when they're anadult they can just hit the ground running
(29:06):
and keep going. That's awesome.Yeah, I'm excited. I read a
story I think it was in Australia. There's a I think she's ten started
two businesses with the help of hermom, and the article said that the
times she's fifteen, she'd be amultimillionaire can retire. Isn't that crazy?
Fifteen? Yeah, I feel likeI'm behind. We might be a little
behind. And you don't realize thatunless you you know, I didn't come
(29:27):
from a family that had any businessowners. And when I finally got the
spark and realized how beneficial that isfor the entire world really to have that
like entrepreneur spirit. You know,it was already an adult, right,
but it's never too late to start, never too late to start. I
think that's a great concept, andI keep us posted on that because I
(29:48):
think that would be a great show, a great podcast. I think she'd
be excited. She has a goodpersonality. The marketing trades when they looked
at Generation Z, which is ourkids generation, and they looked at key
phrases that the advertising world's looking at, entrepreneurship was number one. Really yeah,
I like that. The Generation Z. What the study conclude it was,
(30:11):
it's the first generation that doesn't believein the American dream, which sounds
almost counterintuitive to the entrepreneurship. Butwhat it basically is they dug into the
data. They don't feel like it'sgoing to be handed to them. They
feel like they have to go outand do it themselves. That's a huge,
like mind shift right there, tobe able to realize that. That's
awesome. So I think this nextgeneration, I think you're onto something.
(30:32):
I think they're looking to be entrepreneurs. Hey, I appreciate you coming into
day. Really appreciate it's been Yeah, a great topic and hopefully you got
something out of it as well.And as I mentioned before, if you
like to watch this episode again,you can do so. Just go to
bisvo dot com, bi zvod dotcom. If you're listening to one of
our radio stations, you can alsocatch the podcast. Wherever you like to
listen to podcast, simply type andcreate, build and Manage. I'm Scott
(30:56):
Miller. Will be back to wrapthings up coming up after this and welcome
(31:19):
back to Create, Build and manants. I'm Scott Miller. Thank you so
much for tuning in today on oneof our bis TV affiliates across the country
or busin talk radio affiliates. Greatinterest you, great topic there. I
wanted Doctor Swap one for a coupleof reasons. One just to encourage you,
as a business leader or anybody who'slooking maybe for a new career,
(31:42):
new job, to not be afraidto step out and do something you've wanted
to do for a long time.As I mentioned at the top of the
show, for me, I hadjust a couple of things in my smile
that kind of bothered me more thanbothered anybody else, and I finally took
the leap. I think that's oneof the things for me personally that the
pandemic did. It sort of forcedme of like what am I waiting for?
(32:06):
And so I wanted to kind oftalk about that. But then also
this story, you know, oneof my passions and why I love this
job so much as I love totalk to. When I say ordinary people,
I'm talking about people that aren't famous, but people just like you and
me that are out there trying tomake a living, working building their businesses.
(32:29):
I think you learn more from peoplethat are in the trenches, so
to speak, than you do fromsome of the celebrity entrepreneurs. Now that's
not to take away from them.They're obviously wildly successful and I learned a
lot from their books, but Ijust love the stories and because of that,
we are actually going to take thisshow to create Build Manage show to
(32:51):
a daily show. And this isa big announcement. We have a daily
show that's going to start in someselect markets in the month of February.
So we're rolling this out slowly.So if you watch us on bis TV
in Dallas, Austin, Houston,Beaumont, in Los Angeles and in Atlanta
as well as soon Phoenix, you'llbe able to catch the daily show of
(33:15):
a Great Building Manage in prime time. And then in the month of March,
we're going to roll this out nationallyto all of our markets. So
we're testing in a few markets andthen we're going to roll it out so
soon you'll be able to watch usdaily. And again, the goal of
the show is really just to haveordinary business leaders, just like the one
(33:36):
we visited with today, doctor Swap, and really ask them their passions and
get some nuggets. I think everyone of these interviews I walk away learning
something new. I loved how doctorSwap talk about the book that really influenced
him and taking ownership and taking ownershipto the next level. Russell's here with
us, of course, our producerextraordinaire and Russell. I'm curious, as
(33:59):
you were watching that interview, wasthere anything that kind of stood out of
you, anything that jumped out ofsomething that you found fascinating there that you
learned today. I definitely thought itwas interesting the fact that you know,
when you're having conversations with people,especially if you're in a sales related field
or something where you do a lotof client interaction. I completely understood it
(34:21):
immediately when he said, you know, you start out looking at the eyes,
but if they don't have good teeth, and it's really hard to keep
that. I focused. The samething if you have like, you know,
dirty stuff on your face, whatever, it's just it really draws attention
away. So I got that.I understood that. You know, a
lot of times people are critical ofthat. Oh, we shouldn't be visual,
we shouldn't be visual, and Iunderstand that. But the reality is
(34:44):
we are in a visual society.It's why we tell businesses all the time
you need to be creating video foryour business, and as a business leader,
you need to be out front andcenter simply because when it comes to
the smaller businesses, particularly if runninga local orthodonics, people do business because
(35:04):
of you. I go to doctorSwap because of doctor Swap. It's because
of his care and his attention todetail. And so the same is true.
When you're promoting your business. Youneed to be out front and center
promoting yourself. But what do youdo? How do you manage that?
There's a lot of questions we dealwith business owners all the time that know
(35:24):
they need to do something to media. Maybe they thought about hosting a radio
show or podcast, or just advertisinga radio or television or his newspaper still
a viable option. Have you everthought about writing a book? All these
different options for businesses bring up alot of questions, which is why I'm
(35:45):
excited again to announce a new bookthat I've written called Media Matters, How
to Leverage the Media to Grow YourBusiness. It's coming out on March the
fifteenth, and just to give youa little preview, each chapter, we
take a look at the different formsof media, give you some personal antidotes
(36:08):
of things I've learned in my twentyfive years of working in the business,
but also give you the history.To me if you're going to learn how
to use anything, it always helpsto know the history of that product,
where it is today and where itis heading. Media is changing all the
time. Right now, you couldbe listening to this show on a radio
(36:30):
station, listening to on a podcast. You could be watching us on biz
TV or watching on demand on BIZVO. That's just one example of how people
consume content in a variety of differentways. And because of that, man
the audience has gotten very segmented,right, how do you reach somebody today
for business when some people are indifferent places. So we talk about that
(36:52):
in the book. But as Imentioned, we go each chapter, so
we look at the world of videoand how television is change. We talk
about radio, we talk about newspaper, the written media, about writing a
book. We dive into the topicthat everybody wants to know about, which
is social media. I get thatall the time. You'll be tempted the
(37:14):
job right to that chapter on socialmedia to read about that as well as
digital marketing. We cover that inthe book, and we really our desire
with this project is to give youa resource that you can read and walk
away with knowledge. You know,there are three stages of knowledge. The
first stages, I don't know whatI don't know, and for a lot
(37:36):
of you when it comes to media, that's where you're at right now.
There's a lot you don't know thatyou don't know. The second stage is
I now know what I don't know, and hopefully as you read the book
you'll start to discover that and Ididn't realize that I now know what I
didn't know. And then the thirdstages, I know what I know,
which is really about equipping you tobe able to market your business and use
(37:59):
your marketing dollars wisely. Again,there's a lot of bad ways you can
spend marketing dollars. You want tomake sure you're spending your dollars wisely.
And the end goal is to getmore business, to grow your business.
Even as we're coming out this pandemicand supply chain issues and everything that goes
on. Listen, run into businessis hard and that's never going to change.
(38:22):
You're always going to have issues youhave to deal with right now.
It may be the pandemic, inflation. Who knows what you're gonna have to
deal with tomorrow. But the keyand I'll leave you with this encouraging note
here. Regardless of what's going onin the world, you still need to
be marketing your business. Turning offmarketing is not going to help you.
(38:45):
I know a lot of people think, oh, I've got to save money.
I got to pay you this utility, you got to pay this employee,
I'll turn off marketing. You're hurtingyour future of your business. So
you need to be marketing. Thequestion is how do you spend your marketings
wisely? And we hope to answerthat for you in the book Media Matters,
coming out again March fifteenth. Aswe get closer that date, we'll
(39:07):
give you some information of where youcan go to make a purchase of that
book. Thank you so much forwatching Create, Build and Manage, or
if you're on our radio affiliates listeningto us as well. Look forward to
visiting with you again next week.Until that time, I'm Scott Miller.
So long everybody.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.