Very Clinical: Dr. Craig Harder Has Seen Some Business

[00:00:01] This is a production of The Very Dental Podcast Network. Welcome to The Very Clinical Podcast. In about the time it takes to do an MO on three, we will entertain and amaze you with tips and tricks on regular daily dentistry. Here's Kevin and Zach.

[00:00:28] What is up Very Clinical listeners? And welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is Zach Miners coming to you from Kansas City, Missouri with me as always my trusty co-host Dr. Kevin Haerfreier. Kevin, how is Cleveland doing? Cleveland's doing better.

[00:00:44] I just moved into a new house from all the royalties we got from AG2 Wow! for my last episode. That's great. I've got a mansion and three Mercedes and two Ferraris now. Those AG2 checks keep rolling in. What have you done with all your cash there, Zach?

[00:01:02] Alan hasn't given it to me yet. He's hoarding it. Oh. I think you better negotiate. I have a real problem now. Get your agent and renegotiate your Very Clinical podcast deal and AG2. As promised, we have a returning guest, Dr. Craig Harder from Washington.

[00:01:20] Craig, what is going on? Hey, fellas. Thanks for having me back again. Yep. You were so great last time we asked you back again. I appreciate that. Yeah. You guys make it so easy for me. We flew him in just for this.

[00:01:35] Craig, where did you actually grow up? What town? I grew up in Spokane, which is about 100 miles from where I'm at now. All right. Cool. Yeah. Growing up in Spokane and then I went to school at the University of Idaho. Go Vandals. Vandals. The best name in sports.

[00:01:53] Yes. That is a good one. I agree with that. I love it. That's a good one. All right. Well, tonight's bit revolves around being a boy and being in the summer or being just a kid, I guess.

[00:02:04] I guess you could be a boy or a girl or whatever you want in 2024, apparently. So, Craig, let's say you're a 10-year-old Craig. It's a hot summer night in Spokane and you're craving some sort of summer treat. What's your go-to as a 10-year-old? Hot summer night.

[00:02:25] What are you going for? I was pulling out the Lucerne Safeway chocolate ice cream from the freezer. And my family, we either had popcorn or ice cream every night for dessert. Nice. And you had to get it yourself though.

[00:02:43] Or dad would maybe pop the corn in the microwave cone-shaped thing before they had the bags of popcorn. And we had a radar range, I guess, before they actually called them a microwave oven. Excellent. Yeah, I was doing that.

[00:03:00] But usually it might not be that I was home because in our day back then in the summer, you were just out riding your bike. Oh, yeah. For sure. My best friend lived about seven miles away across the interstate.

[00:03:13] And so, yeah, my folks just wanted to know if I was coming home for dinner or not, where I was going to be. So we were always out. So I did that too.

[00:03:21] And now I feel like if I let my kids do that, I'd probably get a call from somebody. Yeah, we were scared to let them out of the cul-de-sac growing up with our kids now. I did get a call. On Charlie?

[00:03:34] Yeah, when Charlie was little, we lived halfway on the street we lived on, like right in the middle. And his school was at the top of the street. You walk up a hill through a little section of woods and there's a school.

[00:03:46] The bus stop, which was ridiculous, was at the other end of the street. So essentially, you had to walk the same distance, whether it was the end of the street or up the street by the school. So we walked to school every day.

[00:03:58] I encouraged it because I wanted him to have that thing that I had as a kid, you know, where you just- Sure. You had some sort of free range. Plus, it's good exercise. Good camaraderie. And it was a great walk in the morning for me.

[00:04:08] I walked him to school every morning. That's awesome. When he was little, I'd meet him like halfway up the hill. The school called. They were very concerned about us having our kid walk to school. And I'm like, the bus stop is equal- it's the same distance.

[00:04:23] What do you think is going to happen? How old was he at the time? Oh, first or second grade. Oh, come on. At that age, I would walk to the end of the driveway and walk halfway up the hill or whatever. It wasn't like it was crazy.

[00:04:39] Crazy stuff. What was your treat, Kevin? So, I'm trying to think if I really- I think one of the joys of being a kid, and this is not where I was going to go originally with this, but the ice cream truck.

[00:04:54] You know, you could be eating dinner and hear the ice cream truck a street or two away, that song, and you're like, we're getting something. And of course, my dad would say- or would be overpriced and he would complain about that.

[00:05:10] So, some sort of- I don't know what the correct exchange rate would be in 1975 or whatever, but some sort of $3 Italian ice or something that was overpriced. But somehow, if you bought it out of a truck in the middle of the street, that was like

[00:05:29] heaven when you were a 10-year-old. Or one of those drumstick things. Oh, okay. Yeah, those were- Yeah. My parents were so against those ice cream trucks, they would always tell me, like,

[00:05:42] we will go to the grocery store and buy you a six-pack of like something instead of you buying from that truck. If you see that truck, hide. You know, they're- Yeah. Okay, so as a child of the 80s, the most popular summer treat was the chocolate Jell-O pudding

[00:06:01] pop brought to you by- Bill Cosby. Good old Bill Cosby. Himping those Jell-O pudding pops. That was it, man. If grandma had the chocolate Jell-O pudding pops, it was like, oh yeah, now we're talking. Those things are garbage, by the way.

[00:06:17] Remember if they mixed the black and the white ones, it was pudding in a cloud? Yes, yes, exactly, yes. They weren't really good as far as ice cream goes, but like, hey, Bill told us to eat them, so no. Bill told you to eat them and then-

[00:06:32] He's convincing. Did you feel sleepy afterwards? Maybe, yeah. Maybe, yeah. They were a nighttime treat, Kevin, so yeah. So- Yeah, those pudding pops are garbage, but- They really are garbage. I had one as an adult.

[00:06:47] I was like, I can't believe I liked this ever at any point, you know? Yeah, that's a weird thing when you go back to something like that. Why did I eat this? It was so good when you're a kid, so strange.

[00:06:57] All right, Craig, have you changed your mind on anything related to dental business over the last years of your career?

[00:07:08] For sure, and I kind of put some different thoughts on this one, but I think the thing that I learned the most important from a business standpoint was that I used to hire the young, pretty, energetic staff that I really thought were going to be great salespeople.

[00:07:26] But after hiring, firing, losing 20 or more of them over the years, I started hiring the dental veterans, those ladies that knew how to work. They'd been in several dental offices across town. They knew the ones that they wanted to be a part of. They're not having babies anymore.

[00:07:46] They're not calling in sick. They know how to show up, take pride in what they're doing, and take good care of people. And they may not be the outgoing, bubbly ones, but they show up every day.

[00:07:58] And on my staff now, we've got people that have been with us 25 years, 19 years, 18 years, and eight years. So those people, they run my practice. I don't have to do anything. I show up. They've got everything going. I just get to do the fun stuff.

[00:08:15] Also lower drama, I guess, is my guess. Exactly. Yeah. I see people burning through assistants or hygienists so fast anymore. And my daughter now works at a prosthodontist office in Jacksonville, Florida. And she talks about how people there, they lose them quick. So they're struggling hiring.

[00:08:35] And I think, yeah, you're hiring the wrong people. And a lot of what I know is that there's a limited pool of those veterans out there. But if you find one, hang on to them. They're worth their weight in gold. They are.

[00:08:48] They usually command a little higher price tag too, but that's usually money well spent, usually. But then they're also the ones that aren't shopping around for that higher paycheck either. They know what they're worth. They already are getting it.

[00:09:02] And they're not worried about some other person who's making a dollar or two more down the road at the other office. What about you, Kevin? How do you feel about that? I think it's a mixed bag, honestly. I can see this going both ways.

[00:09:18] So one extreme, we had a dental office near us that must have got bought out by a DSO and they just axed everyone. So this woman came to almost a cold call to interview at our office. And my office manager showed her around, showed her all the technology.

[00:09:38] And she self-excused herself like this is beyond me. So there's that part of it, right? Yeah. And then I will say that the last hygienist I hired has worked for 20 plus years and she adapted and bought into everything. Marianne is amazing. So it can go both ways.

[00:10:01] I think that for the digital dentistry stuff, generally the younger people grasp onto it quicker. But I guess I wouldn't make a blanket statement, but I certainly see Craig's point on that for sure. What about you, Zach? I have some very long term people.

[00:10:26] I have a couple 40 year people that my dad hired when they were in their low 20s. They're getting ready to age out. They're at the end. If you can do the math, you know that they're about done. And they're phenomenal with the people.

[00:10:44] But it is very tough to get anything new going on. And I'm not talking about dental tech because these are front desk people. I'm talking like, hey, we're going to switch to texting people. And it's like a long kind of drawn out process.

[00:10:59] So I see both sides of it. Well, I have an assistant that's on the younger side. And so man, she's picked up the scanning things. It's awesome. She's amazing, loves taking photos, stuff like that. So I also see both sides of it.

[00:11:12] But I would also tend to value someone that had been doing it for a while for sure. So I get Craig's angle. And I can only imagine I'll feel more strongly that way the longer I get into this gig for sure.

[00:11:36] And the low drama thing is a must. Yeah, that is. So that's tough. As soon as you said that, I've had younger drama and I currently have some older drama. Yeah, you can never eliminate all the drama. No, no. But it's definitely lower.

[00:11:53] Like if I've said this before to my team, you know, when different things arise, this is how you summarize the job. You show up on time. That's important. Show up in time, work hard, get along with everyone and go home. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

[00:12:08] I mean, that's the crux of it. And if you do some good work along the way, that's even better. Yeah. What else, Craig? Do you have a second business-based thing for us? Yeah.

[00:12:20] I think a lot of my colleagues have probably fallen into this where you've come, oh, December or so and the supply reps are coming around wanting to sell you equipment. And you just got some information from your accountant that, hey, you made a lot more money this year.

[00:12:37] You need to spend some money. We've got to figure out because your taxes are pretty high. Well, you don't have a ton of money in the bank even though you've made more. You've spent it somewhere along the line.

[00:12:47] And so I made that mistake several times of buying high-dollar equipment, buying a new CEREC, buying whatever and making payments on that, financing it over the next year. Well, all of a sudden you add three or four of those on top of each other

[00:13:03] and you've got $8,000 to $10,000 a month in finance payments. And that's the dumbest thing ever. So that's definitely one thing I've learned. Never finance equipment just to avoid taxes. If you have to finance the equipment, fine.

[00:13:17] But don't do it on December 31st so that you can avoid the tax man on April 15th. That's a good one because you're right. You get those ads. I mean, the equipment companies target. They know that people. They target you but I think it's a false promise.

[00:13:34] Yep. Heck, I have signed paperwork in Maui from a fax machine, sending it back to Patterson. And I look back on it and I sold that equipment three years later and it was just dumb that I ever bought it.

[00:13:47] But I was in a panic and I was going to have to pay a bunch of taxes. So I thought I was being smart. Kevin, has that happened to you over the years? I've never fallen for, I've been tempted. I'm not going to say.

[00:14:01] I've never fallen for the you got to spend before the end of the year except for maybe once. But that was when I bought my iTero. It was more that I could see that the next year was I needed another scanner.

[00:14:16] And it just happened that I was going to actually I got a deal on that. But I just here's what I Craig said something that I think resonates. When you have multiple payments on things, that can become a problem

[00:14:34] because you have a tendency to forget what the other thing was. And there's another shiny object out there that you think you need. So that can be a trap.

[00:14:48] I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth now because, you know, I do think that for certain things like I was convinced the Cone Bean payment, whatever it was, I was going to be able to make that back.

[00:15:01] The return on investment in a week of the month, whatever the payment was around $2,000. I was going to be able to make that back in the first week. But there are other things where I think you need to be really mindful of what you're doing,

[00:15:15] but also not too mindful that you don't take a chance on yourself. So there's a fine line there. For sure. Yeah. Again, not saying don't finance some piece of equipment,

[00:15:25] but don't do it as an end of year financial planning thing or stack up several items that you're now financing. I 100% agree with that. Zach, what's the ZAM method? One of the things, and I think I'm going to talk out both sides of my mouth as well.

[00:15:47] One of the things my dad's always preached is to try very hard to try to pay cash on those things as much as possible. And so he said if you're going to plan an equipment purchase, just save a little bit throughout the course of the year.

[00:16:01] Maybe buy it at the end of the year, but try to like, at least if you can't pay for all of it, at least that you're going to have a pretty good down payment on it. And, you know, he's like any year where you buy a big item,

[00:16:12] you're probably just going to make a little bit less money unless you've really killed it. So I kind of just have adopted that. The downside to that is I feel like it keeps you from buying some things. Because I mean, that requires a lot of discipline.

[00:16:25] You got to pay yourself less. You got to save that money, all that stuff to do it. And so I think it's held us back on a few things from pulling the trigger.

[00:16:34] But I also haven't caught myself up in any finance payments or felt like I had a lease of payments hanging around my neck. So I guess I see both sides as well.

[00:16:45] I can see some limitations to it, but it's also kept us, it's almost like a personal finance thing just in a business sense. But I think the saying you've got sometimes you need to spend money to make money is true. Yes, it is.

[00:16:58] You have to be very prudent about that. Yeah, yeah. You can go off the chain really quick. Craig, what's the number one thing that you pulled the trigger on? What was your biggest regret? My biggest regret was a BioLase hard soft tissue laser.

[00:17:21] I sure like using it, but it never made me any money. Yeah, yeah. Over things that I could have done previously with the same outcome. Again, great thing to have in the office. It was a cool side trick, but yeah, that was a waste.

[00:17:37] Kevin, do you have a regret purchase of any of the tech or things you bought over the years or not too much? I don't really. That's good. I was very strategic about everything. There's some other things I regret, but as far as tech that I've bought, no.

[00:17:55] So life regrets, but no tech regrets. Yeah. All right. One of the biggest regrets was agreeing to do this podcast. Yeah, I understand. Because now that I've got the AG2 money rolling in, I don't need you guys. Who needs it? Who needs it?

[00:18:10] All right, Craig, did you have a third one or was that what you had for us? No, that's what I got. Okay, perfect. That's what I got. Perfect. All right, Kevin, any final thoughts, double downs, apologies?

[00:18:23] I think I'm going to go out and invest in a five-axis mill. Okay. I'm just kidding. On December 31st? Yes, December 31st. So you're making the big bucks this year is what you're saying. 1159, I'm going to sign for the five-axis mill. I'm just kidding.

[00:18:42] No use for that at all. Well, I hope you guys are enjoying the Changing Our Minds series. And Craig, thank you for joining us again this week. Next week, you get to hear what Craig's changed his mind about on life. A broad topic. Oh. Life, the whole life.

[00:18:57] Can he come up with anything? All right, could be anything. All right, we will see you guys next Tuesday. See you.