Very Dental: A New Twist on Dental Instruments with Kyle Lim of Power Dental Group

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_01] This is a production of the Very Dental Podcast Network. This is the Very Dental Podcast. Welcome to the Very Dental Podcast, where you'll find entertaining and relevant conversations with visionaries, clinicians, and your friends in the dental space. Now, here's your host, Dr. Alan Mead.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_01] Very Dental people, welcome to another episode of the Very Dental Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Mead. Joining me, a new friend of mine, someone you've probably seen if you're on social media at all, a guy by the name of Kyle Lim. Kyle, how you doing?

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00] Doing great. Doing amazing. Doing great. Blessed to see you another day. We're living, baby.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, so Kyle is, Kyle works for the Power Dental Group, and he is the face of a lot of, the reason I reached out to him, this goes to show how, how, I'm a little, I'm a little pathetic. I'm on Instagram a lot. I'm social, I literally, I'm the guy who complains about what awful things social media has done to us, and also, I'm on all the time.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01] So literally, I have this goofy parasocial relationship with Kyle because I've seen him on all the ads for Power Dental Group stuff. And so like, it was wild to like, come on and see this guy. So Kyle is, I'm assuming you're in marketing with Power Dental Group. I don't know that. I'm literally assuming only because, or maybe you're just the guy they get to do the videos. I don't know. Tell me a little about yourself, Kyle.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, so that question comes up a lot, and people always wonder what my involvement is. I actually own the company. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so I'm the founder of Power Dental Group. Okay. It was kind of the second generation version of what my dad started as a family business. My dad started this back in the day, 25 years ago. And so from there, came in five years ago, kind of shipped everything down, rebuilt some infrastructure, and then rebranded a part of a group. And now I'm the owner alongside my sister as part of the business. Okay.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01] I love this story so much more now than even before I started. And just listeners, as you know, I did so little research on this. I'm like, literally, I'm like, I got to talk to that guy because he's on Instagram. And lo and behold, he's the owner of the company. This is so freaking hilarious. I love that. This is podcasting. And my listeners would be upset with me if I had done enough research to actually know that. So now the story is about five times more compelling to me. I love that. So he's the owner. He's in Chicagoland area, North Illinois, apparently.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01] And this is a family business. Oh, my God. I have to hear about that. So your dad started this business or started an instrument business of some sort a long time ago. Tell me about that.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So my dad, about 25 years ago, came to the States. He was from Korea. And, you know, he was just in the pursuit of living the American dream, you know, providing for his family, making sure that we had what we could have when we were younger and just build a better future for my family. And so he sacrificed a lot, 25 years ago coming over. He worked a bunch of odd jobs, but eventually fell into the instrument business was through his sister, actually, who owned a instrument servicing, a sharpening business. Okay. I get it. So that's how he got the entry point into dental.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00] And then at some point there was a falling off, unfortunately, between the sister and my father and the owner of the company. And my dad said, you know what? Screw it. I think I can do it better. And so he took out a loan, bought a business and the rest has been history since then. His story is very interesting because he also, you know, when you talk about the beginning of what he did, he was a true like blue collar head down, built all the machines from scratch. Wow.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00] He was doing servicing to be able to start looking at how does Hugh Fridi do tips, for example, one of the leaders in the industry. And how do I make those myself? He would literally copy the tips and figure out the configuration from the retipping he would do and configure and weld these instruments together and these jigs together to be able to help recreate all the hygiene instruments that we kind of founded on. And so we were founded on it as an instrument servicing hygiene business.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01] So what's interesting about this is, okay, if you look at the website, I looked at the website today and you guys have a pretty extensive catalog. Totally. Like what, if you've seen them on Instagram, you see these like dead sexy surgical instruments and we'll get back to those. Don't you worry. But they have a very extensive catalog. They have, they have all, basically they have all kinds of instruments, left, right and center, man.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01] They're kind of, and so you're saying he started in, in the, I mean that when you think about it, instruments, hygiene, retipping, sharpening, probably the different metals, the different, all that stuff. That's, that's like the nitty gritty, that stuff. So I'm assuming your dad was the guy for all that stuff.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_00] Absolutely. And, you know, for him, he just kept learning, learning, learning, uh, started realizing that he had to start expanding some of the services. So then he moved in doing surgical instruments, um, you know, restorative instruments and then the whole gambit about you creating a, about a 2300 to you list, um, that he manufactured actively. And so, um, since that point, you know, the way that we kind of started, the way he started standing out at least was he realized, and I mean, you know this with instruments in general, there's so many instrument companies.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_00] It's very difficult to try and stick out in any meaningful way, um, with normal, just standard instruments. So what he said was, okay, you know what, I built up a business enough. I understand manufacturing enough. Let me actually listen to these doctors and see what problems are really having and create really unique solutions based on those needs. And that's where some of the, what we call now the power line was really stemmed from. So, um, patented products focus on efficiency that no one else has.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00] Um, and there were honestly really game changing products and ones that we showcase still to this day. So, um, that's where he started getting his sort of claim to fame. I'm in his industry here back in back when he was doing it. So sure. Sure. Um, so that was kind of how things started.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_01] That's pretty cool. That's it. I'm, I'm looking at the website here and everyone needs to go to it. It's the website is power dental group.com. And, and I mean, like you'll, you can go down rabbit holes here. They got all kinds of stuff. I just, uh, what's interesting. Okay. The very first, I think the very first Instagram instrument display that you put on that really dragged me in was, um, it was a periosteal. It's like a, uh, basically I have multiple small periosteal elevators and they always tell you,

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_01] don't use them to luxate. Don't luxate the root. This is just for periosteal. This is to, to shear the fibers off. Don't luxate. But you know, you, I don't know if you're a dentist gets in there and you're like, Ooh, I got good purchase here. Ooh. And you twist. I've busted those instruments before. Yeah. And so you're, you're going to fame on this ad that I saw is that you can do it with your, with your instruments. You can, you can go ahead and give it a little twist there. So tell, and I think that was one of the power, like you said, the power line instruments.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_01] Tell me about that.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So with the power line, the way that that line kind of goes, and I always compare it to Toyota and Lexus, right? Toyota is all the essentials, you know, very cost effective, high accessibility, um, lasts a very long time, high quality. And then we have this Lexus line where it's a little more, the higher end, more bells and whistles, a little bit nicer. Um, that's what the power line is kind of, uh, positioned as. And so, um, with the power line itself, you know, the big idea behind it is really just focusing on problems that people have inside of the clinical, uh, inside the clinical dentistry

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_00] inside the operatory. You know, it's such an interesting perspective when you talk about dentistry, you know, these guys are getting the best new scanners, the best new materials, the best new digital technology, and really those things will help save time. But when you talk about what you do the most of it's you performing inside the op on patients with instruments, 90% of your week. And so it's interesting to see that no one has ever thought to really try and push this industry and the sort of suspect and the way that we started to.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00] Um, and I think that's the reason why people are so interested in what we're doing now is because we really have become this kind of like think tank innovation tank for instruments and things that people have never seen before. Um, and I think it's very cool because you don't know until you see it. Right. So, um, so that's kind of how things have started to come to fruition and we're still building, you know, we're always trying to release new products, always trying to push the, the, the standard and really toe the line and try and be the, how much, how much of the innovation

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_01] that you're, you're pushing is in like an instrument that, that would be surprising came directly from a dentist saying, I really could use this or whatever. What tell me, tell me how that works.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So honestly, majority of what we've built, I would say probably 60% of the catalog in the power line section, the patented items that has come from dentists coming to us saying, Hey, we got this problem. And from us, what's interesting is people always ask like, do you have dentists? Are you a dentist? And I'm like, no, like I'm not a dentist. I may be in Tijuana, but I'm not a dentist. No, I don't. A dentist by any means. But, but I do work with a lot of dentists. Right. And I think the, the part to that is, you know, there's an interesting layer where when you

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00] come outside of dentistry and you can look at these products and you can view these problems in a different light, I think it yields better solutions than being inside of dentistry already having this sort of paradigm. Right. Agreed. So for us, you know, we, we started working with a lot of dentists. We still work with a lot of dentists today to be able to get feedback. But a lot of these new products that we're making nowadays is just based on the experience that we have, you know, we're looking and we're in the office all the time. I'm in the office all the time seeing, okay, what is a nuisance? You know, like what is a nuisance here? What is a problem here?

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_00] And what is something that people don't even think they have problems with like crown removal, like flap retraction, like having a luxator that can actually flex. So you can do a little bit of twerking on it. Right. These are all things that you don't think about until you start applying. And that's kind of how things started. Okay.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01] So here's, here's the question. This is, this makes me laugh because I'm, I'm as guilty as the next guy. How much of the power line is sold purely because it's badass to look at? Like, right. Like, right. They look like, they look like something a Jedi would wield or something like that. They're very, they're very cool looking instruments. Some of the, some of the luxators with like luxator handles are like really badass. Like, I don't know. I just feel like, all right. How sexy can a scalpel handle be yet?

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01] Here we are. I'm looking at this very sexy scalpel handle. It's very cool. It's like, so on some level, it's funny because it's like, okay, should the aesthetics of your surgical insurance matter that much? Except they do. They totally do. It's part, it's part of the whole thing. If you look at any of these guys teaching implants, they have dead sexy looking instruments, you know, that's part of the draw. So is there anything, if you ever had a meeting, maybe not recorded, you weren't going to admit to it, but a meeting went, well, this one's good, but it needs to look a little more badass. You ever have anything like that?

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_00] Absolutely. I think when I was joking around with my clinicians, I say, my clinicians and my team in turn, I said, look, functionality always has to be there. High quality always has to be there, but it's got to look sexy. Yeah, it does. It actually really does. And if it doesn't, then we have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to make it look sexy because it's the same philosophy and principle as look good, feel good, play good, right? In the operatory with your scrubs, with the highest tech that you have, you know, there's that layer. And so I think people really enjoy when you can have an instrument, your set of instruments

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_00] that you go to that every time you open this cassette, every time you open this pouch, it's like, man, I'm ready to go. It is. It is. I'm ready.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01] It's so dumb. But it's true. It's totally true. I think it's probably human nature on some level. The aesthetic is pretty neat. Absolutely. Whether it's, you know, an electric handpiece or a really cool looking, I mean, I won't lie to you. There's several of the, just the, I don't do a ton of like fancy surgery, but I take teeth out like crazy. And I gotta tell you, I look at this stuff, I'm like, man, this is really good. The other thing, functionality, when it sounds like you've got design wise, some of these

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_01] things are really, I don't know, for a guy that's broken an instrument, I don't ever want to do that. Again, I didn't, I didn't have to fish it out too bad, but, uh, I don't ever want to have to do that again. So yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So like how much, how much into the, um, okay. So how, how long have you been doing this?

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So I've been in this, uh, a little, almost five years to date. November 9th is going to be my five-year marker. Oh, nice. Okay. Congratulations. So I was here, I came over with, uh, one of my mentors, he was from Striker Medical. Okay. And then my sister, uh, she was already working with my dad on and off. Um, she was the one that kind of posted me to come over when I was working in cybersecurity prior. Okay. Um, and it was one of those where it's like, yeah, you have so much life. It's going to mean so much more to be able to do this. I never was expecting myself to be in this business. I was never expecting myself to be in the family business.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00] Cause I always thought it was a handout is very young man mentality. Yeah. I want to forge my own path. I would do my own thing. But, um, five years later, I would not have it any other way. Cool. You know, we're able to retire my dad out very quickly, a lot sooner than he thought he would. Yeah. Um, he's spending time with the grandkids. My sister just had a baby, so he's loving life. Um, and so, you know, it's just been a perfect sort of, uh, I think glide path into where we are, but, um, it's been awesome, man. Like I look back where we were and where we're at right now.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00] It's like, we're at that moment now where five years ago we were praying for, like we're dealing with so many.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_01] All that. Okay. So yeah, your problems are, you got different problems now than you did back when you started. You got gold plated problems now. That's awesome. That's fantastic.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe silver plated, but yeah.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_01] So I want to, I want to know. Okay. So the reality is it doesn't sound like you were necessarily from a marketing background to start with. If you were in cybersecurity, you weren't necessarily marketing. Is that right?

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Cybersecurity. I had a little bit of marketing pursuits back in the day, but, um, but that's also another sorry for another conversation, but not too heavily involved with marketing. No.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01] So. I want to know what it's like for you to come into this business and realize that selling to dentists is a different, a different ball of wax, right? Like, like I'm, I'm curious for instance. Okay. So instrument manufacturers are a little bit famous for going to big meetings. Like they big meetings. They've got a big, they got a big, uh, you know, they've got a corner corner on the aisle table and they got all their instruments laid out and everyone.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm thinking to myself, that's actually probably that type of sales will probably be able to do that. But what, what have you noticed in five years about how dental meetings feel now? I mean, I'm assuming you go to a lot of dental meetings.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because there's definitely a decline in the trade show and the in-person space for trade shows specifically. A lot of these larger conferences are starting to go downhill, especially after COVID happened, because I think now it's a lot of online, um, a lot of more local events that people want to go to without the other CE on. So because of that trade shows definitely have declined more. And we've also started to notice that in our schedule, you know, when you talk about ROI generation for some of these shows, like doesn't make sense to go again for this next year. It's starting to become a lot more tight, you know, than it's ever been.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_01] And so, um, they're not giving those booths away in there. Absolutely. And, and, and they also know every one of those meetings knows that they're kind of dying. So, so less people signing up, they're going to charge you guys more to be there. And of course there's less, less interaction. I mean, I know there are some shows that are still doing fine and some shows that are less so, you know, like some shows that are, are the people are avoiding and I get it completely. Selling to dentists has always been kind of a, a weird hit or miss thing, I think for

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01] people, but like, yeah, so the trade shows that used to be a given I'm, I'm expecting less of a given at this point, you have to think hard about where you're going and where you're going to spend your time there.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00] Absolutely. And I think for me, it's, it's one of those where that we're kind of forced at the hand to be able to say, okay, well, you know, this trade show, we see the decline. I've been seeing it, you know, since the beginning that I started, I'm like, well, what are other ways to be able to penetrate? And then when you look at the marketplace, what I saw two years ago was, or three years ago was, man, there really is nobody on like social media pushing in, especially it's one thing to push on social media. It's nothing to be able to push with unique product and unique personality.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_00] And I think a lot of people in this industry, you know, they deem it very like sterile, you know, in the box, kind of very, you know, professional tight. Um, but dentistry shouldn't be that way. And honestly, most of the clinicians that I meet are not that way either.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_00] You know, people love a good laugh. Yeah. People love a good, you will love a good, uh, good joke.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01] So that brings in, that brings in interestingly. Um, I mean, like I said, I saw you on Instagram. I have to, I, I, I am not on Tik TOK. Is Tik TOK as big of a place for you as Instagram?

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00] I think Instagram's our number one right now, but Tik TOK definitely has some, some traction too. It's there for sure. Yeah. So we're starting to get there too.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_01] Kyle does like his, his stuff is, is humorous, but it's also, it's also informative. In other words, you kind of, you kind of focus on the instruments and let people know. And they, you know, you're going to get a dentist's attention when you have a dead sexy instrument and you're, you're making, not saying making claims per se, like, like some of those peri-oscea elevators where you're literally like bending on those buggers and stuff like that. If you, if you haven't followed them, you need to follow them because he, he does a lot of stuff. Some of it's just instrument talk. Some of it's actually downright goofy. It's really, it's really good.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_01] And I have to tell you, that's a little risk or probably not now, but I mean, that might have felt risky when you first started because sometimes dentists like to take themselves very seriously and they would, you know, they don't, they don't want to, they don't want to seem like a comedy act here, but, but I really, I think you've hit the tone just about right.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_00] Absolutely. I think it's the mix of, and that's what I always tell my team. Like we have a very small team and a lot of people think we're a lot bigger than we are. We have about three sales reps in total, the fourth one that we've, we've hired on recently that covered the entire country. Okay. And so we're not a big company by any means, but what I always tell them, I tell my team this, I said, look, the reason why we've been able to grow this in the way that we have is not only because we can, you know, shoot the shit, we can have a beer, we can, you know, enjoy time with these people and they want to be around us on a personal level.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_00] But it's also when you talk about instrumentation, we will be the best in the room, the most knowledge base period. And we are going to be the masters at our craft. Otherwise we don't deserve a spot at the table. And so I'm very, very adamant about that. I'm very, very hard nose about that when it comes to my team here, especially anyone that's client facing, customer facing. You can't lose this personality. A lot of these, a lot of these reps in the industry do, you know, because they're just here to transact and that's it. It's never been about that for my team.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_00] And I think anybody that has met anyone on my team has also felt that same level of passion and care, but also been like, wow, these guys, like all of these guys really know their stuff. You know, it's pretty, it's pretty impressive. So I think it's that mix.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_01] If you had to sell one thing out of your catalog, what's your, I mean, I know it's like, you can't really ask someone to choose their favorite child, but like if you, if you had to say, okay, this is the, this is the thing I want to sell. What's the instrument you're going to sell?

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00] My number one would be the power crown removers. I think it's because it's such a universal thing that people deal with. Yep. And there still isn't very many solutions that are very effective.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, that's, that's also the ones that they've been selling them forever and they all kind of suck. I mean, like, I won't lie to you. I still have a, I have one of those crown tappers. That's an air driven thing. That's like a jackhammer. And, and I, I used to use it a lot. I get it out every once in a while. It's almost always when it's like a one end of a bridge is loose. The other end is, it has a post and you're just like, I, it's going to like, you have to say, let's just assume we're going to break this tooth. This is our only chance. I hate that so much.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_01] And, and so what's funny is you guys, you guys have a different take on it. If you maybe try and describe, it's hard to describe, I know on audio, but tell us a

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00] little bit about it. Absolutely. So, you know, traditionally when you're talking about crown removal, whether it's temporary or permanent, the problem is that because of the material that you have nowadays, your section, most, most people that do the crown removals, they're sectioning and they're splitting. Right. Yeah. But the problem with that is one, it takes a lot of time because the material is just so thick.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_01] It takes a lot of burrs.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. It takes a lot of money too, because you go through so many burrs. Right. Yeah. And then the other part is depending on the system, the safety of it, like you said, at some point, if you're using the pneumatic and you're trying to pull that thing or pop that thing off.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_00] You're at that point, maybe just saying, all right, you know what? I'm going to sacrifice a tooth underneath. Yeah. So for our system, the way that it works is instead of sectioning and splitting, all you're going to do is we're going to drill a little dimple on the occlusal surface of the crown. So one hole on top of the crown and the one hole right at the margin, right at the gum line. So you've got to do it for leverage. Sure. Yeah. Yes. And then what you're going to do is there's a talon that kind of hooks as well as a gold post that goes vertical. And so what you do is you enter that side talon into the buckle side purchase point you created in that margin.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_00] And then you put the gold post on top of the occlusal purchase point. And what that's going to allow you to do when you squeeze is that gold post holds down the core side talons against the crown. It's equal and opposite forces. So core stays intact. Crown comes off in one piece. And we've used this on so many different types of crowns and bonds. We're talking like a minute max for almost every single type of crown.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_01] And I guess the question that I'm asking is you do this with zirconia?

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_00] Yes. So the three most used are zirconia, PFM, and gold. You can use it with Emax, but the problem with Emax is that it's so thin to begin with and it's that bond. So, you know, you can finagle it. You can use it on Emax, but, you know, you might split in half. And at that point, it's still better than the traditional.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_01] Well, it's still better than spending 25 minutes with burrs and patients. Because I have to tell you that as a, it's sweaty enough for me as a dentist to be sectioning with a burr. I'm on the easy end of that deal. It's got to suck for patients because you're just spraying water. You got the drill.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_00] Exactly. You got sparks coming out the mouth.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01] So, yeah, I'm interested. I'm interested. And I've used some different, like I've used the Whamkey before, but I never had any luck with zirconia with the Whamkey. So, I would still try and do that on porcelain-fused metal. Shoot, there was a time when I would use that with porcelain-fused metal and send it to the lab to repair, which is not, I would probably not do that now. But the zirconia, the idea of being able to use that with zirconia is very appealing to me. I have to. I cut zirconia, like nine times out of ten, if I'm removing a crown, it's zirconia. And that sucks.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00] It just, it takes a whole bunch of time. It takes forever. And I think that's important.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01] The best experience with the zirconia is still pretty bad. But if you have to take a crown off and you see that it's a porcelain-fused metal, that makes your whole day just because it's that much easier. So, yeah. Absolutely. Cutting zirconia off sucks. But it's real. I mean, it's real. So, this will work for zirconium. Right now, you have everyone's attention. Because if you have to cut zirconia off, everyone knows that sucks. So, that's really good.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00] And we always give, the other part of what we do is we always give 30 days to use it. So, 30 days to use it, try it. Okay. Make sure you love it. Okay. For everything you don't like it, if you use it, it's like a 90% refund back. It's like, and then it's like 100% if you don't open it.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01] So, what you need to do is you need to line up about five people you got to take crowns off of. Absolutely. And use it a bunch. Put it through the test. Make sure it works for you. So, okay. So, surgical instruments that I have been, that I find interestingly, interesting is, is for one thing, you've got, I mean, I know I talked about the power tomes or the peritomes or whatever. That's really cool.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_01] You've got a multi-ended sinus graft packer and carrier, which you, that's, I see that a lot on, I don't do, I don't do a lot of that stuff, but it is an interesting looking, it's sort of multiple instruments in one. Is that a, is that a hot one for you guys?

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. That one's also very hot. Our twist is one of our patents as well. That's okay. That was one I wanted to see. Okay. Okay. Tell me about the twist. Yeah. Cause that one, I saw that one just recently.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01] I'm like, Ooh.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So the twist, the whole concept behind the twist was when we talk about retained root cases, they're like either at the crest or super, super sub crest. So like we're talking one to three millimeters at the apex. There's not a lot of instruments traditionally that can really help get those out. No. No. And so the way the twist works, it's almost like a corkscrew type tip. It's a screw.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_01] It's what it is. It's a tech lathe. Yeah. It's a screw.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_00] Exactly. It's like a corkscrew where you insert this behind the tip is thin enough to really insert behind the, that small fragment of root. And then you twist towards that serrated end, the sharp end, it'll engage with the base of the root and you lever it up vertically instead of diagonally. It's very similar to like a wine bottle opener. If you ever use a wine bottle opener.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean like that makes, makes actual perfect sense. I kind of love it. Yes.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00] And that's the thing. It's, it's one of those things where it's so interesting when you, when you show some of these products off, you know, the, it's almost every light bulb that in every single dentist ever show. And they're like, Oh my God, like this makes so much sense. And I think that's the part where, again, taking it from the outside perspective, I think that's the benefit for us. Right. And then having the clinical background too. So.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. That's really cool. Okay. So I, I was double checking. You guys are all direct, correct? You're, you don't work through distributors or do you work through distributors?

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_00] So we're primarily, we're, we're a little bit different in the sense that we are pretty much direct wholly. So in the U S for sure, we have no distribution partners heavy. Okay. We're all direct. So, um, e-com sales reps, um, we've been approached by shine Patterson, but the problem with us is the problem with them is it's very difficult. It is a volume thing, but it's difficult when you get in those catalogs to be able to be preferred.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_01] Well, there's, there's a lot, there's a lot, uh, you don't have to say it. I can say it. There's a lot of bullshit that goes on with that. Oh my God. But also, but also I have to tell you that people can look over the years. I tend to, I tend to, um, gravitate towards, um, I don't know, like, like if, if it's in the shine catalog, it just, everything, you know, everything blends in, you know, it's hard to stand out when you're in, in the shine catalog.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, frankly now I don't, I mean, I, I don't, I don't really look at catalogs anymore if it's on the website, maybe, but, but the reality is I like the direct, I like the direct, uh, and, and the reality is I probably instrumentation in particular seems really cool for direct. Like I said, maybe because it's easy to, you gotta, you can put a table of your stuff out at the, at the, yes.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_00] And I think the, the direct space too, is, it's one of those where it's like, I mean, for, for instruments, just in general, if you can go direct, I see, cause we do clinic outfittings all the time and startups, the amount of money that you save just by going direct and taking a little bit more time. Um, you know, we have full service is what we call it. So sure. You know, for click kits, clinic outfittings, wherever it might be, we don't want you to look through a single flip of a catalog. If you don't want to, right. We'll sit down, we'll talk about what you need and then we'll create everything for you in a, in a guided sort of way. Uh, but it's because, you know, who wants to, who wants us?

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_00] I don't, you know, I know my insurance well enough. I don't want to sit through a catalog and just go through these, you know? Yeah. So it's, um, it's one of those where the direct side is definitely a better move. I think nowadays people want to support local too, you know? Well, and then, okay. So here's the thing.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, for your marketing is where, where do you, where, where do you get the best return? Is it, is it the, the Instagram social media stuff at this point?

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So, you know, lately it's been a lot of the, the paid ads that people see like on the meta, like Facebook people see on my Instagram ads that people see. Uh, but it's interesting because we started with just strictly organic. So no paid. Um, and it was just strictly just for optics, like getting views on the pay, getting followers. Um, and I think that converted into now that we're on meta and doing these paid ads, we're seeing a lot more return there because it's hitting the demographic of people that we know are, are demographic.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. It is funny. It is funny how, when you, you could, you get a bunch of followers on these things, but they, they make you pay to reach them. That's sort of how this works. I mean, that's kind of how this works. Everyone, everyone who's, everyone who's well, so funny. Every, everyone who gets a big Facebook or like for early in the podcast, we had a, we had a really big Facebook group and we found that, that you can put all kinds of posts up and stuff like that. But if you actually want to reach your group, they really limit how much you can actually

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_01] reach your group short of, you know, like posts. And that's, that's so on some level, you kind of have to play the game a little bit. I feel like, I feel like it must do like, I love the concept of a direct, like, like I said, when Kyle came on the, on the screen here, I'm like, Ooh, I know him just cause I've seen, you know, like, I like that. I like the idea. And you know, like it's not necessarily you're working in, in magazine, throwaway magazines or stuff like that. And mind you, I, I get that has some appeal too, but I like the fact that you're, you're

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_01] kind of, you're kind of leaning into that. That's pretty great.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_00] A hundred percent. And I think it's, it's one of those words that kind of the new age of, of the marketplace, you know what I mean? Like, again, you see that trend of, of in-person going down, of course, and events are good, but it's when that in-person starts going down, well, how else are you going to leverage and pivot? And I think, again, anybody can do what we're doing, but it is, it does take, and I like to think that we are one of the first ones to, to really have pushed us, pushed the marketing in the way that we have. I would say so.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_00] Because I haven't seen any other instrument company or just in general, any dental company really start to really do what we've done. Yeah. And, and I, and when I realized very early on, I was at the beginning, I was trying to be very professional and very like, but then when I, when I, cause I mean, you're working with dentists that are like, who've been in the game for 20, 30 years, you know what I mean? Like, how am I going to explain that my dental tool is better than this other dental tool? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_00] But it's when you started to being, being more personable. And when I started being myself, that's when we saw the traction started to gain because people just want to work with good people, you know? So.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_01] And I got to tell you that, that you're a lot of most, I've come to realize most dentists now are actually younger than I am, which is, which is a hard pill to pill to swallow. You're not that old man.

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_00] You look like you're 20 years old, brother.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_01] No, I'm no, I, I've been in, I've been in dentistry for 30 years. And so like the majority of people practicing dentistry are younger than I am. And I also think that I was drawn by what you do. My guess is that younger folks, it's, it's, I mean, they're going to, there's going to be younger people making purchasing decisions. So I think you're, I think you're definitely heading in the right direction. I think that's totally, that's really cool. Do you think that, do you find that, um, do you find dentists to be skeptical, uh, purchasers?

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_01] In other words, do they want to, do they want to be, have stuff proven to them or what? I mean, the 30 days, 30 days to try it kind of shows your confidence in your instruments. But I am curious, do you think dentists are particularly tough to sell to or not necessarily?

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_00] Absolutely. I think at the beginning, especially when we started getting, you know, we would get a viral, like the first time we got a viral video, we were like, what the fuck? Like, what is this? You know, like, there's no way that this thing works. There's no way that this is going to work that way. Um, and you know, I think it's definitely repetition and any sales cycle is just repetition, repetition. And, you know, dentistry is no different. I think what we started to do, cause we had a lot of people who would tell us over the years, man, we love your product. We love what you're doing. Um, but we, but we never proved out was like, I, I haven't sat care side clinically and seen

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_00] the process or have my, my clinician send me videos of them using it. And so what we really made a push for was, okay, once we started getting the following, we're like, okay, now we have to shift into the validation, right? So now the big focus for us is every single time we talk with anyone that we work with, it's like, look, can we get a clinical video? Can we see it get improved? Yeah. Especially if you love it. Yeah. Um, you know, that's how we've been trying to push that too, because people want to see the, it working. Right. Yeah. Um, but yes, to answer your question, dentists are particularly more difficult to be able to definitely sell.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_00] It's hard for them to, to trust it.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, as a dentist, as a dentist, I, it's so dumb. I struggle a lot with any, you know, it's an instrument. It's not that expensive, but I struggle. I, you know, I go back and forth and stuff. And then once you make that, you, you pull the trigger, you hope, you know, you're like, oh man, did I make the right choice? And then obviously in some cases you're, you're buying expensive stuff. You're, you're financing it or whatever. But the reality is like, I do think that we're, we're, we get up in our heads a bit about stuff like this.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_01] So you have to kind of deal with, and your purchase is relatively, I mean, it's kind of great because your purchase is not that huge for, for, you know, for a dentist to try. And the other thing is you'll, they'll know right away how they're going to use this. Like, it's not like it's a technology that they're unsure of or whatever, whatever. So that's kind of fantastic.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_00] Totally. And it's one of those things when we always talk about the products in person too, it's, it's always, again, the reason why we do the 30 is because there, there is a layer where it's like Amazon. Like I want to be able to try the sunglasses on and see if it fits in my head. Yeah. It fits in my head. Like, I don't want it to sit here. Yeah. I'm the same way. So we apply that same mindset. And, and it's one of those where physically it might make sense. Yeah. You just think about the face of it and say, oh yeah, that could make sense. But again, proof is in the pudding. And I believe that's the case for a lot of products, right? Like, will it work? Will it not?

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01] So as an instrument manufacturer, does it drive you crazy that like there's tons of instruments on eBay for next to nothing that, you know, like I, I, my understanding is it's, there's some of the Middle Easterns, they're just, you've got like this wild variation. You've got, you've got the $6, you know, something on eBay. And then you've got, you know, these $400, you know, with German accents and it all started thinking, you got to try to fit into this weird, this totally weird thing.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_01] Like how did, how did you decide to, to, to place yourself?

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So what's, what's interesting about that is, you know, all the essentials, which I view the essentials as anything you would use on a day-to-day basis, right? The basic instruments that you use in your tray, you know, for me, I never faulted doctors for wanting to go with a cheaper solution on that side, because really what is the X factor there? You know, it's tough because sometimes you just can't justify the pricing against an eBay pricing and you lose that battle. But that's where for us, you know, a lot of the people that trust us in, in the top of the

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_00] avenues and the way that people can find us is, you know, you can find us by doing servicing, not even know we have instruments, right? You can find us through just the basic instruments. Cause you saw it at a course and you said to buy some basics on the website, for example, or you see a video and you get penetrated that way. And then that's the way you get, you know, exposed to the part of the group. So it's been good that we have different types of service product offerings and different tier bases.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_01] So you're still, you're still re-tipping instruments and all that stuff. You still goes back to the basics. Nice. Yeah.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_00] We got to stick to the core. We got to stick to where we came from. You know what I mean? I love that actually. That's really cool. Hygiene is still the backbone of what we do. Uh, we manufacture a lot of our hand instruments back here. I have a service tax that have been with us for 20 years plus. Sure. Um, so we can sharpen, retip, trade in the whole nine yards and, um, we, we keep it going, you know, eventually is it going to go away? I don't know, but, um, it's one of those where I think it's just a, a great all in one when you have, when you work with us, you have all aspects of the instrument life, uh, life cycle.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_01] Okay. What's the, what's the craziest pitch that a dentist gave you for an instrument that, that you need to manufacture?

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_00] I've had some pretty crazy ones. I'll bet. I've had some pretty crazy ones. Um, one that I'm working on right now was a full arch, like full flap. If you were to raise the entire flap, flap retractor.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_00] All full. Like the whole thing.

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_01] I've seen some crazy stuff and how people retract stuff. Like they've freaking suture it to the cheek and all this stuff. Like they do some crazy stuff. So yeah. So I, and I, I have to say you do have, I'll put this in the show notes. You have a crazy looking like hands-free flapper tractor. Yes. Pretty wild looking. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yeah. So they wanted to pitch you one for all on forest or attract. That's I get it.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00] I get that. And you know, we've gotten some, you know, it's crazy. We get inundated with a lot of requests. And so we've had to be able to, to kind of figure out, okay, what is viable? What is not? But my end goal too, is like, you know, some of these ideas are really good. It's just that when our mate, when you talk about our mate supply chain, it's very difficult to be able to sustain anything other than our own product because we're trying to sell a lot more. Yeah. So what I do want to do is I want to eventually become almost like West Coast customs where I'm like, we're like, Hey, when you have an idea and it's viable, let's fricking make this in a month, you know, let's see what happens.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01] Well, in prototyping with, with printing and stuff is a lot, a lot faster process. The design. Okay. Here's, here's my pitch. This is so funny. Okay. So dentists, restorative dentists in particular have, we have all the little micro brush things there and most of them are disposable micro brushes and, and handling a disposable micro brush sucks. They're these little, little tiny brush things. And, and at one point the micro brush company supposedly had a handle that you could, you

[00:35:17] [SPEAKER_01] could put their, their, their little disposable tip in. And then you just, you just, when you're done, you just, and so it was a handle for a micro brush. And I, I went after these guys for years. Like, don't you have, this is the best idea ever because part of this is that we use so many, you know, bonding agents and etchants and all this stuff that we use these little brushes on in the, the handles are super tiny little plastic things instead of a real handle. Yes. I would love to have a handle that you could actually put those micro. And, and if a listener's out there going, Oh dude, they have that already.

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_01] I'd love to hear about it because I've been looking for one of those for fricking ever. Cause I hate micro brushes. I just hate it. Even if it's out there, we'll make it, we'll make it better.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_00] We got you. That's cool. I love this.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_01] I love this. Kyle, this was a blast. I really appreciate you being on. This was funny. And like I said, if you guys haven't seen him, I'd be shocked if you haven't, but you haven't seen their ads. They're funny and they're clever and they got really cool stuff. So you got to check them out. So Kyle, thanks for being on. Alan, appreciate you talking to me. Thank you so much. We'll talk very soon. I'm sure. Yep.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_00] We'll talk to you soon.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_01] Appreciate you.