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Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.

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My name is Chanel Bunger and I am

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currently recording live at the Becker's Future Dentistry

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Roundtable

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and sitting down with Demias Piguis, the CEO

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of My Orthodontist North Carolina.

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Demias, thank you so much for joining us

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today. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate it, Chanel.

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Now to get us started, could you please

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introduce yourself and tell us a bit about

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your background?

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Yes. Like you said, I'm Demias, and I

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am currently the CEO of My Orthodontists,

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which is we have 14 orthodontic practices in

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this all in the state of North Carolina.

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And our motto is, we accept everybody.

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So we wanna be accessible,

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and we wanna be affordable, and that's where

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what we focus on doing.

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I actually started my career as an engineer,

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and I quickly learned that I'm not an

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engineer. So I went to back to school,

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went to grad school, got an MBA in

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marketing and,

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entrepreneurship.

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And then since that time, which was 24

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years ago, believe it or not, I've spent

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most of my time doing 1 or 2

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things. Either I was, doing

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health care, which is what I'm doing now,

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of course, or I was doing multiunit,

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leadership. And some of that was on retail

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and some of that was, obviously in health

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care as well. And that sort of brings

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in 2019 is when I first got into

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dental and I worked with a very large

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DSO,

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and I

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oversaw

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2 over 200 locations across 15 states.

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My next role was a COO in dental,

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and then now I'm CEO, like I said,

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of Myerford Donnas.

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Now you've already kind of walked us through

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some of the

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key experiences that have shaped your leadership journey.

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But could you maybe delve into that a

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little bit further?

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Absolutely.

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What's great about health care, and back when

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I was in grad school,

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you know, I realized that I'm going to

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spend

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and most of us do. We spend 40,

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50 hours,

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at work during the week. And back then,

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it occurred to me that if I'm gonna

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spend that much time in my job,

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I want to work in an industry, that

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helps to impact lives. So

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my first job was in pharmaceuticals.

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I've been I spent some time outside of,

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health care,

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but it always was pulling me back in

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for that very same reason.

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And in this

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industry, we're able to touch people's lives.

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So something as simple as what I'm doing

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now is, you know, of course, I work

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at a company where orthodontist, we straighten people's

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smiles. And one of the things we do

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is we do a smile,

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a smile reveal,

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after someone takes their braces off. And it's

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always an amazing thing, when we see

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young man, young woman for the first time

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seeing their teeth

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straight, and

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they're no longer holding their smile. They're no

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longer putting your hand up in front of

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their face.

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There's a lot of meaning in the work

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that we do, which is why I'm really

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drawn to them. Oh, exactly. Braces definitely

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changed my life. That's for sure. Exactly.

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But moving forward, now that you have the

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ears of a lot of dental professionals,

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what strategic initiatives are you currently prioritizing

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for your growth strategy and for patient care?

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So I've actually

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was on a panel earlier today at Becker's,

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and this is something I've been I did

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a podcast actually a couple of weeks ago,

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a different podcast, And I've been mentioning this

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a lot, because I think it's low hanging

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fruit, and it pretty much applies to any

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dental company out there,

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whether you have a single practice or whether

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you're a group.

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I challenge

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doctor owners,

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leaders in the industry

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to take a look at how many calls

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are coming in.

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And out of every 100 calls, how many

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get answered?

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Anytime I've asked someone that question, they all

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say to me, 90, 95 percent of the

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time we answer the phone. Reality is is

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about 60 to 70%.

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So that's one. I always wanna put that

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out there.

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It's just a way that if you wanted

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to drive

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very quickly growth in your business,

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make sure that you are answering the phone

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close to a 100% of the time. So

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that's one.

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Some of the other things that we're doing,

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another big initiative is, we're

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rolling out a marketing platform.

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And in that marketing platform, it's gonna allow

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us to do 2 things. 1,

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communicate

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more easily with our patients. So it's actually

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something that will make our patients' lives easier.

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So, for example, one of the things a

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patient cannot do right now is that if

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they needed to make an adjustment to their

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appointment,

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they cannot do that. They have to call

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us. Right? And that's an inconvenience. People don't

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like to call. So with this new platform,

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they'll be able to just

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go right in online

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and make the adjustment themselves.

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Now that's awesome. How does that help grow

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the business? Well, we actually get about 19

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calls every day in every practice.

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And, typically, what they're saying is I need

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to make an adjustment to my appointment. So

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now what that is gonna allow us to

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do instead of having,

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a team member on the phone,

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helping a patient adjust their appointment, the patient

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will do that themselves. And now we can

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reallocate that time with that team member to

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doing more for the patients that are actually

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in the practice. Right? So that's one of

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our big initiatives.

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Got it. Got it. Now moving forward, with

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all of your different practices,

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what would you say the most significant challenges

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dental and DSO leaders are facing at the

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moment?

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And how are you addressing them at your

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practices?

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No. It's a great question.

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And this I've heard this a lot. This

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has been a theme, and this has been

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a theme across dental

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is what I I'll say it's turnover. Right?

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This is what I hear people talking about

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turnover, and we all talk about turnover in

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dental.

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What we've done at MyOrthodontist

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is put a focus on retention.

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It's the same thing, but it's almost sort

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of like two sides of the same coin.

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And when you change your mindset from saying,

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okay, we have turnover. So how do we

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deal with the turnover? What strategies may be

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we need to hire

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faster, for example.

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When you start to really focus on retention,

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you don't want the people to leave, period.

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And if they don't leave, then you don't

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have to worry about

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hiring faster. So the question is, how do

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you retain the people that you have?

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And that's what we've really been focused on

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across our practices. And one of the things

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we've done is we've really worked hard to

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align incentives.

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So when we win as a company, our

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practices win,

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and we continue to sort of develop

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incentives

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for our practices.

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So we have a practice level bonus across

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all 14 practices.

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And when the practice bonus, literally everybody in

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the practice gets some kind of bonus. Right?

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We have a quarterly bonus that says,

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even if you didn't make your

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bonus in month 1, maybe you made it

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in month 2, maybe you missed it in

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month, you made it in month 3,

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and you also made your goal for the

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quarter, we go back and pay you for

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month 1. Right? So there's just a lot

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of creativity that we put into,

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you know, sort of joint winning.

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We win, they win, and that has

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impacted our retention in a way where we've

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seen over a 12 month period,

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95% retention.

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Love to hear it. Well, Demias, I wanna

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thank you for your time. But before I

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let you go, with all of your

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unique experiences

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and background

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and engineering

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and as a COO and now you're a

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CEO,

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I think you're the perfect person to answer

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this question. Could you share some advice for

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other emerging leaders looking to have the same

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type of success that you've had in your

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career?

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I would say

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it's sort of going back to what and,

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you know, we were just talking about earlier

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is I really do have a passion for

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the work that I do,

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and

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I thrive

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in this industry.

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I was talking to one of my colleagues

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earlier about a lot all the things that

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we have going on. He was like, man,

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you have a lot going on. You must

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be exhausted.

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It's like, not really. Energy's high, man. I

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love what I do, and I love the

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impact that we're having on our lives and

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especially,

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what our founder, doctor Larry Murray,

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his whole vision and being able to execute

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his vision

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is we wanna bring great dental

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and dentistry

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to areas

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that are not necessarily getting served.

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And that further sort of drives my passion.

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Right? So what my advice to all the

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young leaders out there,

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find that thing that you're very passionate about

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and get in that industry and then see

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how you feel about it. Excellent advice. Well,

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Demias, I want to thank you once again

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for your time today and for sharing your

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insights on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Thank you

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so much. Appreciate it, Chanel. Thank you.