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Howard Farran :
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It is just a huge honor for me today to be podcasting and reviewing Dr. Ashley Joves, who was born in Marysville, Ohio and then moved to the Bay Area California at the age of four. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychobiology from UC Davis in 2004, and spent one year working in a dental practice before she left for dental school in 2005. It was always a dream of hers to live in Manhattan, so she knew that NYU College of Dentistry would be her top choice. It was then that Dr. Ashley truly fell in love with food, culture, and the arts. She graduated from NYUCD in 2009, and completed a one year general practice residency at Abigton Memorial Hospital just outside Philadelphia. She received extensive training in all areas of general dentistry, and learned more in that year than all the years of dental school combined.
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She has worked in several private practices from east coast to west coast, and has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. She said before the show that I was the ugliest in patient management. Dr. Ashley has always been a dreamer, but it took her this long, eight years to be exact, to finally act on her dreams. Last month she announced via Facebook Live, that she was officially doing a startup, and that she was not going to let fear and uncertainty hold her back anymore. That post went viral. I saw it. It has been viewed almost 10,000 times.
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Dr. Ashley's documenting her startup journey all in real time on Facebook and Instagram. She hopes that her journey can provide value to anyone thinking about doing a startup in this day and age where everyone thinks it's a business suicide, especially with the amount of student loan debt they're faced with. She is a mom to two young boys ages two and three, and hopes to inspire more women to take the leap into practice. I just want to say that I have four boys, so please stop at two. Because Ryan, who you talked to, he was number three. If I would have stopped at two, you wouldn't have had to deal with Ryan. How old is your startup now?
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Ashley Joves:
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It's still undergoing construction as we speak. We started demolition a month and a half ago. So right now everything is still getting wired. They just started the plumbing, actually, this week.
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Howard Farran :
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Yeah. The plumbing is so weird in dentistry because it's very complicated plumbing. They lay down all the plumbing, and then they back fill it with cement. Then ten years later when the building settles and something breaks, there's no access to it. It's bizarre how they don't do the plumbing above the concrete so that you can get to it.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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Crazy. Socrates said like 500 B.C. that humans only had two emotions, greed and fear. When I came out of school ... I graduated May '11. I had my office open September 21st, so four months. I just dove in the deep end. Everyone's scared, but you just deal with the fear. How did you deal with the fear? Because if you buy a practice, the data's clear. Only .4% default on their loan, and those always have to do with something you did that got your license taken away. It probably wasn't eating too many cookies at Starbucks. It was probably something that gets your license taken away. If they buy a practice and they only have a .4% of defaulting on their loan, why do they have to think about it for so many years in a job that so many of them hate?
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Ashley Joves:
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Yeah. Honestly, I have no idea. I actually wanted to purchase a practice before doing this whole startup, because everyone said, "It's going to cost way too much to build from scratch. You don't have the cash flow. You have zero patients. So why don't you just buy an existing practice and then either add more services or just change something about it?" Where I'm at, I'm in northern California, I actually have been on numerous lists for practices on the market since 2011, which is when I moved back to California. Every office that I looked at, it was sold either at or above asking price within a matter of hours. The competition is fierce here and it's a seller's market.
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Howard Farran :
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Absolutely. What goes up comes down. Right now, real estate is in a bubble again. You can measure that on the rental rates. What your 30 year mortgage house payment should be, should be about the rental rate. Usually you can rent a house for about 85% of the mortgage cost of the house. Now we're back to an area now where the rental rates are 50% of the mortgage rates, which means houses are overvalued by two, just like they were in 2007, 8. The reason you have these business cycles in housing is because the people making all the decisions are imperfect humans. So as long as you have imperfect humans, you'll have imperfect business cycles in stocks, real estate, whatever. Why do you think it's a seller's market now in dentistry? Why do you think with that when you list a practice you get four offers at asking price or more? Why do you think it's a seller's market?
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Ashley Joves:
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Well, I mean I'm in California, and everyone wants to live in California. It's great weather, and in my area, all of the school systems are nines and tens. We're an hour and a half from Tahoe. We're an hour and a half from Napa. We're an hour and a half from San Francisco. I mean, students aren't graduating from dental school and trying to move to the middle of nowhere. They want to live where they have great restaurants and great access to shopping and entertainment. I know that dentists these days, they haven't planned properly for retirement. They think that they're going to retire within x amount of years ... One of the situations that I got pulled into, I thought I was going to take over someone's practice, and it turns out that they don't really want to sell. There's just way more demand than there is supply in this state, in this area.
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Howard Farran :
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You say that you're a foodie.
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Ashley Joves:
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I am.
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Howard Farran :
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That you moved to ... I'm a foodie too, but I'm probably a little different than you. I only go to restaurants where they have pictures of the food on the menu, like the IHOP. The first sign that the food is not going to taste good and it's going to be too expensive, is when there's no pictures on the menu. Would you agree with that since you're a foodie?
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Ashley Joves:
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Absolutely. [crosstalk 00:06:44]
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Howard Farran :
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Why did you go back? Why did you leave Manhattan, which is the largest city in America? Where are you actually building your practice? What exact city?
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Ashley Joves:
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I am in Folsom, California. We moved back ... I'm married. I left New York in 2009 after I graduated from dental school. I moved to Philadelphia where my husband was finishing medical school. I kind of had to follow him around wherever he got in for fellowship and residency. We are now where our family is. Our family lives about five, ten minutes away from us. This is home for us. I'm excited to finally plant roots.
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Howard Farran :
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Folsom, is that where Johnny Cash ... Was that the prison where Johnny Cash ...
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Ashley Joves:
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Yes! Yes! You know, my office is a mile and half away from the Folsom Prison. So that's where I'm going to be getting all my new patients from.
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Howard Farran :
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My gosh. That was Johnny Cash's ... I used to always say that was his best album. But it was actually, his best album was his last when he got all those other amazing guys to come on and do a song with him. It was just a bunch of remakes. Johnny Cash, what an amazing guy. I just want to say something that all the men listening to this missed ... Because people who listen to podcasts are young. They're not old farts like me with grandchildren. They're usually your age and younger. See, your husband is a doctor.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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Right. The boys in the class, their wife was the waitress at the Waffle House who married a rich doctor so she'll never have to work again and drive a BMW and a Mercedes, and just be a foodie connoisseur the rest of her life and destroy 10,000 a month. Did you see that trend in your dental school class, where all the women graduated, married a man who had a job? The women all married a man with a job and all the men married whoever looked the hottest in a pair of Calvin Klein jeans?
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Ashley Joves:
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I did, but I also saw a lot of my classmates marry each other.
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Howard Farran :
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Yeah. You know what's the neatest thing about that that no one talks about enough? When you have more than six years of college and you marry someone in your same occupation, you have the lowest divorce rate. You have a 10% divorce rate, which is the divorce rate in countries that arrange marriages. Because your parents can pick your spouse better than you can. There's no doubt about ... America has a 50% divorce rate. Arranged marriage cultures like in India, they have a 10%. When a dentist marries a dentist, a lawyer a lawyer, a physician a physician, they have a 10% divorce rate because you have something to talk about.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right. No. I get it. It also makes it more stressful, I think. I don't know how anybody can work together, like husband and wife dentist. I've seen practices where the husband is the dentist and the wife is an office manager. I've seen it work and I've seen it where the team members are just not happy.
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Howard Farran :
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Well, when the team members are not happy, it's always because there's not a org chart. Been there done that a thousand times. I talked to every dental consultant about it. In the Catholic Church you have a Pope, cardinals, bishops, priest, altar boys. In the Army, you have the General, the Colonel, the Captain, the infantry. Your kids are going to do it to you and your husband. They're going to come up to you and say, "Mom, can we eat ice cream?" You say, "No." Then they're going to run to dad. Then what you'll figure out is how they're reading you. Because I raised four boys and I got two grandchildren. The boys will start trying to figure out who's more likely to say yes depending on what the topic or the question is. You know what I mean?
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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When you see that in a office, you need to tell the husband and wife, "We need a org chart." There can only be one 400 pound gorilla. If you're not the 400 pound gorilla, whoever that is, if you're the 350 pound gorilla, then you need to learn how to say, "Well, what did Doctor say?"
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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But more importantly, the doctor's doing dentistry all day. So it should be the wife or the spouse or the husband, the office manager, and then the doctor's got to sit there and feel empathy and sympathy to hear your complaint, and then say ... I always say, I listen to all my employees. "Wow. Wow. What did Laurie say?" Then you just see their face drop like, "Damn it. Damn it. I thought you could tell her to ... " I won't. I just won't. You can't throw your management team under a bus or it confuses all the infantry.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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Were you happy as an associate? Let me start with this, the totally sexist thing you always hear is that the women all don't want to own their own business. They all want to be soccer moms. They want to leave at 5 o'clock. You got two kids and a husband. Your husband has a job. He actually makes money instead of destroys it. You're just going to work at corporate dentistry for the rest of your life. Is that what your classmates ... You're closer to dental school than I am. I walked out of mine 30 years ago. Is that what women are thinking? What percent of the girls that are your age and under, all the way to dental school, really deep down inside are going to own their own office someday? What percent say, "No. I'd rather just work for Harlan Dental my whole life."
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Ashley Joves:
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I would say the majority of my close friends from dental school all are associates still, and we graduated eight years ago. I think it's a very small percentage of women who want practice ownership. Yeah. I don't think it was more than 30% of my class who probably are owners. I have no idea though.
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Howard Farran :
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30% of the girls or 30% of the class? Let me ask this, are girls more likely to work as an associate than boys?
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Ashley Joves:
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I think so. Definitely.
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Howard Farran :
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Yeah. Because all my friends that are CEOs of corporate dental chains, they're all telling me that two-thirds of all their associates are women.
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Ashley Joves:
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Yeah. I believe it.
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Howard Farran :
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They also tell me that 80% after two years, they gone. They go somewhere else. You got a bunch of girlfriends, and they're all associates?
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Ashley Joves:
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Yes. For the most part, I would say 95% of them are still associates.
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Howard Farran :
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That's your girlfriends from dental school eight years out?
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Ashley Joves:
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Yes.
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Howard Farran :
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Okay. So they're eight years out. How many girls would this approximately be?
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Ashley Joves:
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Let's see, like 12 of us.
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Howard Farran :
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Damn. They say in all monkeys and apes, every time a boy talks to another monkey or ape, a girl will talk to five. A boy says under 1,700 words a day, whether he's a chimpanzee or Rhesus monkey or a human, and girls are over 75. If I had 12 friends, I'd probably just move to another country. It would just be too exhausting. Of these 12 girls, you're under construction for one. How many of those girls own their own office of those 12?
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Ashley Joves:
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One is about to do a startup as we speak.
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Howard Farran :
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You and your 12 friends, that's 13. You're doing a startup and you have one girlfriend that's doing one also. So now we're down to 11. What about the other 11?
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Ashley Joves:
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They're all associates part-time.
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Howard Farran :
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Associates part-time? How part-time?
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Ashley Joves:
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Some two days a week, two to three days a week.
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Howard Farran :
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Wow. Of those two to three days a week, part-time associates, eight years out of school, how many of them have stayed in the same place for eight years?
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Ashley Joves:
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Less than half of that. They bounce.
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Howard Farran :
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Why do they bounce? Why do associates bounce from corporate to corporate? It's not a corporate problem. Corporate only employs 12% of the dentists. 88% is the rest of the market, and I don't see corporate holding on to associates any shorter than the private sector. It seems like nobody can keep an associate. What are your girlfriends telling you why they left their job and went to another job? What did they not like?
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Ashley Joves:
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Most of it I would say would be just the office environment. They were overworked. Their schedules were double booked, sometimes triple booked. They just didn't have that much autonomy. They also understand that because they are an associate.
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Howard Farran :
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Of those ones that are working two to three ... There's 13 of you, you and your 12 girlfriends. How many of them have a husband that actually has a damn good job?
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Ashley Joves:
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I would say all of them.
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Howard Farran :
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Yeah. All of them? See? Girls have a luxury. You can't just get mad and give notice at your job if you have a stay at home wife with three kids.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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You're going to have to learn to eat a lot of shit sandwiches, because you got to drag a gazelle home every night and feed the kids.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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If you got a husband and wife and they're each doctors, that's double income. They have a lot of freedom to do what they want.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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Do you think this small sample size of 13 is mostly likely reflective of the 6,000 graduates that graduated this week from dental school, half of which are girls, half of which are boys? Do you think your 13 friends will probably match and mirror, these 3,000 women that just graduated this week?
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Ashley Joves:
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I sure hope not. I hope more women want to become practice owners.
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Howard Farran :
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Why is that?
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Ashley Joves:
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Because I think that ... I'm a huge fan of Sheryl Sandberg and I just think there's so ...
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Howard Farran :
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Who's Sheryl Sandberg?
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Ashley Joves:
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Is she the CFO? What's her name? COO of Facebook.
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Howard Farran :
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COO of Facebook. How old is she and is she a billionaire?
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Ashley Joves:
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Yeah. I have no idea how old she is, but I'm sure she is a billionaire.
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Howard Farran :
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Her name is Sheryl what?
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Ashley Joves:
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Sandberg. S-A-N-D-B-E-R-G.
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Howard Farran :
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Okay. Is Sheryl S-H or C-H?
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Ashley Joves:
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S-H.
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Howard Farran :
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Okay. So you're a big fan of Sheryl. Ryan just text me. Okay. So tell me more about Sheryl Sandberg and why you're a big fan of Sheryl.
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Ashley Joves:
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So last year, I actually stayed home. My husband got accepted to UCLA for a Paine Fellowship. So we left my very comfortable associate job here. I was working here in Folsom with kids, actually. I know how much you love to see kids. We left only for one year. I had just given birth to my second son, so he was three months old at the time when we moved down. I knew that we were only going to be in LA for short term. So I took that opportunity to stay home and really enjoy being a stay at home mom. I thought that every woman is hardwired for that. That's something that should be natural. I thought I would have dinner prepared for my husband every day. I thought the apartment would be immaculate.
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Reality sunk in that I am a much better mom when I am working. That's actually the year when I discovered your podcast and all the other amazing podcasts with Anissa Holmes. I started listening to audio books and listening to Ted Talks. Sheryl Sandberg's book called Lean In, it just really got me inspired about how women really need to step up. You can be a good mom and you can be a leader in the workforce. You don't have to think that it's either/or.
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Howard Farran :
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Yeah. We've had Anissa Holmes on the show. I get to see her in Jamaica. I'm lecturing in Jamaica whenever their annual meeting is. Are you going to that Ryan? You also are a big fan of The Dental Marketer podcast, Michael Arias. That's an amazing podcast. I want to tell everybody that on The Dental Town, we now have 39 people in dentistry posting a podcast. It's just taken on a life of its own. I'm so proud of that section. Again, I want to call out one podcast in particular just because ... I'm shocked by how big podcasting is. By the way, podcasting is competing with radio. Everyone's commuting to work. There's one guy, how to open a dental office ... He's put up 115 shows and he's now at 674,405 views and not just from Dental Town. Most of these people find the podcast on Dental Town, then after they become fans of the show they might subscribe on iTunes. But a lot of the Townies tell me that they get in their car, they open up the app, they scroll through these 39 podcasts to see what they need. Some days you might need marketing. Some days you might need clinical. It's all different. So tell me how you met Anissa Holmes. She's doing a case study with you, right?
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Ashley Joves:
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She is. The last day of my associateship. My husband told me to go on Facebook Live and just announce that I was finally doing a startup. Because it was something that I had dreamt about for so long. I told him, "There's no way." I don't take selfies. I don't want to put myself out there. He said, "No. Just do it. You shouldn't let fear hold you back." I did it, and I really thought that the only people who would watch were going to be him, my mom, my little cousins. No. I really didn't expect anybody to really pay attention to anything that I had to say. Within minutes of me putting it out there, I was just getting all these comments and likes. People started sharing it, and I think the first day after I had published it, it had gone up to 4,500 views. I only know like five people ... I guess 13, including my dental school friends.
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I just reached out to Anissa the following morning, and I just thanked her. I said, "Last year, I felt like I wasn't a good mom and I wasn't productive. I wasn't doing anything for me." I just thanked her. I said, "Thank you so much for being a woman in this industry and showing that it's possible to go after your dreams." I told her about my Live. I said, "It's crazy. I never thought that I was going to get this many views." That was all through Facebook Messenger. She responded within minutes.
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She's like, "My goodness. I just watched your video. That was awesome." Ever since then, she has been my personal mentor. Any time I have a question about like, "What should I do about this?" She's been teaching me about Facebook targeting, because I don't know anything about that stuff. I really never posted on social media before, except to put up pictures of my boys. Now she's documenting my case. I'm her first official case study. She's going to be tracking my progress from now until, I don't know, through when I open my doors, or maybe even beyond that, just to see what the power of Facebook can be.
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Howard Farran :
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She's going to interview you on her podcast.
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Ashley Joves:
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Yes. She said that in the next few weeks she's going to have me on.
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Howard Farran :
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That is awesome. Then you also are a fan of The Dental Marketer podcast with Michael Arias. Tell me about that. Your Facebook post got his attention too.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right. It's so crazy, the turn of events that happened after I posted that one video. Out of the blue, Michael Arias from The Dental Marketer podcast, he reached out to me, again, on Facebook Messenger. He said, "Hey, I saw your video. Would you be interested in an interview?" I didn't know what to expect about it. We did our first interview. After we ended the interview, he said, "You know, I think that this could really help a lot of people who may be interested in possibly doing a startup." He created this whole spinoff series where every week he interviews me about what's going on in the whole construction process, marketing, branding. We're doing everything in real time.
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Howard Farran :
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He's in Los Angeles. What's that about six hour drive from you?
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Ashley Joves:
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Yes. Yeah. About a six and a half hour drive.
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Howard Farran :
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He's podcasting you once a week through this process?
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Ashley Joves:
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Yep.
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Howard Farran :
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That is just awesome. I just love this new technology. You got to remember, when I got out of school, there was no PC. When I got out of dental school, there was no PC. There was no cell phone. I'm so damn old, I still think the greatest technological invention was the garage door opener. Because every time my mom pulled up to the house, she said, "Get out and open the garage door." They were made out of wood. When you're a little boy ... It almost broke every bone in your body, and you had to shove it the last part or it'd come back down. Then when it crashed ... It's just amazing how ... I just read the other day, there's 7 and a half billion people and 3 and a half billion are connected to the Internet by a smartphone.
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Half the planet can reach Facebook, iTunes, YouTube, Wikipedia. That's why I so think this is going to be human's greatest century. Everybody said the last century's the greatest century. We landed on the moon. We invented radio and television and the Internet and all that stuff. I don't think the world's seen anything yet. Not to mentioned, we're in 2017. By the first 17 years of the last century, we already had the Spanish Influenza that killed 5% of the population of earth.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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Now we have people that don't even believe in vaccines.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right. That's another [inaudible 00:26:17].
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Howard Farran :
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I just love your passion. So far, when you've been telling me this stuff, you're verklempt just talking about it. That is some heavy passion. Where does that passion come from?
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Ashley Joves:
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I would say from my mom. My mom, she is a single parent, and she raised me all by herself. She's a dentist in the Philippines. When she moved here to the states, she tried and tried to become a dentist here, but because of lack of resources and lack of funds, it was something that she just kept pushing to the back burner. I grew up in the dental office. She couldn't afford daycare. So she would bring me to whatever office that she would work in as an RDA, as a sterilization tech, as an ortho assistant. That's who I think I got my passion from. That's who I know I got my passion from. It's amazing being able to live my dream and my mom's dream all at the same time.
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Howard Farran :
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What's she think of those two grandkids?
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Ashley Joves:
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My goodness. They are the most spoiled boys in the entire universe. Because I'm the only child and my husband is the only child. So these are the only grandkids on both sides. You can imagine how much love these kids get.
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Howard Farran :
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And dental decay. Have you read about the dental decay in China?
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Ashley Joves:
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No.
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Howard Farran :
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No, seriously. When I lectured in Xiongan, the problem is they had the one child rule. Right? You have two parents that each had a kid, and then those two single kids get married and have a kid. Every kid has two parents and four grandparents. They just created more wealth in the last 30 years than ever before. So you have six people bringing this kid treats. They think, "Well, I'll bring him a Hershey's bar, a Coca-Cola, an ice cream." For the first time ever, they started developing diabetes, obesity, dental decay. Here's these four grandparents that had this vegan diet. In China, when they eat a bowl of rice they're might be a piece of chicken on top. When you go to a Chinese restaurant in America, that bowl of chicken, it's half chicken and all the sauces [inaudible 00:28:51].
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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They're bringing all these kids in to the dentist. They're saying, "Why is my baby fat, and why are there holes on the teeth?" They're having to teach the Chinese people that if you buy them these fancy treats ... It's so funny when you go to China. Because you know when you're in America, not one American could name any president of China for the last 5,000 years. You go to China, not any of them can name any of our presidents either. Every time I talk to a Chinese dentist I'd say ... I'm not talking in Hong Kong. I'm talking in Xiongen. I said, "When I say 'the United States,' what do you think of? What comes to your mind when I say, 'the United States of America?'" Every one of them only name something you eat. They go, "Hershey's, Coca-Cola, KFC, McDonald's." They just associate America ... We just export good things to eat and drink. Yeah. So I totally get it. If your husband is an only child, you're an only child, and you got two grandkids ... My god. Them are going to be some spoiled kids.
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Ashley Joves:
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Yes.
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Howard Farran :
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I'm a grand kidded too, and my son gets mad because when my grandkids come over, whenever they ask me a question I say, "When you're in grandpa's house, you don't have to ask for nothing. I don't care what you want to do. You want to draw on the wall? You want to ice cream? There's no 'no' at grandpa's house. Do whatever the hell you want." That is so cool. Is your mom going to work for you?
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Ashley Joves:
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She's an office manager in the Bay Area. She's going to be helping me from time to time. She's going to show me insurance stuff and QuickBooks, I hope. I would love for her to help me out. Yeah.
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Howard Farran :
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How far is she from Folsom?
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Ashley Joves:
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She has a house near us, but she's only in it on the weekends. She lives five minutes away, but during the week she's three hours away.
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Howard Farran :
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My gosh. Does she drive three hours home every night or does she have another ...
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Ashley Joves:
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No. She works in Mountain View during the week. So she's there from Sunday until Thursday evening. Then Thursday evening she drives up for three hours.
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Howard Farran :
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Where does she stay? Just at a local hotel or a Holiday Inn?
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Ashley Joves:
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She stays with my cousin and she has a couple friends down there.
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Howard Farran :
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My gosh. Don't you see the chemistry if you hired her full time? When you start, she can do every position.
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|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
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|
Howard Farran :
|
It'd be no risk to start. She's a dry hand, you're the wet hands. She's dry, I'm wet. Two people that did all but the trust, have a mother daughter. Because we sell the invisible.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
I knew you would actually absolutely crush [inaudible 00:31:35] when you were saying on your bio, "I love people, truly, honestly, deeply. And I think the relationships that we build with our patients and our team members is the single most important factor to our success in business and in life." You are so damn sweet and adorable. I swear to God, the best business move you will ever make is to tell your mom, "No. You're staying in Folsom and we're going to do this together. The patients will love it. The amount of dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin they'll start pouring off ... The only way you could match that is if you had six puppies run out there and start kissing your patients.
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|
|
I'm telling you. You sell the invisible. It's the almost trust. Mom's a dentist from the Philippines. The daughters a dentist in the United States. You've spent your whole life in dentistry. It's your love, you passion. Then not one person will think, "Well, I don't need to get my transmission fluid changed. I don't need to get a new radiator. I don't believe." Then your treatment plan [inaudible 00:32:37], instead of diagnosing three cavities to do one, you'll diagnose three cavities and you'll do two. Because that one in the middle that doesn't commit, doesn't believe, doesn't trust ... You can prove it to yourself if you're listening to this, is go in there and tell the patient everything they need, and then take your iPhone, turn on record. Leave it in the room. Walk out. They'll turn to the dental assistance, they'll turn to the hygienist, and the first six questions they'll ask are all based on trust.
|
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Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
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|
Howard Farran :
|
If they know that's your mom up front and she's adorable. They meet you ... The trust will be there. Once you can convey trust when you're selling the invisible, everyone will ... If you can just get them to believe that they really have a cavity, you're done.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
That is the key, and your mother will be ... Plus, it'll be priceless.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yeah. No. It's an exciting time and I'm so happy I get to share it with her.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
And sharing it on social media.
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|
Ashley Joves:
|
That's true.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Do you think you're going to inspire more women to open up their own practice? Do you think you'll inspire more women who are working at corporate that don't like it?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
I sure hope so. I've actually already been reached out to by a few different female docs asking if they should do a startup. It's awesome. I never thought I would be someone that somebody looked up to ... not looked up to, but I don't know. I am just a regular person who is finally acting on her dream. I don't know a lot. I'm not an expert. If I can do it, anybody can do it. You just have to believe you can.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
You also say that you're a foodie, and you're passionate about small business entrepreneurship. You're merging this with your love of dentistry. Tell this fat guy how I can merge food with dentistry. I love food more than you. I weigh twice as you. How do you merge food, entrepreneurship, and dentistry?
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|
Ashley Joves:
|
I have this whole vision in my head. I hate going to the dentist, 100%. I hate it. I'm scared of getting shots. I hate feeling vulnerable in the chair and not knowing what's going to happen or what they're going to find. All of my best experiences have all been at the table with a friend, with a colleague sharing a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. So what I wanted to do with this space was just recreate that. I'm in Sacramento or I'm in Folsom just outside of Sacramento. We have amazing vineyards just an hour, maybe even less, an hour away from here. Sacramento also has a very up and coming craft beer scene, and we have a lot of restaurants.
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|
|
So what I wanted to do is host events outside of normal office hours, where these different small businesses can come together and the patients and the community members can come in and taste beer, taste wine, taste the food that is available to them. If they want to talk to me about teeth, I think it's the best environment. Because they are not sitting in the dental chair with a patient napkin and feeling like they're being lectured or being lied to about something. I wanted it to be a very casual experience where you can ask me whatever, and I'll be completely honest with you.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
My god. You are so going to crush it. I just wish I could take you and do an IPO. I just want to take you public. My god.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
[inaudible 00:36:45]
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Everybody talks about they want to be a unique selling proposition.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yeah.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Then they go out and be the exact same thing as the person across the street. Everyone thinks they're unique exactly like their other person. It's just crazy. You're just thinking outside the box. It's all about relationships. It's all about networking.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Just the simple thing of in between ... I can give you one behavior that's the difference between a million and a half dollar practice and 750,000. The $750,000 practice, when the dentist is done doing the dentistry, he goes back in his private office and shuts the door. Then the one and a half million dollar dentist, he goes up front, goes and shakes a couple hands in the waiting room, and makes his receptionist start laughing. Just that one behavior of going from, it's a library and the dentist is hiding in the corner, to someone who actually wants to go out there and press the flesh and run for mayor.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
I've told everybody that every million dollar practice, when you walk into the office, in one second you can feel the million practice. Because they're happy. They're giggling. They love. There's trust. Then when you go in that area and it feels like you're in the library, who's burning eugenol? It's always 750, and the problem is it's always politics or Russia or North Korea. It's never the fact that I feel like I'm in a convent and I should start praying. That is just amazing. When do you think your open day will be?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
So far the target completion date is August 16th, and the my birthday is August 12th. So I'm hoping it's going to be one big birthday bash at the new office.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Your birthday's August 12th.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yes.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
You're going to be the ripe old age of 35?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yes.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
My birthday's August 29th.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yeah?
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
I'm going to be 55.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Hey.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Guess what I celebrated last night?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
What?
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Me and a whole bunch of dentists, me and Tom [Matter 00:38:50] and a bunch of us went out because I celebrated my 20,000 day birthday. It's a new thing.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Happy birthday!
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
You google 10,000 days, there's a calculator. You enter your birthday, it tells you when your 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. I'll be 30,000 days when I'm 82, but yesterday, I celebrated my 20,000th ... You think you're going to open it on your birthday?
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|
Ashley Joves:
|
That would be amazing. I would love that. I hope so. We'll see. I keep changing my deign plans, and then they have to reel me back in because the budget has to match.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Yeah. The budget has to match. I want to also tell you that you got two kids.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yep.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Of 30 years of marketing at my dental office, do you know what my number one marketing thing is that I ever did?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Was it your grandkids?
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Every time I had a baby boy, I took out ... Okay. This is kind of complicated. I live in Phoenix, but everybody [inaudible 00:39:55] to you. When you come to Phoenix, there's this 100 block wide mountain park called South Mountain that separates the top 90% of Phoenix, the bottom 10%. It's all Phoenix, but everybody south of the mountain calls themselves Ahwatukee even though they live in Phoenix. In fact, if I said to my neighbor, "Do you live in Phoenix?" He'd say, "No. I live in Ahwatukee." It's Phoenix, okay? Phoenix had its own little newspaper, this little 80,000 that live south of it. Every time I had a baby, I took out a full page ad in the Ahwatukee newspaper said, "Dr. Howard Farran would like to announce his new patient of the month Erick Wells Farran." Then Greg Farran.
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|
|
If you look at ... Here's something interesting. If you look at Billboard Hot 100 top five words in title by decade, the number one word in every decade was love. I'll just go with ... What are we at? The 2010 ... It's love then time, night, girl, song. 2000 was love, time, girl, life, wanna. 1990, love, heart, time, girl, life. 1980, love, heart ... It's always love. Then the other graph I liked on that, which kind of the same deal is the perfect word for song writers, the 20 most used words in the top 50 songs written by the Rolling Stones. Number one is baby, two is love. When they see you working with your mom, and your two kids should be the stars of all the ads ... Your mom is a doctor. Who cares if she crossed a line she's not a licensed doctor. Your mom's a dentist.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Second generation dentistry. Then do fun stuff with the words love, baby, all that. Ask each one of the kids in a video, "Who's the better dentist, me or grandma?" They'll say something totally ... You know kids. They'll say something totally off the charts. You'll have no idea what they come out, but when everybody hears it, they'll just melt. They'll love, love, love, love ... That's the billboard. It's in every title of all the top hit songs. I would love to start writing your ad. Two generations of demists.
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Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
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|
Howard Farran :
|
Now you got two kids. Get the word love or baby in there somehow.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Okay.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Make some funny stuff. What are your two boys' names?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Hudson is the older one and Brady is the baby.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Hudson and Brady?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yes.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Say, "Hudson, says grandma's the best dentist. Brady says it's mom. We want you to come into our practice and break the tie," or, "We want you to come into our office and tell us. Solve this mystery for us." Yeah. You are just going to crush it because you're so sincere, and you're so authentic. Once you learn how to fake sincerity and be authentic, you're off to the races.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Thank you so much. That means so much to me, Howard.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
We just had 6,000 kids graduate this week from 56 dental schools in the United States. Half of them were girls. If you were giving the commencement speech to the 3,000 women ... I know what I would be saying to the 3,000 men. I'd say, "Before you leave, you marry one of these girls in the class tonight. Do not graduate without a wedding ring for one of these girls. Because all you'll have to do is play golf the rest of your life and she'll make $10,000 a month." What would you be telling the girls?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
I would say, "Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it. You can have it all. If practice ownership and being a mom is important to you, then make it happen." I think there's ... I know personally from experience that I am much more patient, much more kind, much more loving to my boys when I'm not around them 24 hours a day. I think that women should step up and not feel like they have to be a part-time associate somewhere in order to be a good mom.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
You feel like society puts a lot of guilt on women if they're ...
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
I think women put a lot of guilt on women. I think ourselves ... I'm guilty of this now. I feel like all of the meetings that I've had to take and all of the time spent on Dental Town and researching all the different equipment and IT and doing all this legal stuff, it's all time taken away from my family. I already feel guilty about that and my office isn't even open. I don't know if it's just something that I put on myself or as a mom, we just feel that we should be there more for our kids. We'll see. I am doing this personally, because I want to take off on Thursday afternoon to go to Hudson's future soccer game. As an associate, I worked in one job where I had to give six months notice before we took any time off. Who knows what life has in store. You can't plan six months in advance. Working as an associate just a few months ago, I already missed out on my son's preschool concert. I don't want to miss out on any more important events. I think the only way to have the freedom and flexibility to do that is start the foundation now so that you know ... Whenever I want to take off, I'll just have my mom or whoever is in the front say, "You know what? Block out this day because this is for Brady or this is for Hudson."
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
I know. When somebody tells me, "Well, I want to be a job as an associate ... " Again, I'm not throwing corporate under a bus. They're only hiring 12% of the ... They're only 12% of the market. If your 12 girlfriends that are associates, what percent of them are in big box, retail where they have 50 or more locations, and which one of them are just an associate for some private practice dentist?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
I want to say maybe 25% are in corporate.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Corporate big box?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yes.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Yeah. I don't like the word corporate because all the individual dentists are incorporated. They're all a LLC. A CPA would say they're all corporate. My definition of corporate, if you listen to my show, you got to have 50 or more locations. People say, "Well, girls will want to work for them so they can be a soccer mom." Hell, a real soccer mom don't work for anybody. I remember when I was a dentist, sometimes I would get a call and said ... One time I got a call that they're taking Erick to the emergency room. I don't want to ask the office manager. I don't want to ask my boss.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Sometimes being corporate is you wake up in the morning and you say, "Okay, I got four kids and my wife that's sick. You know what? I know we're really, really busy, but ... " I just remember the worst sound when I had kids, it's when you hear someone hurl in the middle of the night. Because now you got to get up. There's vomit in the bed. When you wake up some mornings and two of the four kids and the ex-wife are all puking in the bed, a real soccer mom says, "I'm sorry, but a virus has taken today."
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
You just call your office manager and said, "I know you don't want to hear this, but I ain't coming in today." That's a real soccer mom, when you can just own your own deal. It'll be interesting to see what's going to happen. I still think the deal is fear. I still think it comes down to fear. I think a lot of people want to do it and they just live in fear. What would you tell that commencement class about dealing with fear?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
I think that you should make a business plan, because that'll help you narrow down the direction that you want to go, and it'll help you narrow down your target demographic and how you will differentiate yourself in a saturated market. Then from there, I think you should meet with someone who works at a bank and go over numbers. Because if financially it's feasible, they'll go over what they need you to make every month in order to survive and pay off your loans. You'll find that it's a lot more doable than what they want you to believe. I graduated from NYU. I had 350,000 in debt. I think the average student debt these days is more than that. They make it seem like it's something that's so not attainable to do a startup. But I also am very blessed to have the second income from my husband. He's my guarantor, just in case anything happened. I would say, "Yeah. Just look at your finances and then go from there. But make an educated decision. Don't just say, 'You know what? I can't do this. It's not feasible.'"
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
I'll just sum up everything she just said in that whole rant into, you can marry more money in a minute than you can earn in a lifetime. Who cares about $300,000 student loans? Let's just say your husband made only $100,000 a year and for 40 years. It'd be 100,000 times 40. He'll make 4 million. He'll bring in 4 million in revenue before he's 65. Who cares about $300,000 student loans? Here's the mixed message I'm getting. I see these kids come out of school and they go, "Well, I can't start my own practice because I'm ... I got $350,000 of student loans." They get a job at corporate.
|
|
|
Next time you see them at the annual meeting at the Arizona State Dental Association. Say, "What'd you do?" "We just bought a house in Gilbert?" I'll say, "How much was that house?" "350." Damn. Damn. Seems like last year $350,000 student loans, you're almost ready to have to take a blue pill every night before you went to bed. But now you're all happy about a $350,000 house because a house makes you happy. When I get on the scale it depresses me, so I always eat a ice cream bar when I'm on the scale. Because that makes me happy regardless of the number. The $350,000 of student loans that sad. Let's play a violin and be sad. 350 for a house, my god. I talked to this one kid, so depressed on his student loans. The very next time I saw him, he had just bought a BMW. Who's that woman on TV that always talks about money?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Suze Orman?
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Suze Orman. Suze Orman, is that her name?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
She always talks about how money decisions are always irrational and emotional. It's so ... I guess what we're saying is, it's completely irrational to believe that a soccer mom is best served as an employee. It's completely irrational to believe that buying a practice knowing ... You talk about the bank going over the numbers. If you bought a practice, they have entire teams for ten, 20, 30 years, this is their core [inaudible 00:51:54]. They only do dentists. They don't do ice cream parlors. They don't do Mexican restaurants. They don't do Chinese restaurants. They only do dentistry. They know this industry so perfect. They underwrite you the loan. It's only a .4% chance you'll go under. Those 50, 60 year old bankers know you 30 and under kids ten times better than you do from a business point of view, the numbers. If they underwrite your loan, the only way you're going under is if you do something to get your license taken away. So far, how many dentists do you know have their license taken away?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Zero.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Well you're not drinking with the right people. You need to raise your A game. You need to start hanging out with wilder and crazy dentists. Yeah. You have to get your license taken away. The fear is completely irrational. I only got you for five more minutes. What other parting advice would you give these kids?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
I would just say, "Just go for it. Just do it." I never thought that ... Like I said, I stepped out of my comfort zone and I announced to the whole world that I was finally doing something that I've been dreaming about. Now I'm on the Howard Farran show. This is amazing.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
The Howard Farran Show? That is nothing. You've already been on Dr. Anissa Holmes' show and you've been on Dr. Michael Arias, host of The Dental Marketer podcast. Of the three podcasts ... No mind. That's not fair to ask. How many podcasts do you listen to?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Gosh. I listen to way too many. I was commuting about an hour each way to work.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Exactly. Basically, everything I read about podcasts, it's destroying radio. Because the radio, it's half commercials, and even when they do play a song, well your iPhone has 1,000 songs that you chose.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
What's the chance that the six songs that they choose are the ones that you like? Commercials killed radio.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
I see that with myself personally. The only people who watch the TV are over 50, and I'm 54. They only news I can watch is Vice News. If you watch CNN or Fox News, it's 25 minutes, an hour of commercials.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Yeah.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
All the commercials are prescription pills, which make you all feel weird like, "My God, I wonder if I'm going to die of that disease. I wonder how many more years I got to live. Should I start taking ... " So what I do is I don't want to take all those prescriptions, but I want to. So I just get jars of Skittles and pretend they're the pills that I'm eating [inaudible 00:54:40]. "I need to take that pill. That's an orang one. That's a blue one." So podcasts, it's all commuters.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
And you had a hour commute. What kind of podcast genres were you listen to?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Everything. Every kind of dental podcast is on my iTunes. Serial, NPR, How I Built This ... What else? S Town.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
What's S Town?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
S Town is from the creators of NPR and Serial. It tracks a murder mystery, so to speak. Really interesting. Real life stuff.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
I should listen to it, because I love cereal, especially peanut butter Captain Crunch. It's my favorite cereal. What are all the dental podcasts you're listening to?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Besides yours and Anissa's, I listen to Jonathan Van Horn, I listen to The Dental Hacks, I listen to T-Bone Speaks, The Thriving Dentist Show. What else? There's just so many.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
T-Bone Speaks is the best one. You know why it's the best one?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Why?
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
We both went to UMKC Dental School, but he's actually balder and fatter than me. He's number one. That guy's got to outweigh me by at least ten pounds. I promote anybody who's balder and fatter than me. I got to give it to T-Bone. He beat me. I think it might only be four and a half pounds, but yeah. T-Bone is just a ... He is such a ... You remind me of T-Bone, because he's so sincere. He's so authentic. His wife's a doctor too.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
He's got three kids. But you talk to T-Bone, you instantly know, in one half of a second, he'd give you the shirt off his back. He'd do anything for you. He's just the nicest, most sincere guy, and those are the guys that crush it with their patients. Again, because you're selling the invisible. We're saying another shift of that in business, which millennials like you, would actually rather do their banking online than drive to the bank and work with a teller.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
We're seeing people with these ... What was that online booking dental appointment?
|
|
Speaker 3:
|
[inaudible 00:57:02]
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
What is it?
|
|
Speaker 3:
|
[inaudible 00:57:03]
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
No. That's for specialist ...
|
|
Speaker 3:
|
[crosstalk 00:57:04]
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Anyway, millennials like you would rather call a dental office ... I mean, book a dental office appointment on their website. You'd like to go to the website, look at the openings, and schedule. You don't need to talk to a human.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Gosh, when you're selling something where I need to look you in the eyes and I need to feel that you're not doing something ... Like you said, you're vulnerable. I don't know if my car really needs this, if my air conditioner really needs that. When they meet you, they are going to absolutely instantly believe your sincerity, your authenticity. Then it's only going to go straight from, "I believe you," now it's just going to go to finance and fear. That's the whole market in half. Half are too afraid, and the other half are afraid of the cost. As far as the cost goes, if you just realize that 90% of everything sold in America over $1,000 is finance and quit saying, "This will be $2,000," and start saying, "This will be $100 a month for two years ... "
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
10% will say, "Well I don't want to finance. I'll pay in cash." But the other 90%, that first number they'll hear is that monthly payment. So they believe you. That's the big deal. Then you presented every fee over 1,000 in a payment term. You just build your chart instead of asking if they've ever had herpes, gonorrhea, or syphilis. Start asking them, "Have you had your job for two years?" Ask them the Care Credit questions so that when they're doing the treatment planning, they can run the Care Credit, finance, whatever, and walk in there and say, "My God, Ashley, good news! Doctor can do everything you need for just $175 a month for 36 months. I'm so excited." They're like ... Everybody wants a whiter, brighter, sexier smile. They just, can they afford it?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Right.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
First they got to believe it, and you will own that department, especially if your mother's up front and especially if those two baby adorable boys are in all the ads.
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Thank you. Thank you so much, Howard.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
You got my email. Howard@dentaltown.com. You ever, on your journey, anything, you always email me and let Uncle Howie know if you ever come to a fork in the road and need a bounce a [inaudible 00:59:22].
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
|
|
Howard Farran :
|
Thank you for being a role model to all those girls in dental school. Because I want them to grow up. I want them to marry a guy in their class and be the ultimate soccer mom by owning their own practice. If they truly only want to work two days a week, then find another woman that wants to work two days a week. That's the last thing I want to remind you. I don't say it enough, but being a women dentist is a unique selling proposition. Because even though half the class is women, they've graduated so many men for so many years, a very small part of the market. But since half the market is in fear, who do you think the 325 million Americans think are more likely to hurt you? Me or you?
|
|
Ashley Joves:
|
You.
|
|
Howard Farran :
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Yeah. If I'm afraid and I see little Ashley Joves, and then I see this man. I'm just going to think, "She'll be more likely." Let's go to women. If they dentist says, "Your kid has three cavities. Do you have any questions?" She'll say, "No." Then as soon as you leave she turns to the girl, assistant, the girl hygienist, has seven questions.
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Ashley Joves:
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Right.
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Howard Farran :
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We're seeing that when the doctor's a girl, she asks you the seven questions. If you ever do get an associate, keep branding. Just keep it all women. It's easy to market. It's easy to brand. Don't confuse the image by bringing in a male associate. They're afraid. All women. "We'll never hurt you. We're sweet. We're honest." Your mom's in the picture. I mean, it's just going to be ... I hope you do an IPO. I'm going to buy the stock.
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Ashley Joves:
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Thank you. That means so much to me.
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Howard Farran :
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All right. You have a rocking hot day.
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Ashley Joves:
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Thank you so much.
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Howard Farran :
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Thanks for coming on the show.
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Ashley Joves:
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Thank you so much for having me. Take care, Howard.
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Howard Farran :
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Tell Anissa that I can't wait to see her in Jamaica.
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Ashley Joves:
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Okay. I will.
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