Dentist Money™ Industry Expert Series: Interview with Howard Farran, DDS, MBA – Episode 27

In this special episode of Dentist Money™, Reese interviews industry thought-leader, Howard Farran — arguably the most influential personality in dentistry. Howard is a successful practicing dentist, MBA, CEO of dentistry’s largest media company, internationally recognized lecturer, and bestselling author. In this interview, Howard gives his candid take on the most common financial mistakes made by dentists and offers some words of advice for managing debt, improving profitability, working with consultants, and achieving work-life balance.

Podcast Transcript:

Speaker: These on this program or opinions of dental industry experts and not necessarily those of dentist advisers. Opinions shared in the following interview do not constitute personal financial advice. This program is furnished by dentist advisors or registered investment advisor. Your tuned into Dentist Money Industry Experts Series. Now here’s your host, Reese Harper.

Reese Harper: Welcome to the Dentist Money Show. I’m your host, Reese Harper with a very special guest today who without question, in my opinion, is one of the most unique authentic personalities in dentistry. Okay, now, no names yet. Okay. He’s an MBA. He’s a super successful practicing dentist, internationally recognized lecturer. Let me think if anything else, I can come up with the CEO of the largest media company in dentistry in the world. Dr. Howard Farran. How’s that introduction?

Howard Farran: It sounds like when you’re trying to fix your friend up with a date, you’re like, well, is he good looking. Well, he’s a doctor and he’s got a nice car. But how are you doing? Thanks for having me on your show.

Reese Harper: Yeah, man, I met you a few years ago through Doug Carlson, was an introduction and we had an article or two that you guys picked up and it just … I was really impressed how you care so much about your readers. For having a guy who’s known as having a big personality, also have a really big heart, and you can, you can sense that from the work that you do. And I really respect that a lot. So I hope you know that I think a lot of people see that in you too.

Howard Farran: Ah, thanks man. You’re too kind.

Reese Harper: So the point of this show, and this is first time we’ve had you on, is we cover a lot of different financial mistakes that dentists make. The focus is their money, their finances, and how to make smart decisions with their money. And so I thought that as a first question, we’d start out by saying kind of in a broad brush stroke, you got so much knowledge up there, all your background, ff we could just say, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see dentists make with their money? Let’s start to kind of go through some of those and see what comes up.

Howard Farran: Okay. Well, let’s start in school. You’re going to come out of school and they’re going, they’re going to whine about their, there are $350,000 student loans. Well, if you bought a job that pays 175, and you’re gonna make 350, I mean, you basically bought, what? Two years earning of a job? Whining about that is insane. And then what will that whiner do? Turn around and go buy a $700,000 home.

Reese Harper: Yeah. Immediately, right?

Howard Farran: Yeah. And they’ll come out and they’ll eat out … 19 and 30 meals, is the average for a dentist eating out.

Reese Harper: So they look at this student loan payment, this debt that they picked up, not as an asset that bought them a salary. They look at it as this like overwhelming, unfair burden that society has placed on them.

Howard Farran: Yeah. And when you spend $350,000 to buy a job that the average guy makes 175, that’s an investment with a return on … investment of return, assets of return on equity. But when you buy a house, they think in their walnut brain, it’s an investment. It’s a money pit. I mean there’s not a PhD economist in the world that says buying a house is an investment. They all say that you could rent that house for the rent … the rental rate on that would probably be at least 10% less. So the renter who put the difference between the rent rate and the mortgage payment in a 401k for the whole life of the house and every time you turn around you’re remodeling. The house is a money pit. And then they go buy a nice car and then they go by their stay at home wife, a nice car. And then it’s add a bathroom, then it’s at a swimming pool.
Then it’s a cabin, a boat, an RV and they’re still whining about their student loan debt. But the kids that get out of there …

Reese Harper: Like that was the factor, right?

Howard Farran: It had nothing to do with any … when you look at the student loan payment on their statement of cash flow, it’s a rounding error to their stupidity. I mean it’s a … compared to the house mortgage, and the trips, and the vacations … And then you even look within the student loan money … in my generation 30 years ago, no one was taking out student loans to take a cruise on spring break. They are now. No one was taken student loan money and my generation to buy a $30,000 Honda Accord. But they are now.

Reese Harper: So you’re saying they’re living it up a little too early?

Howard Farran: Oh my God, it’s just … it’s never what you make. It’s always what you spend.

Reese Harper: It’s interesting because I do think there’s an expectation that, that student loan debt almost gives people. There’s pent up demand for consumption, right? You go through school, all of your buddies have already graduated, they’re all already making money, and you’re still in school, you’re, your income has been delayed for a while and as soon as you get out you feel like you deserve it, Right? And they start making decisions that they probably wouldn’t make under a normal circumstances.

Howard Farran: So what I see with Dentist, I can break them down into two categories when it comes down to finance. Where were you born? If you were born in the United States, you are paying interest on other people’s money. On student loan debt, housing, mortgage, car payments, I mean well into their 50s a lot of them their entire life, they never jumped the schism. They never crossed the chasm from paying 5% on your money versus making 5% on my money. Who Does it? It’s always the foreign born dentists that come out of school.
You go to San Francisco, you go to University of California, San Francisco. The born in the United States dentists walks out, they buy a nice condo, they get in a house, they buy a Honda Accord, the eat out 19 and 30 meals …

Reese Harper: Its cultural huh?

Howard Farran: Yeah. But the Asian dentists particularly and the African dentist, they will get out, they’ll go buy a thousand square foot dental office and they’ll live in the thing. They won’t even have an apartment, a house, a car. They’ll do all their cooking. I’ve gone in there where their mother lives in there and they got married in there and had a baby in operatory four.

Reese Harper: Super interesting because you see that in national savings rates in countries too. Like the Japanese savings rate compared to the U.S Savings rate for their consumers is like triple what our domestic savings rate is. There’s a big difference between some minorities and U.S born dentists and how they approach finance. It’s very different.

Howard Farran: Well I am very good friends with any dental consultant out there that’s in their fifties and sixties and and they’re all politically correct but they’ll all tell you off the record and then I’ll say what worries you most about a dental student? They’ll say when they were born in the United States. And then you say, why are you bullish on that kid? And they’ll say, well, she was born in Laos. If she’s born in Laos, Cambodia, Nigeria, or Tanzania with Ethiopia, you don’t have to worry about her.

Reese Harper: I was talking to two different people yesterday. One was born here and one was not born here. Okay. I want to say wherever they’re from, but both of them are getting out of school with $500,000 a student loan debt. Both of them are okay? One of them is approaching it and trying to figure out how he can make his mortgage payment and the new practice payment fit into his $300,000 of income.
The the U.S born guy was, and the foreign student was trying to figure out where you could find the cheapest rent in north of La so that he could afford to buy a practice and pay off his student loans and have a savings rate that made him feel comfortable. And both of them are the same age, they’re just tackling different problems. One was really trying to figure out how you could afford the house and the practice and stretch out the student loan.
And the other person was trying to figure out how we could accelerate it, rent cheaper, buy the right practice. It was just such a stark contrast.

Howard Farran: And the difference is the guy who’s going to get the house, who’s going to get a 30 year mortgage when for 13 payments a year instead of 12, you could have paid it off in 15, which is why this idiot will still be paying interest when he’s 50 years old, 60 years old. He’ll start collecting social security and he’ll still have interest on other people’s money. They just won’t … they won’t stop it. It’s a more addictive drug than heroin, morphine, and nicotine all rolled into one. Other people’s money.

Reese Harper: It’s interesting that you bring that up. How do you think it correlates to decisions they make as a practice manager … as a manager, right?

Howard Farran: Let’s talk about … so we know that 10 years ago, 2005 average dentists netted 225.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Howard Farran: And we know that’s gone down $4,500 every year, 10 years in a row and is now down to 175. so what I want to tell the dentist is that, so the last decade, every year you make 4,500 less than the year before. It’s gone from 225 to 175, you keep losing $4,500 a year income, in 40 years it’ll be zero. And so what I’m telling you is also the reason I started my own media company in 1994 is because, everything everybody is telling you, every time they tell you what to do, you’re going to lose money.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Howard Farran: So just listen … So it’s kind of like … it reminds me of U.S drug policy versus Portugal. Portugal looked at the data the United States and said, well, every year they spend all this money, and they catch all these drug guys, they put them in all these prisons at $35,000 a year. And then at the end of the year, the economist says, what is your outcome? You have more people using drugs in the year before. So the Portuguese said, you know, whatever America’s doing, it’s exactly the wrong way. So they turned around and they said, well, let’s do the opposite.
They legalized everything. And then instead of putting all the money in police and prisons, they took the same money and they went up to you and said, why do you have a needle in your arm? What the Hell is going on? They find out you’re unemployed, you don’t have a job, you’re homeless. And they put the same money that they used to put in prisons and police into you, and 10 years later cut their drug consumption in half. So … a dentist will have an impression and they’ll say, okay, it’s Impregum, it costs 18 bucks I’ve used it for 30 years, I’ve got an idea.
I’m going to buy a $35,000 scanner from Denmark and I … and then instead of having 7500 labs, I can send it to now , now I’m down to a dozen. And now I have to buy all this software and OSHA and all … So he started with the $18 impression. Now he’s got a mortgage, he’s paying interest on a lease for five years, he’s buying all the …. And the overhead … In 1970 the average overhead for every dentist in United States was under 50. now the average is over 65, and next year it will be 66 and they’ll make 4,500 less. Look at crowns, everybody talks about same day crowns. I’m sorry, I’ve been a dentist for three decades, if I tell you you need a crown, half the questions are, well, how much is it?
Will my insurance pay? I don’t get paid till Friday. And then if it’s not money it’s, is this gonna hurt? Oh my God. You know, can you put me asleep? Knock me out, give me laughing gas? And then if you’re a woman, it’s like, oh my God, what is it going to look like? I never heard anybody say, you know what’s the most important for me … You know what’s really important for me? I’d really like to have this done an hour.
I never heard it in three fricking decades. But now you’ve got $150,000 mortgage, you’re paying interest on other people’s money, you’ve raised up your overhead, you’re buying all these blogs. Now your dental assistant who’s made no crowns in her life, you just replace your lab tech with your dentist assistant you’ve been suctioning for 10 years …

Reese Harper: And your profitability has declined in the intro.

Howard Farran: And then they’ll say, well, you know what I need to do now I need to go pay an institute $5,000 and listen to them. And then they’ll go listen to them, they’ll get more debt, they’ll come back, and then their overheads goes up again.

Reese Harper: So we’re talking about two issues here. I mean you’re talking about one, there …

Howard Farran: Can you see why I have no friends in the industry?

Reese Harper: You got a lot of friends.

Howard Farran: No, I got a lot of friend dentist. Not companies. Oh my God. Ask any dental company, what do you think of Howard Farran ..

Reese Harper: Okay, so … there’s multiple issues here that, let’s break apart a little bit. One of them … you’re kind of highlighting that they’re manipulated easily through salespeople. That’s one of the problems. And that comes from insurance brokers, to investment brokers, to equipment reps, and sundry supply reps, to labs, to office managers. I mean, it just depends on …

Howard Farran: And another thing that’s going on is … let’s be fair, I’m a boy, I’m a dentist, boys love toys. I got gotta gotta CEREC, I got a laser, I got all that stuff. So it’s fun to have toys, but here’s where I look at it, if you’re a millionaire and you want to buy a laser, or a Porsche, or a boat, that’s a successful person. Where their errors is, they think, well, if I buy the boat, I’ll be successful in marriage. If I buy the Condo, I’ll have a successful marriage. If I buy the laser, I’ll make money.
It’s completely ass backwards.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Howard Farran: If you got an extra $100,000 you want to burn, and you can decide on a porch or a laser, knock yourself out. But if you think a laser is going to make you more money … you know what’s gonna make you money? Standing on a rheostat with the drill, doing fillings and crowns.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Howard Farran: Not sleep medicine, not all these … They’ll go to an institute and pay $5,000 a week for six weeks to learn TMJ. I come back six years later, after six … one week vacation, a year down there, and say, what percent of your revenue’s TMJ? Oh, I see, it’s not even a percent.

Reese Harper: Yeah. And I think it’s easy to discount the amount of money that you’ll invest pursuing an expansion of treatment maybe in your practice, and then you don’t end up with any more profitability, no more money in your pocket, and you’re just wasting time. Your staff’s now had to build new skills that they’re not utilizing effectively. I mean it … that can be a big problem for a lot of people.

Howard Farran: Let me show you my multiple personalities, my skid personality because I’m a dentist and an MBA. Okay, if you just want to put on your MBA hat and you want to add implants, okay? If you go and you go to some foreign country, Dominican Republic, learn how to place implants, buy an implant system, get all the inventory, get a CBCT, learn how to make surgical guides, you’re going to spend a year or two and easily a couple hundred thousand dollars.
You’re not going to get a return on investment in that for probably a decade. A businessman will sit there and say, you know what I’ll do? I’m in Phoenix, I know that the surgeons here won’t help me, I’ll go to the next market over in Tucson and I’ll have the periodontist or an oral surgeon come up. I’ll load up all my implants for one Friday a month and I’ll come in there and I’ll pay him half the gate.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Howard Farran: That guy has already paid his rent, mortgage, [inaudible 00:13:59] bill, computer insurance, and practice.

Reese Harper: All his fixed costs are covered now it’s just all margin, right?

Howard Farran: And then this guy comes in and draws up $10,000 for the implants, he puts $5,000 … So he just increases return on an asset. He just added five grand his return on that asset and it has no more debt, didn’t do anything to his cashflow, but now I’m a dentist. I went through all of [Carl Missions 00:00:14:18] course, I read his book, I got my fellowship at the mission. I got my diplomat in the international congress on pathology. I love sinking an implant, but I know where I’m making money and I know where I’m having fun. You know when you’re out there skiing behind a boat on Lake Roosevelt, that’s luxury. That’s not an investment, that that’s having fun. So if you’re stressed about money, let’s make money and then when you’re rich you can afford a laser, a cad cam, you can afford those things.

Reese Harper: Do you think it’s tough though … because, I mean you’ve got so much great content … on your site and so much … your Dental MBA program, you’ve got a ton of information. Why do you think people struggle to consume it? Right? The adoption of any information, not just yours, but knowledge is tougher for some of these guys to take in and it … they tune out pretty quickly. Right? And how do you think that …

Howard Farran: You know what? I’m in a dozen dental schools a year and I think as the student loan debt has gone up, do you notice that the dentist’s physician lawyer as … if your student loan debt is under $25,000 that’s the highest default rate. By the time it’s over a hundred grand, there’s no default rate. These dentists are 300 they’re not defaulting. I think as the student loan debt got up … when you got out of school in the eighties you could really make a lot of bad decisions, and demographics and a lot of … and work your way out of it.

Reese Harper: There’s still a lot of margin in the career at that point.

Howard Farran: These kids know there’s not a lot of their own skin ice. There’s not room to screw up.

Reese Harper: Its not a lot of room for error. I am seeing the younger dentists consuming more of this stuff than ever before. I’m actually …

Howard Farran: I would agree with that, I think-

Reese Harper: They’re far more business savvy today than they were 30 years ago. Oh my God.
So That’s good, right?

Howard Farran: Oh yeah. They’re moving in our direction.

Reese Harper: What advice do you have for the people that may be 10, 15 years into their career that haven’t really … they’re making … I think because the guys that you’re describing … I think have been making these mistakes for 15 plus years. I mean, what’s the solution at this point?

Howard Farran: I think the solution is … my favorite song by Michael Jackson is the man in the mirror. I think that the deal is that … the neuroanatomist say is, we don’t see any evidence between the so called genius and this dumb guy. I mean, when we look at ants, and termites, and dolphins, and humans, and chimps, it looks like everybody has the same wiring. So you say that girl over there playing the violin as a musical genius. I see a girl that played violin four hours a day since age five. And so if you’re 10 or 15 years out and you know how to sink an implant bone graph, do Invisalign, and now you’re in sleep medicine and you don’t know what … that when you do an mod composite for $250 if you don’t know if you made $29 after taxes or lost 13 bucks, you don’t have any interest in it.
And at some point in your time like I … if you don’t have any interest then we need to find someone. I think the best consultants aren’t were the ones that come into your office and put up program, I think the best consultant is someone that keeps you accountable every day. Kind of like a personal trainer. You know how to do push ups and sit ups and jumping jacks. But I have a say trainer show up at my house every day at 5:00 AM because I know I’m not going to get my fat, lazy old butt out of bed unless she’s banging on the door. And so maybe it’s your spouse.
I know Dentists where it’s his spouse’s sister. The most rocking, crushing … the guy I know in Phoenix with nine offices .. it’s a lady over the phone in Michigan, and they Skype and do it on the phone, but you if this is not an interest to you … like for me, I was 50 years old and I realized, you know what? I didn’t work out the first half century. I don’t think I’ll work out the last half century. I got me a personal trainer. If this is not your deal, I wouldn’t be looking for a consultant, to do a program. I’d be looking for someone who’s going to be on your speed dial keeping you accountable every day.

Reese Harper: I think a lot of times the solution that a dentist wants is a hundred thousand dollar course that solves everything over a one month period of time, or a $40,000 month long intensive. When in reality they need to have a drip, drip, drip, drip, kind of approach, right? Where you have someone that’s holding you accountable over a long period of time, not a huge course that solves every problem in 30 days.
You know, because I think that’s where you get big consulting contracts that don’t really move the dial for people. And when, when I go to consultants … the average dentist last year, ADA Sussex 2015 pulled in 675,000 bucks and took home 175. You go to all the consultants, and all my friends that are consultants say, okay, give me your numbers of your clients. Their average client does one and a half million dollars a year and takes home 250. And so what we see is that … The dentist, I know that had the most successful practices in the world always are using consultants. And then all the people that do $500,000 less, they’ll buy a laser, they’ll buy a cad cam, they’ll buy a CBCT, they’ll go fly across the world to learn how to … canine guidance on occlusion and TMJ and all your other voodoo religious dental concepts.
And then you say, well, why don’t you spend $50,000 on a consultant? Oh, I can do that myself.And it’s like, well, how’s that working for you? I’m looking at your numbers, dude. How’s that working for you? Doesn’t look like it’s working at all, so boys are very susceptible to shiny objects. Consultants need to look like R2D2 and have blinking lights on them.

Howard Farran: And how many businesses in the … in my experience, I’ve hired a fair amount of consultants and it’s helped me make a lot of progress in ways that I wouldn’t have otherwise. And I just … If you look at your collections and as a percentage of those collections, you dedicate some money consistently to improving your practice through getting feedback from third parties that actually can help move the dial, I feel like that’s something that is normal for a lot of industries, but within dentistry it feels like a waste. And I don’t know if that’s because during dental school there wasn’t a lot of mental preparation for that. And when guys go through their MBA they know that McKinsey’s there for a reason.
They know that consulting firms actually move the dial in huge ways. And so they look for those opportunities to bring in intellectual competency and rigor to their practice or their business. But dentists, they look at it as a cost and when their cashflow is tight, that’s the last place they put it. And it pushes them deeper and deeper and deeper into shrinking their margins, and declining collections, and increasing their overhead. And they’re cutting the very thing that can give them access to growth. You know? And it’s a really big challenge, I think.
I mean the greatest companies out there are using McKinsey consultants or Boston Consulting Group. Like oh my God, you’re sitting on billions in cash and, and they’re bringing these consultants. Dentists, they just don’t get it. One of the first things I ever did when I opened up my office, I said, well, I’m 24 years old. I don’t know nothing. So the big names at the time was Sally McKinsey out in San Diego. Boom. One of the best decisions I made, I could go on.

Reese Harper: Why do you think that happens thought? Why did most dentists feel even more reticent than other industries, other business owners to bring in help? Right?

Howard Farran: Yeah, I would say it’s to say … I’ll relate it to my personal failures in a dieting exercise. How many people would go on a diet and then six months later, what’s their weight? Same or higher. It’s hard and changing behavior is hard. I’m a dentist, I it. I’d rather pull four wisdom teeth, place an implant or do a root canal, I’d rather do that than golf. I mean, if you told me what’s the most fun thing you could think of or here’s four of the worst impacted [inaudible 00:22:07] on earth. I really can’t think of really anything I’d rather do. I really can’t. I mean, it just so damn fun. They want to do dentistry. And then you say at the end of the day, well, do you want to see if all the electronic claims went out?
Hell No. Do you want to see what your daily deposit is? No. You want to verify the deposit? No. Do you want to figure out your overhead? No. And that’s what I’m telling my homeys, dude you’re smart. There’s hardly anyone listening to a podcast today that knows the difference between trigonometry and geometry. I mean you’ve got A’s in Calculus, physics, Chem, you know, you’re really smart. So when you don’t know any of this stuff, it couldn’t be that you’re not smart, it’s that you don’t have any interest. So let’s get an office manager. Let’s get your spouse in here. Let’s get your spouses, friend, cousin. Let’s get a consultant on speed dial that says, I’m not looking for a one week program. I’m looking for a long relationship.

Reese Harper: Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s great advice. I think it’s really underappreciated advice too. It can go a long ways. One question I want to ask you about the power of advice in your own life. Okay. one of the things we’re passionate about is how advice can change the trajectory of somebody’s future. Right? A little behavioral change can make the difference over 20 years. Right? How have you seen advice really impact your own life and how has it led you to the place where you’re at with a successful media company, a great practice, a good work life balance. How has advice impacted that for you and what would you be without that? How has it impacted you?

Howard Farran: Well, the bottom line is if you want to change anything really big in your life, you got to change something really small every day. Instead of eating a bowl of ice cream before you go to bed, you got to have I guess a carrot or a radish or I’ve been told. And all my friends, all of my friends, pretty much are dead. All leaders are readers, and you realize that we’re all going to die someday. And the greatest minds in the world all day, all wrote autobiographies and I’ve always devoured a book a week, my entire life, and now the next generation is moving to audio book. Did you see on Amazon they now sell more audio book than print book?

Reese Harper: Yeah it’s amazing.

Howard Farran: Because the the next generation says, well, I’m not going to be like Grandpa’s sitting in that chair reading that book. I’d rather, I’d rather be listening on my headphones while I’m doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning my car, on the treadmill-

Reese Harper: Going on a run.

Howard Farran: They’re probably most likely, listening to us. All my data on podcasts, only 5% of Americans have done a podcast and 85% of them are doing it on their commute to work. And then the rest is exercise and home cleaning. And so I would just keep listening to other monkeys. You know, when you talk, you’re telling people what you know. You have to shut up and listen. And in a book, you know the book, you can’t talk to the book, you can’t talk to the podcast. So podcasts and books are when you got to shut up. There’s no monkey sitting in front of you because when a monkey’s sitting in front of you, you just want to talk and share because we’re monkeys.
We like to be monkeys together and podcasts and books … and select your information carefully. I always preferred autobiographies instead of biographies. I don’t want to know what some librarian thought …

Reese Harper: Thought about someone else.

Howard Farran: Of Rockefeller because you know she’s not going to like him cause he made 1.8% of the American GDP. I want to know his thoughts. I want autobiographies and it’s success in anything. It could be sports autobiographies. I’ve learned just as much about success in sports autobiographies. Mick Jagger’s book, Keith Richard’s book, if you like music, I love all the fortune 500 CEO books. Andy Grove, Only The Paranoid Survive, Bill Gates road less traveled. I mean just read them all. And I think I’ve stolen most of my ideas from the extremist, the ones that made it all the way to the fortune 500 or billionaires.
And you’re listening to this billionaire and they’re just telling you these simple concepts and then you apply that to just a little bitty old dental office.

Reese Harper: But they executed it really well day by day. You know, in small … like you said, the biggest things in life are accomplished by changing really small things every day. I think that’s really good insight, man. Well, as we kind of wrap up here, what kind of parting thoughts would you have for all of your listeners man? You’ve got a huge audience out there all over the world. What would you like them to know about Howard Farran?

Howard Farran: Howard Farran just says at the end of the day, you’re going to die and until then I just want you to be happy and healthy. I don’t care what you’re doing. We’ve gone from 225 to 175. Dude, they average American makes 19,000 a year. That’s 10.50 hour. So you’re making more than the next nine people down the street. Median household income is $48,000 so 175 you’re making what everybody in the next three and a half houses are making, so you know, none of this … it’s all a joke. I want you to be happy and healthy.
18% of our homies end up in the Betty Ford Center and Rehab. Divorced, one third of it’s over money, one third of it’s over substance abuse. The substance abuse is probably tied to the stress. I just want them to be happy and healthy. We were talking earlier like I’m on your show, I don’t think that a dentist listens to one podcast any more than he follows one person on Twitter. You know? I think it’s just insane when I’ll talk to another dentist and I’ll say, hey, you want to be on my show?
Oh, I’m with another dental magazine. Like I’ve ever met a dentist who reads one dental magazine. And I’ll end it with this. I’ll end it with this. When I opened up my office in Phoenix in ’87 I was so excited I was a dentist, and there were all these other dentist across the street. I just ran over there like these are going to be my homeys, my buddies for life and half of them slam the door because I was a competitor and they didn’t want a dentist on the corner, and they thought in fear and scarcity. The other half are like, oh my God, come in and let’s go to the bar and have a beer and watch the game. 30 years later, guess who had the celebrated careers, happiness, live with passion and purpose, and had a ball, and made bank? And guess who in my opinion had dreary, miserable, lonely lives?
And so at the end of the day, I just want you to be happy and healthy. I don’t care what magazine you read, I don’t care what podcast you read. I’m the only idiot in America that gives out their card at the dental convention that’s got their email, howard@dentaltown.com. I’m the only one who gets that, I answer every one of my emails, so just be happy and healthy. Just have fun. If buying a laser are a CEREC machine means you’re going to run 20 red lights on the way to work, God dang it, you got to buy it today.
I mean more toys in the sandbox, more toys in the bathtub, just be happy and healthy. But if you’re not happy and you’re not healthy, and you’re stressed, dude, let’s talk and let’s make some damn decisions. Just like when you go in there to pull out that wisdom tooth, there’s no dinking around. You’re not playing around with the tonsils. This tooth has got to go, and I’ll get all four year whizzies out in under five minutes. So you got a problem, come on dude, man up, let’s buck up, let’s get her done, let’s fix it.

Reese Harper: Well Howard, it’s been a pleasure, man. You’ve done a lot of good work in the dental community, you got a huge heart, and I know you’ve made a big impact, so we appreciate you coming on the show and making a difference, man.

Howard Farran: Hey, same back at you and a big shout out to Doug Carlson, your buddy. Another bald legend in dentistry.

Reese Harper: Yeah man he is a legend. Love the guy. All right, you heard on The Dentist Money Show, have a great night and we appreciate Howard coming on. We’ll talk to you again soon Howard.

Howard Farran: All right, thanks buddy.

Practice Management