Special List #28: Why You Need to Make Yourself Irrelevant Before You Exit with Dr. Bob Margeas

Dr. Margeas (00:00):
You know how they have all the files from patients who were dead? They call them dead files and he'd go, "See these patients? See these dead files?" He goes, "Yeah." He goes, "You think all those patients are dead? They're not dead. They don't like you and they left your practice for a reason." He was absolutely right. They're not dead files.

Dr. Souyias (00:19):
Thanks for listening to The Special Lists presented by Referral Lab, the podcast for dentists and dental specialists.

Cameron Full (00:28):
And welcome to another episode of The Special Lists. I'm Cameron Full with my co-hosts, Seda.

Dr. Seda (00:34):
And we're back.

Cameron Full (00:36):
And Jason Souyias.

Dr. Souyias (00:37):
Good evening. Thanks for having me guys. Love this.

Cameron Full (00:40):
And tonight we welcome a close dear friend of mine, Dr. Bob Margeas. I'm sure we're going to get into some of our fun stories, but Bob and I've known each other for about a decade or so, a little bit longer than that. And we were supposed to have Bob on actually a few months ago, but Bob is an opportunist and flew to Japan instead. And so Bob is obviously a dentist, private practice editor in chief inside dentistry. I'm not sure why you have a Michigan shirt on though Bob.

Dr. Margeas (01:12):
Dude, I live in Michigan. I'm in Iowa three days and I'm in Michigan 11, Iowa three days, Michigan 11. I'm a Michigander.

Cameron Full (01:20):
Okay.

Dr. Seda (01:21):
What are you trying to do, Dr. Bob? We're backed by Ohio State alumni here.

Dr. Margeas (01:26):
I know.

Dr. Souyias (01:28):
I know. I'm always outnumbered. It's nice to not be outnumbered, Bob.

Cameron Full (01:31):
The next thing on Bob's bio is adjunct professor at University of Iowa. He's a wonderful practice owner. We'll talk about that. Obviously a lecturer. A lot of our listeners are basically going to know who Bob is. He wants to talk about private practice. He wants to talk about being fired a couple times. He wants to talk about being an associate. He wants to talk about buying a private practice and merging his into it while building a building and also a teaching center. Bob, should we tell 30 seconds of how we met? Should we just do that?

Dr. Margeas (02:06):
For sure.

Dr. Souyias (02:07):
Great story. I love this story.

Cameron Full (02:09):
I've got to give credit. The reason I'm here today in this space -

Dr. Souyias (02:13):
In dentistry.

Cameron Full (02:14):
Is because of Bob in dentistry. And so without all the details, what happened was is Bob was doing some composite on a buddy and I was getting ready to drive back to Iowa for some doctoral work and the guy wouldn't pick his phone up. So finally he picked the phone up and Bob answers it, not my boy. And I start cussing at him because I'm trying to get on the road and Bob's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who is this?" So Bob and I chatted for a couple seconds. Turns out Bob recognized my name. And so my grandfather actually taught Bob in dental school and I was leaving. I was actually leaving early to get back to have. And my grandfather at the time was suffering from dementia.

(02:55):
And I left early every Wednesday to come back to Iowa to have a chocolate peanut butter milkshake with my grandfather before class. And so Bob and I ended up chatting. Dave ended up getting fired up at that point because Bob wasn't taking care of his mouth anymore. We were just talking and Bob's like, "We got to work together." And so that's about 10 or 11 years ago. The next three years of me driving back and forth from Iowa to Chicago while I was getting my doctorate, Bob and I talked on the phone three or four times a week at 12, one o'clock in the morning because he's alone in Iowa and I'm driving on the interstate and we had these crazy conversations at 12, one o'clock in the morning. So I've got a lot of love for Bob. I'm super happy to have you here.

Dr. Margeas (03:37):
Hey, first off, let me tell you, you've earned everything you've gotten. I didn't do one thing. I was your very first client. I know that for a fact when it comes to dentistry, but then I was able to get you a few more and Ritter's done a hell of a job for you and then Stoner and this and that. But I will say this, if you didn't perform, you wouldn't be where you are.

Cameron Full (04:04):
You want to cut my balls off, Bob? I know how you Greek, and then I married a Greek and then you're stuck with me now.

Dr. Margeas (04:12):
Hey, but you guys, listen to this. So he says, "Well, what about your website?" I said, "Website? I don't have a website."

Cameron Full (04:19):
I was talking so much shit to him.

Dr. Margeas (04:22):
I didn't have a website. And my associate goes, "We need a website. What do we need a website for?" And so we get a website and I promise you this, I would call Ritter and I'd say, "Hey Google, who has the best veneers in Des Moines?"

Dr. Souyias (04:37):
Oh my God, I remember those phone calls.

Dr. Margeas (04:38):
He was doing those voice searches and for everything it was Dr. Bob Margeas, Dr. Bob Margeas. And he was just harassing Ritter.

(04:49):
And this was only after about a month or two of you taking over my SEO search engine. And I go, "What's SEO?" And you go, "Search engine optimization." But it was great. And now -

Cameron Full (05:02):
You hired me purely because I was Clem's grandson. That's the only reason.

Dr. Margeas (05:07):
Hey, you guys would have loved his grandfather. He was a player's coach. I mean, he was so cool when it came to dentistry and learning as a pediatric dentist. Put it this way, he wouldn't be politically correct today, not even close.

Cameron Full (05:27):
He would have been fired in today's climate.

Dr. Margeas (05:29):
That's exactly right. But I'm very happy for all your guys' success and I always love to see my friends do very, very well and you've just exceeded my own expectations. So congrats.

Cameron Full (05:44):
Well, it's credit where credit's due. Thank you so much. And Bob's got some interesting stuff to talk about. He sold his practice, but not in a traditional way. Is that the right way of saying it, Bob?

Dr. Margeas (05:59):
Well, you know what? I didn't sell it. I merged it.

Cameron Full (06:03):
Okay.

Dr. Margeas (06:04):
I merged it, but I sold 20% to my associate. And the reason why was these DSOs come to you and DSOs, there's nothing wrong with the DSO. It just depends how long you need to stay. If you got to stay five years and lose all your profit, it's not that great of a deal because you're going to be working hard and when you lose that profit. So I got 10 offers and what I did is I went to my associate and said, "Hey, I'll sell you 20% and I'll show you how the profit of Iowa Dental Group is going to service your debt." So from day one, the money that he borrowed to pay me from the bank, he's been servicing the debt and putting extra money in the account after doing that. And so when people say, "What's the practice worth?" Well, practice is worth the cash flow.

(06:53):
And so if the listeners are wanting to know how do you value a practice, you pretend like everybody in the office gets 35% of their collections. So we went back, we got 35% of our collections and how much money was left over every month or every quarter to service the debt. And if that profit can service the debt, then that's what the practice is worth. But if I took all the money and there was no profit left over, then the practice isn't worth anything. But I showed him as we went back three years of profit of Iowa Dental Group, it serviced the debt easily. Now, if I don't work, it makes it harder to service the debt, but I didn't do that. I brought his brother on. I went down now to six days a month and brought his brother in. His brother's picking up my lost production.

(07:44):
So the bottom line is not affected. The production's still the same. I'm making less on my own personal production because I'm not producing as much, but I'm still getting 80% of the profit and that's all I care about.

Cameron Full (07:55):
Yeah. How long had you been prepping to work with these two brothers? Because that's a secret. You have the gift of, you're a charismatic guy, Bob, that people like, and it's a gift. It's a gift. It's the Iowan in you. And so with that, you identified these guys and you led them the right way, but for a while. I mean, how old was Nick when you started thinking he was the guy?

Dr. Margeas (08:30):
Well, he was a freshman in dental school. Think about this. I had been practicing 35 years or so, 33, 34, and Nick and his brother were both patients of mine since the time they were little, three years old. They're now like 31 and maybe 26. And people say you're crazy because I have a high end restorative practice, but I knew that if I didn't do something and make myself irrelevant in my practice, my practice wasn't worth anything because everybody says, "You are Iowa Dental Group and you're the one that's doing all the production." Well, I'm here to tell you that I hired Nick and Pete, his brother, based strictly on their personalities. I had no idea what their clinical skills were. I asked Vargas about it and Vargas said they were sound, solid students. But I really believe dentistry comes down to relationships, communication, because listen, Souyias could have the best hands, but if he can't get the patients to accept the treatment, how good is your talent?

(09:33):
So if you can hire somebody that can talk and communicate and get stuff done, I can teach them the dentistry. So I knew that if I didn't start now, I'm 65, if I didn't start back then, my practice was worthless because people are going to say, "You need to stay where the practice isn't going to go." So what I decided to do was make myself irrelevant. How? Taking more time off. So instead of going three days a week, I was going three days every two weeks. And so some patients would get upset about it and where are you? I said, "Listen, I'm older. I'm still going to work. I'm going to do the tougher cases, but you can either see Nick or Pete, or you can wait for me or you can go to another dentist." And that was honestly the truth. I said, "Listen, I can't see everybody." And some patients are upset about it, but you know what? Making yourself irrelevant is the most important thing.

Dr. Souyias (10:26):
You did that. You made yourself irrelevant in your practice when you were ready to start transitioning.

Dr. Margeas (10:33):
Yes.

Dr. Souyias (10:34):
Yes.

Dr. Margeas (10:35):
I didn't wait until I was ready to quit. I was trying to make myself irrelevant over the last five, six years. So when Nick was coming in, Nick, I could give him patience. I remember when Nick got out of dental school, the problem with dental school today is you don't have the time to really get good at your skills because you're having to learn printing, you're having to learn digital, you have to learn scanning. And so he did eight crown preps his whole senior year in dental school. He did eight his first week in my practice. So you have to start earlier. You can't wait until you're ready to hang it up and you got to be able to give up your patients. You got to be able to give up stuff so that they can get good at it. Yeah.

Dr. Souyias (11:22):
But you didn't do it when you were ready to hang it up, right? It's like when you're ready to start making that move.

Dr. Margeas (11:29):
Correct. And anybody who wants to do that knows that it's going to take a while to get their speed up. If I waited till I'm 65 and say, "Oh, I'm going to sell my practice." Well, then if I have to stay another five years, I'm 70. I don't want to do that. Now to me, time is worth more than money to me because I want to be able to enjoy the money that I made.

Dr. Seda (11:54):
Dr. Bob, did you interview many people as you were trying to find the right fit for the people to come in?

Dr. Margeas (12:01):
You know what? I had a great associate at the time and he was with me for 10 years and he came in one day and said, "Hey, I'm leaving for Aspen." I mean, I was devastated because I thought this guy -

Cameron Full (12:14):
I remember all this.

Dr. Seda (12:16):
Not for vacation to live.

Cameron Full (12:17):
Where was I at? Where was I at when. Oh my God. I'm sorry.

Dr. Margeas (12:22):
I called you. I was distraught. Listen to me. I was distraught. He goes, "I'm leaving for Aspen." I said, "Colorado?" He goes, "No, dental." I said, "Come on, you're not going to Aspen Dental." He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Why would you go to Aspen Dental? You work four days a week. You make a few hundred thousand dollars. You don't take call, no weekends." And I said, well, he goes, "They're going to give me 30% of the profit at the end of the month and they're guaranteeing me a certain amount." And I said, "Well, they're not going to have any profit because they're going to make sure they get rid of all the profit at the end of the month." And I said, "Let me see if I can sweeten the pot for you." So he was a 1099 employee. I said, "Let me tell you what, I'll make you an employee. I'll put you on the 401k.

(13:13):
I'll do this." I really tried to sweeten the pot because here I'm coming to Michigan every other week at the time and it was like, "Man, if I lose this guy, I'm going to have to stay and work." Well, he ended up leaving. And so before he left, I had a couple interviews and I said to him, I said, "Hey, take this dentist into the lab and tell her how I treated you at Iowa Dental Groups. Say whatever you want." I mean, I treated him super good. And let me tell you what, he's a great dentist. He's a very, very. And a great guy too. But the problem was he made a bad mistake from leaving the office. So I hired this other dentist. Well, the other dentist was great. And about two weeks later, I get a call fm says, "Hey, can I have my job back?" No. I said, "Unfortunately it didn't work out and I was done." So that's how it all happened. Yeah.

Cameron Full (14:10):
I'm trying to remember. I was standing outside of a cabin somewhere and you were just fired up.

Dr. Margeas (14:19):
I was more devastated than anything because -

Cameron Full (14:22):
It didn't make sense. Right.

Dr. Margeas (14:24):
Didn't make sense and it ruined my lifestyle because he was a good dentist, ran the practice. So after I hired this dentist for six months, she was going on maternity leave and she came back and I had hired Nick because I had told her, I said, "Listen, I have a dentist that I'm hiring right out of school and he's going to be in the office too." And he came in, she ended up having a child and it worked out that he just stayed and she left. And then for two or three years, he and I ran the practice and then his brother was graduating from dental school and I sai, "I'm going to hire your brother now too."

Cameron Full (15:06):
Greek, by the way. It's the mafia. I swear to God.

Dr. Margeas (15:10):
It's the Greek mafia.

Cameron Full (15:10):
I swear to God.

Dr. Margeas (15:11):
You met Nick down in Arizona.

Cameron Full (15:15):
Yes, I did.

Dr. Margeas (15:16):
Study club symposium his first six months out of dental school. I mean, he didn't know shit.

Dr. Souyias (15:22):
Fabulous guy though. You could tell, I mean, like you said, communication and so he was awesome. What a great personality.

Cameron Full (15:29):
How come Souyias, you don't hire any Greeks and Picos doesn't hire any Greeks, but Martgeas hired all the Greeks.

Dr. Souyias (15:34):
Because there's no Greeks in Port Huron besides Bob and I.

Dr. Margeas (15:41):
It's true. There aren't any other Greeks. Maybe a couple. Mikalakis, I think. He's about the whole other one. But that's how it all happened. Cam, when you said at the beginning, you said, "Did I sell?" No, I didn't sell, but what I did do is I merged my practice with four other practices. Now think about this. Iowa Dental Group, Ankeny Dental, Spirit Lake, Pedo Practices, and we hired a CEO and that CEO was the CEO of, it's called Videnta. Videnta is a holding company. Now what Videnta's job is to do is for us to go out and look at practices and, "Hey, Souyias wants to sell." Well, Souyias doesn't have to sell to a DSO. He can sell part of it to us. We're the DSO. We'll go out and borrow the money and we'll buy part of your practice. And after three years, we'll buy the remainder of your practice.

(16:35):
We'll bring in an associate for you and then we'll fund it. So let's say we pay 50% to buy Jason's office. We service the debt and now we have a thousand dollars of profit left over for the month. Well, depending how big your practice was into Videnta, you get a percentage of that thousand dollars. And really the only reason why I did it was Videnta is obligated. Let's say Nick doesn't want to buy any more of my practice. Videnta's obligated to buy my practice at the value of what it's worth at the time I'm ready to sell. So right now that Videnta, because I didn't want to sell to a DSO, so Videnta now, if my EBITDA is -

Cameron Full (17:21):
Well, you can still exit. You can still exit.

Dr. Margeas (17:22):
I can still exit, but it's better for Nick to buy it because what's happened, Nick and Pete have actually raised the EBITDA. So my practice value every year is valued by Videnta. Well, they valued the practice like $500,000 more than what it was before. But I said to Nick, I said, Nick, I'm keeping the value at what we agreed on. So anything you raise when you go buy the next 20%, it's that much easier to service the debt. And so it keeps them motivated. But if Nick wants to buy another 20% and I still own 60 and I want out, Videnta will buy the 60%. And then if Nick ever wants to buy. Nick's the only one that could buy Iowa Dental Group back, but now he's got to buy the shares from Videnta at the value of what Videnta owns it at. So it could be higher than what he paid originally.

Dr. Souyias (18:20):
That's a really creative structure. Who were the creators of this Videnta?

Cameron Full (18:25):
Or just some Greeks.

Dr. Margeas (18:27):
No, it was actually -

Dr. Seda (18:28):
The same people that invented Windex

Cameron Full (18:33):
And velcro.

Dr. Margeas (18:36):
It was actually a guy named Scott Yage. He had come to me and says, "Hey, we both have similar practices." We had to merge our practices together. And one of the beauties of it is the CEO that we hired was the CEO of a big eye surgeon group. And we hired him, we set up all the parameters, and now we pay his salary. So I mean, it's not a piddly salary. These five practices are paying upwards of 300,000 for the CEO to go out and acquire other practices. Now, if you buy a bad practice, we're responsible for it. So we really vet those. So in the three or four years that we've done this and we wanted to have a bunch of practices, we've really only merged like six practices. We only bought 20% of one practice, but we haven't found any that are really as run efficiently as we are. We're very particular.

Dr. Souyias (19:32):
That's great.

Dr. Margeas (19:33):
It was an exit strategy for me to not have to sell to a DSO. If a DSO says, "Hey, here's $5 million and you can walk," that's one thing, then that's a great deal. But if you have to stay five years, you just lost $4 million.

Dr. Seda (19:49):
Yeah. It's one thing to finish, exit and leave, but if you could practice dentistry a couple days a week just doing the things you love to do, would you just do it indefinitely?

Dr. Margeas (20:04):
100%. 100%. I'm only going to three days a month starting in October. I'm going three days a month. I'm going to be going down to Florida.

Dr. Seda (20:14):
And as we talk about what we're talking about, it's one thing to be financially secure and have your family and yourself taken care of. But it's another thing that I think about often, and that is, even though it's hard at the office most days, because we're giving the best of ourselves every minute of the day to 20 new people in addition to the 20 team members that we're managing. And it's hard, but it's also very gratifying. And the older I get, the more experience I have with it, the more I realize how much purpose there is behind it. And to all of a sudden just turn that off one day, it would be a very, very difficult thing. And I know a lot of people lose their sense of purpose and direction when they do that. And so I think about maybe in the coming years when I see myself kind of riding into the sunset, it probably will be some version of, if I can do this one day a week, couple days a month, whatever it is, and it sounds like you're on that trajectory, right?

(21:16):
What would you say the key principles are to set up a situation like that for someone that's kind of a couple decades before?

Dr. Margeas (21:25):
Yeah. I think it's a great question. And beings that I'm doing my normal schedule today in August is three days on, 11 days off, three days on, 11 days. So six days a month I'm giving them. But starting in October, like I said, I'm only going to three days. So if you're thinking about slowing down, you got to have your associates in place. You can't do it right away. You want to do it two, three years out so that you can get that exit straight and you can introduce those patients to your new people. And let me tell you, I had a patient, I was walking out of the parking lot today and she stopped me and she goes, "Oh, I'm so happy Pete did these two lower teeth for me. I've had these teeth done three times and these have been so beautiful and it's worked.

(22:18):
I just paid my bill and blah, blah, blah." And it's very gratifying, but you can't do it, just wake up and turn the clock on and say, "Hey, I'm going to sell my problem. I'm only going to three days a month." You got to wait and do it years ahead. Now to me, when you get to be. I've been practicing 40 years. I'm on my 41st year. And so for me, I still get great enjoyment out of it. I want to do the case I want to do, but now it's more about time. I mean, when they say from 60 to 70, you got about 12 good years when you're 60. And I think to myself, I'm not thinking about making more money. I want to make more money, but I want to live. I mean, I want to spend my money. I don't want to just die with a bunch of money.

Cameron Full (23:05):
Fortune favors the patient. I remember early conversations with you, this was a plan you started 10 years ago.

Dr. Margeas (23:12):
Yep. It was. And you know what you and I talked about. We thought about a DSO and I talked to your buddy in Chicago and you and I after talking said, "Listen, if you can get Nick to buy it, the problem is how many associates can buy what a DSO is offering you?" That's the hard part. They can't. But if you sell a little piece of it and then you have a Videnta that is willing -

Cameron Full (23:36):
Backstop. It's a backstop.

Dr. Margeas (23:37):
Yeah. And there's other ones. There's companies up there, I think Whitney Winer, she does something like where they merge practices and then they give you like 50% of the value and then you put it into their DSO. The problem that I see with the DSOs today is the recap. They're not recapping like they were because the interest rates are so high. So you're betting on the extra money that you've invested in those DSOs because not very many. I think MB2 recapped a few years ago, but not many more.

Cameron Full (24:09):
You're telling me I got to wait longer for that chair.

Dr. Margeas (24:11):
No, you can see it in the background back there.

Cameron Full (24:16):
I was wondering.

Dr. Margeas (24:17):
Background.

Cameron Full (24:19):
So I've got a name. My name's on the bottom of that sticky note on that Eames chair. And the second he stops going back to Des Moines, I get that chair.

Dr. Seda (24:29):
Is it really there?

Cameron Full (24:30):
It's a real chair.

Dr. Seda (24:32):
It's really under there.That's hilarious. You got to take a picture of that and send it. That's hilarious.

Dr. Margeas (24:38):
Hey, it's really over there. And it's one of the ones that -

Dr. Souyias (24:41):
It's the real one.

Dr. Margeas (24:42):
Has like rosewood. It's like they don't even make them. I've had it since 1994.

Cameron Full (24:47):
I said, Bob, that chair is in the will for me. Yes.

Dr. Margeas (24:55):
Why not? That deal will come and all of a sudden somebody's got a knock on your door with a big old box and they're going to say, "What the hell is this?"

Cameron Full (25:04):
It's going to be a chair and a picture of you in a picture frame going like this.

Dr. Margeas (25:11):
Life is good. Life is good.

Cameron Full (25:14):
How'd you get fired from your first two jobs?

Dr. Margeas (25:16):
Hey, my first job, it was at River City Dental Care.

Cameron Full (25:23):
Seriously?

Dr. Margeas (25:24):
I swear to God.

Cameron Full (25:25):
I didn't know this.

Dr. Margeas (25:26):
This is a true story. I was doing my residency, AEGD residency at the University of Iowa, and I would moonlight. At that time, there weren't any rules about working. And so I was moonlighting at River City Dental Care. I was just a recent grad. And River City Dental Care in Iowa City was very unique at the time because it was open seven days a week.

Cameron Full (25:51):
It's still there.

Dr. Margeas (25:52):
It was eight o'clock to nine o'clock Monday through Friday, eight to five Saturday, noon to five Sunday.

Dr. Souyias (26:00):
Oh my God.

Dr. Margeas (26:01):
Seven days a week. Now, there was only one dentist, Brad Styles. Great guy. Brad Styles.

Cameron Full (26:09):
And then he broke off and went to Styles and Associates. Yeah.

Dr. Margeas (26:13):
It used to be called Smiles by Styles. So Brad hired me. He was such a great guy. So I was working and there was this cheerleader that I was going out with, and she was coming in the next day and he said, "Listen, I see she's on the schedule. Don't give her a discount. Give her a discount. Why not? Don't give her..." So I do the dental work and I gave her a discount. So the next day he comes in, he goes, "Hey, did you give her a discount?" I said, "Yeah, I did." He goes, "Well, you're fired." I go, "What? You fired me?" And he literally fired me. He fired me over that because it was probably time for me to go because at that time, think about this because we worked every other weekend, 12 days on, two days off, 12 days on, two days off, and you split the hours.

(27:12):
So you might work two and the other one comes in and works two to nine. And this was every day. This was like 12 days in a row.

Cameron Full (27:20):
Let's be honest.

Dr. Margeas (27:21):
Dentistry is.

Cameron Full (27:22):
Let's be honest. You were doing cost benefit analysis of keeping the cheerleader. I would cheerleader as a girlfriend.

Dr. Souyias (27:31):
He's like, "That firing was kind of worth it."

Dr. Margeas (27:36):
So I got fired. Styles. So then I moved to Des Moines. I moved to Des Moines and I start work on the Skywalk Dental office. It's called Skywalk Dental.

Cameron Full (27:52):
Yeah, I don't know that one.

Dr. Margeas (27:53):
And so I was working for a guy, great guy, great dentist. And I remember I was -

Cameron Full (28:00):
You were dating a Drake cheerleader.

Dr. Margeas (28:02):
No, I wasn't dating anybody, but I remember this so vividly, and I took out the ledger that I saved for the last 40 years. He goes, "How much money do you need to live on?" Well, at that time, I was renting an apartment and I had some student loans and stuff. I needed $2,100 a month. Now listen to this, $2,100 a month. So I got paid 1,050 every two weeks. I got 1,052. Oh my God. At that time, I got 30% of my collections and I paid 30% of the lab bill. So after one year, he goes, "This isn't working out." He says, "Your job is to sell dentistry and not be friendly with your patients. I hear you talking to them. You walk them out to the waiting room. That's not the way you do it. You need to sell the dentistry." I said, "Well, that's just not me." And so he fired me.

(29:03):
And when I left him, think about this, he says to me, "You're going to have a very difficult time making it work in the dental world." So when I left him, serious, when I left him, I was paid 1,050 every two weeks or 2,100 a month. That's about 25 grand. When I left him, I owed him three grand because I took a draw against future earnings.

Dr. Souyias (29:31):
Oh no.

Dr. Margeas (29:32):
But let me tell you one other thing. So he says, "You're going to have a hard time making it in dentistry and this and that." Well, fast forward maybe 10 to 12 years. This was probably my greatest FU. I'm sitting at the Coy Center. They have their annual symposium. Well, the annual symposium is only for people who have taken all 10 of John's courses. Well, I had gone through maybe seven of them. This guy had gone through all 10. There was two other, Dennis and Dwayne had gone through all 10. So they're at the symposium. Well, I'm sitting at the symposium and I see him about 10 rows up. He didn't see me. He's about 10 rows up and I hadn't seen him in Des Moines for all that time. And all of a sudden John Cois says, "Now I would like to introduce our composite and adhesive scientific advisor from Des Moines, Iowa, Robert Marges." So all of a sudden he turns around and it was like dumbfounded.

Dr. Souyias (30:44):
That's awesome. I love that story.

Dr. Margeas (30:46):
He was so good. So at the break, I'm sitting here talking to guys like this. He comes up to me and he puts his arm around me and he goes, "You guys, you know Dr. Marges, he was my first associate." And I go, I look at him and I said, "You're right. And I remember I was taking a draw of 1,050 every two weeks. And when I left you, I owed you three grand and I paid you every penny back." And the people were like, "Ooh."

Cameron Full (31:22):
I hope you're on a hot mic when you're doing that.

Dr. Margeas (31:26):
It was like he was trying to make it sound like, wow, I was his hot associate when in fact I got fired. He fired me. He didn't renew my contract.

Dr. Souyias (31:37):
Oh my gosh, that's a great story.

Dr. Margeas (31:40):
Then I went to another office and he was great from about 89 to 2001. And I wanted to buy his practice. He had a great practice. I wanted to buy it. He was 75 and he said, "You know what? I don't really want to sell you my practice. I still want to work. I'm not going to sell it. I want to work." I said, "Okay." So there was a dentist in town, a Greek guy, Paul Polydorin. Great guy, really great guy. And he always wanted me in his practice. When I was a preceptor as a student, I would watch him and I was in awe. He was placing implants from the 70s and these were blades at the time. Then he started placing root form, this and that. He goes, "I want to sell you my practice. I want to buy your practice." I said, "Okay." And then I went in there, I said, "Well, the parking lot is kind of old and the equipment's old and this and that."

Cameron Full (32:30):
You were Greeking him.

Dr. Margeas (32:32):
And he says to me, "You can buy new equipment. You can fix the parking lot, but you can't have the patients I have, the governors, the politicians and the wealthy people in town." He goes, "You want my patients." And he was so right. He goes, "You want my patients to work on." So here's what happens. I decide, I don't know, maybe I'll buy it. I was getting fed up with the other guy because he didn't want to send me his practice. Well, I had three really big cases to do. So I called Paul up. I said, "Hey, Paul, can I use your practice on a Friday? Because I got these three cases and I want to keep all the money myself." And he goes, "No." He says, "You can't use my house on Friday, but you can buy it." So I had the practice evaluated.

(33:23):
I had it evaluated and we end up going to the Coney Island restaurant in Des Moines by these Greeks that owned it. We're sitting in a booth, no lawyers. And he says, "Well, do you want to buy my price?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "But I don't know. I kind of feel bad about this because I don't want to offer you what you want. I had it appraised and we're $100,000 apart." And he goes, "Well, make me an offer." I said, "I'm going to make you the offer that the guy told me to." And he goes, "No, I can't accept that, but I'll take an additional 50 off too." I said, "Wait a minute. I'm offering you a hundred grand less and you're going to take an additional 50 on top of the hundred?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Well, why the hell would you do that?" He goes, "I've been practicing 40 years.

(34:14):
I don't want to walk into the grocery store that I've been going to and know that I've sold my practice to a schmuck." Exactly what he said. So he sold it to me at a discount and he was the best mentor anybody could have. I mean, I'm not kidding.

Cameron Full (34:31):
That leads us into one of your bullet points on your list. Mentorship.

Dr. Margeas (34:36):
Yes.

Cameron Full (34:37):
He did that purposefully, Seds.

Dr. Seda (34:41):
You're smooth, Dr. Margeas. You're smooth.

Dr. Souyias (34:45):
Bob is smooth.

Dr. Margeas (34:45):
Let me tell you, mentorship. This guy was the best mentor anybody could have. Why? Here he is selling me the practice for 150 less than what he wanted. But then when I came in with him, I remember the first thing he said to me, he goes, "You're a cooker." He goes, "You're a cooker." Because the first month we had, I go in there and I say to the hygienist, "We take Delta Dental." I said, "You're taking an hour for a prophy. You can't do that anymore. Instead of seeing eight patients a day, you got to see 10." And they're like, "Well, we can't do 10." I said, "Well, it doesn't justify the fee because we take Delta and we have to write that off. So you're going to have to do it." So I hired another hygienist. I had the hygiene going. I had him going. We had a record month.

(35:33):
This guy goes and says, "We got to move out of this office." It was four operatories, one for me, one for him and two for hygiene. And if you had to take a panel, the panel was in the private office. So you have to leave the private office, take the panel. And then if he's developing it in the dark room, you got to leave the dark room because the phone's in the dark. So we left, I think it was 1,100 square feet and $1,000 a month rent to a freestanding building that he designed for me. He literally designed it for me, cost me about a million five for the building and the office. And he said, "With the production and stuff we're doing, it's going to be easy for you to service this debt for the building and the practice." And he was right. I was very, very apprehensive and nervous because it was a big amount of money for me, but I knew if we could continue doing what we were doing, I'd be able to service the debt.

(36:32):
The other thing is we put an elevator in this building. I said, "Why the hell do I need an elevator?" He goes, "Listen, if you put it in now, it's a lot less and one day you're going to thank me." Well, for the first 20 years of the practice, I didn't use the elevator hardly at all, but now I have a operatory in the lower level. And because the seven operatories upstairs are for Nick and Pete and the hygienist, now I need an elevator for my patients to go down. So every time that elevator goes up and down, I always think about Paul because he was the one who told me -

Dr. Seda (37:08):
Smart move.

Cameron Full (37:10):
He does the celebs. He's not telling the full story. He does the celebs downstairs.

Dr. Margeas (37:18):
And it's so nice because it's quiet there. But as a mentor, he was not only a mentor for dentistry because he learned from LD Pank in 63 and he pushed me in the 80s to do table clinics at the state dental meeting. And I was doing porcelain veneers back in 1986. That was 40 years ago. I did my first veneers in 86 because nobody's doing these. You need to talk about it at the meetings and this and that. So I did a table clinic and I got an honors clinic award and then I started doing some lecturing with Buddy Mopper and Bob Nixon. And Paul was super proud. We went to the Chicago Midwinter from 19. I went from 1986 all the way to 2026. He went from 1961 to 2006. Well, unfortunately, that was his favorite meeting, Chicago midwinter. And he said, "Just remember, we had a teaching center we built in the lower level." And he says, "Listen, always be humble.

(38:20):
If there's any of our colleagues in Des Moines that want you to help them with a case, help them. Don't alienate the other dentists. Don't talk crap about the dentist." And so he told me, he said, one of the things he was most proud of, when we do our hands-on courses in Des Moines, Iowa, and we do composites and porcelain, he did some implant ones. If we had 18 doctors to sign up for the course, 50% of them would be Des Moines dentists. So Des Moines dentists are coming and taking classes from us. That was what he was the most proud of. He was most proud of the fact because sometimes they don't want to show you their work or they're embarrassed or this and that. He was most proud of that more than anything because he said, "You want to be able to help." He says, "If you think you're in competition with anybody," he goes, "He'd take me outside the office.

(39:16):
Look at all these buildings here. Do you think all those patients are your patients?" And then he'd say, we'd go down to the basement and there'd be all of these files. You know how they have all the files from patients who were dead? They call them dead files. And he'd go, "See these patients? See these dead files?" He goes, "Yeah. You think all those patients are dead? They're not dead. They don't like you and they left your practice for a reason." He was absolutely right. They're not dead files. Oh my God. He'd just say, "Take care of your patience and always do the right thing." He says,

(39:54):
"You're single. I was single for 53 years." And he'd say to me, "Listen, people are going to talk about. They're going to say he's this or he's this or he drinks or he's got a girlfriend, he's that." He goes, "I don't care about that." He goes, "I never want to hear somebody say that you're a bad dentist or you rip patients off or this and that." He goes, "Your reputation in the dental community is super important." So he was amazing. He was just amazing. And so when you talk about mentors, I'll give you one last story. This is how cool this guy was. He was just a cool cat. One of the courses we were having was all the Cois mentors from the Cois Center were coming out to take a hands-on composite course from me. And he said, "Man, you got to be on your game.

(40:43):
These guys are the top dentists in the US, blah, blah, blah." And it was going to be a Friday, Saturday. So the Monday before the meeting, I come to work and I go, "Man, are you feeling okay?" I go, "You don't look that great." He goes, "Yeah, I feel fine. No, everything's good. I feel fine." So the Thursday night when all the Cois guys came in and gals, we had a cocktail hour. So we're at the cocktail hour and he's not drinking. And I said, "Hey, you want me to get you a drink?" "No, no, I'm fine. No, I'm good. "We do the course on the Friday and the Saturday. And I said," Hey. "And he goes," Man, what a great job. I'm so proud of you, "this and that. I said," Let's go to the waterfront and celebrate our courses that we did. "He goes," No.

(41:32):
"He goes," Why don't you take Terry Green to the airport and then come back? "So I took Terry Green to the airport and I come back and he sits me down and he goes," I got some bad news. "I said," What's that? "He goes," I got pancreatic cancer. "I go," What? "I mean, I swear to God, I cried like a baby. I literally cried like a baby because here's a guy who didn't want to tell me. He had gotten diagnosed the Friday before. And when he came in on Monday, he looked like shit, but he didn't want to tell me he had it because he didn't want me to ruin the course for the Cois guys. That's the kind of guy he was. I mean, amazing. And so listen, I always have the most respect for him. His name's still on the sign. His name's still on the door.

(42:20):
He did all that stuff for me. And if you have a mentor like that, that believes in you, he's the one that believed him and said, you can do it. You're great. That's how I got my start. And he gave me bad times too. We went to a course in Dubuque, Iowa and the first four hours, it was great. And then he goes, man, only three more hours to go. You're killing it. This is where we're doing slide carousels. About 3:30, I still had an hour to go. At 4:30, I had nothing to do. No more stuff to give. And all the way back home, he says to me, oh my God, you died. You died. He goes, all the people are going to remember how bad you were, how you died. You are not given another eight hour lecture until you can do it.

(43:04):
And let me tell you what, that's what a good mentor does. They don't tell you stuff you want to hear.

Cameron Full (43:13):
Bobby, that's a major reason why you're doing what you're doing with the boys.

Dr. Margeas (43:19):
Oh yeah, for sure. Because he did it for me. I'm paying it forward. And the other thing was, he was so smart when it came to finances. I was 30 years old and he sits me down -

Cameron Full (43:32):
Here comes the next bullet, by the way, guys.

Dr. Margeas (43:34):
Okay, go ahead.

Cameron Full (43:40):
Next bullet. Retire successfully, start earning investing. That's where you were going, right, Bob?

Dr. Margeas (43:46):
Oh, I will. I will say that, but let me tell you what. He sits me down. He goes, why do you act like you. I was 30. He goes, why do you act like you got a lot of money? Because you got a Rolex and a used Mercedes. And he says, "People don't expect you to have anything at 30, but when you're 50 and you don't have a pocket piss in, people will laugh at you." And he was right. I didn't have any money. And in fact, when I built my building, it was a million five. When it came in at appraisal, the equipment was 500, which is fine. The building was a million. It came in appraisal at 800. So now the bank says, "We're not giving you 80% of a million. We're going to give you 80% of 800." So 640,000. I had to come up with the extra money to be able to build the building.

(44:37):
I had to sell stocks that I owned in my retirement. And he made me, he forced me to take a salary for those first 10 years. When I started in 01, and even when he died, I was taking a small salary and taking the money and investing it in a 401, at that time, it was a Kio plan. A Kio plan was 30 grand a year or something like that. And then when you did the 401K and then when I could do a cash balance plan, I was putting tons of money in there. And let me tell you, it's all about time in the market, not timing the market. So I've done that with Pete and Nick. Both Pete and Nick are going to be even further ahead than I am because they have 30, 40 more years.

Dr. Seda (45:25):
Yeah. Great advice.

Dr. Souyias (45:28):
It's amazing what the power of compound interest can do over time, right?

Dr. Margeas (45:33):
Yeah. Oh my gosh. And you know what? If it wasn't for him, there's no way in hell I would have been able to accumulate what I have. Now, that being said, I can't compare myself to somebody who's been married before they were 53.

Cameron Full (45:51):
Bob, again, you're excluding a really important detail here.

Dr. Margeas (45:55):
Yes. What's that.

Cameron Full (45:57):
And that is, how long did you have a black and white television, Bob?

Dr. Margeas (46:01):
Oh.

Cameron Full (46:05):
Got to own that. Bob, you got to own that shit. Own it.

Dr. Margeas (46:08):
Listen, I lived from 1993.

Cameron Full (46:14):
He's skipping out of it right now.

Dr. Margeas (46:16):
I lived in my home from 1993 to 2008. It cost me $106,000. It was a two bedroom round house. It was like 1,500 square feet, one car garage, but it cost me $640 a month for payment. And so for those 15 years from 93 to 2008, I was really concentrating on funding my retirement, not knowing. And what Jason says, all of a sudden it just overnight, it's not the first 30 years, it's the 40 years that it starts really compounding. It doesn't take very long to do it. And so I was fortunate enough to have somebody who had the. Here's what he said to me. He goes, "I wish I had a Polydorn who had their foot up my ass as far as my foot's up your ass." But he gave me all that. And then whenever he'd say something that he had told me and I'd repeat it to him like it was my idea, he'd look up in the ceiling like the speakers, like, "I told you that.

(47:29):
You didn't tell me that. I've already..." He goes, "I wrote the book on this. You're just reading it."

Dr. Souyias (47:37):
Oh, that's awesome.

Dr. Margeas (47:38):
But the power, not only mentorship when it comes to dentistry, when it comes to finances, and then he'd say, "Invest in what you know." He goes, "My broker wants me to invest in China." He goes, "I don't even eat Chinese food." I just remember all his sayings that he had. He says, "Listen, stay the course. Put an S&P 500." He says, "I can't go to parties and talk about these Nvidias and the apples and blah, but I got 8% just steady return." And over time, that's all you really need to do.

Dr. Souyias (48:09):
Yep.

Dr. Seda (48:13):
Well, Dr. Bob, you've said it all.

Cameron Full (48:17):
Wow.

Dr. Seda (48:17):
What can we say?

Dr. Souyias (48:18):
Wait, I don't think he did answer the question. How long did you have a black and white television?

Cameron Full (48:22):
Yeah, he skipped that shit.

Dr. Margeas (48:23):
Well, you know what? I had that for about. It was actually a Sony Trinitron.

Dr. Seda (48:28):
Trinitron.

Dr. Margeas (48:30):
It was a Sony Trinitron. It was not a flat screen. It was a big white. And when Ritter came to the house, he goes, "Rabbit ears, foil?"

Dr. Souyias (48:43):
The people that are under our age don't know what rabbit ears and foil are. They don't, man.

Dr. Margeas (48:49):
It was an antenna. You put the foil on there.

Cameron Full (48:54):
They're like, "Check my P&L."

Dr. Margeas (49:01):
I had ABC, CBS, and NBC knowing SPN. Oh, man. I had that for a long time. I will say this, if Gary Holt from 3M didn't come visit me one time, when he came to my house, this is what forced me to move. He made me feel bad. He goes, "This is your house? You lecture for us, and this is your house?" So about six months later, I bought another house and the rest is history.

Cameron Full (49:38):
And bought an Eames chair.

Dr. Margeas (49:40):
I did. I actually had the EAMS chair when I moved into my house. I couldn't afford it. I remember I paid $2,400 for it at the time, on payments.

Dr. Souyias (49:51):
That was four house payments. Yeah.

Dr. Margeas (49:53):
That was right. That was a lot of money.

Cameron Full (49:55):
I'm going to get this chair. It's going to show up in a box and it's going to show up with a bill.

Dr. Souyias (49:59):
Yeah.

Dr. Margeas (50:02):
2,400. Yeah.

Dr. Souyias (50:05):
This gets to the last point of the story is that rich people get rich by not spending money.

Dr. Margeas (50:13):
That's exactly right. I think Ritter's going to be bummed out that he didn't talk about the P&L. So I told Ritter I was going to behave, so I'm behaving, but I will tell you that, I mean, it's easy to become successful and financially set if you start early. I mean, but if you don't start early, if you wait till you're 50, you got 15 years or 20. It doesn't happen. Because the first 20 years, look at the charts. It goes like this and then it goes. When you have a bunch, you don't have to get a huge return. Your money doubles what? If 10% every 7.2 years, it's easy.

Cameron Full (50:55):
Bob -

Dr. Souyias (50:56):
This was a great episode.

Cameron Full (50:57):
Yeah. Thanks for coming.

Dr. Souyias (50:58):
I always love the episodes where we don't have to talk much. It's wonderful when we have a guest like you, Bob.

Dr. Seda (51:02):
That's how you know when it's good.

Dr. Souyias (51:04):
That's when it's a good episode. You're so good at this.

Cameron Full (51:09):
We'll leave the listeners with this. I was banging on Bob yesterday to fill out this form and he's texting me. He's like, "We're just going to shoot the shit. You know what we're going to talk about." I'm like, "No, man. We got to introduce..." He's like, "I'm not going to fill this form out." He's like,

Dr. Seda (51:25):
"Bro, I got this."

Cameron Full (51:27):
He's like, "I do this shit all the time. I got it."

Dr. Margeas (51:29):
Dude, they don't call me one take Bob for nothing.

Cameron Full (51:38):
Margeas, always good to see you, my friend.

Dr. Souyias (51:40):
Such a great time, man.

Dr. Seda (51:41):
Pleasure, Dr. Bob. Thanks for coming on.

Dr. Margeas (51:43):
Listen, you guys are doing great. I actually went back and listened to a number of them just to kind of get a feel for the vibe. And you know what? All of them are different.

Dr. Souyias (51:55):
They are.

Dr. Margeas (51:56):
Every one of them are different. I listened to Kinzer. I listened to Josh also. I listened to Ritter. I listened to Tracy. I mean, I listened to Iman. I mean, they're super good, man. You guys are doing some great stuff.

Dr. Souyias (52:10):
Thank you.

Dr. Margeas (52:10):
After I blew you off, I'm thinking, what are you guys. Then I felt bad. I couldn't get on for about 10 months. So keep up the good work. A lot of good information. Proud of all you guys.

Dr. Seda (52:26):
Cheers.

Dr. Souyias (52:26):
Thank you.

Cameron Full (52:27):
Thank you.

Dr. Souyias (52:28):
Thanks for listening to The Special Lists presented by Referral Lab, the podcast for dentists and dental specialists, featuring a special list from a specialist. Got a question for us? Send us a message at speciallists.com with two Ls. Transform your referral workflow with Referral Lab, a purpose-built platform for dental specialists to track, manage, and convert every referral. Request a demo at referrallab.io.