Hey, Voices of the Bench community! Eric Neuhaus, Marketing Manager at Ivoclar here. Bring greater efficiency and flexibility to your denture workflow with Ivoclar, Ivoclar's digital denture system. Ivoclar helps labs reduce manual production steps while delivering predictable, high-quality aesthetics. With new shade options available in both Ivoclar Dent Multi and our Ivoclar Monolithic discs, you can broaden your offering and deliver more personalized results. Reach out to your local Ivoclar representative today and discover what I've ocean can do for your lab?
Bar, we're heading back to NOLA Lab Fest.
Again? Come on, who let us back in? Hyperdent that's a pretty bold move on their part.
Very bold I'm not sure how we convince them to sponsor us But either way we'll be recording live from the Hilton New Orleans Riverside October 16th and 17th.
And guys do not forget on Thursday the 15th Jude Grayson is running a half-day workshop for lab owners and department leaders also sponsored by Hyperdent.
Naturally, you know the night kicks off with the distillery Right.
Now you are speaking my language, Elvis.
Easy there, Barb. Easy, slow down. Anyways, I promised Jordan we'd mention hyperdent a thousand times. A thousand? A thousand. Hyperdent. That's five. Hey, it all heads up, man. We'll get there. So if you're coming to LabFest, come hang out with us. We'll be chilling with the best Hyperdent crew, grabbing guests, talking shop, and eating way, way too many beignets.
Yeah. Are you ready to host Lab Family Feud?
I've been shopping for outfits for a couple weeks now.
I know you have, but please don't.
It's too late, Barb. It's already sequenced. It's ready to go.
Of course. I knew you wouldn't disappoint, but what should everybody check out while they're there?
Well, don't forget, Roland DGA will be there too. They're running a CAM trade-in special.
So I can finally retire that old mill in the corner of mine.
No no no no slow down keep the mill trade in your old cam software instead.
And let me guess Aha.
We've said it seven times. It will unlock the true potential of that Roland mill, new or old. You'll see better milling quality, faster milling times, and with the Elevit denture solutions, it'll mill iBotion dentures too.
Now that's a trade-in that I can get behind. And although I guess it's too late, we're already using it at my lab.
Good call.
Registrations open now at nolalabfest.com and spots are are limited.
Hyperdent.
Eight.
992 to go. Let's do it. Hyperdent, Hyperdent, Hyperdent, Hyperdent.
Thank you, Hyperdent.
Hyperdent, Hyperdent, Hyperdent, Hyperdent.
Welcome to Voices from the Bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an e-mail at info at voicesfromthebench.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 446 of Voices from the Bench. My name is Elvis.
And my name's Barbara. Let's go to Lab Fest.
Yes, it is officially Lab Fest week. I can't believe it's here. It seems like it was ages till it was going to come. And then next thing you know, it was here.
Right. That's how it goes, man.
So excited. So excited. What did you get in? Thursday.
Yes, Thursday.
Yeah.
So I can't go to the distillery, but I wish I could.
Yeah.
Are you going?
Yeah, I'm basically leaving Indiana Thursday morning. I'm getting a beep out of here.
Good for you.
I just need to get out of here. Yeah. I don't even drink hard liquor, but distillery tour sounds cool. Sounds fancy. I don't know. I'm going to walk around with a beer. Yeah, thanks to thanks to Noak for hosting this event. And of course, Big thanks to the good people at Hyperdent for sponsoring us to record all weekend.
Thank you, Hyperdent. Elvis is going to be a lot more chill once we get like 2, 3 hours full of episodes. So I'm excited.
Thank you.
Yeah, that's my reality.
I'm prepared. I got the game show outfit. All right. I got the masquerade party outfit.
All right.
Mask included. What do you got? You got the masquerade mask? You got the masquerade mask.
Is that how it works? I've got a mask. That was funny.
I think we need t-shirts.
Yes, I do and I'm excited.
But yeah, we're just excited. We're ready to see friends. We're ready to make some new friends and just have a good time.
Right on.
There's probably some education in there somewhere. I'm not sure, but I'm going to just relax and have a good time.
We're going to work. Don't you be so.
Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.
We will be working because I know we're going to be sitting there waiting for people. We're going to grab people. We cannot wait.
If you're there, come see us. Tell us your story. If you've told us your story before, come and update us. We want to hear about it.
Right. Totally agree.
Do you know what really grinds my gears?
Well, that sounds kind of sexual, but what?
When a dental lab does great work, ships out the cases on time, and then never sees a payment.
You know what? I agree. That grinds my gears too.
It grinds a lot of gears. And we've all heard the stories about those doctors who don't pay their bills. And if you spent any time around the dental lab industry, you've probably heard today's guest name come up more than once.
Yes, sir.
Matt Travis from Burt and Associates has made a career out of getting labs their money, and he's got some stories to prove it.
Right on.
Yeah, from his first dental lab collection that started with too many Jager bombs and a run-in with the one and only Mike Zuber.
Hi, Mike.
To collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices. Matt has seen just about everything. But this conversation goes beyond chasing down just dead beat accounts. We talk about why labs don't require credit applications, how to protect your lab, knowing when to stop extending credit, and why waiting six months for a doctor to magically pay you probably isn't. isn't the best strategy. So join us as we chat with Matt Travis.
Your customers are checking you out on social media long before they ever fill out a form or pick up the phone. By the time they reach you, they've already made-up their mind. That's why social matters. But making content is hard. Showing up consistently is harder. And consistency is the whole game. Accounts that go from posting just two times a week to five times a week see way more impressions per post and five times the engagement. The more show up, the more it pays off. That's why we built iCortica Social. Yes, something new and exciting from iCortica. With iCortica Social, you can create, schedule, publish, and report on social media, all in one place. And the best part is that your whole team can contribute content. Just place a QR code wherever the work happens in the lab, at an event, and your team can grab what's already on their phone and send it straight to marketing to turn into a social post. As always, our goal at iCortica is to make it easy for you to grow. iCortica Social works as a standalone app too, so no existing iCortica subscription is needed. And it can be used by anyone looking to improve their performance on social. Check it out at icortica.com/social. That's iCortica. I-C-O-R-T-I-C-A.com/social.
Attention, dental lab owners and managers! Think about your daily workflow. Are you still hunting through piles of paper invoices? Are doctors texting you to see if a crown is even finished? Are you logging into six different portals just to grab digital scans from your doctors? You didn't start a dental lab to become a full-time paper wrangler. It's time to streamline your business with Lab and Cloud. Built by techs just like you, for you. Lab and Cloud is the ultimate all-in-one platform engineered to run your entire lab. With over 90 powerful features, you can automate everything. You can track cases in real time, generate smart invoices, manage local delivery and shipping, and handle employee time tracking. All from a single, cloud-based dashboard. Even better, your doctors will get a dedicated portal to submit cases seamlessly. In your digital scanner files, they route automatically into your workflow, completely secure with full HIPAA compliance. Stop burning time on administrative chaos, scale your business, delight your dentist, and take back your day! LabingCloud.com right now to book your free personalized demo. That's L-A-B, the letter N, cloud.com. LabingCloud, your lab simplified. The operating system for dental labs built for text by text. Hey, just mention Elvis is handsome and get one month free.
All right, Elvis, let's talk about one of the biggest questions every lab owner asks before making a purchase.
Will it pay for itself?
That's a fair question, but maybe the better question is...
How much is it costing you not to invest?
Think about every remake, every hour of downtime, every case you outsource because you're at capacity. Like, hello.
Yeah, those costs add up a lot faster than most people realize.
That's why. Smart purchasing decisions aren't just about the upfront price. They're about what the investment does for your business over the next two, three, or even five years or more.
A reliable milling solution helps you produce more, reduce interruptions, and keeps your technicians focused on the work that actually generates revenue.
And we know when your workflow is running smoothly, you're not just saving time.
You're creating more opportunities to grow your business.
That's the kind of return on investment that doesn't really show up on a spec sheet.
It's reflected in happier customers, more predictable production, and stronger profits.
So everybody, that's why so many laboratories continue to choose Roland's DG-shaped DWX milling solutions.
Built for dependable performance, designed to keep your lab moving.
Because the best investment.
Is the one that keeps paying you back every second. single day. Learn more at rollanddental.com. Voices from the bench. The interview. There's a guy in our industry that every time somebody on social media ******* about not getting paid, this man's name comes up. Matt Travis, how are you, sir?
I am doing great. Thanks for having me on.
Absolutely. I can't tell you how many times people have said over the years, you got to have this guy on the podcast. You got to have him on. And I was like, what does he do? He collects money. I'm like, whoa, where's what?
Less money for us that don't get it from clients.
It's a strange business to be in. And I never thought this is what I'd be doing for a living, but yet here we are. So yeah.
Well, give us that story. I mean, how do you get into the business of being a money thug for other companies, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it right there. So Man, my story in the dental lab business goes back about 14, 15 years. And I lived in this neighborhood in the Metaplex, South Fort Worth area. And a couple of neighborhood buddies, they were in the dental business. And because we're all from the same area, we were all kind of interconnected and then, became friends ourselves. And you guys may, you guys may know some of these guys. My name Adam Pruitt. And at the time, Adam worked for Zaun, I think. And then his buddy Jake. was a dense fly guy, but they were just, when we were sitting around drinking beers in the garage watching football, they were always talking, the dental game, and I never paid too much attention to it, but I just knew what they did. there's a neighborhood bar, Watering Hole, so to speak, right there, local.
Love a good story that starts at a bar.
No doubt about it, guys.
Don't they all kind of start from there, right? It's always interesting when that's the lead of the story. Yeah, So, and there was these, I was in there with Jake and Adam, neighborhood guys. And then, there was some older guys, not too much older, but they always had this one table that, and even when they weren't there, No one could sit at this damn table. And I'm like, who the hell are these old men, dude, thinking they, could just tell, even when they're not at the bar, I can't sit at their table. And the owner who, we're all friends, and he's like, no, they call themselves, that's the players table. And you can't sit there unless you're a player. And I'm like, well, that's a bunch of ***** ****.
I'm thinking about the couch on frame right now.
I know. I'm like, define player.
What did player mean?
I mean, I didn't know. Yeah, I didn't. And I'd recognize, these guys that they were talking about because, occasionally, let traffic die down, so to speak. We'd cruise in there after a hard day's work, bill collecting and talking smack and have a beer. So sure enough, another time or two, we finally meet up with these guys, like they're sitting at their table, they're kind of to themselves, but they're having a good time. And the evening kind of, drags on a little bit. So our mutual friends, Jake and Adam, know, turns out they know this guy, and of course, at that point, we kind of make some introductions and he's like, who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing? And I was like, man, I'm just a damn bill collector, you know, he's like, oh, you, You mean, you collect money? And I said, yes, sir. I do. if it's an unpaid invoice, I don't, good, bad or ugly, I'll chase it down court. And he says, oh, you know, you think you're tough, don't you? And I said, well, no, not really. I'm just telling you what a, you know, I'm just answering your questions.
Why was he getting all ***** with you?
Because I was sitting at that table and his crew came in and I politely got up and switched tables, you know. You left that part out. I was talking ahead of time. This is the players table and these guys, they're somebody at least in their own minds, right? Sure. We're talking a little bit and he goes, I tell you what, son, he said, I got a dentist that owes me a bunch of money. And I tell you what, if you go get my money and you bring it to me, I got a lot more work for you. I said, okay, well, I mean.
You said game on, I'm in.
I said, yeah, right on. I mean, that's, I'm down for that. The problem, the problem was it's about 1130 P.m. I had about 15 Yager moms by then. this is in my government days. What's his phone number? I'll call him right now. Yeah, I was, kind of juiced up.
You were getting puffed up. He was getting puffed up.
He was probably, and he probably knew what he was doing. He was just getting the drunk guy at the bar, you know, okay. So he says, I tell you what, you call me at 7:00 in the morning. He said, not 702, not 705. You call me at 7:00 on the dot. Here's my number. And then I'll give you further instructions from there. He said, but if you don't call me at 7 o'clock, don't call. Yeah, I mean, straight up, dude. I'm like, all right, dude, now I'm kind of starting to like this guy. And I don't, you know, so, okay, here's the gig. I wake up hungover, you know, it's, it's in the wintertime. So, I've got my full gray beard going and, just generally look disheveled and hung over anyway.
Elvis knows all about that. He lives in Chicago.
That's right.
Or wherever you live.
So I call him and he gives me my instructions, you know, and it turns out it's a dental spa kind of thing.
Yeah.
And it turns out that, you know, it's right in the corner from my office. kind of across the Metroplex there. So I said, all right, man, I'll tell you what, anything at 9, I'll be there and we'll make it happen. So I kind of stroll in there at 915, waiting room, couple of kids in there, you know, some patience, you know, nice, I mean, waterfalls, real zen kind of cool place. Oh, sure. All right. So I go up to the front desk and I throw a bunch of invoices that I printed out from Mike's e-mail. Mike who? I'm talking about this guy.
The original guy that said, hey, you give me my money?
The player, the guy from the player's table.
I'm following you.
It's the one and only Mike Zuber.
Yeah.
That's what I was thinking. Wow.
Yeah. So now you know what I'm up against, right? Yeah. So I go in there and, you know, I'm kind of just, you know, hung over and just doing doing my routine. And doctor's not available. And I kind of start smacking the invoices around, tell them I'm not leaving. And I said, well, doctor's with patients. I said, that's fine. I'm going to go have a seat over here in the waiting area until they, you know, they're like, sir, you need to leave. And they called me back up and they said, look, you're going to have to call him later. but here's his number. I was already got his number. And at that time, I can see him peeking through the little, there's a little window in the door that comes back and he's sticking his face in there trying to see what's going on. And so I just, you know, then I kind of gave the routine and I was like, no, I'm not leaving. So I go back and sit down again. Well, at that point, Zuber calls me on my cell phone. I guess this is the second day I've known Mike Zuber. And he goes, what in the hell are you doing? I said, He said, get your *** out of there. They just already called and paid it with a credit card with a balance in full. Come sit you at the bar.
So you were successful.
Yeah. I mean, I didn't.
In a roundabout way.
It was paid before I left.
You got to be kidding me. So they were scared of you?
They wanted me out of there. The only way to do it was, you know, Brilliant. I often didn't want to come face me. So I guess what they were doing scrambling behind the scenes and got a hold of Mike and coughed up a credit card. That is fantastic. That was my initiation into the dental lab world and all that fun that it entails.
No, you got to give it up. So Mike called you and you went to see him and he was like, dude, you just got me $5,000 or what?
Yeah, he said, great job. And from that point on, then he had to come out to the lab and I I started doing some tours and we sat down and came up with a game plan and started going after Deadbeat Dentist and it started working and he referred me to his groups and friends in the business and then it kind of just took off from there and at that point I started going to Vegas and doing the NADL stuff and that was cool and met a lot of folks there then and then started going to Chicago every year and just hanging out and just meeting all the folks that did a lot of business and there's just a prevalent meet out there for a guy just like myself apparently and I'm happy to do it.
It's fascinating. But I understand that you were doing this collecting money for other industries for a while, right?
Oh, sure. And we still do. I mean, we're in staffing, oil and gas. I mean, you name it, commercial printing, medical device across the board. You know, we handle stuff international as well. You know, we've got attorneys everywhere in every city. And if we can't beat them up, then we'll just sue the **** out of them and see if that works.
But nobody, no dental lab ever was like even in the scope of all the industries. This was the first time.
I never knew what a dental lab was. I was just, I was. We hear that a lot. go get my teeth clean kind of guy. Hell, I just thought the dentist did it all. I didn't. And then I wouldn't have thought, I try to tell people, like, you wouldn't think, like, you look at a dentist the way people look in banks. You know, oh, they're good for a, like, people think that these people.
Tons of money.
I mean, they're, sometimes they're not your friend, especially if you're doing business with them. Maybe on the patient side, they're good. But I didn't understand how bad of payers dentists were. And then when I understood the margins in which labs operate.
Yeah, it's bull.
And then I'm like, wait, yeah, that's a problem. I mean, look, if we were all 100% margins, if someone squeezed you for five or 10 grand here and there, okay, no big deal. We'll get over it. But you know, when the margins are tight and you've got two or three rogue accounts 1/4 going left on you, that's a problem for my labs. And so now that I kind of know some of these guys and folks in the business personally, and now they're friends of ours and friends of mine, now I kind of take it personal when they screw my buddies, so we kind of give them a little extra.
So can I ask you your angle? So do you have like a minimum? Like I'll take a client on if they owe you 2, 4, 7k? Or is it just one-size-fits-all? Like how do you? No.
Here's my theory on that. So here's at my agency, Our collectors are tiered by balance range. That means if I've got collectors that live in the 2000 and under range, that's all they get all day every day. So it's in its goal. And then as the balance ranges go up, I've got different sets of collectors that stay within that balance range. And I do that to make sure that If I've got a $10,000 account and I also have a $1,000 account, I know which one I'm going to work hard, right? So to alleviate that, we break our collectors down on balance range. That way they got to work everything like a dog every day.
So if you've got like a $10,000 balance, you're bringing it. Like do you go there personally and be like?
We can spend because we're contingency on balances like that, we can spend a little bit more money in advance in hopes that we can collect it. So we will kind of fire those up a little bit more because we can put some more money into those because we think we can recover it.
Awesome.
So like the good old days, I mean, we can, and you still can, but now it's so taboo. Like we could send private investigators into their office with cameras and video and all that with the invoices and, same routine that I pulled for Zuber, initially is really what we hired them to do. Go take pictures, freak people out, just get someone that freaking calls and pay the damn bill. You know, it's all the cops even better to sleep, right?
Yeah.
But now clients, you know, they're like, I don't, you know, they're kind of touchy about doing that for them. And I get it, you know, but so there's less appetite for that kind of collections, although that's our favorite because it's most effective. But Whatever, I got to do what the client wants.
So what was the year you did this first collection for a lab? What year was that?
I'm going to say late 2012.
2012, yeah. So I mean, the industry has changed a lot. A ton. It's not just your local labs or your competition anymore. So we're all probably very reluctant to **** *** too many doctors. But we want our money.
The hardest part for a lab owner or anyone really is where do you draw the line between customer and debt? Because you can't treat everyone the same. I mean, there does not. But as an organization, when I'm talking to clients, what do they have to do to **** you off so bad to send them to collections? And how long does it take for them to do that? And when you ask that question, you get a different answer every time, of course.
And I bet you it's longer now than it was back in 2012.
You would think, right, it's so counterintuitive sometimes. You would think because of the volatility right now in the business as far as getting payments in and your DSOs get drug out as far as your daily sales outstanding, you would think you'd have a quicker trigger on third party action. But yeah, you're right. What I found is, they're like, for some reason, lab owners think that they're going to, in six months, this damn dentist is going to wake up and go, you know what? I ought to pay that lab I screwed 3 labs ago. They're not going to, you know, and I get the, oh, I owe the lab 10 grand, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to order 3 grand a month and then I'm going to pay you, know, an extra 500 a month. And of course, they do that for one month and then they rush something out of you and then run the balance up and then they're gone. So these dentists, I don't know if they all play golf and drink beer and see how they can screw labs, but they all seem to be on the same page.
I mean, do you go in and counsel labs and be like, all right, let's try this. Do you give them like a 30, 60, 90 day kind of timeline? Or do they come to you and say, okay, you know, I've got 5% of my clients that owe me this much money. Like how does a lab find you and how do you acclimate like what you do with them?
Sure. You know, that's part of, you know, the initial call. And as you guys are saying, I mean, we work by referral 95% of the time is kind of how we get into this. So a lot of times customers or potential customers that call me looking for collections already have a little bit of background about what we did for their buddy. Or they heard, they heard someone, at a conference or in Chicago or where have you. eventually when you hang around the bar long enough in Chicago.
Very true.
At 1045, everyone starts talking about who got screwed by who, we can all... In a whole bunch of ways.
Yeah.
Yep. so that's kind of how that goes. But, so to answer your question directly, Barb, look, if you don't have an in-house policy and procedure, I can guarantee you it's just time to get one. Something we like to do And my clients know this about me is that, let's say you have someone at 60 days. And, you're not ready to break up just yet. But, they may be seeing other people. So, at that point, what I encourage my clients to do is e-mail me their name and address. And what I'll do is I'll run a background check on them. And I'll also look in my system and see how many labs I represent that they've hopped around and hopped on. And I can give you these people's history. And the idea is I can help you make credit decisions quicker because you now have more information on your customer, which normally you're flying blind because you're going to believe what they tell you because you don't know any different. I can help kind of bridge that gap a little bit and give our clients a little bit better upper hand because they have some current and relevant information on our customers.
That's interesting. Are you saying that you know of offices that you've had to collect from multiple labs from?
Every damn day.
Oh, that seemed crazy to me. I mean, I get it.
That was a blonde moment Elvis just had.
No, I'm just like, I get screwing over a lab, maybe get a little bit behind, you know, dentists are always going through divorces and whatnot, but.
And the thing I tell my clients also, Elvis is like, hey, if this practice has been around for 20 years, why in the hell are you calling me out of the blue? And why are you about to make my day? I mean, to me, that's a red flag. I mean, that means he's on, you know, they're holding cases already at his last place, you know, and he's, you know, he's just kind of he's kind of doing the old Dennis Ponzi deal. And, you know, I mean, he's And again, if you look at how a dentist's office is structured, they're devoid of assets of any sort, right? Everything that they do is a payment. And they have a UCC1 secured filing on them. So the banks, they got a UCC on their bank loan or their chair, everything else. So it's like, okay, when money's short, do you go at 8% and borrow against your line of credit? No, you just don't pay your lab and use them as a bridge loan and then just hop to another one and you just kind of continue on about your day.
My dad used to say that labs were dentist banks.
That's exactly what I'm saying. And here's the worst part. It's interest free. And hell, they may not even pay the principal anyhow.
Speaking of interest, I mean, most labs must charge a finance charge if someone doesn't pay within 30 days. I mean, do you see that as common?
Does that help? It helps. I mean, you know, sometimes you get it paid, of course. And if it makes you feel better, they're not paying you anyway. So if you want to put more money on your books, go ahead. But what I will say is once you send it to me or you send it to a third party, then the accrual needs to stop at that point because you're effectively writing it off because you already sent it to a third party. An interesting thing that on the back of the RXs and or lab slips or whatever, even some on the remake policies, and it's now becoming pretty prevalent, but we need to have some language on those that say, if your account is sent to a third-party collection, you will be responsible for collection costs and related returns fees. So at that point, we can stick the percentage that we're charging our client on top of the bill. And sometimes we get that paid, sometimes we don't. But when we do, it's a high five all around for me and my partner. They got paid 100% and didn't come out of pocket for my service because we made the deadbeats pay it.
So have you been like integral in having Labs actually add that to the remake policy?
I would put it on your website, on your remake policy, anything these people read or sign, because the reason being is I want that to be a deterrent. I want them to see it so many times that they understand if I do through this lab. Because I've read this statement about five times on their documentation, I'm going to guess they have some backend muscle and they're going to come get right at my own expense. So to me, when you see that a bunch, that tells me that someone's got policies and procedures just in case we go deadbeat on, right.
Yeah. What do you usually see? I mean, off labs get to the point where they're 60 days out, we start holding cases, asking for COD. I mean, is that usually that first line of defense?
I mean, and once you let those cases walk out the door, man. I mean, you're looking at a run rate of 50% less chance of getting collected if you're not holding cases.
I know. I feel so bad for those patients though, and they don't know their doctors.
They don't. I mean, I was again, I was just a regular Joe when it comes to stuff until I jumped into the lab world like you guys. It's eye-opening. I mean, I thought dentists, I'm like, surely these are doctors, right?
Yeah, they're professionals. They drive nice cars. What's going on?
Totally dumb. So it's always been odd.
You've seen a lot of other industries and you've done this. Has there been any that's been comparative to this lab and dentist dynamic? It's really hard to even think of it because we make such unique individual.
Yeah, that's interesting. I think there's industries like that, but where you guys differ is let's, if I can compare you guys to a medical device company, not the Google base, but okay, big time medical device clients that we have. All right. The paperwork, the reason they don't have the issues is it's like labs are bashful to ask a doctor, dentist, to fill out a credit application. Why?
Yeah, why don't we do that?
Why not? Like what? I don't understand. Like if you have good intentions, we have good intentions when we buy things from, you know, like let's say if we go buy a car or we go buy a house, our intention is to pay that note. They stick 500 pages of crap to sign in front of you and without blinking an eye, you rip through it and sign it.
Yeah.
Okay. Because we have good intentions. We don't care. We'll sign it. We're going to pay for the damn thing anyway. Now you come to my lab and I say, great. Love to have you. We want to kind of grade you out and see, hey, you know, I mean, I want to know who I'm dealing with as a customer. How do you know if you give them, like, if I've got 5 customers, which one do I spend the most time on? Well, the one with the most upside. Okay. Well, how do we figure that out? I don't know. You know, we just kind of.
That is true. I don't know.
Again, we're going to go back to information and be like, look, if you're going to come do business with me, you won't fill a credit app out. You won't put your banker's name on there. You won't put where you bank. You won't put 3 suppliers on there that I can call that you're current with that will give me reference. That's not your uncle or whatever.
So basically you're talking about a credit check, correct?
I'm talking about in-house, what the lads can do on their own to protect themselves. And then at the bottom of that, there's a personal guarantee. And here comes the rub. They won't sign a personal guarantee.
Why?
Because it's their car, their house.
No, because if they don't pay you, You can now come after them personally.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Not just the practice right now, the practice doesn't have assets, right? That's at least. So what they don't want to do is let you pierce the corporate veil and have a personal guarantee on that way. Oh, you screwed the lab for 5 grand. No problem. I'm suing you and your wife. Have a nice day. Right. Oh, that's different. But what would you think about a person that wanted to come get $10,000 line of credit from your lab but won't sign their personal name to it?
It's very interesting. I just took over a lab bringing in a new ownership to a lab and having to work with all the vendors, every single one wanted a credit application.
You sign up, we do it, you guys do it, we do it. Everyone has to do it except the dentist. Why in the hell do they get the break?
It doesn't make sense. Yeah. Occasionally you'll get a new dentist and they're like, well, what do we need to do to open an account? We're just like, send work. That's it. We just trust it. Yeah. Oh, I don't need to fill anything out. No, we got you. It's easy. We want to make it easy. We want your business.
You want it to be easy to do business with the lab and there's nothing wrong with that.
Sure.
At all. But yeah, at some point the lab's gonna go, if we don't start requiring paperwork or, because even when you guys, when you guys, let's say you got it to fill out that credit at, okay, boom, send me, send me their name and address, let me run my thing with it. Now we put both of those things together. Now you have a profile of your customer. Now you know if they're worth your time. Now you know if you could grow that customer or buy the information you had, you go, Let's keep this guy on a short leash, if you know what I mean, right? Man, you just, you're protecting better by design, you know, and it's going to limit the amount of headaches you have through the AR cycle with these ********* right? Oh, I didn't get the invoices. I sent the invoices 15 times. You even responded once to. Don't tell me that.
I love that. We don't get it. The invoice comes with the case. You got the case, right.
Oh, yeah, we delivered it and you got the infant invoice. so that's again, this is the mentality that we got to, it's getting kind of close out there, y'all. I mean, again, these are the type of things that we don't just collect money. I'm going to try to help you build the best mouse trap you can build inside that lab, not to let this crap slip out the back end of it.
Do you have any labs that require their doctors to fill out a credit application?
Every time I recommend it, they say those doctors won't sign that. I know them, they won't sign it.
Yeah. I mean, that's my first thought. Maybe they would. I don't think everybody would.
I don't know. I mean, if you want to do business with my lab, you're going to sign some paperwork because I'm getting screwed all year and the margins are thin and the DSOs are running amok. And you know, it's a challenging time. I've got to protect an house. No, 100%. I've got to reposition my AR. Like I've got to put a stick in the spoke and stop it right now. And there's a new sheriff in town and you're going to do business with us. You're going to do it safely. I need to I'm going to be able to sleep at night and pay my and pay my people. But you're going to sign this. I'm going to credit check your ***. And then I'm going to call whoever's on here. I'm going to talk to him. At that point, now you can feel comfortable what you're about to do, but just as soon as someone sends something in and we jump down on the chair and get after it on the bench, I don't know, man. It's kind of like flying blind, I guess.
Yeah, but I'm guessing 90% of the calls you get are way after the fact.
Yeah, I mean, there's always, there's, always some cleanup to do and some old stuff and, hey, we don't discriminate. We hate them all. So I don't care. I mean, we'll beat up on anyone for my client's money legally, but yeah, as much as we can. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of where we're at.
Yeah, but people must call you when they have 60, 90 day past due, larger amounts, and they ask you for your help. What is your process. You can't show up to all of them hungover the day after.
No, that was easy to go. No, I don't, you know, I darn sure couldn't do it now. You know, so our process is each account that gets sent here gets a collector assigned to the file. So that collection person is the tip of the spear for Burton Associates, right? So they're getting in there And first we pull some reports. We want to figure out what we know about your business before we call. We want to see what other business you have. What did you do to those other businesses when they go bankrupt? Do you spin up a business every two years, then dump it? Who are your other partners? What kind of guys are these or gals?
Interesting.
And so before we even make a call, we try to talk to them like we're already in their backyard. Second of all, we're going to pull the NPI numbers and figure out who's filing for insurance around that camp. Secondly, we're going to pull the license for the doctor and just make sure we're all good there, see what's been going on there. And at that point, our attorney, we send a certified demand letter from our attorney. We also follow that with a legal e-mail from our legal department, letting them know, and we don't just e-mail them if if there's a company and we've got 35 emails, we baw every e-mail with demand. Sure. It's I don't care if the rookie down there, you know, packing up boxes has an e-mail. He's going to get a demand saying he's about to be sued.
So is the first letter kind of like a warning shot? I mean.
No, it's kind of like if you understand that there's going to be a fight, I'd just rather sue just get the punches.
Love it. So I mean, the first thing says you owe this much to this lab and you have this many days to pay. I mean, how does this work? I've never gotten a letter like that, thankfully.
So some things we don't put in writing all the time, but some conversations would be along the lines that I'm here to disrupt your business every day. Here's what I'm going to keep and continue doing. Here's who I will be calling. There's more actions behind this one. We demand the money right now, plus the fees. And then we kind of just sword fight from there.
Interesting. And what's your success rate on that first letter? Pretty good? I imagine.
Again, it's all over the place. I would say though, judging by how they react to signing for that letter and then receiving the first phone call from my collector, I would say that in the first 48 hours, I've got a pretty good idea how this case is going to go, if it's going to pay or not. Interesting. Now you got to work them all until they die anyway, because there's still money on the back end of these things. Because sometimes when they figure out six months it's gone by and you're still blowing up their phones and doing this stuff, calling their neighbors, getting messages walked over there, just being generally disruptive.
A pin in these.
A nuisance?
Yeah.
It's nothing more than a six-year-old at Walmart on a temper tantrum and we just throw the same temper tantrum every day.
I would say that works though, doesn't it? I mean, what percentile, if you had to guess, when you first send that letter and start, going after the money that's owed our labs, like what's your rate of return, if you don't mind me asking?
No, absolutely. You know, we actually, we actually publish that. Right now, we got to put a little couple parameters to debts all over the place, right? So parameter would be if it's over $1,000, under a year old, still in business, And I've never seen them before. Like they're not, we call them repeat, repeaters. But as long as it's not the same practice, as long as it's a new practice, they've never dealt with us before and it's under a year old, then, you know, we're running about 70%.
That's pretty sweet.
Yeah, it is. So once you get beyond 14, 16 months and that, yeah, I mean, and then, you know, of course, like anything else, just like your own AR. right? The collectibility as it rolls every column gets less and less just by design.
Yeah, of course.
But who's waiting that long for 15 months? I mean, jeez.
Do you ever have to go all the way and sue these motherf***ers?
Well, so check this out, y'all. Like in most states, the statute limitations is 4 years. So I got people like, hey, I got a couple about six months. I'm like, well, tell me a little bit more about what you, well, so-and-so screwed me two years ago. And I'm like, hey, go whatever filing cabinet you have and drag all that back out. Because if it's under four years old, you send it to me. I'm gonna bring you back money. If you give me five of them, I'm gonna collect two of them, even if they're that old. Wow. But it'll be found money and sure enough, that happens every time.
Wow. So you can go after those old offenders and they they're like, damn, I don't I didn't see that coming.
Yeah, no, it's sometimes like time sometimes makes people better, right? Like, well, they think, well, we got over on Elvis and Barb, it's been two years. We hadn't heard from them. I guess, you know, we're skating on that. And all of a sudden, here comes a ******** like you're blowing your phone up, you know?
I mean, you ever hit a dentist after they retire?
No. I mean, we will call for information. I mean, it just depends. I used to tell some of my clients, we used to say like, what we're going to do is a collection fantasy camp. That means Elvis and Barb, you send me 20 collections over here and they'll fly you down. We're going to go have a good time and all that. Then you're going to hop on our phones and you're going to collect like your Burton Associates and tell these people all the things you wanted to tell them, but just make them think Burton Associates is telling them, you know?
Yes.
Sounds fun.
I know. We'll go to dinner and drinks and next day we'll play on the phones and just hammer them all together and laugh about it, right?
Oh my God, yeah. I love that.
How do you get paid? Let's not get into numbers, but do you take a percentage of what you collect? Is there upfront from labs?
We're pure contingency, so we'll negotiate a percentage rate, you know, based on, again, Is this a one-off deal? I mean, are you going to be a current, I mean, based on what kind of customer you may be now?
I don't want to be a good customer of yours.
Not at all. So, depending on things. I've got, I've got customers out there that you wouldn't believe, but.
I would think that they would call upon you that you would be a repeat person that a lab would call and call and call again every single time they had one of these bad clients. you did it the first time, you did it the second time, let's call them again. So I think it would be a big percentage of repeat business. Am I wrong?
Yeah, I mean, no, you're not wrong. You know, it's just labs, it's all over the place as well. You know, it's hard to put a beat on what a typical lab is by process, by size, by location. Man, it's just, it's kind of, it's all over the place, really bar.
Yeah.
What's the, I mean, we got to get, I mean, let's not give names, but what's the largest amount you've ever collected for a lab?
For a ladder? Yeah. Oh, it's in the hundreds of thousands.
No ****. Are you kidding me right now?
Someone got that deep?
I mean, we're How did they let that happen?
We ripped 15s, 20s, 25s, you know, and that kind of range and quite awful, to be honest. Wow.
Yeah, I can see that.
It doesn't take but 60 days, you know, I mean, because some of these, they can just run the bill up quick, you know, and, you know, before everyone figures it out or whatever, you know, I mean, it's all of a sudden we got a problem.
It's hard for us to get angry at accounts when they keep sending work, even though they're not paying. But it's like, man, that's such good work. And when they pay, it's going to be a huge payoff and it keeps my employees busy.
That's how they get you, dude. That's how they get you, man.
Yep, totally.
I mean, again, and that's it. They keep extending you out and extending you out. You know, meanwhile, you know, you're carrying age receivables on your books as well. I mean, that's probably not the best idea, but nonetheless, but these dentists, and I go back to what I was saying is these dentists have all figured it out. Like I see them all pull the same ****. I mean, they are not original. They think they've got the newest excuse. I mean, I live in the lab business. It's my favorite business to collect things. I've got a bunch of friends in it and we're pretty damn good at it. And we're the greatest industry ever. Well, for a bill collector, there's a lot of work. I'll tell you, I'll put it to you that way.
Yeah.
The industry is the best as far as the people and the fun that we all get to have. Yeah. The shows like as even as competitors, I see that I see competitors that are the best of friends, and that's pretty cool. And that's not that's not a lot of industries.
Yeah, no doubt. That's so true. So what do you tell labs like reach out to you when you've got like one client, two clients, 3 clients? Like when is the go time to hit that knob and call somebody like you, Matt, and say, hey, I need help. Is it just one, two? what do you suggest our listeners do?
No, yeah, we've got clients that send one every two years. Great. I mean, like I said, we hate them all. Yeah. so, and I'm more than happy to spend some time with a client that just made you have one, right? And, but, okay, what do you do? What's your processes? Here's how I can help you. Again, we do things for the betterment of the industry because we're all we live in the industry as well. I mean, we're just not bottom feeders like we're part of the industry. We sponsor, we show up to things that we like being in it. So when we can help other industry members, it's just what we do. And guess what? They know that they're going to send me 500 bucks once a year. They know I'm not making any money, but you treat them right and you collect your 500 bucks. Next time he's at dinner with his buddies and whether his guy owns a business other than a dental lab, he's going to tell his buddy or she's going to tell her girlfriend. And then here comes the e-mail.
Is there an amount too low? I got a doctor that owes me $700 from April.
Send it.
Okay.
I'm telling you, so I would like to say 200 because I do have some dental lab clients that they have two to $400 accounts times, times 100,000. So I mean, and we hammer, we hammer the out of those all day, every day.
I had one doctor get one crown and never paid me. Can you go get my $99, please? See, you know, if it's.
Personal, like if, you know, like if it's personal, I'm petty. I mean, just call me and tell me it's personal. I'll do anything for you.
Yeah. I love her.
That's brilliant.
That's fantastic.
Well, I was going to tell you about my luxurious life in the bottom feeding bill collecting.
Well, I want to know if you've ever had to collect from a dentist that was so impressed he used you to collect for things he needed, like from patients or...
All the time.
Really.
No way.
Are you kidding me right now? Because obviously one of their excuses that you can isolate is going to be, I can't pay because.
We didn't get paid. Right.
So when I think that conversation, I mean, when they come with that excuse, that's exactly. And I've got, I've got labs that owe each other, right? I've got labs that owe labs.
Oh, sure.
You know, but because we're on the same business, that happens and they work it out and, you know, that's how everyone gets along. You know, I mean, really no issues there. I mean, it's always amicable. We just, hey, get on a planet and stick to it and we're all friends here. Let's go. You know, that's easy and easy. I'm just kind of the bridge at that point, like, hey, you knuckleheads get together over here. Let's get this thing figured out so we can all go back to ordinance.
So most of your business at this point is referrals, right? So you know friends and they have friends and they're.
Like, hey, call Matt. I don't make outbound pole calls. I'm not going to. I used to when I was young and that's nothing I'm interested in doing. But if we take care of our people and we're in these organizations and these groups and all that, we grow by referral and organically. So I mean, we're always doing just fine because that's just, we never get ahead of our skis. We're always right there in that sweet spot and that's where we want to be. I don't want to work 50 hours a week, I'll be honest with you, and I don't.
Yeah.
Totally, totally agree. And how many people do you have on your team, if I might ask?
Are currently at 19.
Damn.
So not a big, you know, not.
That's pretty big.
Yeah.
Any of my clients hear this, and they'll know this, is that the best collectors that we have, our top collectors, women. They kill him.
Really.
We don't like money.
Never.
That's fascinating. Yeah.
I don't know what it is, man, but you know, but they don't put up with no ******** you know, either. Right. They're good at what they do. I can promise you that.
They win every argument, no matter what it is.
Hey.
Oh, see, we ever win that argument. No, we don't.
No, we don't.
Well, we love money. I mean, come on guys. Like I can see myself totally going after some money for dental lab. And I think it's great. Like I could see it. And do you teach them like a certain protocol? Like this is how you send an e-mail. This is how you make a phone call. Like this is.
Yeah, so no, these folks trained up and then so we had a collection match. So I kind of run it top down. And then so each group of collectors that's in a particular balance range has a collection manager behind them.
Yep.
Riding shop here, no, you didn't call this, rework this. So we have a 21 day workflow. We'll turn that workflow over twice. All right. And at that point, at 42 days, if I don't have a payment plan in place, I don't have the money or a real damn good reason why, then we're going to move that to the collection manager, move that to a different collector. with instructions, and we're going to turn that workflow over another 21 days. That's going to be two months of just getting after them. And so we manage phone calls, the time we record everything that comes in and out, all emails reviewed, every, so we've it's like a big whiteboard, where if they go here, we go here. We go, and we try to have that as seamless and consistent as possible because that's how we know if we're doing well or not by measurement. So we kind of have to have that process. Wow.
Thank you. That's great explanation. Yeah. That's a big deal.
You know, I've had the same core people with me for 10 to 15 years. So this thing, you put gas in the machine, it runs. and that's what I love about it.
And they only do dental labs or they do other things too.
They'll do other things.
Okay, yeah.
They'll do other things like we have some big accounts in the supply commercial supply business at one time with 800 locations, right? So I mean that too, you know, that's we're kind of spread out along Yeah, absolutely. But those are usually 20 to $40,000 invoice type stuff.
Yeah. Dentist not paying labs is not new to business in general. So.
No, it's not. And my staff even knows like they understand not just how to collect, but they understand dental labs. Right, they understand what the dentists are charging on top of our clients.
Oh, okay, so they get that. We're getting a thing to begin with.
I mean, they'll talk removables, they'll talk, I mean, they know what. they're talking about.
Oh, I'm sure that helps to be successful if you can talk the talk. I mean, rather than just like some accounting calling going, the caps, you owe them money for the caps.
That's right. So, you know, you label yourself an outsider just right off the bat if you're using the wrong word. So we speak to them like they speak and we know what they're doing. We know they're committing insurance fraud, right? We know these things and we tell them and whoever has that NBI number, whether it's his wife or the office manager, it ain't him or her. Then we got to go, okay, well, you guys are billing insurance on appliances that you haven't paid for, but you're requesting reimbursement on something you never paid for. You're the registered MPI number. You're committing insurance fraud. I want the doctor on the phone and I want your full name. Yeah. But really, how are you billing for reimbursements when you never paid in the 1st place?
Yeah. How can you be reimbursed for something you still owe on?
Right. I mean, you never.
Interesting.
The clients is still unpaid.
Who runs up more debt? Male doctors or female doctors?
I bet he, have you thought about that? Do you have the stats on that?
That's the question.
This can go a lot of ways. We kind of break it down by geographic location more than.
What part of the country is worse?
The Northeast.
No kidding.
Hands down.
Snobby Northeasterners.
I mean, I I don't know why or what it is, but that's also pretty indicative of across the board, no matter what entry you work in. And then you'll take certain parts, in the South, a little rougher in the deep South sometimes. So, we definitely know. And again, I've had five or six come through since this call or this talk. And to be honest with you, I already recognize three of the names that have been sent in here by clients. I'm just looking at my e-mail.
Wait a minute. During this conversation. That's awesome. You've gotten four or five clients reach out to you.
I mean, we probably get 20 to 30 dentists placed for collections a day from various clients in the business. Wow. And I've got some clients that the accounts get here in stacks of FedEx boxes.
That's insane.
What do you mean? Like paperwork?
They don't even, we scan it and get it like this. It's yeah.
Most labs are probably still printing everything.
Some of them still do, yeah. And they don't have time to scan it and send it. So we're like, all right, here's my FedEx number. Send it over here. I'll have someone scan it. Let's go.
Yeah. That's crazy.
The faster we go to work, the more we can collect.
Yo, hey, let me help. Yeah, let me help you. Please send it. I did get paid more if they get paid, right? So I mean, if I don't have it, I got 100% of 0. Hell yeah.
All right. So before we wrap up, what is your at the Chicago bar story? of the worst collection ever. did you, like a physical fight you got in or popped a guy's tire? I don't know how far you go, but.
Many years ago when I was younger, but in Chicago, I did, I was with some clients and we were at the bar and one of the, one of the debtors walked in and I dressed him down in front of all of his constituents and everyone else at the bar and all. It was a, it was a scene.
Did he pay?
Yeah.
Well done. God, I wish I was there.
We're bill collectors, so we kind of, we act like bill collectors.
I was going to say, you're going to it. Going at it.
It's like, do you carry a baseball bat?
Well, I mean, I live in West Texas, so wherever I go is there's a mod millimeter on my hip anyway. So there you go.
Nice.
They found that Chicago, but yeah, they do. But no, this, the Dental Lab stuff, the people I meet and the friends I have, like we take it back to Mike's super. he and I are hug buddies now. We, Mike and I are on ranches and things. I mean, we, I'm family to Mike, just family and Michael, Laura, Zuber and all their kids. It's just like we're just, they ingratiate us into the family and it's ever since I met that guy, this is taking a life all of its own, but it's been a fun ride.
Yeah, I bet. I mean, who knew?
I blame the Jaeger bombs, Elvis. I mean, that's my excuse on that.
What's that?
I said I blame the Jaeger bombs.
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
I see a lot of people blame those, but man, what a legacy. What's the best way of people to get a hold of you, Matt, if they need your services?
Shoot me an e-mail anytime at M Travis at Dirt Collette. Love it, man.
I have a feeling those that haven't heard of you, which I'm surprised there isn't many, I think you're going to get some people wanting their money.
Man, I can't make a dollar unless I put a check back on somebody's desk and I can't get it all, but we damn sure try and I think that's important to our clients as well.
Hell yeah.
Especially you enjoy your work, don't you?
Yeah. If I didn't enjoy it, you couldn't do it for a living. That's the only way it is, man.
It's tough.
Spectacular.
Well, Matt, thank you so much, man. You got a booth in Chicago next year?
Man, I don't do the booth, but I'm usually I'm usually hanging around the CNC group guys and you know at the water hole there at Swiss Hotel normally.
Love it. Matt, we appreciate it, man.
Thank you.
Great talking to you guys. I'll see you guys in Chicago coming up.
Yes, sir. Have a good one.
Bye.
A huge thanks once again to Matt Travis for coming on the podcast and giving us a different perspective on the business side of dental labs. And if there's one big takeaway, it's that you can't just keep sending cases to a doctor and hope the money magically shows up.
But it's good work.
Yeah, I know. establishing credit policies, asking for credit applications, to knowing when it's time to bring in professional help. Protecting your account receivable is just as important as protecting the quality of the work leaving your lab. And apparently, if you've got an unpaid invoice, Matt is a *** ***. He doesn't care if it's $99 or hundreds of thousands of dollars. He's ready to go to work for you guys. So if you've got a doctor who's treating your lab like an interest-free bank, that's what my dad always used to say, it might be time to email Matt at Burt and Associates. And remember guys, doing great dental work is important, but getting paid for what we do is what keeps the lights on and the lab moving forward. So let's go.
If there's one thing I've learned now that I'm Running a lab. Incoming money is super important.
Hell, yes. So let's go, guys.
Yeah, absolutely. Give them hell. Give them Matt. All right, everybody. That's all we got for you. And of course, we'll talk next week.
We'll see you at labs.
Bye. See you.
I got both my dogs in here now.
The views and opinions expressed on the Voices from the Bench podcast are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the host or Voices from the Bench LLC.