What if zirconia could look even more like natural teeth?
Well, Elvis, according to the. Dr. Ed McLaren, and I quote, of all the zirconias that he's tested, the optical properties of Ivocar's Emax zirconia are the closest to natural teeth. And you know what? I've seen it. I believe it. It's an unbelievable material.
Interesting. Well, I kind of want to discover what's redefining the possibilities with this IPS Emax zirconia.
All right, everybody, if you want to as well, join Doctor Ed McLaren for Zirconia Reimagined. It's an informative webinar exploring the latest advancements, clinical insights, and. practical applications of zirconia in modern dentistry.
That sounds absolutely amazing. October 5th at 7 p.m. Register today at vivalearning.com. That's viva, V-I-V-A learning.com.
Be there guys, this material is amazing.
So Barb, an overdue congratulations are in order.
Oh my God. What did I do now, Elvis?
Didn't you all recently announce the Simply Arch studio?
Yes, we did.
That's awesome. You know that's right up my alley there.
Of course I do, yeah.
And just for anyone who hasn't seen the announcement, what is this Simply Arch thing?
All right, so Simply Arch is our dedicated full arch lab. So it's high quality. Full arch cases are a big part of what we do. And we wanted a team and a dedicated workflow and a production environment built specifically around them.
So basically just no distractions. Exactly.
Just a bunch of full arch nerds doing full arch things.
Oh God, a bunch of nerds sounds terrifying.
It's never terrifying of it.
And does a new studio also mean new toys? Yes.
And of course, we recently brought in Xterra mill as part of the project.
Hell yeah, nice.
Yeah, and then of course came the cam decision.
Ah, here we go, the old cam decision.
You know, Elvis, we tested a couple options and of course we landed on Hyperdent.
Like Hyperdent, just as easy as that, huh?
As easy as that, pretty much. The quality off the machine was excellent. So that means also no hand finishing and the milling times were excellent also.
You're right. That does make the decision quite easy.
But honestly, what really stood out to us was the testing and implementation process.
How so?
You could immediately tell these guys live in a world of high, complex milling challenges.
That's got to build a lot of confidence.
You know what? It really did, and it really does. They weren't just showing us how the software works. They were advising us on the best way to build an entire workflow for our lab. You could tell they've done it 100 times, guys.
That's a whole new different level of expertise. Well, congratulations on the new studio, Barb.
Thank you. Hats off to my dad for the studio. So it means a lot to me.
Aw. 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 443 of Voices from the Bench. My name is Elvis.
My name is still F-ing Barbara.
Still F-ing Barbara, just Barbara.
You know.
Barb. Just Barb. I know. I mean, you can come up with any name you want. I mean, I'm not going to stop you if you want to be somebody else.
Well, you moved to your last name. I see that all over social media. How's that been going for you?
Actually, it becomes official.
Really? And I just brought it up and I didn't even know it. Congratulations.
Yeah, because of the laws and how it works, when you take your wife's name, when you get a divorce, the divorce degree does not allow men to change their name back in the state of Indiana. So what? So I had, yeah, I was able to take her name legally, but they don't let me go back with the divorce. So I had to. legally change my name old school way by putting it in the paper.
Oh my God.
And wait three months. It's so dumb.
You need to move to Florida, bro.
Now I'm in this like, do I change my name? Because now I have a flight to New Orleans for Labfest. I don't want my driver's license to be different for my ticket. It's weird. I don't know how women do it all the time.
Oh, you can't do that. You got to have your ID being accurate.
I know. So now I got to wait till after Labfest to start the pride, but I don't know. I'm just ranting.
Well, speaking of LabFest, guys. Yes. Yeah, good segue. We are less than 30 days from NOAC Dental's LabFest in New Orleans. And thank you to the amazing people at HyperDent. Thank you, Jordan. We will be set up and recording as many amazing attendees and vendors as possible at this event. And it is happening October 15th to the 17th. Do not miss the event. Everybody was talking about it last year. It was all over social media. Super great lineup. Head over to nolalabfest.com to register. And like I said, it's been all over social media. Lots of buzz about it. We're super excited and thank you to HyperDent.
I'm excited for this. I love this meeting. It was so much fun last year. But I know that's about 30 days away, but this week I'm off to Texas to run for the race for the future. Now, seriously, I mean, I can just run at home just as easily.
That's what I'm doing.
But I'm doing this to raise money for the foundation of dental laboratory technology. So head over to any of my social medias for an easy link to donate some money. Not quite at $1,000, but I'm hoping to be there by the weekend. Or you can go to dentallabfoundation.org and up in the upper right, I believe you hit the donate now button. All of it goes to a great cause. Please. donates the grants, the scholarships, giving people ability to get the CDT, get additional education. I mean, why would you not? Plus, it's me. Give me money.
And a shout out to Lindsay. I texted her this like Wednesday and asked her if I could get my shirt and my boyfriend's shirt and all of the gear. And I just got it yesterday. And it's like a pretty blue shirt. I wore it to bed last night, so I'm excited. So thanks, Lindsay.
Is it a tank top?
No, it's a regular cotton shirt.
I'm glad they stopped doing tank tops. They did tank tops for a couple years and I'm like, these are cool for running, but I'm not going to wear any other time.
Yeah, it's a sweet shirt. You're going to like it. Great color.
Yeah, I'm excited. I have to fly all the way to Texas to get mine. I know.
You do.
So this week we're finally sitting down with a guy we've been trying to get on this show for a couple years. And all the way from Leeds, England, Phil Reddington. And Phil's story starts about as unexpectedly as you can imagine. At 15 years old, this guy skipped school went out for a walk, wandered into a dental laboratory. They had him carve a tiny bottle out of a bar of soap with a scalpel, and apparently he impressed them enough to get himself a job.
That's so crazy. I love that story.
It's amazing. Phil takes us through a 35 plus years in the dental lab where he's building his own laboratory. He walked away from competing on price. He dived headfirst into implants, education, digital dentistry, and eventually creating a team that he says is the best he's ever worked with. We also get into full arches, thimble bars, lifetime guarantees on products. I know, right? That's crazy. Knowing when to say no to a dentist and why sometimes the secret to running a great lab is simply not being a jerk to the people who work there. So join us as we chat with Phil Reddington. 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. 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! Visit labingcloud.com right now to book your free personalized demo. That's L-A-B, the letter N, cloud.com. Labing Cloud, your lab simplified. The operating system for dental labs built for techs by techs. Hey, just mention Elvis is handsome and get one month free. Hey listeners, have you ever wondered what the hell I'm doing when I'm not recording voices from the bench? Believe it or not, I actually have a regular job. I'm a client rep for Derby Dental Laboratory. So I'm in the field all day, all the time. I'm either doing chair sides or I'm building relationships and rarely am I in front of a computer. Well now here's a fun fact for y'all. Dental labs grow by keeping their customers and doing more business with them. Now that's my job, keeping those doctors happy and keeping them coming back for more work. It would be virtually impossible to do that without iCortica. So how do you get visibility with your accounts? Are you exporting data vomit in the form of a spreadsheet that only gives you a small piece of the puzzle? In fact, using Excel makes me angry and you don't want to make me angry. iCortica gives me everything I need. at home or right on my phone, even when I'm sitting in my car. I can see sales, remake rates, notes from my LMS, and it even tells me exactly what my risks and cross-sell opportunities are. I can even see if a doc just called to complain before I walk in the door. Because honestly, that is a door I might choose not to walk in. The key is I'm always prepared and never surprised. I honestly wouldn't be able to do or enjoy my job without it. So head over to icortica.com to schedule time with them today to learn more. Icortica. Stop digging for data and start taking action to keep more customers and more revenue. That's I-C-O-R-T-I-C-A.com. Love you, Rob. Voices from the bench. The interview. All right, so we are super excited to finally, actually finally talk to a man that I think we met at a DTG. show maybe five years ago in Chicago, weren't you there?
Yeah, I was called in last minute to cover for a friend who was taken ill to replace.
Oh yeah, that's right. You presented.
Yeah. Beautiful.
Phil Reddington from Leeds, England. How are you, sir? Hello.
Very well, thank you. Yeah, it's Friday. The work's done for the week. It's sunny, but a bit windy. But yeah, I have a gin and tonic here ready. Oh, that is beautiful. Very English of me.
It's only 11 A.m. here, and I'm 6 beers in.
That's the way it goes. That's profitable.
I'm 30 units in, so I'm working. Yeah.
We'll be building up to the booze later.
Yeah, you've got to wait till you finish work before you start.
Right on.
Well, before we get started, I got to explain to people exactly how great of a guy you are. A couple years ago, you posted a simple picture on Facebook. You're wearing a vest and it was from Annex. Yes. And all I did was like, that's so great. Where can I get one? This sound of a just shipped it to me.
You shipped your vest to Elvis.
Why would you? Yes.
Yeah. I thought it was nice.
I was. I was looking just to reach out to the company to see if I could get a free one too. And Phil sent me his. And I still wear it to this day.
That's a great story.
Well, that's good because at least it's getting some use, you know?
Oh, yeah.
I had to be loved and rather than just going in my wardrobe with a load of other t-shirts and things that you'd pick up on these sort of expeditions. So, yeah, I was happy to send it to you.
Well, Elvis likes bright orange vests. Of course, without a shirt. Shirt under it, of course.
Wait, what?
Showing the guns off. Yeah.
Do you know what, as well, that was one of the only pieces of clothing that actually fit me. Because most T-shirts that get sent are way too big or they send me, if he's a small guy, I'll send him a really small one. So I've got like a collection of shirts that are like 2 sizes too big or two sizes too small. That actually fit me.
I know how you feel about that.
I could feel how much you were into it. So I thought the guy's got to have it, you know?
You're the greatest dude.
That's a great story, you two.
All right, man. Let's get your story. How does Phil find out about teeth?
Completely by accident.
Yes.
I was basically in a bit of a loss. I was never very good academically. I was pretty good at sports and things and sort of concentrated mostly on that school. Wasn't a very high achiever, but I talk about it and I write, for instance. You know, I come across quite well when I'm talking, but if you read one of my texts, it's like, dude, what the hell is he saying? I was just sort of a bit of a loss one day and I thought, I'm not going back to school this afternoon. I'm just going to go for a walk around the town centre. And I bumped into somebody who was a year above me at school and they said, oh Phil, I've just been for this job interview at this crazy place. I think you'll be really good at it. You should go give them a call. So I went and knocked on the door and they said, nah, nah, we're done with interviews. And I was like, man, I've come a long way for this. And I'm like, oh, okay, go on then, come in. We'll give you a shot. And it was basically just a bench test of, I was given like a little tiny ornate bottle and a bar of soap and a scalpel. And they just said basically, carve the bottle out of the soap and do it as close as you can in terms of size and shape and all the detail. I did that, and I sort of give the guy a shout and said, Oh, finish! He's like, Man, come on, just do it as good as you can, and I'm like, Well, it kind of is as good as I can do it, and I gave him it, and he was like... wow, guys, look at this. Come look what this kid's just done. No way.
So you were a complete natural.
Well, I wouldn't say natural. I just happened to nail that one task. But yeah, so they said, all right, we'll be in touch sort of thing. And then when I got home, my mom was like, why have you not been to school this afternoon? I was like, well, I have. And she's like, well, how did you manage to get a job at a dental lab if you've been at school? And she's like, your boss has just rung, he's offered you a job you can start under. I was like, right, brilliant. That's me done.
So when he called, your mom answered, and he told your mom about the job before you? Oh.
Yeah, Phil's been in for a job interview, and we'd just like to let you know he's got the job.
How old were you, like 80?
I was going to say, how old were you? Were you 17 or 18?
I was 15 at the time.
Fifteen? Wow.
Yeah. So I still. Other people from England and they've told us that you guys are allowed to work at 15, correct?
Yeah. I already added like a part-time job, like just like a Walmart type sort of warehouse.
It was so fantastic.
But yeah, we were allowed to work full-time as soon as you hit 16. So you, but you're allowed to start. tentatively working, reduced hours at 15. But then you have to go back to do your exams. And the company gave me three months off to study and do my exams. And I just used it to waste time with my friends, basically.
Take me back to your mom. Was she ****** but happy at the same time?
Yeah, a little bit of both. She was like, she couldn't really be mad at me because I'd gone out and found a job. And I think we'd had this dialogue going quite a while between mom and my dad, like, if you're not gonna buckle down at school, you're gonna have So I was like, all right, I did what you said. So yeah.
And she like, why the hell did you find a dental app of all places?
It was all down to a friend, I think he's called Mark Watson. And he'd literally just been for the job interview. And I presume I did better. And I think I saw him a few years later and he's like, you stole my job.
I was going to say, did he?
Get the job too? And he said, you should go, man, you should go. So I did. So I owe him a lot.
Wow. That's a great story. So she was like, all right, you're allowed to start Monday, go for it.
Yeah, So basically, it was a quite big lab for UK style. And when we say big lab in UK, we're talking like 25, 30 people. So that's not a big lab in US. It's a small, medium.
It's a medium to big.
Yeah. And it was just like a bunch of mainly young guys and even the guy who owned it was really young. I remember he had like I've really ripped up Porsche, and he had another Porsche as well, and he had those cheesy car stickers in the back that said, My other cars are Porsche, but it was, and I was like, Okay, this could be good, and this is outdating me now, but like everyone was like walking around with Walkmans on and stuff, and I thought it was such a cool place. Yeah. And everyone had like Ford Fiestas with all the body kits on and stuff like that. And yeah, convertible little cars. All the technicians were wearing like Armani and stuff. It was like, this is such a cool place. And then I was like, I was on like 38 pound a week as an apprentice and I was like literally getting no money at all for doing the worst jobs in the lab. But I just, I just did them. And I started off in the model room. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Yeah, there was a bunch of us down there casting models. We'd be doing like 60 impressions at a time between three of us casting that. And it was a massive production lab. And this was pre, like there was a bit of a downturn in dentistry. So at this time, the guy I seem to remember, the owner was charging around 45 to 60 pounds a crown. And this is 35 years ago. And then by the time I left that lab, it was charging 29 pounds and the things really changed. But I progressed up the ladder. I moved up to the metal work room. We were waxing and casting and had some good mentors in there. And it was, I think somebody, I fell in with a guy who was working downstairs and he sort of turned up at 2:00 in the afternoon. And he kind of did what he wanted. And I thought, I wonder what he did. So then on lunch hours, I'd go down and pester him. And it was a guy called Mark. And I'd just sit aside of him and watch him. And he was doing foil veneers and refractory veneers. The only guy in the lab that could do them. And he was naturally one of those people that was really, really gifted. But at the same time, he figured out if I can get somebody to do this **** for me, I can have more coffee and cigarettes. So, you give me stuff to do on the lunchtime, you go, Yeah, just take the foil out of those, yeah, just go sandblast these veneers or whatever, so I started getting into that side of things, and I think the boss sort of thought, Let's get Phil down here, he seems to enjoy the ceramic side.
I gotta say... That's where I started and that was damn hard. So they probably saw you coming and wanted to teach you the hardest of the heart because originally when you interviewed, they knew you were gifted. So it's kind of a nice match how it all turned out.
Yeah, so I'd gone through three different departments very quickly. You're supposed to do like two years in the malt room, two years of wax, then going like three years in ceramic. And within like two years I was on the ceramic floor. doing the veneers and ceramic inlays on refractory and stuff like that. And then I was taught metal ceramic and that was all there was at the time. There wasn't really any all ceramic way back then. The guy, Mark, he left to set up his own lab. So all of a sudden I was like dropped in, you're right, you're the only guy that knows how to do this, so you've got to do it. And I was doing like, 20, 30 refractory veneers and in layers a day for pennies, for 38 pound a week. And everyone else around me was loaded. They were on really big wages. And I got drunk at the Christmas party. And I was like to the boss, you've got to sort this out. And he gave me a really big rise. And then I was happy for a long time, you know? Yeah, I was the boss was called Richard and he was a lovely guy. He was a great boss. And it's just a businessman who's like, If I can get somebody to do all this work for so much money and the same, I'm giving them an opportunity to thrive and do something, why not take advantage of it? And when I asked... I got, you know, he gave me, he gave me a nice rise and I was, I was, I was happy. He was happy. But yeah, yeah, I think I was like stood with like a champagne glass upside down going, ah, you got to give me some dough.
I just want to say that getting drunk at con time can be beneficial.
Yeah.
No, I mean, we have some wild Christmas parties. We always try to do some fun activities, but it always ends up in just drunken debauchery, really. That's what happens when you get a load of creative people together. When they cut loose, they cut loose.
You do realize that 25 to 30 refractory units a day is like more than anybody in the world?
It was an insane amount. And we used to work for an English dentist who was based out in Germany. And they used to ship all these impressions in on like a Thursday, they'd all get cast up by the model, all the refractory models would get made and burnt out and I'd get them on a Friday and they all had to ship on Monday and I'd just have to worry.
You've got to be kidding me, why?
Yeah, and I would always turn up at the pub, but last orders, all my friends had been out all night. I'd managed to get to a nightclub after work and I'd be going back on a Sunday morning to finish stuff off. So it got the better of me to be honest. And then Mark, the guy who taught me and moved on to set his own lab up, kind of said, I need some help. Do you want to come work for me? And I just jumped at it. So that was the next progression working for Mark. And the lab's still called Beaver, he's called Mark Beaver, and it's still called Beaver Dental Lab. You know, I never checked.
Well, hold on. Were you, how old were you? So did you graduate from the school?
I was probably about 20 by this time, 19 or 20. Yeah.
So you just want to be right around the same age as me, because when I started, my dad put me to work making refractory models. And that was quite a while ago, and that was what, that's how I learned the business. And so that's pretty awesome. So now you're 20, sorry to interrupt you, and you're gone dead.
Yeah, no, it's fine. Yeah, I tend to waffle, so he interrupts me at any time.
I tend to interrupt, sorry.
So, they went to work for Mark and everything was quite, good. We were getting quite a lot of work.
It was just you and him.
Just me and him and a girl called Claire, actually still works for me now. So, this was again, like probably... 1989, no, 1992, something like that, 1993. I get lost every day. But yeah, a long time ago. And then we took on another ceramist, another person to help do the marbles and kept waxing up and stuff. And Mark took a little bit of a step back and I think he enjoyed playing golf quite a bit. And I think he kind of lost his love for the industry a little bit. And things weren't going too well. We were losing clients and Mark was not turning up. And then wages started getting missed. And I was like, having to go around to his house and said, my check's by. I was going to say, what is not turning up? Yeah. And I think I said something like, I think I'm going to have to find another job. And he said, well, wait, why don't you just buy the business off me? So I did. My now wife's parents lent me the money to buy the business from Mark and Claire and Amy stayed working there with me. And we just grew it smaller, grew it slowly, but we were still, 25 pound and a metal ceramic crown, low end NHS bashing out the units and But then I think about five years into that, we had a couple more people come, we had Lee come, and it was still, we were turning out good work, but it was a budget price, and it was, everything was on a shoestring. if a piece of equipment broke, it was a massive hit. It means I won't take a wage for a month, you know. So it wasn't viable how it was going. And then we saw like for the first time, offshore labs coming in. China market started very early in the UK. And I can remember some technicians coming round to say, you need to join up this alliance with us because we are just going to get, we're just going to check work for China. We can't compete with them. And I thought, you know what? I don't want to do this. I want to get better rather than get cheaper and do more mass production. So me and my girlfriend, who is now my wife, Jessica, we had a house and we had one that we rented out and we decided to sell that renter and use the money to go on a nice holiday for once and also to invest in equipment and education for me and the people at the lab. And we just went on every course. We went on courses with dentists. We partnered up with a really good dentist called Craig Parker, who I still work with to this day. And he went on technicians courses with me and I went on dental courses with him and we just went on a journey together. We just decided we wanted to be the best at whatever we're doing. And it started off with cosmetic stuff and very quickly we learned there's this thing called implant dentistry. This is where the future is and me and Craig basically threw ourselves into that. And from then on, we were able to start charging more and more. We were able to pay better wages. We were able to buy better equipment.
Can I ask a question? So I talked to a lot of, have talked to a lot of England technicians. How did you get out of the insurance? to like switch and be able to charge more. Obviously it was knowledge and learning and everything that you went on in that journey, but how were you able to pivot?
We took a big gamble and we stopped taking on NHS clients. So if the dentist wanted to send us work, they could only send to our private.
So you have a choice. You can be like, no, I don't want that.
We set like 2 fee scales, basically one's NHS and one's private. But when new dentists wanted to work with us, they only got sent private. We said, we're not doing any NHS work. So we never stopped doing NHS work for about 10 years. We never said no to the clients that we had. We just stopped taking on new. And eventually we had to put our NHS prices up, you know, because it's crazy making a crown for 0 profit. It's actually costing you money to make it. So we've always just tried to keep it so we'd make a little bit out of these crowns. And then it got to a point where it was no longer viable for the dentist to be able to pay for a standard of NHS crown. So that just disappeared completely then?
Does NHS dictate how much you can charge or do you just have to be a price worthy of those?
Yeah, the dentists are in a very tricky position working for the NHS because they're paid on like UDA scales, so basically units of dental activity. So there's only so much they get paid by the government for doing a certain amount. Amount of work, and that amount of work to make a crown prep and impression or scan and get a good crown back at the end of it is so tight that it's almost they're almost doing it for free, the dentists, even though you wouldn't think that if you read the press here. And the labs as well, they work like crazy. They have to shift to such high numbers just to make a living. But we got out of that a long time ago and we decided no, private. And then I think we made a decision as well as me and my wife and we talked to the team and said, we're going to double our prices and we're going to lose some clients, but we're going to explain to everybody why. And we doubled our prices and we did lose a few clients, but then we were working And then we just start slowly. We've always done that every sort of like couple of years. We'll have a look and see if we need to move prices on things. And sometimes things go down a little bit. if you get invest in new equipment and you can think, what, we brought this in house. We don't have to necessarily move this up for a couple of years in terms of price. But we are, I would say, towards the top end in the UK price wise. one of our implant crowns is anywhere depending on system from 450 to 750 pounds. That's like about 8, $900 for an implant crown. And I, it's workable.
But. Aren't you one of the only few laboratories that was actually able to do that? Like when you made your mind up to pivot and go non What is it? HAS? What is it?
No, I don't. I won't even the first to do it. All the people had already, you know, had that sort of epiphany and done it as well. And I've seen that the other people were doing sort of implants and things like that. And I thought, yeah, I'm going to do that. You know, it wasn't my idea. I just took the decision with my wife that this is what we're going to do with our lab as well.
You know, fantastic.
So I think Barb here in America, with this insurance, you just kind of just raise your pricing and then the doctors that take Medicaid and Medicare and all that, they just can't afford.
It. Yeah, same with the NHS. There's no way that an NHS dentist would be able to make any money using our lab.
And it just kind of makes them not want to use you.
And that's kind of what you wanted, though. I mean, not to be nasty, but I mean, you wanted to go the other direction. So you gave them a choice. This is my prices, you know, I'm not going to kick you out, but I'm more expensive. I mean, that's kind of a new year.
We're still willing to do the service. And we did for at least 10 years. There was still one particular dentist sending us NHS work every day. And he was like, I just know that it's going to fit. You know what I mean? It's going to look great and it's going to fit and it's worth the money. And I think when he retired, that was the last one that, the last NHS case that we got in.
The NHS, do they have labs like on their radar that they recommend or is it just a lab and take that work?
It's entirely up to the dentist. They choose which lab they work with. They're not bound by the NHS. You have to use registered technicians GDC registered techs and the labs have to be registered with the MHRA, like the Medical Devices Authority. But other than that, they can use whoever they want. They can make the crowns to sell. A lot of NHS dentists do CERIC for them. So, you know, for the patients, they find that that's just as cheap as far as using a lab, you know. I've definitely seen that going on. And it amazed me, but you know, it is if you think, if you're doing that many, you can make it work and you can get somebody doing this quick stain and glaze and yeah, it's definitely something that I've seen going on in surgeries and I was amazed by that. But yeah, I think we still have this problem today and I'm sure when you've talked to other UK technicians they'll say the same, that there are still Labs out there that try to compete on price and always trying to undercut, and we've tried to avoid that at all costs. We've always tried to be fair with the pricing. We put our prices up this year for the first time in five years, with the way everything's gone up the last couple of years it just became. We had to do it, but we don't, we try not to take the **** shall I say, with the prices, but we try to do a great job. Everything that leaves our lab should be as good as it can be made. We shouldn't have anything leaving the lab that's not as good as we could deal with it.
Are you still doing retractory veneers?
Sorry, no, I've never done a refractory veneer since. It's dead hard. There was an occasional foil veneer when we needed super thin laminate. I'll get a foil kit out, and we've got a couple of technicians at the lab, a couple of ceramicists are good with the foil. We've got a great bunch of technicians and support team at the lab. They're unbelievable. It's the best team that I've ever had. And some of them have been with me for 20 odd years. And some of the new guys are just slotted straight in. We've got young ceramists, we've got old ceramists, we've got young CAD technicians, we've got young CAM technicians, we've got old guys that have been doing it forever as well. We've got prosthetics departments. that's got a young trainee in there and then two people have been doing it like 15 years.
Yeah, if anybody that's knocked on your door at 15 going, hey, what are you guys doing here? I gotta check it out.
We've not had that as such, but I think the last, at least two out of the last five people that we've employed have sent emails and asked if you're ever having a job, offering any jobs, I'd love to come and try out. And they came and we hired them.
How do you guys find people in England, technicians? Is it off the street or do you have some sort of Ave. that they can find you?
Well, I mean, there's a few different ways. We're lucky. We've got a dental school in Leeds. So there's dental technicians training at the dental school. I don't know if there's still any, and we can get them to come for day release. We've actually got a day release student coming at the moment. She comes three days a week to the lab and two days she goes to uni. So we've already offered her a job for when she graduates next year. So we've had that a couple of times with technicians. A couple of technicians have come through that way. We've also had it where, like I said, people have just emailed in and said, if you ever have got any jobs going, I'd like to try out. And then we've had, you know, like when my guys are out with courses and what have you, they've bumped into other people and they've gone, I really want to work at this lab. Can you have a word or whatever and we'll make a note. And then, when we see a gap that we need filling, we'll get in touch and say, Do you want to join the team? We don't really we've never really struggled and we've never had a high turnover of... team members now. We've got really good retention with the team. It's a very close-knit team, but they're so welcoming when new members arrive. And it's something that I think is really important, and it's something that we try to have throughout the lab is build an environment where people feel comfortable to try new things and to fail and not have a blame culture when the case comes back in and go, I didn't do that. It's like we try to Have a really chilled atmosphere, because it's a stressful job, very time pressures, there's again saying that creative people, the worst, their own worst critics, people go home and they're worried of, I've done this right, and so then if it comes back in, the last thing they need is someone to go, Yeah, you this up.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, we've got any of that in the lab. And we did do. We went through a phase where we did have a bit of a blame culture and it got toxic and a few people left. And then I thought, I'm not going back to this situation again. I need to get on top of this and I need to control this. And ever since then, we've thrived.
When you say that, what do you do?
How do you do it? Well, it's a slow process. I mean, so everybody deals with things differently. And we've got like 18 people working in the building. And they've all got their own personalities. They've all got their own problems going on. And.
Yeah.
What we try to do is give as much support as possible, and not to, if somebody needs a bit of space, give them a bit of space. And we went through a phase of, like me trying to explain to somebody why somebody's not at work today, and you really don't, you really wish they were at work, and why have they not been at work? And it's like, this is nothing to do with you. This is between me and the person. I'm sure when the person comes back, they'll tell you and you'll go, so sorry or whatever, So I try to explain this to team members that if somebody's off, there's a very good reason for it. And we need support them when they come back, And we don't need to ask questions, we just need to quietly get on with it and do what needs doing and then give them the support when they come back. Because you never know what's going on in people's lives. So we have to make it a supportive and non-judgmental workspace.
And you learn that how.
By losing people.
I'm saying that respectfully, you know, a lot of leaders, you don't really get that connection where it's not just about your lap. Like people are, they're here, they're committed, but yet they also have lives, they have problems, they're stressed. And to be able to connect the two is kind of rare.
Yeah, I mean, it's really obvious when you look at it from that point of view. And it is just basic kindness, And I think that we forget that sometimes, kindness gets you a long way and gets you a lot of loyalty and it gets you a lot of respect from your colleagues as well when you're nice to people.
You know, Elvis, that's why you got the vest.
Yeah. When someone's gone, a lot of people will think that they're off And it's against them.
You know what I mean?
It's like, wow, you took the day off. Now I got to work harder and it has nothing to do with you, man.
Yeah, it's exactly that. And I think it's, you know, I think people, all my guys at work now really realize it. They support each other. There's stuff that goes on that I don't even know about and they help each other out. You know what I mean? It's not just me, it's them as well. You know, it's having the right people where there's not one ******* working at that lab. Everyone at that lab is a lovely person. And that takes some working out how to figure out the good from the bad, But I have had people come for interviews and straight away I've just gone absolutely no way. I don't care how skilled they are, their attitude sucks. What I think is what we do is not like some sort of gift. Everything that we do in the lab can be broken down into small sections and it can be taught and we just need somebody with the right attitude. The ability doesn't matter. The attitude is what matters. The ability can be taught but the attitude has to be right from the start and that's what we look for when we hire and that's what we look for in our team. they're always sharing ideas with each other, new techniques. We've got technicians there that are KOLs for companies and they come out and they go, we've got this new material and they share it and I see how excited they do in-house courses together and it's how it should be. And I just don't understand why more labs are not like that because a lot of the technicians that have come from other labs have worked at a few different places and gone, this place is brilliant. I've worked in some. Yeah, and you can pay people a good wage. You can give them a good work-life balance, and you can still be profitable. It doesn't have to be, you have to hammer people down to make a profit. You can give people a good life and still make a profit.
I love that.
You'll get better work.
Yeah.
How do you keep everyone trained? I mean, do you? I mean, I don't know, a lot of courses in your area.
We fly people in to the lab. So this year we've...
Oh, really?
Yeah, we've had somebody you know well, Dora Rodriguez.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Dora in. So she came in and did it. We worked with our CAD/CAM guys.
So you were one of the places she went after our meeting in Mallorca?
Yeah.
Five, six places. Yeah.
So we were one of them. And so, we, so I like even the prosthetic guys who are now doing more digital benches, they were on board in this course as well as the CAM and CAD guys, so it was, it was, she was, she was brilliant actually, like 2 days, just like threw everything at us. It was, it was amazing. And then earlier in the year, we had German technician Stefan Picher. Yeah. Eeka, actually. So I always say, I still say it wrong, but Stefan Picher, yeah, he came over and he's been one of my friends for a long time and has I went on all his courses like a bit of a stalker at one point. Super skilled dental technician, like full arch stuff is just off the charts. And yeah, we got him in to do some pink and white ceramic layering this year. We've had Marat in from Matisse to do the Matisse training. So I just bring people in because there's, you know, there's eight ceramists. And then there's a bunch of CAD cam guys and then there's a bunch of prosaic guys. And if I'm sending them on courses and then there's hotels and the travel, sometimes it's easier just to bring the guy to you, or the girl to you.
Sure.
So that's what we tend to do. There's obviously certain courses that we aren't going right, yeah, you should go on that or we'll go on these together. I mean, like 16 of us went to IDS last year from the lab.
16? Wow.
That's fantastic. Even to the admin girls, everyone was invited. Anyone wanted to come, I said, can come. And I said, we went there now. We had a time, you know. It was great. And we just got over in Chicago this year and I brought Sylvia and Ollie from the lab with me as well. So we get about a little bit. And we go to courses here and there in UK, but generally most of the education is either us training each other or bringing in, just like I say, guys, who do you want? Which ceramics department? Who do you want in this year? And then I'll make it so that person's there at some point in that year doing a two-day course.
It's great that you allow them to say who they want to come in and it's great that they have names they want to learn from.
Yeah, we've had quite a few through the doors over the years and I mean it just works so well and it's rather than you sending say like two or three ceramics on one great ceramic course in London. And then the others are like, I wanted to go on that course. Everyone gets to do that course. And not only that, you get to spend quality time with the trainer, and the trainer can customize his course or her course to suit your lab, So it just makes so much more sense to do it that way.
I think you should have Barb out there to train. I would love to go there to train. Yeah, and I'll teach them how to.
I'm in. I don't know. We do have a lot of people coming by, and sometimes it can be a bit of a pain, when labs are coming by to, you're helping them out, and it always seems to be the worst time when you're super stacked, but we try to help out as much as we can and project a good image of the lab, Yeah, I think it is fairly unique. And we're one of the, there's not many labs left that are not corporate, you know, that haven't joined a cabal of other labs. We're fiercely independent. We don't work for any companies, although we do work with companies, don't get me wrong. We work with companies, but we don't really, we're not say like, I'm not KOL for anyone, you know, I just want to use what I want to use. And I don't have that put that pressure on the team. It's like when you go in the ceramic room, we've got Lissie, we've got Creation, we've got Emacs Ceram, we've got Myo, we've got everything, because everybody likes a different thing. And because we've had so many educators in the lab bringing their systems in, then we just invest in that system. And if someone wants to keep using that and get the results with it, then that's fine. We're not just like, right, we're buying one ceramic and everyone has to learn how to use this one. Whatever works for one person might not work for the other. So find what works for you and we'll provide it.
That's so good. And you don't have consistency issues? No, we have so many different. That's great.
No, I would say that I am the worst ceramist in the lab. Seriously, those guys are more skilled. And there's so much consistency. And we have obviously QC talk. I QC virtually every case that leaves the lab, and if I'm not there, Oliver QCs and we go, we have a checklist, the ceramists and the CAD designers have checklists to check that they've done, and they write down which system's being used or which CAD library, and you know everything's. checked at each stage and then everything's finalized. We make sure everything's ultra polished underneath and there's no debris in the access holes and just little things like that can be missed when you spend all your time worrying about aesthetics and something really simple to screw the case up. So most of my job is basically checking work. I do the occasional full arch, but the rest of the time is spent on dealing with doctors Talking to the team, working through cases, and then QC at the end, and it's a lot to do, but every day I can go across all those benches and the stuff that I see blows my mind. It's the quality is just so good that these guys are producing day in, day out, and it is consistent. We all use the same Zirconia, we all use the same EMAX. It's just different stain or slightly different level. But at the end of the day, virtually I think every case comes with a photo. So they're trying to match the photo. So there's your consistency. It's not like we're just doing A3s all day long, you know? I know that within the group we've got technicians that have got certain skill sets and are good at certain things, and that's the same with the ceramist. And in my mind, I know which case should go to which ceramist, and I could direct things a little bit better by that, but it kind of happens organically. I think people know what they're good at, and they go towards those cases, and then sometimes you have to take a bullet and do a horrible case, but at the time I think people are You should see some of like the temporaries that these guys put out. It's like, I'm like, this is a temporary. This is a composite temporary Maryland. This is insane, not good.
You're not supposed to make temporaries that good, they.
Won't come back. Yeah, I'll get it all the time. Dents ring up, say, dude, I want temps. I'm like, yeah, those are provisionals. We just made them look nice. You mentioned with a bit of a stain on them, Yeah.
You mentioned doing full arching, full arches. Are you doing designs for that or are you going chair side?
No, So we have a couple of different ways. We still do a bit of analog, but generally speaking, most of it's done by the digital guy. So Ollie and Dan and Mike and Paul and David, they do all the full arch designs and we send out printed try-ins and things get screwed in and we assess that get some photographs and then if we're happy we go to the final and yeah it works really well but we are we're down at the moment he's just started unit he's upscaling to be a CDT so we'll have like a another sort of arm of the lab going out there and being in surgery you know dealing with the patients directly which I think we'll that up our game a little bit more, you know?
Well, are you getting photogrammetry? Is that a big thing over there?
Not massively. There's a few guys that do it. And we've got- Oh, that's.
A great question, Elvis.
Yeah, it's been slow to take off. But what we have got, we use, I like to say brand names, True Abutment, IO Connect. So we bought a few of those kits and we loan them out to surgeries, you know, and that seems to be a good workflow at the moment for us.
I was gonna say you're getting good results.
Yeah, I mean, some guys have hit a couple of problems here and there, but it's like, sure, changing from analog to digital is always gonna give you a few hiccups, but generally speaking, it's in the high 90s success rate with the scans with Iaconnect for us personally.
What are your finals? Are they mostly just straight zirconia? Are you doing titanium bars in them?
Yeah, we do. We kind of have four things. So we still do like traditional acrylic wraps. That's like everyone. Yeah.
Who the hell's setting teeth over there?
Yeah, Dan and Ollie. Dan and Ollie do that.
Great.
And Sarah. But So we still do them, but not many. We do quite a lot of the I bars with PMMA sleeves or zirconia sleeves. We do do FP ones like direct to multi-units with the PowerMall 2 screws, and we do obviously the thimble bars that we do loads of.
Nice.
Yeah, that's kind of what we're known for doing the nice thimble bars with individual teeth on, and we get through so many of those.
Really.
Yeah.
They're expensive.
Yeah, they're the most expensive item, but because we've been doing these now for like nearly 20 years. And we've got a workflow with them where we know that we can fix that bridge no matter what goes wrong with it. Unless you have a bar fracture or an implant's lost, if a tooth chips or if one, we've never had 1D bond, but just say for instance if 1D bonded, we've got that. that tooth library, we mill it out again, we get the bar back, the patient gets put back in the provisional, we put the new tooth on, we polish everything back up and it goes out like the day it was made. So we give like a lifetime guarantee with those cases. That's the only thing we give a lifetime guarantee with those full arch thimble bars because we know we've got it down. In a couple of days, that job's going to be fixed and ready to go back out with very little hassle.
You seriously give a lifetime guarantee on it?
On the BDT thimble bars, yes, we do.
Wow.
Now you're talking over my head, Elvis, taking over.
I didn't think any lab gets any lifetime guarantee on anything.
Well, the way that we look at it is like all the other types of restoration, like your acrylic wrap teeth pop off, the wear down, the PMMA is a little bit better. You don't get your teeth pinging off. But if you do get any problems with that, you kind of got to do a whole big step and get all the PMMA remilled and then do all the staining again. The zirconia, if you get any problems with that, you are going back to square one and remilling and that's a big pain. With a BDT bar, if a tooth chips, you send that in, we cut the tooth off, we mill a new tooth, stain and glaze it, glue it on and polish up the composite again and it's so easy to repair. But we don't get that many issues is the fact of it as well.
Well, yeah, that helps.
So yeah, we're getting these things back in like every week. I might, you know, say we've been doing like 20 years and we've probably had about 20 to repair in that 20 years. And every time we sent one back, it's like, wow, this just looks exactly like the day we fitted it 10 years ago. How have you done that? Retrievability is, I want to push more people into doing these cases because I feel like it's a premium product and we can do whatever, we've got absolute control over what we do with them and we've got a lot of success with them and we just feel comfortable with those inpatients now. They also look the best, that's the best thing we can make.
No, yeah. I mean, I wish our lab doesn't do any of that stuff. I'd love to do a thimble bar, but I imagine you don't even have a sales person. No, Do you even need to? Do you?
No, I mean, we hit the socials quite hard sometimes, you know, you've got to keep a presence out there, otherwise people forget you're there and, you know, they might see a post from another lab and go, I might try that guy tomorrow, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
We were always active across the socials. We post quite regularly. There's usually two or three posts a week that come out of the lab. And that kind of does it for us. We are going through the major hassle of having a brand new website made at the moment because ours has not been touched for like 10 years. It's so out of date. It's kind of. Yeah, it looks like it. But yeah, you know what, a pain in the *** making a new website, you know?
Oh yeah, it's ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah. But no, sales person line, no, the work speaks, sells itself. And then the service we provide as well. We try to provide a good service. We ask for a certain amount of time to do the cases, 10 working days from.
Yeah, that's what I asked for.
10 to leaving. And we don't start a case if we haven't got the photos or any, we've got any information missing. The admin team is straight on the phone. There's an e-mail sent out that I call the doctors. They write, we need this before we can start this case. And when we get everything, then the case gets scheduled. But we still get people that pay for an express fee for things to be done faster. But it's like any lab, you're always going to get the demands and it's just how you balance them and how you deal with them. And I always say to the dentist, if we can, we will. We're not trying to be ********* about this. If we can do something, we will do it. But if we say no, it can't be done, then it's not us being awkward. It just can't be done.
The ability to say no.
Yeah, power of no. Yeah. I think the more that I've said no to some dentists, the more respect you kind of you get in the way. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Come on, man. Doubling your price and saying no, it's pretty hardcore.
I involve them all at the same time. And again, a lot of the dentists that we work with have been working with for decades. You know, they're great clinicians, a great implantologist. They have there's a mutual respect. They are their word of mouth. The health as well is a big selling point for the lab. They're always, a lot of these guys are running their own courses or they're doing lectures or whatever, and they always give us the props at the end and you gotta use this lab, you know. So that's a big thing for us as well, that the dentist, you know, shouting
at our name, you know.
So there's a story behind it. So I was teaching and lecturing all over the world at one point. And then I think my daughter was born in 2016. And I thought, I need to back off a little bit with the teaching. I'm forever in an airport. I'm forever in a different side of the world. I'm going to miss my daughter growing up. And I thought I'd backed off quite a bit. And then COVID hit and then everything was closed down. And I had basically three months at home in my garden with my daughter. And I just thought, you know what, I'm done. So I called all the people that were scheduled to lecture and reschedule, you know, to reschedule. And I said, if you don't mind guys, I just don't want to do this anymore.
I'm out.
I'm out. Yeah, it's for you. So there was a couple of things I had committed to that I couldn't leave, you know, like associations or charity events or whatever that I filled. And that DTG one was just standing in for a friend. I took no fee for it. I donated my fee to charity for that event. And that was just helping out a friend and helping Von and Jeff out. They were stuck. They needed a presenter last minute. I was already going as a, you know, just a DTG member just going to catch up.
Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay.
Well, did you bring your laptop and do a thing for it? So yeah, it was just helping out.
Oh, you found out while you were at that show?
No, I found out about a week before. Okay, come in. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I booked my ticket, got booked my hotel, get everything. Like, right, okay, can you cover us for a good friend? It was Omar Pacman. Pacman. Yeah, he had a little bit of an health issue and he wasn't able to fly and he called me and I was like, bro, of course I'll do it. Yeah. No problem.
Nice.
Always say yes, right?
Except to some days. So that was like a one, one off back from the dead sort of thing just to help out a pal. I think myself and Oliver are doing one lecture next year and we're going to talk about the lab ethos and we're going to talk about building a team rather than just focusing on you're worrying about what am I doing? Let's focus on building a team. I think we are going to do a talk at ADI, which is association. dental implantology 40th anniversary congress and I think me and Ollie are going to do a little thing there. That'll be again just like a one one in a you know every now and again just get dust the laptop off and talk nonsense an hour. But yeah no I did it and it's like my daughter's outside playing now just pulling faces through the window at me and it's like you know so many technicians I've seen over the years at the bench, missing the family times, not being there, not being present. And I just think I was bringing like teddy bears on from everywhere I went for my daughter, like in Chicago or wherever, to San Diego. And everywhere I went, I brought her a teddy. And I just thought she wants, she needs presents, not presents, you know?
Yeah. I love that.
Yeah. And I mean, she's 10 now. She's starting to get bored of me, you know? Leave me alone. I just want to like.
Girls love their father.
For sure.
When you leave it again.
Yeah, I want some more stuff from an airport, please.
Yeah, girls have their father. You got to bring her into the lab eventually. Is she alive?
Oh no, absolutely not. She comes in the lab and she's, everyone in the lab loves her. And again, you know, people bring their kids into the lab if there's a school closure or whatever. Try and bring your kids in. It's everyone's friendly, you know. It's not like a dirty environment anymore. we don't even have any Bunsen burners at the lab. It's just.
Nothing to do with.
Yeah, we have cleaners that come in every night and clean everything down. Everyone clean, you know, it's just, it's a nice environment. It's not a filthy, dusty old lab anymore. You know, so yeah, but as to my daughter, I'm a strong believer in people finding their own way. I agree. A good friend of mine, Sasha Hines, once said to me, somebody's always, you've got to be the first to make footprints in the snow. And I just want to find her own thing. It might be the lab, but there's no way that I'm handing a lab over to her with all the stress and hassle that comes with it. That's going to bypass her, I'm afraid. And we're going to have, I'm going to hand that over to the team. But yeah, she'll find something else, I'm sure. I'm never going to force her into doing anything. I'll give her every opportunity. This room now is full of musical instruments that I hope she'd pick up and start playing. She doesn't touch them. I'm not going to force her into it. Every time she shows an interest in something, I'll be like, yeah, she's got a set of golf clubs because she said, I want to play golf. And she's done it about three times and then given it in. It's like, I'll put the opportunities there, but I'm never going to force her to do something she don't want to do.
Yeah, agree.
I think it makes a lot of sense. Why would you want somebody just to do what you did? They could be doing something way more important. And I mean, I don't mean any disrespect to the industry, but we just make teeth. Nobody dies. And I think sometimes we forget that there's a lot of ego in dentistry and there's a lot of fiery characters as well. And At the end of the day, we're just making teeth. It's just teeth.
Oh, I was just referring to how I was. I always went into the lab with my dad and just hung out a little bit and checked it out. It wasn't like, you know, this is what you think. Just sort of kind of like, this is, you know, what my dad does. And I think it's kind of cool.
Yeah, oh, no, I totally get that. And if she does get that, then that's going to be also cool. You know, I wouldn't say no, you're never allowed to work in the lab. It's not that's not what I was meaning. I was totally I don't think she's that into it. So I'm not going to push her that way. I'm going to find her own thing. She makes some crazy videos. I mean, she's not online. She's not on any social media or anything yet. She's only 10. We're really strict with that. But she does make videos on her iPad. And I think she's going to be a comedian. She's so funny. It's crazy. Crazy things. Yeah, so whatever she wants to do, she's lucky enough that me and her mother are in a situation where we can support her in whatever she wants to do. So be that dental technology, then yeah, sure, she's in the right spot, but I seriously doubt that she's interested in it at all.
Just be careful. Comedians, they get up on stage, they start talking about their childhood. You could be the butt of a lot of jokes, Phil.
Believe me, I have got so much so much dirt on her for if she ever gets married. The videos that she texts me, I'm like, that's going in the wedding file. That's going to marriage her on her 18th birthday. I've got so much on that kid, you know. Yeah.
Awesome. Well, Phil, man, thanks so much for finally connecting.
Yeah, it's been great.
Yeah, I love hearing the story. I love hearing about your lab. What a great job you're doing in a team you have. You deserve all the success.
Big shout out to everyone at the lab. Everyone, everyone that's just, they make it so easy for me. They're just so dedicated and they're such a great group of people. I couldn't wish to work with a bunch of people. So big shout out to everyone at the lab.
Yeah, I want to hear you talk about creating that team. I mean, I want that team too. Can I just have your team?
I don't know. It kind of, it's always felt a bit, it's felt organic really how it's all happened. It's kind of like some of the people who came for certain jobs ended up doing other jobs that they were much better at, you know?
Yeah, right people in the right.
Yeah, and it's like one of the guys that's worked for me for 26 years, I think. He's done everything from models to wax ups to digital, now bits of ceramic, you know, just wherever you need. Somebody to move to, that some jobs don't stay around forever, and then if they can adapt and change their skills to a new to do another part of the work or a new different job that's arriving in the lab, then why not? Why not retrain them right on.
I love that. People shouldn't be stuck at one spot if they're not perfect, if they're not enjoying it, I guess.
Exactly, I mean, obviously we've all, I bet everyone at the lab's got days where they're like, wish I wasn't doing this, you know. Everyone's going to have those feelings, but I would like to think that on the whole, most of the people, there's always laughter coming out of every room. whenever I walk.
I love that. I'm always a fan. If you can't have fun at work, there's no point at work.
You're there for like 8 hours a day, you know? Yeah, thank you. We're professional, but we're fun with it, you know?
Awesome. Well, again, Phil, thank you so much, man.
Thank you guys.
We appreciate it.
I'm expecting a vest soon.
Everyone's going to hit you up.
They need to send me another one because I never got it.
Yeah, totally kidding. That's awesome story though.
Yeah. Maybe Tae could hook you up because she's good. She's great. She's been one of my biggest supporters and the lab's biggest supporters. So shout out to Tae and only Andreas in Anextent Germany. They've always really looked after her. and just sort of never pushed us to do well, never put any pressure on us, but always been supportive and always being at the end of the floor. And if I've had something going on and I thought I need an ear to bend, it has always been one of those guys.
That's so fantastic.
So she could hook you up with a few funky annex products.
There you go. The sought after vet. You know it.
One-of-a-kind, it turns out.
Well, hopefully We'll see you either in Chicago or maybe IDS next year.
Yeah, I should be going to IDS next year. I tend to do one or the other. So if the year that IDS is on, I don't go to Chicago and then yeah, it's kind of tense to swap them all.
Yeah, we're cool. We do both.
Yeah, you guys get everywhere. You get everywhere. But yeah, if I am going to IDS, I will hunt you guys down finally and meet you.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Brilliant. We appreciate you. Thank you. Have a good weekend.
You too, guys. And don't work too hard today. You know, experience is enough. Okay, take it easy. Take care. Bye.
Thanks to Phil for coming on our podcast. And honestly, we could have talked to you for another three hours. Your story is one of those dental technology journeys that starts with a 15-year-old kid skipping school, and his mom was actually happy for him.
You know what? When I skipped school at 15, I didn't get any career.
But he somehow ended up with a successful laboratory, a team that genuinely enjoys working together, and a full arch restoration that comes with a lifetime guarantee. Not a bad career path, if I do say so myself. Phil's approach to the lab is pretty simple. Keep learning, invest in your people, do the best work you can, and remember, you can build a profitable laboratory without treating your team like they're disposable. So give people room to learn, let them try things, support them when life happens, and apparently they might actually enjoy coming to work with you. So thanks again, Phil. You're really inspiring for me personally and everybody listening.
Truly. I mean, we spend a lot of time in this industry on culture these days. Got it, man. Right? Love it. Love it too. All right, everybody. That's all we got for you. And of course, we'll go to you next week. Have a good one.
Bye. You got to go to the chat and then hit the plus and yes, finally got my together. Well, it's good to hear.
Thank you. 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.