Dr. Jordan Soll highlights the importance of building relationships with suppliers in the dental industry. He shares his twenty-year relationship with his dealer rep, who has been instrumental in his practice’s success, and provides tips for new dentists as they transition into practice ownership.
Read the audio transcript below:
Melissa Summerfield (MS): Hi, I’m Melissa Summerfield, Managing Director of the Oral Health Group, and welcome to Brush Up on Business. In this particular session, we are speaking with Dr. Jordan Soll. Dr. Soll is the Chairman of the Oral Health Editorial Advisory Board. He is also the Principal and Owner of Central Dental Group, a practice located in Midtown Toronto. Dr. Soll has been in practice since 1984, which is when he graduated from the University of Toronto with his DDS, and Jordan has lectured, spoken around Canada, the United States, internationally, both on clinical aspects of dentistry and on the business of dentistry. And that’s where our focus will be today. So, Jordan, thank you for joining us.
Dr. Jordan Soll (JS): Thank you for having me.
MS: One of the things that I wanted to ask you about is, given today’s world of Amazon and online shopping and delivery in a matter of hours, why, in your opinion, is it still important to build and develop relationships with your suppliers?
JS: Well, for me, specifically, personally, running a dental practice is not about getting the best deal on your sundries. There’s just so many facets to running a practice, and so you need to work with somebody who is out there. They’re going into many practices, and though they’ll keep confidentiality, they’ll give you some sense of the trends of what’s going on. What are, you know, are other guys busy or other ladies busy? You can’t get that with just click, click with Amazon.
MS: So, suppliers can deliver market intelligence to you. They can let you know about some of the new products, perhaps, that they’re seeing that you may not be aware of.
JS: So, what I’m going to answer, I can only speak from my personal experience. I’ve had a very successful relationship with my dealer rep now, probably between 20 and 25 years, and it’s just invaluable the information that this particular person will share with me. They were instrumental when I relocated my practice, and I built a new office. I call them. I have a cell number. I don’t like to do it, but if I have to, I can call them at night or on weekends and he’ll definitely respond. We just have this, this really great symbiotic relationship.
MS: So, there’s a level of service that you can expect from somebody that you’ve built that sort of relationship with that you can’t get otherwise.
JS: One hundred and fifty percent. Service to me, at my age and my number of years in practice, service is everything. I am prepared to pay a premium for that service, because as you age, you want to remove the headaches.
MS: So, you’re looking, perhaps, at short term versus long term, because you alluded to you don’t want to just save a few pennies on your sundries if it’s going to come at the cost of being able to deliver the best service to your patients, your customers.
JS: Well, don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly after the best value, the best deals, but my rep knows I will compare apples to apples. We don’t talk about the grey market. That’s off the table. So, I will look at type A, top shelf dealer reps, and I’ll see what they’re selling something for. He knows I will beat him up, but he will always get the business. But I will also never put him at a disadvantage where I will maybe go into not such a well-known dealer and say, well, they’re selling this specific product for… No, I will compare apples to apples and kind of make it reasonable for him to match the cost that I’m seeing.
MS: What value, other than service, do you think that a dealer or even a manufacturer rep can can deliver to you or to your practice?
JS: When we’re talking about manufacturer reps? Again, I work with one specific brand because it’s never let me down, and the manufacturer rep is always popping into my office, introducing me to what’s coming, you know, what’s coming down the pipe, helping me out. If we have any challenges, they respond to our calls quickly. This one particular rep, until we actually engaged in a company called Blue Light, which we use the service where we test our lights weekly. My manufacturer rep was coming in every two to three weeks, and as a service testing my lights to make sure that they were always up to proper strength. I then took matters into my own hands and said, I’m going to do this on my own and we purchased a service. So, they were always making sure we were running to the efficiency that I expected.
MS: So that’s important to you, obviously, because that enables your practice to be cost effective when everything is running up to scratch.
JS: One hundred percent, but Melissa, there’s more to it. If you’re running a busy practice and a piece of equipment goes down, maybe your hygienist chair is not working, something. If you’re constantly, you know, just using your rep periodically, and they know you’re going on Amazon or this or that, and someone who is a long-term loyal client always giving sundry business, equipment business, and both your equipment goes down at the same time. Where do you think that technician is going to show up first?
MS: No, I agree with you. I know what you’re saying. So, what is, from your perspective as the dentist and the practice owner, is there something that reps aren’t doing that you wish they would, or are doing that you wish they wouldn’t?
JS: It’s a really hard question for me to answer, because I’ve had such a great, successful relationship, and quite frankly, I keep asking my rep, who is younger than I am, you don’t plan on retiring? I hope, because this person is in their late 50s, and they just get it, they’re, you know, they’re not on their phone, they’re not distracted. And I hear stories about younger reps, maybe right or wrong, you know, a little distracted, you know, jotting in and out. For that generation, I think it’s important to give their full-time attention when they’re working with their dentist.
MS: Okay, good point. Do you believe, and you know, I know it may not be something that you’re totally familiar with, but from your perspective, are the companies that these dealers work for, the reps work for, are they spending a sufficient amount of time educating and training their reps to be able to deliver the best value to you as a customer?
JS: I’m not sure. Again, only from specific times when my reps in, if I’m just talking about a concept, he’ll jump right on it. Let me get so and so from so-and-so-company to come in and talk to you and they’ll follow up. When we chatted earlier, and I said to you, in 1986 when I started, I wasn’t wearing gloves. I had three high speed hand pieces, and they get wiped down with alcohol in between patients. Things have changed dramatically. The amount of information is massive for anybody to master. So, I think if you’re a younger rep, it may be harder, if you haven’t been in the field for a long time, to know all the ins and outs. So, I think it’s a little bit more difficult. I think they have to log the time for them to see all the things that are available to them. I think the dental companies do the best job they can. I know they have their sales meetings, but I wonder, is it truly educational, or is it okay, how can we increase our monthly productions?
MS: So, if there’s one tip that you would give or share with maybe dentists who are newer to being in a position of ownership and practice, where you know they’re now able to start making those purchase decisions, whereas perhaps they were not before. What would you recommend or say to them?
JS: The tip I would give is you have two eyes. One eye, keep on the bottom line, because that is important. But the other eye, keep on developing a relationship with one rep. Show a little bit of loyalty and hope that they show loyalty back to you in giving you the best deals possible, helping you make informed decisions, and you feel that they truly have your best interest at heart. Don’t look to jump around. It’s going to become exhausting for you, and I am telling you that down the road, if you have that really meaningful relationship, it’s going to save you a lot of time and a lot of grief.
MS: Jordan, thank you for sharing your insights on building key supplier relationships, and hopefully our listeners and viewers will take away some of that wisdom, and thanks again for the time.
JS: Thanks for having me.
MS: Thank you so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, so be sure to sign up and subscribe so that you can receive email alerts. You can also sign up on YouTube and Spotify, and that way we can let you know whenever a new episode is released. Thanks again. And keep brushing up!