Dental Office Construction - Building Your Dream Practice | Dental Unscripted's DENTAL SHARK WEEK

Welcome to Dental Unscripted. Where Mike D'Inzio and Paula Quinn break down the practice ownership journey, one episode at a time. Starting up, buying, and running a successful dental practice. What up, what up, guys? Hey, my name's Mike D'Incio. As you all know, this is another amazing episode of Dental Unscripted. As you all know, I'm one of the co-founders of Next Level and a co-host of this amazing program called Dental Unscripted.

You guys, for you followers, thanks so much for tuning in to another episode. And if you are following the program, you know that we're literally right in the middle of Dental Shark Week. And I'm super excited. This is something that we do

typically every year around the time of Shark Week. And we pick a topic that's kind of a hot topic. And this year, it's all about construction. So for those of you that are thinking about a startup or in the middle of a startup or thinking about a major expansion in your office, you are not going to want to miss this week as we break down the topic of construction. And I'm super excited to keep this topic going here.

So without further ado, I'd like to introduce my friend and partner in the community, Kenny Ackerman with Accurate Construction. Kenny and I have done a lot of projects together. Welcome to the show, Kenny. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. So this Shark Week, we really pick topics that have a lot of conversation about that. As a consultant, I think the first Shark Week was all about real estate. The second Shark Week was all about practice brokers, brokering practices.

Construction is a very, very important topic for startups. And I'm excited because this week is just a bunch of knowledge from the best contractors in the country, all kind of spinning their own flavor on it. And yeah, we're lucky to have you, man. Tell me a little bit about Accurate Construction. I know you serve the amazing state of Florida. You do a great job there. We've done a lot of projects there. Tell me a little about the company, you, how it started.

Just kind of give me the high level, your company and who you guys are. So basically we're based out of Tampa, Florida. That's where our hub is. My father and I, Kevin, own the company. We're pretty much definitely family owned and operated for good, for better, for worse. Sometimes we're hands on all the time. So that's kind of how we run it. We have a close group of subcontractors we work with throughout the state. where predominantly a lot of our work is in-house.

So we have all of our own carpenters. We recently, within the last five years, got our plumbing license. So our own plumbers, framers, hangers, all that good stuff is within the accurate umbrella. Wow. What that allows us to do is be extremely aggressive on timeline. and product placement. So we make sure that your vision, especially in a startup, because it's gonna be somebody's first time doing this, we wanna make sure they, like no stone is left unturned.

We kind of think for them in that sense, getting them down the road, But we're based out of Tampa. We service the state. I would say a predominant amount of our work is in the Tampa Bay and Orlando market currently. But areas like Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, Naples, those areas are all growing and we're starting to see project uptick in those areas as well. That's awesome. It's a big state to service, man.

Hats off. I know scaling into other different markets is challenging, especially for construction. So that's super cool to hear, man. Well, awesome. I mean, I think one of the things that's really unique is you guys' ability to keep things in-house. So we're going to definitely touch on that here in a little bit. I don't think that's a normal thing for contractors to have a lot of in-house stuff. So let's get let's get into that. I'm going to mark that as a topic for later.

But I'd like to kick us off with kind of like how like when you're looking at a startup, there's a lot of our our viewers, listeners are our startups thinking about. getting into ownership. And, you know, I was an ex-banker, as you may remember or know. And, you know, lending is kind of sets the tone for how much money these guys can spend.

You know, construction has been so expensive by inflation and labor and all kinds and every market's different, which is why I'm really excited about Shark Week, because you guys are all kind of different markets and have different flavor for this industry. this situation, but like everybody kind of runs their business a little bit different and every market runs the flow a little bit different. How early on do you like to get involved to start with the planning, the due diligence process?

Like what in your mind sets up a dentist the best way when getting a contractor involved soon or how soon? What's the answer there? How quickly do you want to get in?

I think the best position to be in as a contractor client relationship for the overall project to incorporate all those things that you're talking about is to get in when the client has a couple of spaces And what that looks like is the client would have already gotten in touch with the bank, kind of figured out what their budget's going to be. They got with their agent, their agent's going to tell them, hey, these are the spaces that are available.

Now I think it's a great opportunity to be linked with the contractor. And what that does is that allows you, the earlier the contractor can get in and you're comparing spaces, it allows the contractor to go, okay, space A, here are your challenges versus space B and space C. Sometimes it's a little too early if the designated areas haven't been located. Sometimes a contractor is just another person in the tent that maybe doesn't need to be there that early.

But I think once you get the bank on board, once the agent goes, hey, we have these couple spots located, I think that's a great time. Nothing is signed from the client perspective. So you can really compare and contrast because ultimately it's going to come down to the budget. And you want to make sure you align all those things. And I think that would be a great position to be in. I love that you said that because everybody wants to get introduced as a consultant.

Everybody wants to be introduced very, very beginning of the process of a startup. Like, hey, I'm the marketing company. I think I should be involved because I'm the best guy ever. And then even the equipment guys and gals, they want to be... Everybody wants to be in the front. Let's just put it that way.

But if the show has... has educated enough folks it's really there's key players in the beginning of the process that need to be part of that process to set the doctor up for a successful project and absolutely and you said it banking of course nobody wants to work for free you need pay everybody needs paid so it makes the client feel great That a bank's behind the project. That's kind of step one. Step two, of course, is real estate.

My favorite thing that you said there was a couple spaces, three spaces. Let's bring the contractor in and get their opinion.

Is that something that you guys do in Florida a lot, is really honing in on... multiple spaces and comparing them because I find that not a lot of real estate folks love making multiple offers it's a lot more work for them uh there's a lot you know you mean so what what's your take I mean it sounds like you're pretty big on going into multiple spaces you don't have a contract with the client yet and you're helping that client really make the best decision for them. I love that.

So is that something that you guys do quite often?

Yeah. Yeah. I believe that's part of building their relationship with the client. I think that's a huge thing. Um, cause it's easy for us to kind of sit back and say, okay, call me when you have your plans and your spot picked out. We kind of try to get it on the other end and build that relationship. So there is that camaraderie early so they can build the trust.

Um, because you know, telling them what they want to hear is sometimes harder than people think um versus you know kind of you know hey I love this little telling them what they don't want to hear exactly yeah that's right yeah yeah that's hard yeah yeah and I and I feel like you know before everything's signed that's the position to do it and yeah there's a little bit of there's extra effort on our portion like you know we don't know if they're going to sign with

us we don't know if it's going to come You were speaking to them on a Sunday night at ten o'clock and we're talking to options like it's just we look at it as that branch that's going to get us there. And yeah, gotten us there so far. The relationships we've built. I just tell people, I'm like, just speak to your experience with us. So kind of so, Kenny, to that point. And I love that. I just want to make a note real quick. Nobody. A lot of people do. a lot of things before they get hired.

And I want to make sure that the audience, the listeners appreciate that and don't take advantage of that. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to hire Kenny one hundred percent of the time, but Kenny knows he's not going to win every deal. Everybody, he knows that. But I do want people to appreciate that.

consultants equipment reps contractors real estate people for sure bankers they're going to do a lot of they're going to put a lot of time into you before anybody makes any money and I think that's really important because if you take advantage of that situation can burn some bridges in the industry whatever you know it's better to have a great team helping you make these decisions and just appreciate the fact that they're giving their time, donating their time.

So I just wanted to make that note,

but real quick, what are some of the things then, since you're helping them look at different spaces, what are some of the things that like help you decide, okay, this is a good space. This is going to be a challenge. Like what's that sound and look like? Like, What are those things that you're looking at in that due diligence process? So a lot of it is power, electrical to the building. When I go in there, there's a checklist we go through. Usually electric is up at the top.

Usually newer buildings, it's a little more cut and dry. During acquisitions and remodels, sometimes it's a little more difficult because we're trying to figure out how to build this without having kind of a ground floor to start with. So getting in there, power, parking's a big one. We wanna make sure there's parking. Basically when I'm going into it, I'm looking at from the outside in. Usually we kind of have a precursor. Is there going to be exterior work needed versus interior work?

Usually that's budget driven, stuff like that. But our biggest thing is interior wise is power. It's going to be your HVAC system. It's going to be your plumbing. It's going to be those nuts and bolts. The big expenses, the things that you know are going to be like, holy crap, like that power panel is not going to support you. So who's going to pay for it? Basically, who's going to pay for that? Exactly. Exactly.

And we want to make sure if they haven't signed a lease yet or they're in the process of an LOI or anything like that, we present those options so they can be like, hey, the power is insufficient in this space. What are we doing to address it before we sign the lease? Correct. Yes. If we can be in those discussions and be of assistance. rather than them coming and being like, hey, I signed this lease two weeks ago. This is what I got. And I'm like, oh, man, now we have to deal with this.

I'm pretty surprised by how many calls I get throughout the year of folks trying to negotiate their own deals. And, of course, my first response, whoa, let's get some people involved here because – I don't know what you're doing. Wow, it's a great deal. And the landlord said he didn't want anybody involved and he's giving me a great deal because no one's involved. That's a red flag, folks. It's a red flag. They're doing that on purpose so they know what they're doing.

Okay, so that's really great information. Of course, that's something that not a lot of people can do. Your real estate guy can't do that. Your contractor can't look at the power panel and determine that. They can't look at HVAC. So it's obviously a really good thing to get a contractor involved early on in that site selection. And what I heard was not only to help you pick the right space, but really to negotiate your best deal with the landlord.

Do you find that you collaborate with those real estate guys a lot to help you to give the real estate guy or gal ammunition? I assume that's where that's going when you find something that's a potential issue. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, we want to bring those costs. We want to bring those items up. We want to associate a cost with those items so they can be discussed at this point in time.

Back to your point, if they're representing themselves and they believe the landlord has their best interest at heart and sign a lease, I find us working uphill at that point. Now we're up against the budget. Now we're up against the timeline for things that should have been deemed in negotiation of an LOI versus now it's like, hey, you signed it. How do we figure a way out of this?

At that point, we're taking portions of their budget that could have been used for the practice and using it to enhance the utilities that are on the site.

And it makes sense that so so you're kind of you're probably putting a chicken scratch kind of value to a deficiency so that the landlord can potentially pay for that so that it doesn't come out of your bank loan or maybe TI allowances. But and that's the dance. That's the real estate person's dance. But without that information, you know, it's not much leverage. Let me ask you one more question on due diligence and we'll move on.

I want to talk a little bit about your collaboration with designers and architects next. Before we move on, I've been seeing this kind of trend where real estate folks don't want to bring contractors in too soon. I'm always a big fan of that. That's why I asked the question and I knew you would probably answer it that way, get you involved as soon as possible. But I'm starting to see real estate people put in the LOI, we need this minimum of this amperage, minimum of this HVAC.

And that's just in the LOI. And I feel like they're doing that so that maybe we don't need to bring the contractor in, but they're covering their bases. Is there any pitfalls with that? I'm just curious. I would have to imagine that there's got to be some pitfalls to that. Am I making sense what I'm asking you? It's signing a lease, you know. as is, putting those definitely has been. But sometimes there are caveats to that. Sometimes it depends on single phase power versus three phase power.

So for example, if you were going to do hey, we want a minimum of two hundred amp power. OK, that's single phase, then that's going to be insufficient for an office that's fifteen hundred or bigger. So those are things that we would see. Hey, you need four hundred amp single phase power, stuff like that. So I think the boilerplate stuff is fine for a general and it gets you started down that road to see the temperament of a landlord with the negotiation.

But from a construction perspective, there's definitely items that are particular to that, that would go in more detail. So you'd want a contractor and a professional involved. I've always found that if there's a deal point that needs to be ironed out, it's best to get it ironed out on the front end. Then you strike a deal. Landlord thinks you're good because he or she landlord sees that two hundred amperage should be fine. They don't know anything about dental.

So this real estate person that's dental specific puts two hundred amp on the LOI. they're checking the box and then later on down the road mr ackerman comes rolling in hot saying well I need a I don't even know what you're talking about I'm not an electrician but a three-phase whatever landlord's probably gonna be like what the hell you know and we already we already agreed now you're going back on that agreement so I I guess all to say get that contractor involved early because Yeah.

Yeah. There's there's just things that I think need to be flushed out before you get to the finish of the LOI. Now, I think that's what we're ultimately seeing. All right, so let's move on. I want to talk a little bit. And just so you know, Kenny, I'm kind of like with you, I wanted to really stay in the front end of the project. I'm going to get to the back end of the project with some of the other interviews this week. And so this is great. Let's talk a little bit.

Let's talk some on the designer architect collaboration. I feel like... lately in the marketplace this design build concept is is really working well there's got there's a lot of um a lot of uh conversations about it in my world uh should we hard bid should we do some kind of design assist or or design build we've defined that in other episodes Kenny, ultimately, I think it all is around budget, right? It all comes down to budget and speed.

Where do you kind of fall in the spectrum of what the best way to go about this? What's your take on it? I don't think there's a wrong answer here, but what's your take? So there's definitely two different processes. We're a design-built firm, meaning I have an architect in-house. So what that means to the client is basically we could find the space, design the space, and take that to permit. With all that in mind, I like to start with the budget. So we go, okay, we have X amount to spend here.

We're going to design this space to incorporate all these items that are pertinent to your build so be it you know accent walls design flooring and stuff like that like those can be implemented while we're drawing it um so when we get the end result and there's a collaboration during this whole time so we're running things by them we're designing it together um and then by the time we get that finished print and we're submitting for permit everything lines up so there but we design

this with that budget in mind And then we take it to permit and then we, you know, we carry it out. The flip side of that is a hard bid process, which is the doctor will go get an architect independent of us or independent of any GC. And they will allow the architect to design and build the office. And then they'll submit that to general contractors for a bid. The problem I find with that is they fell in love and they did all this due diligence with the architect.

And then they're getting numbers on the other end that aren't in collaboration with their budget that's assigned to them. So what that means to the client is we have to call in the industry. It's called value engineering. So, for example, if they design the reception area a certain way, we go, OK, you know, this is.

this is seven stones of granite this is gonna exceed our budget why don't we design it this way and normally clients are up to that but it just adds time to the whole process because now a lot of pain a lot of pain too right kenny because yeah I mean I want to paint a picture. You did a great job explaining that. I want to paint a picture to the clients, to the listeners. The very first thing that designers, architects do, and I'm not against design architects, so please do not get me wrong.

This is Shark Week, general contractor style of a whole week. Of course, you're going to hear a lot of design assist or design build, which Kenny is a design builder. You're going to get that perspective. I wanted to point out the fact that there are hard There are challenges with a hard bid, and Kenny just broadly brushstrokes on those challenges. But I want to back up for a second.

Imagine a world where the designer, architect, space planner, interior designer, whoever, sets up a call with you, doctor. And they're like, hey, I want you to start thinking about your vision for the practice. I want you to set up a Pinterest and start pinning a bunch of images of what you want. And I don't know, folks, if you've ever spent any time on Pinterest, but there are some amazing shit out there that is really attractive. And so here you are with your follower.

You're like, holy crap, I love that front desk. And holy crap, I want a lot of glass and I want this and I want that. And oh my God, look at the texture on the wall and blah, blah, blah. So next thing you know, you're sending this Pinterest board to your interior designer, architect, space planner, whatever you want to call them. And guess what? They were hired by you to recreate a lot of that. And they very rarely ask the question, what's our budget?

And so the poor contractors have to deal with this where they're the bad guys. So now, like Kenny said, you go to a hard bid because the designer architect just designed this incredible space, the brainchild of Pinterest, right? And then you, Kenny, you're the bad guy. You're like, damn, Kenny, you're five hundred grand, six hundred grand. And and you're like, yeah, like So, Kenny, give me some back to kind of plans, permits.

If we could be smart about it on the front end, you asked about budget first. And I love that because I'm an ex-banker. I'm a consultant. I want budget first. But, of course, the doctors are really nervous about you just jacking up your margin. That's the flip side is we don't know what your margin is.

yeah so where how do you break down that uh insecurity and build trust like how what's that like how do you do that with a design assist kind of stuff it's yeah what's your thoughts there I try to find what's important to them and what their vision is so um normally we try to focus on any patient areas So I tell people, I'm like, look, if we're going to build this office a certain way, most of the budget should be allocated to things that are going to touch the patient.

So be it that reception, be it the exam rooms, your panel area, different stuff like that. We want to make sure that any of that, we tip that toward the design. So that would be like accent walls, fancy millwork, stuff like that. And then the back end of the office, we kind of try to consolidate with the budget that's remaining.

um it's definitely a trust you gotta you know it helps with the vision either be it from a designer or anything like that we work with a couple um it definitely helps to get it there but you also have to have like a like a conversation like this I mean and that our our relationship pre pre-design is usually established like we said during those phases of you know, kind of reviewing the spaces. So at least by the time we get to design, we have a good trust within each other.

Like, hey, listen, like this is, you know, I've told you I've laid this road out this way. You guys want this image. Let's find it. Let's get creative with it. We did a client together where they had pictures of a of a of a lobby and we kind of had to figure out how to do it. And he did a great job of explaining how we wanted it. And we kind of ran through samples with them and we did it within budget most, you know, most importantly.

So I think that's kind of how the process, that's how we look at the process. Just kind of like going through options, kind of getting the vision to what they want while giving them, you know, because all they see is a picture on Pinterest. So you don't have to buy that expensive paneling. There's other paneling, there's other ways to build it. And I think that helps with us having stuff in house. I'm not having to go find a carpenter to build this.

I have a guy who can get creative on site, will bring materials. So it kind of makes it a little more personal for the doctor. I like that. I find that collaboration is super important because the contractors are the ones that know how much things cost. Yeah. And the architects are kind of the visionaries of the whatever. And even within your organization, Kenny, I'm sure there's this battle between your creatives and the builders.

And that's a natural battle to have creatives fight against what's possible and um I love that process to make the office as awesome as it can be with the budget that we have yeah and um yeah so that's that's awesome um anything else to touch on that before we pivot to just um anything else No, I just think it goes back to your relationship with your GC. It's got to be pretty transparent. It's got to be you can call them on the phone. You can shoot them a text.

You can you can get in front of them rather than, you know, you you explaining your vision to someone. And then they go, OK, we're in contract. And then that vision gets passed off to either subcontractor or superintendent who might not have been.

involved with that whole process so they're kind of like hey you know I don't remember talking about doing an accent model like you know this isn't part of it you know so I think that's just that would be the most important thing it's just getting that relationship yeah I couldn't agree more so you talked a little bit about having kind of like your own guys in house and I I want to talk about that because I think it's a little unique and I don't think this is something that a lot of contractors

have nationwide anyways but I do know that contractors have some resources in-house so it sounds like you're kind of going down the path of taking in and creating your own workforce so that you're not having to subcontract everything out so what are what are the benefits um of having things in-house I think the benefits, the biggest benefit of having it is a cohesive project throughout.

So be it that, you know, the carpenters are, um, we are the carpenters, we are the plumbers, we are, you know, doing all this stuff real time. I think it allows for the doctor to feel comfortable because they can come up. Our biggest thing in the field, we wouldn't be anything without our guys in the field. I tell everybody, I'm like, I write checks and these guys cash them. I'm like, because they make it happen. And our team's unbelievable.

And I, especially with a startup, it's, it's hard to expect a doctor to see a floor plan and then six months later, just be okay with that floor plan. It's difficult. It's, it's, you know, this thing's not going to become real until the walls are up. And we understand that. And, uh, we try to get, be it that, you know, we try to look at from, everybody looks at the prop, we look at it from the back end going backwards.

So we look at it, what are the hurdles that we're gonna come up to that are gonna prevent us from getting to our finish date? And a lot of it is layout, a lot of it is, you know, outlets and stuff like that. So preemptively, be it that we have these guys in house, it allows us to do a walkthrough and make an adjustment real time.

So if we do a walkthrough on framing and the doctor's like, man, I thought the door was going to be over here I would like it this way we can make that change real time it's not going through a whole tree of people like hey let me call the framer let me call the architect let me call these people um you know we make the change in the field we do an architect addendum letter whatever the municipality is going to require us to do and we keep it moving I think that gives confidence

to the doctor that their voice is being heard rather than us telling them no you signed off on this layout eight months ago this is what we're building and um we try to that's it that's interesting that's interesting I didn't think you were gonna go go there I I'm thinking benefits of like cost control and quality control and and you're kind of going down this idea of being nimble and being able to make changes. And that's pretty special. I wasn't even thinking about the nimbleness of it.

So essentially, when you're a GC and you're hiring subcontractors to do all the work, there's not as much flexibility. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it's more difficult. I mean, everybody runs their own ship the way they want.

We look at it as, you know, going back to the budget and being nimble, as you said, like if you hire, if you hire a subcontractor to frame it, okay. And they agreed on framing this floor plan. And then you go in there and go, you know what, we're going to move door A to door this, we're going to slide this door here. We're going to make this dairy center bigger. We're going to make the private office smaller.

Because now the doctor can see it and they're like, holy crap, the sterilization area is not big enough. Yeah, yeah. No, no doubt. And an equipment specialist can come in. They can be like, oh man, they ordered a modular unit. So what those changes cause is, you know, now this GC has to go back to the subcontractor and go, hey, we're going to extend this. So the subcontractor goes, well, it's it's labor to take down the wall. It's labor to move the wall.

Whereas we look at it as having those services in house. We're doing a real time. So my superintendent's going to mark it on the floor and we have all working supers. So they're going to go, OK, you want to move? We'll move it. Now, I always tell doctors, we bring them to certain stages. They're like, where is the line that I can no longer cross? And I usually tell them that's drywall. Once we get drywall up, everything's on the wall. That makes sense. And it's a real thing they can see.

It's like, hey, once there's drywall on these walls, Nothing else is changing. But up until then, you know, I want to give them I think it helps with their stress level, too, because they're freaking out, freaking out. And rightfully so, because they're they're starting a business, they're buying equipment, they're working for someone there. There's a million things. There's a lot there's a lot of things going on for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So we try to be.

the least squeaky wheel in that process and kind of go, hey, this is where we're at. Some clients are like, hey, we're good. Some clients are like, oh my God, I can't sleep. I'm like, let's meet on site. Let's talk this out. Dude, that's such an incredible service. I can't say, folks, listeners going to work right now, I can't say that that's going to be atypical for most contractors.

I think that is definitely something that's unique But but this concept of having things in house, that might be a question. That's what I'm going to pivot as we kind of wrap up our questions today and let Kenny go to go build some more projects. But like.

My next question is kind of like my next question for you is what questions to ask the GC, a GC before you hire them. And I'm asking everybody that that's that's one unique question I'm asking every contractor this week, because I feel like I feel like doctors don't really know what questions to ask you guys. And let's say. your competitor is talking to a dentist right now and you'd love a shot to win their business. Think of it from that perspective.

Like what are some good due diligence questions for the dentist to ask you before they go into this relationship? One of those questions should be, do you have any services in house? Cause you just did a beautiful job of explaining the benefits of that. But what other questions could we ask a contractor before we hire them to make sure it's the right fit for and maybe that they have the right experience for the job? Yeah, no doubt.

What I would ask first is, are they licensed or are they qualified? And what that means is there's, basically in the state of Florida, especially you can, you can be qualified by someone else. Meaning. So if I didn't have a CGC license, I could borrow someone else's CGC license and do the work. Um, so that would be the first question I'd ask. I'd ask, Hey, are you the, is your name on the CGC license? And when I look and that's easily accessible, the doctor can look it up online.

You can verify it. And the only reason I bring that up is because that's been kind of a, um, Like people were like, you know, I hired this guy and now it went south and I went to figure it out and I found out he wasn't even associated with the license. Wow, I didn't know that was a thing. Okay. Yeah, so I would just ask them like, hey, is your company and your name associated with the license number that you're giving me?

It sounds kind of technical, but it's something that's good to start with and work your way down.

Okay. Yeah. a lot of cowboys out there a lot of cowboys okay secondly I would ask um going back to the in-house services how do you how do you farm out your work how um and and what does that process look like for me as the client so do you have in-house services are you my point of contact um do do I have any opportunity to make edits or changes once this process begins what does that look like because I think that's the biggest thing with a startup is knowing that going

forward um because I think that's a big kind of bait and switch like you know like you fall in love with someone and you think okay yeah it's gonna be great and then they're like hey you're gonna talk to so-and-so from now on this is the guy and then you know it just it kind of hurts your confidence a little bit because you show up to the site um you don't know anyone or you don't know who to talk to and this is your baby right like this is my startup I want to know who my point

of contact is so I would say the the main question there is who do I deal with on site and what subcontractors can I be expecting to see on site and will I be able to talk to them or do I have to go through you or or the superintendent is there any opportunity there On that one, sometimes contractors have their subcontractors spread too thin where they might be managing too many projects. So that might be another solid question to ask.

Well, in your opinion, how many projects can a subcontractor – a superintendent handle and manage efficiently, in your opinion? It might be different opinions across the board this week, but what's your answer there? I would think the superintendent is only going to be as strong as the company works for in the organization. So I think a superintendent can handle, if they're a good superintendent, they can handle a multiple amount of projects.

I think it's most important that The client knows who their contact is and knows what's the expectation for communication. So like, when can I reach out to you? Like we're an open book. So I tell people, I'm like, text is the best way for us. Only because I tell doctors, I'm like, if you're sleeping and you wake up and you got a question, just text it. So you don't wake up in the morning, schedule a call or set me up. And we forget it.

So but I would say that that expectation of communication is key because you want to know before you sign a contractor, hey, how do I get with you? How do I get you on the phone? How do what's totally communication? I get that. I get that a lot from my clients. My contractor's not calling me back. And I do think that when I hear both sides, it's like, okay, both of these people are right. And to your point, Kenny, it's expectations.

It's how quickly... If I'm going to text you, Kenny, how quickly can you get back to me? Or if I email you or like, what's the best way and how quickly do you get back to me? And who's my point in contact? Is it you or the subcontractor or the superintendent? So I think those are all really good things. That's a great lesson for anybody that you hire through this project, not just contractors. It's equipment people. It's IT people. It's your consultant.

Sometimes folks... think that I'm just literally at their beck and call every single day, every day of the week. I got a lot of clients, so it's impossible for me to help a lot of clients if I'm literally your personal life coach. And so I'm not saying that to be a jerk, but We all run businesses and I think it's healthy to have that conversation before you hire because I'll be honest and you'll be honest. Hey, look, I need a minute to answer questions.

And if that's not fast enough, we might not be a good fit and that's okay. So I love that from you, Kenny. Any last minute kind of,

I call this like market watch conversation. You know, what's the market like today? Final question. You know, remember, these podcast episodes exist forever. So try not to get too granular. And this like the week of July, you know, But in general, were we in a good time to build a weird time to build the President Trump and the tariffs and stuff? I've gotten some questions about that. I don't want you to get political. I'm just simply saying this is a question I get.

And I'm curious what your answer is. Is labor market weird? Is the I saw inflation inflation today went down. So what's your answer to where we're at as far as construction goes? And that will be my last question for today. So I always thought, cause I get that question a lot. They're like, should I wait a year to build? Should I wait? I think based on our history, it's never going to go backwards.

So we're never going to be at a point in a year from now where I go, oh, man, I saved fifty percent on my construction costs because I waited. That goes back to the bid. I mean, the bid, we bid a lot of projects out. So we try to do a good job of tracking the market. The tariffs, things obviously tariffs affect raw materials. So like metal framing, wire, stuff like that. But that goes back to your relationship with your contractor. Like, you know, like, hey, how confident?

And this is a good question to ask them. How confident are you in this bid? Like, when we ink a bid, that's the number. Barring any type of extras, like, you know, big extras, that's going to be the number. And I think that that confidence is why vendors like working with us because they're like, hey, I know he's going to get your bill for this because we did the last twenty offices like that.

Um, but as far as the construction perspective for the budget, I would say right now is the time to build. If you're, if you're now, now's the time, this moment forward, um, because no matter when you're, no matter when you're doing your project, no matter when you're doing it. Um, cause I don't, I, I, I agree. I think people sit on the sidelines too long and the opportunity that's in front of you today. Yeah. That's why we're both passionate about doctors getting into ownership.

That's what this program is about. Yeah. Ownership is the best way to go. Kenny owns his company. I own my company. It's the best thing that we ever did. It's the hardest thing we ever did, but it's the best thing. and don't wait on construction costs to go down, whatever, interest rates to go down, inflation to come down. You're never gonna time it, right? You're never gonna time it perfectly. I was just curious about materials and whatnot, but I think you answered that really well.

Any last minute or last topics, things that you really wanted to get off your chest today before we sign off on Dental Unscripted Shark Week construction topic? No, I want to really thank you for having me on. Um, it's an exciting market. Um, I would just tell people out there trying to get this, this ball started, make sure you, you put an effort into establishing a relationship with your GC. Um, I think that's the biggest caveat that people don't do.

They kind of just look at a number and they don't put a face to a number. Um, so it's like, you know, You have a GC that's willing to meet you, like to our point, before you sign a contract or while you're evaluating spaces, like putting that legwork in, try to get a relationship with your general contractor that you feel confident you guys are going to be able to get through things moving forward. That's going to make your build a lot easier. I think that's solid advice, Kenny.

I love working with you. You guys do a great job down there in Florida. I love your customer service and pull through. When there's issues, you respond. I love the fact that you guys put a number up. That's your number. I love that you collaborate and try to work with the budgets. It's all good stuff. It's why you're on the program today. I do endorse you guys. And congratulations on building a phenomenal company and doing right by all of our doctors out there.

So thanks for being on the program, man. No, thank you very much. I appreciate it, Mike. It's always great to see you. And I look forward to many more, man. You do a great job. No, appreciate it, brother. All right. Another episode of Dental Unscripted Shark Week. Appreciate your time, guys. And I want to remind you, if you're listening to the podcast, will you please do me a solid here and just give me a five star? You don't even have to say anything. Just just rate us five star it.

uh we need to get our rankings up I think I get feedback every single day and how much you guys love this program and then I think we've got like ten star five star reviews like what I know that there's hundreds out there will you guys please help me out and do that um that's my only ask and we will continue to put out great content like today and having amazing interviewers like Kenny Ackerman um with uh accurate construction so Thanks again for tuning in.

We'll catch you later this week on another episode of Dental Unscripted Shark Week. Talk soon, guys. Thanks for listening. Let us know how you like the show. Rate us on Apple and Spotify. Subscribe and follow for more.