The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice Of The DSO Industry

Dr. Aman Kaur, Founder & President of Women in DSO, and Brian Colao, Director of DSOs Industry Group at Dykema, join the podcast to discuss:

Empower and Grow Conference – March 8-10 Las Vegas
2023 Women in DSO programs & initiatives
Women in DSO international movements
Much more

To register for the March 8th – 10th Empower & Grow Conference – March 8th – 10th at the Aria in Las Vegas, NV visit – https://womenindso.org/empower-and-grow-2023

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Our podcast series brings you dental support organization and emerging dental group practice analysis, conversation, trends, news and events. Listen to leaders in the DSO and emerging dental group space talk about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry. The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry has listeners across North & South America, Australia, Europe, and Asia. If you like our show, tell a friend or a colleague.

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Full Transcript:

Bill Neumann:

Welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now Show. I’m Bill Neumann. Again, thanks for everybody once again for joining us whether you’re listening in or whether you’re watching us on YouTube or happen to find us on groupdentistrynow.com. We appreciate the audience, number one, because we couldn’t get great guests if we didn’t have an audience. Actually, both these guests were on last year, so they’re probably names and faces that you have seen before, but maybe not. Maybe there’s a couple people in the audience that have never met Dr. Aman Kaur or Brian Colao, maybe like two or three in the audience and the rest know you pretty well. But Dr. Kaur, thanks for being back on the show again. Good to see you.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Good to see you. Thank you for having us, Bill.

Bill Neumann:

I’m Brian Colao, great to see you again.

Brian Colao:

Good to see you. Always a pleasure, Bill, to be on your show.

Bill Neumann:

So for the couple of people in the audience, like the two or three that are brand new to the industry, Dr. Kaur, can you give them a little bit of your background?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, happy to. Bill, I started as a clinician. I’m dentist by trade and been in DSO space for now little over 15 years without giving my age. And been working with different sectors and DSO groups, private equity groups, emerging groups. Recently, we have formed Women in DSO. So really excited to talk about what we have been up to in the past year.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. And Dr. Kaur, you are the founder and president of Women in DSO, correct?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, correct. Thank you.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. Good. Don’t want to forget that. And Brian, give the folks a bit of your background. You are the director of Dykema’s DSO Industry Group. So what does that mean?

Brian Colao:

Well, I mean here we are Bill in our 28th year of this. Now it’s year 2023, so I’ve been doing this for 28 years. I’m a director of Dykema’s DSO Industry Group. And our team represents, at last count, I think over 625 DSOs in all 50 states and six Canadian provinces. We’re sort of all things DSO over here. Anything that possible legal issue affecting a DSO or a group practice, we’ve been doing it and we’ve been in the space for 28 years. We do more transactions, down transactions than anybody else in the United States.

Bill Neumann:

And if you’ve been to any DSO event or many just general dental events, you’ve probably seen both Brian speaking and Dr. Kaur speaking. A lot of times she brings in a Women in DSO panel and she either moderates that or she sits on the panel. So again, a lot of people have seen you out there at the events. However, Women in DSO has their own event that we’re going to talk about and focus on. So maybe we go back about a year ago when you did your inaugural event and we were kind of still coming out of COVID, maybe we’re still in it, who knows at this point, but it was a really successful event. I had the opportunity to attend. So talk a little bit about that event, the number of people that attended, and then maybe we can talk about 2023 and your second event.

Brian Colao:

I mean, Bill, I’m going to let Dr. Aman talk about ’23, but let me just talk about ’22. It was a complete sellout. I mean, the thing could not have been a bigger success. There were events in January, because remember, Omicron was hitting and a couple events got canceled in January and everybody said, “Oh, March is only a couple weeks away. We’re nervous about this.” It completely sold out. We had more than 650 people there. But more than that, the energy and enthusiasm was like nothing I’ve ever seen. anybody that knows me knows all I do is practically go to these events so I think I ought to know what happens at these events. And I’ve never seen more energy, enthusiasm and just love for the cause that I’ve ever seen at this event. It was tremendous. And like I said, this year, I mean the sky’s the limit. I mean, I don’t know. We’re going to let Dr. Aman talk about 2023. But yeah, it wouldn’t shock me if there were a thousand people there. That’s how much energy and enthusiasm and momentum we have beside this event.

Bill Neumann:

I’ll just mentioned one thing in my experience there. I was surprised there were quite a few people that I had never seen at a DSO event before. Whether it was regional managers or hygiene directors or smaller group, just people that I hadn’t seen. So I think it’s given opportunities for people maybe that hadn’t been involved in these types of events before.

Brian Colao:

I mean, here’s a thing, Bill. More than half of the industry is dominated by women, first of all. And second of all, there are hundreds and hundreds… Not even hundreds. Thousands of super, super talented women that people have never even heard of. They don’t even know. They don’t get to be on stage every week. A critical mission of Women in DSO is access, opportunities, and mentorship to the talented women of the DSO industry. One thing that I’m really proud of, and I’m so glad you said that and you’re going to see it again in ’23, is we’re going to put really talented superstars on stage that nobody’s really ever heard of. And that’s one of many. There’s a lot of missions, but that’s one of the core missions of Women in DSO.

Bill Neumann:

Brian, let’s talk a little bit about your role at Women in DSO. I didn’t mention that.

Brian Colao:

Yeah, I’m a founding board member. Dr. Aman and others. I mean, this is a powerhouse board that we have and just really some of the most powerful women in the DSO industry. But they wanted to have a guy I guess, and they asked me to be on that board way back in I think 2019 or ’20 right before COVID hit. Of course, I mean, I admire the people that we have on this board, people like Kathleen Titus, Dr. Aman, there’s many others on this board that I super, super admire. So I said, “Absolutely, I’ll be on the board.” It’s been a wonderful ride for me. I’m the only man with I think eight or nine women board members. Sometimes I go to the advisory board and there’s like 46 or 47 women and I’m the only guy there. So it’s been just an incredible learning experience for me. But I couldn’t think of a better cause. It’s been a professional highlight of my career to be involved. I’m sitting on the board right now and just couldn’t be more excited about the future for Women in DSO.

Bill Neumann:

So Dr. Kaur, tell us about 2023, the event that you’re going to have. I believe it’s going to be at the ARIA again. Great, great location in Las Vegas. Great hotel. It is March 8th through the 10th. So talk a little. And it’s called Empower and Grow. So what does that mean? I’m going to let you tell us the rest.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Absolutely. And first, Brian and Bill, both, thank you so much for kind words. Coming from both of you means a lot. You guys are an authority in the industry.

So last year, 2022, it was our inaugural event. We picked up our name, Empower and Grow, as we were at the event, people felt empowered. We have seen growth in the last year. And why this event felt the way it felt, why it had the attendance it had, it shows there has been a need in the industry. There was a gap.

Bill, you’re mentioning that you met with people who you had never seen before? Because no one gave them that opportunity or they didn’t feel empowered to do that. So that’s been the best part about why we have started this. It’s been an amazing ride. So 2023, our Empower and Grow is on March 8th through 10th at ARIA. We have been very intentional about what location we pick, what name we pick, our colors, our stage. Our goal is to bring in, constantly introduce new women leaders to at least our stage because that’s their stage. It belongs to Women in DSO. You will be seeing over 60 women speakers during our event. Out of them, maybe 70%, you’ll be seeing them for the first time on the stage. We couldn’t be more happier to have them there. They have so many things to share.

So that’s just one of the things we are excited about, but there are several other things. I mean I can go on and on. We are launching big initiatives in first quarter. They’ll be introduced at the Empower and Grow. We had last year, we did the professional head shots. I’ve seen them on LinkedIn. Over 50 some women have used that as their shots. It feels like a good gift and they’ll continue to get every year a professional headshot. So that’s one. We are working on giving them more professional takeaways that’s going to last with them for year after year after year. So we are building on that this year. And then I can talk, share a little bit more about our programs, but that’s kind of what I remember. Brian, is there anything I’m missing from our 2023 event?

Brian Colao:

Well, I mean other than it was just terrific and it had one of the greatest stages I’ve ever seen. I mean I hate to make this some silly frivolous thing, but the stage, that Women in DSO was one of the coolest I’ve ever seen. It was all in pink and I just absolutely loved what they did with that stage. I loved the sold out crowd, I loved the energy, enthusiasm. We did have the professional photos. But there was a lot of networking.

I mean this was a wonderful thing, Bill. You had people that don’t often get to be on stage at these events. Some women that are really talented don’t often even get to attend events and they were allowed to attend these events. And just watching that type of magical networking was really, really incredible. We saw connections there with folks that truly had never met before. We’re not aware of each other’s presence in the industry. And I know because I often have stayed in touch with a lot of these people that they’ve made tremendous connections and have stayed in touch all year and can’t wait to come back next year. And the networking I think was just incredible. It really, really was. And the-

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yeah, I think quality of… No, please. I just wanted to share the quality of connections, I’ve heard that it’s something that’s been lasting them, they feel like going to last them years and years.

Brian Colao:

I mean, it was really special because you had some people that don’t often get to attend events. So they were attending the event, it was a big deal. They were meeting other counterparts in the industry that they weren’t even aware were there and they were comparing notes with each other. It was just wonderful to watch. I just look forward to seeing that again this year and participating even in some of that networking. It was really tremendous.

Bill Neumann:

So it’s going to be a similar setup to last year, right? So it’s at the same hotel. I thought it was great for the exhibitors, the way things were set up. And you’re right, the stage was super cool. I thought that just everything was pretty neat.

So as I good, maybe some logistics here just so people understand timing, so the event starts March the 8th, which is a Wednesday. There’s the exhibitor set up which is in the afternoon. There’s an advisory board meeting. And then there is your welcome reception in the evening. And then Thursday’s pretty much breakfast. And then you’ve got general session, you’ve got networking and then you’ve got some more things going on. You’ve got a bash at night and then-

Brian Colao:

That was a gala. I really think you sell it short if you call it a bash. It was a gala and it was really-

Bill Neumann:

[inaudible 00:13:09] dress up.

Brian Colao:

Yeah. It was one of the coolest evening events that I’ve been at in any of the conferences last year.

Bill Neumann:

And there’s a leadership award, correct? There was one last year. There’s going to be another one this year?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, absolutely. Bill, you covered everything. We are starting it on Wednesday with advisory board meetings. So while advisory board meeting is happening, exhibitor room’s getting set up. We’ll be working on Education Hall, getting that ready on Wednesday as well. And then after that, there is Wednesday Networking reception. On Thursday we are starting with breakfast and also there is a separate breakfast for mentors and mentees meeting that’s getting sponsored by Darby. They’re working with us closely to get our mentorship program going. So that’s going to be on Thursday as well. And then after that we have general panels on Thursday General Session.

After lunch, we will be starting with leadership award. We have two leadership awards, one for the Achievements in Business in DSO space. Another is for Clinical Leadership in the DSO space. It’s $10,000 each award. Last year’s recipients have been amazing ambassadors of Women in DSO and they have done amazing things within their organizations. There has been this culture of paying it forward set up and we are really excited about that. So we had received over 200 some nominations for leadership award. Going through those, it’s been a real task, but we are really excited about the list we have narrowed down and we are going through the final process. So we are really excited to announce that on Thursday. And then Friday is going to be breakfast General Sessions half day and we will be ending the event around 12:30 PM on Friday.

Bill Neumann:

Okay, great. Let’s-

Brian Colao:

Bill, this mentorship program is a real big deal. I mean it’s a really big deal. It’s been a long time in the making. I think I don’t want to give too much away of the agenda. They’re going to release it soon, but there’s going to be a panel on what they’re calling HeForShe, it’s a mentorship program where the male leaders in the DSO space take on a mentorship role. And it’s a really big deal. A lot of time and effort has gone into this. We’re going to talk about it at the event. That’s a can’t miss sort of panel at the event, but there’s also going to be some other opportunities to talk about the mentorship program at the event. I’m really proud of that. I mean, I really think it’s a really big deal. To my knowledge, Dr Aman, it’s the only real highly organized program of that nature in the DSO space right now, and I think it’s just terrific.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yeah. Actually, Brian, male allyship that HeForShe program we are working on, we have hired very well known consultant. She typically works with larger organizations. It’s been really hard to get her attention. It’s actually only women globally who does these programs. So we are really excited to have her. She has a presentation outlined and we will be launching our allyship program there and following up on that for the whole year. So really excited about that. There’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to get these things ready.

Brian Colao:

I mean, you got to get the men involved in this. I’ve been telling all the men Bill that they got to attend this thing. We had decent attendance last year. I mean we did have some men there and there were a few CEOs, but we really got to get the men involved into this whole thing. And it’s funny, I tell everybody, “Look, I’m not judging anybody. When I got the first phone call from Dr. Aman, I said, ‘You got it, I’m going to write a check. No problem. Just tell me where to send the check to’ and she was like, ‘Well no, I mean we might need somebody but you got to be involved. You got to show up and you got to participate in this’.” And that was my first lesson. And now here we are three years later. But the guys got to get involved, okay? Because a lot of the leadership in the DSO community is still male dominated. And that’s okay, but we need their buy-in, they’ve got to get here.

You can’t just say, “Oh, I’ll write a check and send my women team members.” You got to come here and you got to participate because it’s so insightful and so much can be learned from actually spending the time and participating. So that’s why I’m excited about the allyship, the HeForShe program. I’m definitely going to be involved in that, not just at Women in DSO, but inside the Dykema and at my organization I’m going to be involved in that. But we need all the men to sort of attend this because you have a very, very important and valuable role to play.

Bill Neumann:

So this is great. This is a great pivot from the actual conference to some of the initiatives that you have. Now, is this HeForShe mentorship, is this going to be launched at the Women in DSO event? Is that how we’re going to find out more about this?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes. Yes. There will be more about it after the event, but we are introducing this. There’s a presentation. We are working with different male CEOs. Because how men lead and how women lead are different. They’re both great styles, but women generally lead with lot of courage and they also lead with heart, lead from heart. In today’s world, both of those skills can be paramount to the success of organizations. Especially in dentistry, we are workforces, over 70% is typically women. And then more and more dentists are coming out to be as women. Our customers, our consumers, our patients, their household financial decisions are being made by their women’s at their home. So with that said, having those women leaders ready to lead and they can continue to lead with empathy, they can lead with that passion they have. We need that. But there are some business ways to learn and that’s where we need support from present leaders. If these present leaders are guys, it’s great for them to learn how to work with women leaders and building on their strengths because-

Brian Colao:

Yeah, I mean this is a judgment free zone, Bill. And I think that’s really, really important because we all know that nobody’s perfect. I don’t think even my organization was doing things perfectly at the beginning of this. I’m proud to say the last 17 members I’ve hired are women. So we’re trying to do things right now, but I don’t think we were perfect when we started. And I know for a fact a lot of the organizations that are going to attend may not be doing things perfect, but that’s okay. We’re here to be supportive and helpful. Nobody’s going to judge anybody if it turns out you’re not deploying the best practices at this time for promoting women in your organization. Nobody’s going to judge you or be critical of you. We’re here to be supportive, throw our arms around you and help your organization get in line with the best practices. So we need as many men at this event as we can. It’s a judgment free zone, it’s a lot of fun. Everybody’s supportive. We got to get as many men as we can involved.

Bill Neumann:

Dr. Kaur, other programs and initiatives for 2023. We talked about the mentorship program. What else do you have going on?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

So mentorship and male allyship are two different programs. So mentorship is a separate program in addition to male allyship program. So we did a survey, for industry survey earlier in November. From that survey we learned that there are a lot of people who are seeking mentorship and there are different categories. They rank them on different categories. So we have developed course tracks for each category based on the feedback we have received. We are at the stage where we are identifying mentors. We are ready to announce mentors in next few weeks. We will be pairing mentees with mentors for three month length of a program. There will be four mentorship sessions going on for the whole year. Our plan is to eventually get that program to be a fellowship program. So we are building on all these tracks so all these mentees can go through different tracks. At the end of spending their time, they have something to show for and we’ll have a whole capstone courses and in-person courses. So we are working on that.

I’m really excited about that because that education, knowledge, that brings confidence which can never be taken away. So we really want to give our members something for lifetime and set them up for success. So that’s really exciting for… At least I’m very excited about. Our second program is going to be Speaker’s Bureau. We are working with different organizations to come to decide Speaker’s Bureau and giving them necessary coaching. So especially when we have different events in the industry and they are looking for speakers on any topic, we want them to look at Women in DSO so we could give them these speakers who know these best practices and they’ll happen to be women. So it helps our mission and it helps elevate our industry, it helps elevate profile for the women leaders in this industry, and that’s what we want to achieve. We are excited about that as well. So these are the programs; mentorship, Speaker’s Bureau, male allyship, we are working on and we are going to release those at Empower and Grow.

Bill Neumann:

I know I follow Women in DSO on social media. LinkedIn. Seems like there’s a lot of… And I don’t know if these are the exchange circles or the networking that goes on, but there’s a lot of conversation around different topics and a lot of engagement there. So it seems like you’ve got a lot going on. The Women in DSO, the membership has started to work well together and really seems like there’s a lot of education that’s going on so it’s not just at the event. You’ve got a lot going on besides the event.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, absolutely. This year, 2022, we had 11 exchange circles and 11 empowered networking events. Each event we had on average two women panelists and one moderator. In Empower Networking, we have been talking about soft skills on how to manage remote teams, how to manage your personal brand. Lot of personal development topics are covered under empowered networking topics. And then Exchange Circle has been our very well received and we have been talking about best practices, best business practices in different areas, credentialing, compliance, cybersecurity procurement, recruiting, retention. So a lot of those topics.

Bill, the content that gets covered is very candid. We have received enormous amount of engagement during those virtual events. People ask their questions, they get answers. People have been able to follow up and form connections even during those virtual events. There are some topics people loved so much they have been asking us to do workshops on. So that would be something we’ll be looking at in 2024. But our first year I’m not going to deny, we have been a baby organization, kind of we’re just learning to crawl and figuring out, but I can’t be more grateful to the board and advisory board we have. All these programs we are ready to launch, it’s all worked on by the board members, by the advisory board. Everyone’s been giving. There’s so much. So it’s been really exciting journey.

Brian Colao:

Well now, wait a second. Now, Aman is way too modest here. I mean, maybe she thinks we were crawling, Bill. This thing has taken off like a rocket ship, okay? It has. I mean, it’s true in the first year maybe we didn’t get everything perfect because we were just starting out the organization. That’s probably true. But this thing has taken off like a rocket ship. There’s not any crawling going on. There’s like turbo booster, twin rocket shooting off. That’s how much enthusiasm we have . once we get all the guys involved, I mean the sky is the limit with it.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Thank you.

Bill Neumann:

One other thing I wanted to touch on because I’ve heard that also you’re not just US-based, right? It’s not just US and Canada. You have some international members and you’re looking to even expand that reach in 2023. So that’s pretty exciting too. So this is not just for people in the US and Canada. This is a global movement.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, we are really excited about that. We feel it’s our opportunity to help other countries as DSO sphere is growing. As DSO is growing, we want to springboard women’s career in those countries as DSOs are getting formed. It has been a slow road here in United States for women to get into leadership positions. We have learned a ton. As more women are in leadership roles, organizations have done better, we have learned better. We want to elevate the industry globally by elevating women profile. We think this is a great opportunity as there’s more consolidation happening globally in London, in Australia, in a lot of European countries. We want to be at the forefront and pass on the learnings from United States to those countries. And really the goal is to springboard women’s career trajectory in those DSOs in these countries.

Bill Neumann:

So as we want to wrap this podcast up here, let’s make sure people know how to first off register for the event. So it’s womenindso.org, correct? The website.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes.

Bill Neumann:

And you can pretty much find anything and everything on that website, but you can go there and you can register for the event. What happens if there are women in the audience listening now that want to become members of Women in DSO? How do they do that?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

They can also become member by going on our website womenindso.org. But if you have specific question on how to get your organization involved or maybe there are different opportunities to get involved in different programs, please send us an email to info@womenindso.org. We have amazing team members. They’ll be very quick to get back to you.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. And then there’s also the opportunity for organizations to become members of Women in DSO and they can do that. They can either email info info@womenindso.org to find out more. They can do that for the website?

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Yes, both. That is correct, Bill.

Bill Neumann:

Okay, great. So we’ll make sure I drop that email address in the show notes. Obviously, the URL for Women in DSO will be in there. Definitely attend the event, the 8th through the 10th in Las Vegas. It’s going to be great. Brian will be there.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Right.

Bill Neumann:

Dr. Kaur will be there. Brian had some predictions of quite a few attendees, so I’m not going to that.

Brian Colao:

We’re going to do it. One thing last year I’ll just tell you this, I know we’re going to wrap this up, but last year everybody was like, “Oh, maybe we’ll get 300 people.” I said, “Absolutely not. We’re going to sell this thing out.” And they were looking at me, “Are you sure? Should we rent the bigger room? We got to write a deposit.” I said, “Do deposit. We’re going to do it. Absolutely. Get the bigger room. I don’t even want to hear about it. Get the bigger room.” And we blew through. We got 650 plus people. So we’re not messing around with 200 or 300. We got 650 plus.

And I’m going to say it on your show, Bill, first. We’re going to get over 1,000 this year. I can see Dr. Aman’s like, “Ooh, I don’t know.” We’re going to get over 1,000. We’re going to do it. It’s going to be a great event. Organizations should join as organizations. Individuals that want to join, we need you too. We want as many individuals as can join. It’s been a highlight of my career. I’m excited about it. You probably see that I got a lot of energy this morning. But the future is incredibly bright for Women in DSO and we just need everybody’s support.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Thank you.

Bill Neumann:

I think that’s really important, Brian, that this is going to be a huge event. Everybody needs to be involved. I will say I registered for the hotel this morning. I would make sure that you do that because even though these are giant hotels, they do sell out. So don’t let this be one of those things that you wait until the last week or two, which inevitably, Dr. Kaur, I’m sure you get the emails all the time. “I can’t get in. It’s a week before.” And so don’t be that person. Make sure you do this.

Brian Colao:

I mean that’s the beauty of Vegas, though, Bill. I mean, this is what I would say of our location is, yeah, the ARIA is a great property. Certainly try to get in there. But even if you can’t, go book next door or something. Don’t not come to this because you can’t get the room at the ARIA. There’s plenty of places and walking distance. We just need as many people as possible. In fact, I’d love it if the room block completely sold out and some people were next door. I would completely love that. But don’t miss this event.

Dr. Aman Kaur:

Actually, event planners just shared with me, I think this weekend we sold out of our hotel block and we extended it. We have extended it. I think we bought more rooms. There should be more rooms available for next week or so. It is convenient if you are at ARIA. I won’t deny that Vegas hotels are pretty big and it gets hard to walk around. So we have added few rooms to our hotel block. It should be available. Yeah, we are excited about the attendance, but I think Bill, I’m looking forward to maybe coming back next year and talking about what we are going to accomplish this year because that’s what really important to us. Our first year we validated the need, the gap was identified and we formed a community. But this year we want everyone in this community to come out feeling better with tangible takeaways and then be able to use those in their organizations and elevate this industry. I love our industry. We are very, very fortunate to be in dental industry. We want to continually elevate our industry.

Bill Neumann:

Thank you, Dr. Kaur. This is going to be great. Again, all the information will be in the show notes, womenindso.org, 8th through the 10th, March, in Las Vegas. Thank you, Brian Colao for being here as well. And until next time, I’m Bill Neumann. Thanks for joining us on the Group Dentistry Now Show. We appreciate you.