Anne: Hi, everybody. It's Anne Duffy and welcome to Dental Entrepreneur, the future of dentistry podcast. I'm so happy you're here with us today. And I have a very special guest. He's a good friend. Jeremy is a veteran of the dental industry and has worked for some of the most well known dental product manufacturers in the world.
He now helps dental practices save money on the same supplies they know and love. Please help me welcome Jeremy Moeller.
Jeremy: thank you Anna. Great to be here. I can't wait to uh, talk with you again today.
Anne: did I leave anything out in the bio there? would you like to add?
Anything? 'cause I know you've got a long career in dental sales apparently. So you came on board. How did you get started?
Jeremy: I've worked for a few different dental manufacturers as we alluded to on that, probably most notably Oral Pharma was my first job in dental and I had actually resisted going into the dental market in any way whatsoever growing up because of the last name Moeller, every teacher I had told me I should have been a dentist.
you kind of resist those things a little bit, especially when you're a petulant teenager and you're in college. And then I finished with my MBA and who called Johnson Johnson when they owned Oriforma. And it was just too good of a fit. And so that's how I got my start. From there, I worked for some other smaller companies and actually some med device companies too, which kind of plays into SourceClub and what we do here as well.
I had been at Dentsply Sirona for many, many years. And having worked there. and built the mid market DSO team, I learned how to talk with dentists and groups about how efficiencies and ordering supplies, how manufacturers and distributors work together. And then I went to go work for a small startup.
That the product ended up not working. worked there for about 20 months and right at that time that Startup kind of went under was when source club was looking to grow quickly and they had an opening as their vps sales and marketing I knew the founder from our previous lives and it was just a match made in heaven That's
Anne: really cool.
Well, that's the one thing about dentistry. It's, a very, relationship industry. And, like I said before, good people find good people. And it's just, these connections keep growing. It's like tentacles, right? It's, very, very cool.
now tell me about your owner and how did he decide to get this business started? Because When I dug in a little bit, and if you're listening, you've got to go to their website Source Club. It's like a no brainer. it's like, where have you been all my life? So tell me how Brad got this
Jeremy: idea.
Yeah, so Brad had worked for a couple of DSOs as well as for a distribution center in his past lives. Before he started SourceClub though, he was the VP of Supply Chain for Intervent, also known as General Dental on the West Coast, right around 200 practices. And what he realized was at the time, Specifically, he was talking with a lot of medium sized DSOs, 30, 40, 50 locations about how to streamline and optimize their procurement of supplies and services.
And what he realized was they didn't have the resources and they couldn't afford someone like him. To go and perform some of these more robust strategic procurement strategies, Most procurement inside of a smaller DSO is just putting out fires, right?
You know, Sensor broke their vacuum pumps break. It's just, what do we do day to day? Just keep the offices running, right? As opposed to thinking strategically of how we're going to streamline things and save money on supplies. So at the beginning of 2020, literally right before COVID happened he started SourceClub.
Now, COVID ended up being a blessing in disguise because so many DSOs had always been focused on how we're going to grow, how we're going to grow, how we're going to grow, not so much about how to manage your cost structure. all of a sudden now, Things are shut down. How are we going to streamline things?
What can we do to optimize our practices? Signed a bunch of DSOs right away to help them run our consulting services that we do for those DSOs that were on, say, 30 locations and up. But then an association came to Brad and said, Hey, we want to do one of these RFPs and consolidation things as well.
And he said, well, here's the thing. DSOs can somewhat dictate where you get the supplies from. Maybe not everything that they order, but at least where they buy it from. As an association, would you be able to do that? And they said, no, not really. And he said, okay why don't we start a group purchasing organization then?
And we will utilize your purchasing power to extrapolate better pricing from vendors. And that's kind of how everything got started in both in terms of the consulting and then how the GPO got its foothold back a couple of years ago.
Anne: That makes sense. And I can see that it would help really in during the pandemic in a sense, because I think a lot of practitioners and DSOs and, chief operating officers had time to step back and evaluate, how to move forward.
Cost effectively, right? And then you shave off on your purchases. everything else just continues to run smoothly. And that's just money that is just laying on the table that you don't even realize you have been leaving on the table.
Right. That's what I would say.
Jeremy: Yeah. Our whole mission is to save dental practices money on the products they know and love regardless of their size. so the key on that is products, you know, in love. So when I was at Dentsupply, especially when I was managing the restorative team for national accounts, my job was to convince dentists to switch from whatever bonding agent they were using to prime and bond.
That is a nightmare conversation. Trying to convince a dentist to switch bonding agents and cements, if they're comfortable with it, they don't want to switch that. So what we do here is we find you that exact same product. We just save you tons of money at on that same thing.
Anne: Okay. So again, kind of a no brainer.
One of the questions that I have, you just mentioned it, what's a
Jeremy: GPO? Yes. So a GPO stands for group purchasing organization, So they are extremely common in medical. And this is why I said before, like my history, having worked in medical plays into what we do here at Source Club then.
Every single hospital. Every single surgery center and nearly every single physician office in the entire United States is a member of a GPO. It's just what they do, right? Because they realize if we pool together the purchasing power of hundreds, if not thousands, of these hospitals and surgery centers and offices throughout the U.
S., we can negotiate better pricing we ever could on a standalone basis. And that's what we do here at SourceClub. So we have over 400 members. We're actually coming close to 500 members here right now, by the end of the year, we'll probably be well over that number and suppliers are dying for business.
They want more business. And so they are willing to give us lower rates than you could ever get on your own. Here's a little known thing that not many people in a dental industry know about by law. The manufacturers have to sell to every single distributor at the exact same price point. So what that means is the wholesale price does not deviate between distributor one, distributor two, distributor three.
I don't want to call anybody out on like this, but by law, when I was at Dentsply, I couldn't play favorites. I had to sell to everyone at the same price point. So how do you get better pricing? Well, You get the distributors come in with a lower margin percentage on what they charge you then.
And that's what we've been able to negotiate for our members is absolutely rock bottom pricing because it's what's called cost plus. most dental distributors charge dynamic rate above the manufacturer wholesale rate. So that number can change and it can change not only month to month by product by product. When it's cost plus the distributors have a fixed margin. They're allowed to charge over the manufacturer wholesale, and it can't deviate from that. So therefore we're able to get offices pricing that nobody else can match.
Anne: it's not quantity versus quality. It's just quantity can get you a better price.
Is that, am I understanding that right?
Jeremy: So think of it like Costco, at Costco, they buy in bulk and then, put it in their warehouse and you go there and you buy those same products, less expensive than you could, if you went to Kroger or Safeway or someplace else, and we're the same way people join source club to save money on supplies and labs, just like I joined Costco to save money on.
groceries and gasoline. It's the same concept. So, Essentially we're able to buy in bulk, even though we're not actually purchasing it. We're just funneling that volume through a different source than maybe what you're ordering today.
Anne: Oh, okay. Well, That makes sense. hence the name. Yes. That's really cool. I get that so much, even from a publishing standpoint, when I publish a magazine, because we don't publish like 85, 000. And so our costs are so high. I'm a one publishing person see you guys need to publishing arm in there too. So we can get a better price on my print magazines. That would be really good. I think, am I tracking with you now Oh my gosh. But what else does source club do? Because you have a lot of on your website. I was looking at a lot of different things.
And a lot of it all seems like it funnels back to being able to buy the products that you still love and not changing them.
Jeremy: whenever you're looking to save money on supplies, there's two levers you want to pull. One is the cost of the products themselves. I always use the example of crime and bond because it's an extremely expensive bonding agent that I used to sell. Right. say you're spending 150 on that now, and we have, these are baloney numbers, I don't know exactly what the prices are, but let's say you're paying 150 now, and our members pay 120, lowering the actual cost of the products is one way.
The other way, though, is managing your budgets, And so the other thing we provide for all GPO members is procurement software. With the membership of SourceClub. So what that enables you to do is order from nearly every single supplier you get products from, from one online portal. So let's say you're ordering from multiple distributors.
Every single one of them is loaded in there. Ultra Dent goes direct. We can load that in there and we actually do have discounts with Ultra Dent. Let's say you're also ordering something from Brassler, Dent Supply Endo, Straumann, Nobel, all these direct companies you can actually put into the procurement software then and so you have a one source of truth to find everything you bought in this month and you can actually set budgets to make sure how you're tracking the budget throughout the month.
that is one of the other main things we have. That being said, we have three dozen other vendors that we partner with to bring value to the members at the same time. So for example, I like the Costco example a lot, obviously, I joined to save money on groceries and gasoline. But, know, as I'm walking out, they're trying to sell me windows and tires and vacations, and you save tons of money on those things.
I have to go buy my wife's tires this weekend. That's one of my, honeydew projects. But we have that same sort of things, whether it's patient financing, credit card processing. We even have media player company that you can actually plug in their media player into your practice.
you're supposed to pay licensing fees to disney or espn or whoever right no dental office does it you're supposed to this company you plug their player in they actually pay you for showing their videos So there's tons of ways that we're able to save offices money beyond just through regular supplies and labs, but let's be honest, that's why they joined to begin with.
Well, The other thing
Anne: that takes out the guesswork, you know, I'm worked for a private practitioner and they don't really have handle on how they could save money or what their numbers are, as far as that goes, they just order what they need. And I mean, when you just said the bonding agent 30 on each order that would start to add up pretty
Jeremy: fast.
Yeah. So the typical general dentistry practice of a source club say is about 28 to 30%. It's a pretty tight window in there. Now oral surgery practices, we've actually stumbled into a niche on this. We say them over 40%.
Anne: now? Why is that?
Jeremy: For two reasons. One oral surgeons buy a different type of supplies than your general dentistry practice.
When you're looking at the I. V. Bags and a lot of the surgical pieces and things like that. We actually have a partnership with a large medical distributor. Which actually, not a lot of oral surgeons think to go through and with our volume through them, we're able to drive significant savings for oral surgeons.
Anne: you know, we're always pushing the oral systemic connection. That's really cool as well. it's just a matter of taking that plunge and your software seems to like do it all.
I was looking at your website and the one, they were ordering, there were 7, 000 different products. I'm making these, they're baloney numbers. I'm not going to use that. Thank you for giving me that baloney number 7, 000 products. And then you could whittle it down to like 2, products.
Those are things that they'd have no idea about. But it just streamlines the practice, streamsline their organ, streamsline the headaches for the, front desk. No doubt, ADOM is your, friend right now. hated missing ADOM this year. Heather Palico, shout out to you and, Lori and Kim, you guys just do such a fabulous job with that meeting.
you're listening and your office manager is not a part of ADOM, they need to be part of ADOM because that's why they'll grow and thrive. That saves so much headache. And then again, you have some money is to spend on other things, like even for your team or for vacation or for, maybe another piece of equipment that you've been wanting to get, but you could really justify all that because you're saving on one side being able to spend it on the other.
Jeremy: And that's the thing with it is it's real money. So many things in a dental practice, these companies come in and they're like, okay, invest in us and we'll increase your revenue by this amount, And a lot of that times is if everything goes perfectly and, you know, you don't get bogged down on other things, ours is true numbers. you spent this on these products before, now you're going to spend this. We will actually help you lower your budget. So you can actually, if we're saving you 25 percent and you're spending 4, 000 a month then let's lower your budget down to 3, 000 a month.
It's real numbers, right? It's very clear, linear numbers. It's not pie in the sky, know, and you mentioned equipment and that's actually something we've done. lot of things with is let's say you want to go buy a laser, you know, your payment's going to be 2, 000 a month on that. Well, If you're spending 80, 000 a year.
And we save you 30%, we're going to save you 24, 000 a year. That's 2, 000 a month right there. You can invest and go buy a new laser, or a CBCT, or a CEREC, or whatever you're looking to buy to help your practice grow, right?
Anne: Yeah, those are real numbers and they say numbers don't lie.
So I mean, I like the way that it's very transparent. The company is very transparent and it is what it is dentists are skeptical. You just show them the numbers. And you know, it's a hell yes, right? I mean, that's, how it should be. But we're trying to get them to know you, who you are.
you motivate me. I mean, I love your energy and just, the way that you're working. And we, every conversation we've had, I've really enjoyed. And I know that, you love this industry and, last but not least what motivates you Jeremy to continue what you're doing this
Jeremy: field?
So I saw a statistic the other day that the A. D. A. Put out that expenses in dental offices are up 7. 7 percent this year. However, revenue is only up 2. 2%. So dentists are losing 5. 5 percent every single day compared to what they did last year at the same time. And running a dental office is hard.
I have a good friend who's a dentist here in the Phoenix area, and he and I went over a beer a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And I'm like, how was your day? And he goes, you know what, man, there are days I stand in front of the garbage disposal and I wanted to shove my hand down in it and take the disability.
Right. you know, I've been in the dental industry about 20 years now, 17 years now. And I don't think I realized just how hard it is, Like it's a really good living. But there's a lot of things that you get pulled into doing, and especially as a dental practice owner, things you have to manage and do.
And so what motivates me is helping make their lives easier. Helping the assistants do their job better, helping the office manager streamline and take one thing off their hand. And so one thing we always tell them is when you join source club it's not like joining another GPO. We look at ourselves as your outsource procurement department.
If you're autoclave goes down, we want you to call us. We will help you find the best one for your practice. If you are looking for. Ways to streamline other services within your practice. Maybe we have an answer, maybe we don't. But the nice thing is, if you have that question, maybe our other 450 members have that issue too, and we can go out and find a solution for them.
So it's all about solving the problems within procurement. Procurement's more than just supplies. It's across everything you buy in the dental practice. And so we're looking for ways to help people out with that. What motivates me is when somebody comes on board, they call us a couple of months later and they're like, man, you guys have saved us so much money.
Can I introduce you to somebody else? That's what motivates me is that knowing that what we did had such an impact on them, that they want us to help more of their friends. That's what motivates me more than anything.
Anne: That's the best sell ever is from a friend or referral source. I agree with you on that.
And again, that's our industry. That's the dental industry. I well, you and Brad had at a low when I'm, really had that first conversation, I think about what you're doing, what motivates you, what the company's about when we were at Amplify. So, I just wish you guys all the best.
How do we, you know, how do we get in touch with you? How do we find out more about Source Club and what you have to offer? Yep.
Jeremy: So our email is pretty simple. It's just info at SourceClub. io or sales at SourceClub. io. You can honestly feel free to give me a call. My personal cell phone number is 630 650 6610.
There's actually a savings calculator on our website. So if they want to certainly go to, SourceClub. io, that's another way to do it. and then, uh, you can calculate, just see how much you think you would be able to save. Oh, well, that makes
Anne: it easy. And I think a lot of times dentists particularly like that idea because then they can just do it in their own office or living room.
And nobody knows what they're doing, but they can get those answers that they're looking for. And that makes it easy. That's
Jeremy: an easy. Yes. I'll tell you what dentists and then the aid on people, we sent that out to ADOM and I got a million submissions of people looking at trying to see what they can save on just common items, whether it's sterilization, pouches, cabbie wipes.
Bibs, whatever it is, you know that we have 10 common items on there. You just enter your price What you spend per year you hit calculate and it'll give you a rough savings estimate Then if they're really interested they can send us their purchase history We run through and we will show you exactly what you're paying here Compared to what you would pay with us and get you an exact number of what you'd be able to save.
it's just simple math and we're here to help as many offices as we can
Anne: Oh, my gosh. Well, I love it. Well, you guys, you know, listen, I'm wishing you all the best again. Numbers don't lie. and just, keep doing it. Keep doing you guys. and thanks for all you do for the profession, Jeremy.
I appreciate you being on here today with me.
Jeremy: And it's been great getting to know you this year and love everything you're doing for the marketplace too. So thank you so much for having me on.
Anne: you are welcome. My pleasure. All right, everybody have a great day today. We'll see you next time.
And no, no joke here. You guys, everybody listening, keep doing you. Take care. See you next time.
