and it was straight smile Solutions straight smilesolutions.com and today we're going to
talk about why I will not be a k a kol for your company I'm laughing because it's so funny I
will absolutely not do it so I've done it before several times and I kind of felt like a prostitute
I hate to say that word but that's what I felt like because yeah it's nice and they dangle money
in front of you and and travel opportunities and speaking opportunities and things like that and
I do really love the part where you're involved with a team that's really fun sometimes it can
get a little lonely when you have your own company and you know your own team your own
team but it's not like team where you have these Brilliant Minds I really really love being with
Brilliant Minds on a team don't get me wrong I've had some semi-positive experiences being a kol not
fully positive but I've had way more negative experiences than positive experiences so I'm
going to give you some warnings if you're thinking about doing this and you're in the dental or the
health profession or the medical profession how you can sell your soul to being a kol and it all
sounds nice and good at the beginning and they'll make you lots of promises and you're gonna end up
probably losing in the end let's talk about why and some things that happen to me and I'm
not going to name the brands that I worked for I'm sure you guys can figure it out by looking through
my CV and stuff like that but you know we just won't name it so um things that have happened to
me first of all whenever you're going to be a key opinion leader you know usually you're involved in
um sometimes they just want you just to lecture about their product you know but most commonly
they want you on their executive team they want to get your feedback they'll they'll they'll sell
it up they'll glow it up saying that oh you're a brilliant mind and we really want your feedback
we really want to hear what you have to say yeah they don't they want you to do what they think
is right which nine times out of ten is not clinically good because nine times out of ten
these are not dentists or not high quality dentists that are running the companies if
they even are dentists or Specialists running the companies they are Venture capitalists or
people who worked in Dental sales who worked their way up there's a lot of nice people and don't get
me wrong I've had some great CEOs when I was at kol and I've had some vicious nasty scary ones and
I've had some that were a wolf in sheep's clothing and they first I loved them for a year or two and
then they turned nasty and vicious I I don't know don't ask me why these things happen but
um so anytime you're going to be as kol you're going to have to sign something called an NDA
and an NDA well there's two different types of ndas there's non-disclosure agreement I don't
really have a problem with that and it's you know if I'm gonna be working with your company
and you're going to tell Trade Secrets I'm I'm not gonna tell people that's really not my business I
mean I'd rather not know it but um you know I'll keep my mouth shut on that that's not a problem
what the issue that comes is the other NDA which is the non-disparagement agreement and usually
it's all kind of bundled into one complex form and that's where I've gotten myself in
trouble because listen a lot of these companies especially some of these multi-billion dollar
companies that are out there with high funding Venture capitalists they don't give a rat's ass
about you okay unless you are doing unless you are their puppet and doing everything they're
saying they do not care about you your longevity your family how things are your quality of life
um your clinical judgment they just want you to be your their puppet and to preach what they
think is right even if it's lying in my opinion even if it's clinically incorrect even if it's
clinically unhealthy um and it's the moment you have your own opinion that's different from theirs
they're gonna come after you and this doesn't only happen within the active contract whether it be
a month month by month a year year by year um you know on retainer whatever it is it
they will come back and they will stalk you for the rest of your career and this still happens
to me today where there's ones where I did sign non-disparagement agreements and my definition
of disparagement is clearly different than their definition of disparagement and there's
at least three two three four five I think of a lot of there are even companies that stupid
me you know whack when I was young and naive that you know we'd have a great we go out to
dinner or something hey can I take you out let's just wanna pick your brain you know I'd love to
take you out and then well before we take you I want you to sign this you know I'd be like okay
I'll sign it and then later I realized that they just roped me into now I can't say boo
about them on any of my videos or if I even just talk to a doctor and a doctor's some of these
I mean this I can't even it blows my mind some of the sneaky stuff some of these companies do
they will literally troll you not only troll your social media all your social media but they will
troll you in lectures what they will plant I was asked okay I was asked by one company
to go into lectures at an ADA what's an AEO or Eda I don't remember um and ask questions
they would tell me the questions I needed to ask and I didn't feel that comfortable but but they
would require me to do this this was they said it was part of my my job you know and I would
have to ask these these really leading kind of mean questions to some of these lectures
you know that were competitors and things like that because I was the orthodontist and I didn't
feel comfortable doing this and they would bull me into doing it and threaten me if I didn't do
it and I was forced to do this at times and there is one person I do kind of owe an apology to and
I've been trying to give this person an apology every time I see this person and try to see this
person at a lecture in person and so far I think he's upset enough at me that he's dodging me but
um I do owe this person an apology and eventually I will give this person an apology and let him
know what happened and how I was bullied and forced into doing this and I after that I was
like I'm not doing this anymore that's that's not cool I don't I don't think you should be bullying
and I know that when I've given lectures there's been people that have bullied me and and you know
I know how it is so but in any case that happens also like I said they'll troll you afterwards any
little thing you say like for example if you say in my clinical judgment I think that we shouldn't
do aligners this way because this this and this or I have to be really careful about the examples I
say because you guys will know exactly who they are they will troll you and then their lawyers
will send you letters and saying you signed a non-disparagement agreement and we believe that
this is disparagement well they're a multi-billion dollar company I'm clearly not so I don't have
the lawyers I don't want to waste 50 to 100 000 fighting something so stupid I'll just take the
post down I'll take the content down I'll take the podcast down what a waste of my time you
know I'm an orthodontist uh why who are you as a venture capitalist to say what I'm saying is wrong
especially when there's research that backs it up I know you might have your half-assed research
that's not really published over your chairs it's the research where you buy the research to back
your stuff up well I've got other research to back up I'm saying and probably 99 of the orthodontist
will also back me up so without and I'm not even naming those companies I'm just talking about a
product in general so this is the reason why I will never ever ever ever be a kol ever again
now what we do do and I love working with teams we are available you can hire us by the hour
to consult we'll consult with companies no problem we will not sign a single NDA we will not sign any
non-compete we will not sign any Don disparagement group I'll sign nothing you pay us up front we'll
talk to you and then that's it not gonna sign anything so if their signature is required in
order to have that meeting or for just you to do business with us then pass no thank you not
interested so I have a lot of really really great ideas and I'm going to be publishing
I'm just decided you know what all my great ideas I'm just gonna put out there on the internet and
it's first for the taking whatever company wants to take my great ideas I'm not selling them
I mean I've looked into doing a lot of stuff with the patent attorneys and developing
products because I've got some amazing ideas and some of you might have them too
um and I see some people kind of starting it and not implementing it right and I'll often reach
out to a company on LinkedIn I'll be like dude I saw your product this is super cool I think
you should really consider doing it this way and I've had some CEOs that hey free information you
know I'm telling you if you did it like this I could get you so many people signed up not even
trying to get paid just trying to give you it's a product I'd like to see let's put it that way and
as much as I would love to be on a lot of these patents I also don't want to be tied down to these
situations so hey if there's anyone out there that would like to hire me to help work on a product
without having to sign anything I'm super open to doing that that sounds great but what I will never
also do again is I'll never work for a company where they're going to give you shares or stock
options because every time I've done that for the most part in the past I've gotten screwed where I
put in maybe like hundreds hundreds hundreds of hours like 20 30 40 of my day into for a year or
more into this company and I really believed in it and when we first started it y'all were super
on board with my clinical message what I want to do what I thought was right what I thought
it was healthy for the consumer what I thought the doctors wanted what is ethically morally and just
everything right and then y'all go and because of the venture capitalist once you get funding you go
change things you change the whole Direction you change the whole Mantra you change pivot because
I realize companies do pivot and you pivot to something I don't believe it anymore and then
when I speak up you go oh you're not a team player we're you know you violated your NDA we're going
to pull your shares we're going to take everything and you get nothing for all that work you put in
and yes this has happened to me and karma is a [ __ ] guys so a few of these companies that
are out there that owe me a ton of money I'm not going after it I've tried that one time not worth
it you guys have more more attorneys and more funding than I do it's really really not worth it
but karma's a [ __ ] and you know what people ask me what I think one-on-one when I'm not
being recorded I'm not on a podcast we're at a meeting we're just talking I know when you guys
are planting people to try to get me in trouble because you got some of these companies will
send fake doctors to try to harass me and try to get information out of me and I know that
sounds super paranoid but it is so I've been on the other side of these companies where I knew
that they were doing this I they told us in the meetings they were doing this so I know you guys
are doing this and I know who does this so when I get people and I know what the leading questions
are I'm just going to mess with them it's going to be so much fun so anyways I just had to put it out
there just because almost every week someone on LinkedIn is asking me to help them develop this
brand that brand this phase one brand not a liner brand um I love it they're dangling a lot of money
and a lot of stock options but I'm so sorry I will not do it and that's why all right thank you