Dental A Team w/ Kiera Dent and Dr. Mark Costes

Kiera shares specific tips for how practice owners can gain consistency, confidence, and calm in their day-to-day unsteady of chaos and surprise at the unknown.  Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today's a fun day. ⁓ think how to get more stability and predictability in your dental practice. I think this is a zone where people don't know how to have stability, predictability, growth, and how to do that in a consistent way. so ⁓ some practices feel like it's like a freaking rollercoaster. Like your systems are wild and it's like, what?   flavor of the day should I be choosing? I fix my system? Should I go for a new patient? Should I be working on my P &L? And I think that that's just like what people do. And they're like, how do I get this stability? How do get this predictability? Now I heard this quote and then I tried to find this quote. So I'm just going to tell you, because I love it. I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm just going to say it's real. They said that Walt Disney said, and I love Walt Disney and I'm obsessed with Disney, but they were able to create predictable magic with systems behind the scenes.   And I think about that for practices of like, can I help you create predictable magic, predictable cashflow, predictable, ⁓ profitability, predictable, like new patients. Well, it's through the systems behind the scenes and the team that's in place. so today really working on that of like how we can go from chaos and like whack them all of like, and I feel like I do this too in my company. just so you know, I don't think anybody's ever perfect at this, but I think we can actually cut out a lot of these pieces for you to create less chaos.   more predictability, more predictable magic in your practice ⁓ to give you that consistency, confidence, and calm in an owner's life rather than the chaos and the surprise and the unknown of will I be able to make it next month? Will I be able to make it in six months? I think for me as a business owner, is the hardest part of being a business owner is that unpredictability. so trying to give you more, ⁓ more predictability and stability. So if you're tired of   the revenue swings, you're tired of the no show surprises, you're tired of the last minute team drama, like you're just tired and exhausted of that. This episode's for you. This is where today we're gonna really go into our mission of positively impacting the world of dentistry with tactical advice ⁓ from experts who do dentists and team consulting. We've been there, we've done it, we've done it multiple times, we've run it in our own practices. ⁓ Every single consultant on our team has had to have a proven track record of going through exactly what you go through.   coming out on the other side with ease and grace. So that's what we're here for and so I'm gonna just break it down into a couple quick steps for you today of just some different things that can probably help you create some more predictability in your practice to create more stability and to get you out of that, like I said, the revenue swings and no-show surprises. Now, this isn't something that's going to come easy. This isn't something that happens overnight. ⁓ I have a sign up in my kitchen that says discipline equals freedom. This is a disciplined act.   This is what the high achievers do. These are not the small practices that are doing this. And it's the, like, I feel like it's investing. Someone once told me investing is like vanilla ice cream. It's not sexy and nobody gets really excited over vanilla ice cream, but it's predictable and it's always good. And that's what I feel this is like, let's create your practice into the vanilla ice cream practice where it's not sexy. It's not flashy, but it is predictable and it's stable for you. And then from there, like add the sprinkles, add the toppings, add the chocolate. Like you can make vanilla ice cream awesome. It's a great base and a great foundation.   So today I wanna help you create that in your practice. So step one is a daily and weekly rhythm. ⁓ I found that structure is something that's so paramount. Even my mom, like there were seven kids in my family and my mom had to create structure. Like I remember summertime, a lot of parents hate summertime because their kids have no structure. They enjoy school time, there's structure, there's a rhythm, there's something that they can count on. Kids go to school at this time, kids come home at this time, there's predictability in there. And so for you within your practice, let's kind of take what we do.   in parenting and in growing up. And let's apply that to your practice because the same principles apply. And so having these different pieces ⁓ in place of how teams communicate, of how we review performances. So it's a cadence. Like I hate remembering things and I love cadences. just a couple key strategies on this daily and weekly rhythm would be morning huddle. And in morning huddle, morning huddle is one of my fastest ways that I'm able to create stability and structure within a practice if it's a good one. So we're looking at patient.   patients, goals and priorities. And we're doing it consistently and we're looking for opportunities. So a great morning huddle, Kristy and I were talking the other day and she said, I can add 10 to 15 grand to most practices just with a great daily huddle. And I love that because I agree with you. If you use a huddle strategically, it's like, why do team members like in basketball or football, why do they huddle? They huddle to win the game and that's what your huddle should be. So we have our daily morning huddle to look for opportunities to prioritize, to align, to make sure our goals are actually where we want them to go.   Then after that, we have a weekly leadership and team meetings. We're looking at our numbers, resolving obstacles. We literally teach our teams traction style ⁓ L10 meetings so that way you can run it. So we're talking about our data, any of our numbers that are off-track or an immediate issue. We teach you how to solve issues. We teach you how to rate a meeting. So they're very effective and efficient meetings using data. So we're not just sitting here like vomiting our problems. You vomit the problems, yes, but we're also going to have a strategic way of how we solve them.   And then this way we're able to catch our problems earlier. So between those two things of a daily and a weekly, so we're having a daily huddle that's focused on strategy. It's focused on winning. It's focused on opportunities. And then we have a weekly leadership. So your leadership team gets together and departments. And I know you might be like, that's so many meetings. It's fine. You're welcome to do that. But I'm like, if you want to know how the big players are hitting, like I'm talking the practices I work with that are 20, 30 million annually. This is what they're doing. And at a small level on a big level, this works.   When I had one team member, did leadership meetings every single week because I figured we need to start, like that's a big practices to do. That's a big organization to do. So why am I thinking I'm so small not to implement that? When you do this, you typically will see a 10 to 20 % increase in revenue and decrease in overhead. You'll increase your schedule. Like just doing this, you'll look for opportunities. Your schedule will start to get hit more consistently because we're tracking it. We're tracking it every single day. And people like don't love to talk about this, but I'm like,   I also don't love working out, but I want the six pack abs. So it's choose your heart. Like would we rather sit there and like hope and pray and want to have it? Or are we going to start to put in some of these daily practices and weekly practices that work for other ones? So that way you can have more predictability. I promise you what, where your focus is, like where energy goes, focus flow, like where focus goes, energy flows. Let me get that one right. Where focus goes, energy flows. So if I'm focused on the numbers, I'm focused on the things we should be doing. I'm focused on solving problems sooner.   That's where my energy is gonna go. So we're gonna start to like, if you read the book essentialism, they talk about like, don't spin your wheels on a million things, spin your wheels on the most important things and laser focus on it and get everybody rowing in the same direction, you're ultimately gonna grow so much faster. So when we're doing these little pieces, this is what it is. So I would, if I was you, add these meetings into it, but I would make sure my meetings are powerful and impactful. I wouldn't just do meetings for meeting's sake, meetings need to be done with intentionality. Number two is tracking.   Leading metrics, not just lagging ones. So a leading and a lagging, I really hate these, they're really hard for me, but it's leading ones are things we have control over, lagging is the outcome at the end. So for example, like pre-appointment, how pre-appointed are our books? What's our unscheduled treatment? What's our AR aging? What's our same day conversions? What's our diagnosis rate? Like all those things are leading measures that will help us know if our outcome is going to actually get met. So if we're looking at pre-appointment, like,   how many patients in our database are pre-appointed for appointments versus how much re-care and reactivation do we need to do? So it's these two things like, if I wanna schedule full, I can pre-appoint, I can reappoint, I can look at all those different pieces to make sure my schedule's full. Schedule full is the outcome, the pre-appointment, the reappointment, all of that is a leading measure that's going to help me get to my outcome. And then we wanna actually look at those. So, ⁓ and a lot of times it's like, we want to hire somebody.   Well, let's think about the leading metrics that would help us. It's how many ads did we place and how many interviews did we perform? Those are things we have control over. I don't have control over if I hire somebody or not. I don't have control over the candidates that come to me, but I do have control over how many ads I place and how many interviews I perform. So let's track that versus tracking somebody being hired. Let's track how many reappointments we have and pre-appointments we have. Those are things we can control versus as our schedule full.   I still want to track both. Those are still important, but we have, your team can influence the leading measures. They can't necessarily influence the lagging ones. And if we have great leading measures that we're tracking, our lagging outcomes should actually be hit. Then we look at those in our weekly meetings, not just at the end of the month. And then this way, like it's a KPI scorecard that the whole team's looking at and they're watching. So when we do this, what you find is our reappointment. Like, so in office, when they start tracking their reappointments,   And we started doing it consistently. go from 80 % to 85 to 98. And people are like, but Kiera, I already do this. We're already doing it. And I'm like, great, then let's just make sure that the data proves what you're already doing and you're getting the gold stars for what you're already doing. What's crazy is when you start tracking these little things, your practice, that's gonna get a lot better. And it's crazy to how quickly it does. So if I was in your shoes, I would look at where are my gaps and where are the things that I felt, like I said, the...   the schedule gaps. So what could I do if I've got gaps in my schedule that would be leading? Well, it'd be how many outbound calls did we make and how many patients did we get scheduled off those outbound calls? Those are things I can control. So this is on my re-care. Tiffanie, she used to make her practices call 50 patients a day. I am not exaggerating that. I think it was actually a hundred. Like it was so many, cause she's like the more I have to have so many outbound calls cause she had tracked it. I have have this many outbound calls in order to have my schedule stay consistently full.   I can't just call when I need an opening. I need to be constantly putting those phone calls out there so patients are calling me back and I keep my schedule full. That's something. So when you're looking at like, well, I'm so tired of the cashflow dips. I'm so tired of the schedule gaps. My question is, what are you doing proactively? Like those are the systems behind the scene that create the predictable magic. I guarantee you Walt Disney's not like, you know, we should have fireworks. Well, no, there's all these systems in play before they even get to firework show.   to make sure the firework show is a success. So for you looking at what are the predictable things I should be doing. So the way you break this down is what are the three big stressors I have? And then what are leading measures that I could add into place to prevent that? So instead of me looking at the end of my PNL and be like, well, shoot, I don't have money. Could you look at your bank account every single day? Could you look at your PNL every single day?   could you look at your diagnosis and your production? If you want to produce a hundred grand, you've got to be diagnosing 300,000. That's something within your control. You could start to say, am I diagnosing $300,000 a month? I break that down to how many dollars I need to do a day. I watch my daily production diagnosis. I work with my hygiene team. I integrate Overjet or Pearl as AI solutions to it. That's how you can start to move this one forward for you exponentially rather than hoping and praying that we're hitting our cashflow at end of the month.   That's how you start to be a more strategic, getting out of that chaos into consistency and predictability. And then step three would be like building capacity plans. when I look at this, sometimes we like, so back at the beginning, I mentioned to you, said, are you tired of the revenue swings, the no show surprises, the last minute team drama? Well, cool, this is around like the team culture and all that. So.   People and time are gonna be a big piece for that. So based on our production goals and where we want to go, based on where we are currently and in the future, I need to start planning and projecting out how many team members do I need for the production? How do I have block scheduling to make sure that I'm not having like up and down months? How can I forecast out on my schedule to see when are my down months? When are my up months? When are people taking vacations? How can I proactively plan for this?   And then we're going to plan PTO and hiring proactively. So when I'm projecting out with a practice, we're literally at like September. ⁓ So convenient timing of this podcast to release for you. I'm looking ahead to say, okay, let's plan out our entire year time off. When are we having meetings? What are the highs and lows? What are the peaks and valleys within our production? And how can I stabilize that? So I'm not having these huge swings in a practice. How can I either plan for providers to be there, not have as many providers off? I'm looking at past history.   How can I prevent sucked timber and have slammed dunk timber? Like what are the different things when I know I've got those lows? What could I do two months earlier to make sure that I'm not having these like high and low months and then I'm proactively doing these pieces. So if I need to hire or I need to do these different, I need to have a different schedule. Like a lot of you are out two weeks in December. So why are we setting our September goal the same as our say October goal? They're not, they shouldn't be the same. You should figure out what is my goal. So if I'm trying to produce   let's say 3 million, well, I'm not gonna do 3 million divided by 12 months. It's gonna set me up for massive failure. I'm also not gonna do it by 52 weeks. What I'm gonna do is I'm literally gonna look to see, let's say there's only 45 weeks that we're going to have, and let's say I'm gonna then do that by 12 months. Well, now what I've gotta do for there is if that's the case, I need to be producing every single month, okay? So what I did is I did 3 million, and I'm gonna do that by about 45 weeks, okay? Then I'm gonna divide that by 12.   And I'm gonna say, all right, this is what I need to do. So my 3 million divide that by 45 weeks, that gives me 66,666 per week. Now I'm gonna divide that by four days. I need to be producing about 17,000 a day for 45 weeks. Notice I took out some of our low weeks. We have 52 weeks in a month. So I just gave you seven weeks where that's gonna hit your December holidays, it's gonna hit your November holidays, it's gonna hit your ice days in February, that's gonna hit it.   And instead of just doing it haphazardly like that, you actually can proactively plan this out. We have a tool for this where you can plan this. When are people out? What do I need to do? And then based on the growth that I'm also gonna project for our business, based on my diagnosing, all these leading measures, how many team members do I need to have and when do I need to hire them? How you doing? Because that was so many words and I hope you took it and I hope you took notes on it.   because what this will do is it's actually going to create a roadmap for you for next year. It's going to create a way for you to have predictability. This is going to prevent those revenue dips. We've helped you already with scheduling gaps by being with leading measures and then with your team, like staffing issues, making sure we have enough team members. If we know we are always down an assistant, rock on, let me project that out. Let me figure out what I need to produce for that. That way I can hire an additional assistant without having it be chaos on me. These types of things, if I know I've got maternity leave coming out.   How can I proactively do it? What if I hired another hygienist? But I actually build this whole plan out as best as I can. Usually I do mine in September, August, September, October is when I start working on mine to have it ready to go for the next year. I always want to throw up when I look at how much it's going to be. And then I like go to work and figure out how we're going to make this happen. But that helps you be more proactive. So I would look to see these three things. One, do I have a daily and a weekly rhythm? That was the easiest thing and making sure that those have opportunities.   and looking for that and strategizing with that. Then having leading indicators, not just outcomes. And we're tracking that collectively as a team and in every department. And then we're creating this strategic plan and forecasting and projecting out. So that way that's in place. Those three little things right there are going to help you have so much more stability and capacity within your practice that you will just be able to sleep better at night. Like as a business owner who's done this, as a consultant who's done this for offices, as consultants who do this for offices, these are things.   that are so helpful for you. Like this is not just luck. I say create your own luck, create your own magic and do it through the systems behind the scenes. But the discipline there is required. The accountability to yourself and to your team is required. Sometimes when I listen to podcasts or I have coaches come in, I'm like, that feels hard. Well, it doesn't have to be hard. You don't have to do this on your own. Buying a practice did not mean you had to be a CEO and an operations specialist and a CFO. You don't have to do all these things.   What you do need to do is hire people that are smarter than you that know how to do this. And if you don't know how to do it, it is your opportunity and in my opinion, obligation as a CEO to either figure it out or I love the book, Who Not How, who knows how to do this that can help me and my team. And then I vet them, I interview them, and then I execute and I hire them. That way you're able to grow. So if this is something that I think resonates, like you're like, I want predictable and profitable practices.   I want to get rid of the stress and the chaos. want to get rid of the highs and the lows. Reach out. This is what we do. We build systems to scale and sustain. We create the predictable magic with the systems and the team behind the scenes. We teach you how to have the disciplines. We teach you how to have an effective morning huddle. You don't have to do this alone. People are always like, dentistry feels like an island. And I'm like, only if you want it to be. It doesn't have to be. You can be with all the other doctors. You can be with all the other people. We have a community of doctors that get together.   We have teams that get together. We have trainings across the board. We work with your practice individually and connect you with other people so you can learn from other people. You don't have to do it. So stop guessing, start growing predictably, start having more predictability and less chaos. This is what we do. So if this feels fun for you, reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. If it feels terrifying and intimidating because you're like, feel like I should know this, drop the ego and realize it's okay. None of us know what we're doing. Everyone's in your same boat.   Everyone doesn't know how to figure this out. Some choose to get help and some choose to swim it out and figure it out on their own. Both are correct methods. It's just what's method, Beth, for you. And if I was you, I would at least book the call, see what people could do and see if you could help me get more predictable, predictability in my practice. Because the biggest thing as a business owner that creates the most amount of stress are those upswings, those downswings. And when I have more stability, when I know more consistently, when I know what it's going to be,   I'm able to navigate those highs and lows a lot better because I know the long-term outcome. It's not like a shotgun, like, like scatter. It's like, my gosh. It's like, all right, got it. I can weather this. And I also have somebody who can keep me stable. I have coaches and they help me keep my stability there. So reach out. I'd love to help you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com as always. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.  

Did you know: Each position in your practice should contribute toward the practice's goals? Tiff and Kristy break down why each position should have a vision and specific metrics (starting at the job description), and how together, alongside all the other positions, they work toward the greater good of the practice. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here today. I am always excited to be here today you guys I love podcasting I really really do and I love podcasting with other people more than solo and I get to pull consultants in and Britt from HR Headquarters over there HQ and Eve from marketing like I get to pull in just the most fun people from our team to Just double up and get some time with Kristy   I've got you today and this is like our special time together and I just love it. So, and Kristy, I put you specifically at the end of my podcasting day. I hope you noticed that not just because of timing, but because you bring a sense of calm to my life and podcasting with you, not to say that it's not easy with anyone else on our team, but you really like, it's just so easy. You bring a sense of calm and ease. And I was like, that's what I want to end my day with. So thank you for.   opening up your schedule to me and for being here today, Kristy, how are you?   DAT Kristy (00:59) Good, absolutely. I love it too. I mean, we were just talking the other day because we don't get much time together and so I know we look forward to this time. now that I know you put me at the end of the day on purpose, I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's a good way to end the day.   The Dental A Team (01:13) Surprise!   Good. Well, I'm glad. know Mondays are busy for you. Our team does, we do meeting Mondays and so it gets a little jam packed, but it's nice because we get it. I feel like we get all of that admin stuff out of the way and we get aligned on actions we need to take for the week kind of all together on the same day. And then we just spearhead our week ready to go. Well, Kristy, ⁓ today is exciting. I   I'm gonna actually pull in what we were just talking about. you guys, you guys know, avid listeners, you guys have been here. We've been doing this podcast for a really long time, you guys, and if you have ideas on things that you want to hear, please send them in because our little brains over here are just thinking of all of these things. Sometimes they feel like, did we just record this? It's like this content sounds so similar to something else we've talked about. And so I don't know how to label this one.   But I want you guys to know we are going to chat today a little bit about job descriptions. And this is something that we find incredibly important. So we talk about it a lot. So I want to drive that home. They are so important. And Kristy, something that I recently recorded a podcast with Brittany. And something we talked about, part of that leadership skill, was being able to give direction to the team to execute decisions.   as a leader, being able to execute decisions, being decisive and having execution as leadership, but also gifting that to the team. And we talked about the vision of the practice, kind of where the company's going and the leader, the owner, being able to utilize that for the culture of the company. But I kind of think right now, these job descriptions are the vision per position.   It gives us our heading so that within my position in the practice or the organization, I can say yes, no, maybe, yes, this is the right decision right now for the company. And it brings about some clarity for everyone. Kristy, you, what do you think?   DAT Kristy (03:28) Yeah, I love that you mentioned that because for so long, think we've all understood that job descriptions should have duties, right? I truly am a fan of duties versus titles, but also I think honing in on the other aspect of, think the duties, let me step back. The duties tell us what we're responsible for, but I think bringing in the other aspect   tells us how the person should behave. And so I think they go hand in hand. And I think oftentimes we miss that other piece of it and then we get frustrated when we don't hire that person.   The Dental A Team (04:11) Yeah, I agree.   in ⁓ a layer on top of that, you mentioned job duties and kind of how to behave. But even within that ⁓ what piece, the job duties, the clarification on the job duties, if I know that my job, my goal of my position is to have the schedule full, maybe I'm a schedule coordinator, and my number one metric is 90 % full on hygiene for the next five days,   80 % full doctor, like whatever that metric is. If I know that's my metric, then I think, my gosh, this one patient, my how-to says confirmations. And step one is text message, email, text message, email, but I know this person is 85 years old and they're not getting these text messages. I don't have to question, do I call this patient? My job, my goal is to get that patient here for that appointment, no matter what that means looks like.   So I think that vision and that ⁓ very clear cut, this is what the metric is of your position. I sitting in that scheduling coordinator position can say, Julie, at 85, I'm just gonna call her. I'm not gonna mess with the text messages and wait until three days before if I know she needs a call and we need to confirm her right. Like I have this information, but we often get asked, Kristy, I think.   by different team members that they're like, well, can I do this? I'm like, well, does it get you to your goal? Is it a part of what gets the practice to our goals? Heck yeah, I think that's a great idea. It gives you the space to be creative, to get to the results that you need to get to, that are set as parameters because you know what you're driving towards.   DAT Kristy (05:58) Yeah, you said that so well. So again, I'm with you. It's not just the duties and how we behave and perform them. But like you said, then we can tie it to what metrics am I responsible for? And one other piece behind that is painting the clarity. If it's 90 % reappointment rate or, you know, whatever metric I am responsible for. Now, what system   comes behind that metric if it's not where I want it to be, right? So then I can pull up the system and say, hey, am I not working the system properly or do I need to find a new system because our system's not working any longer to get the result we want?   The Dental A Team (06:45) for sure and that's where teams come to us, or office managers, and they're like, my team has no accountability, how do I hold them accountable? Or how do I get my team to hold themselves accountable? How do I get them to own their jobs? It's really hard to own something if you don't have complete clarity around that goal that you're working towards. And so having those smart goals with those metrics tied to them, Kristy, like you just said, allows that person then, like you've said, to work backwards from the result to see   What did I do that got the result? Because anything you do, I literally just said it this morning, I say it all the time, even consistently being inconsistent is going to get you a result. Consistently doing anything will get you the result. And if your consistency lies in inconsistently, I'm always inconsistent, you're going to get a result. So knowing what your target result is in comparison to the result that you got allows you to backtrack and say,   DAT Kristy (07:25) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (07:41) Was I inconsistent in my utilization of my systems? Or is the system just flawed and I need to reinvent that wheel? Totally fine too, but it allows the space for that. And Kristy, the way you said it was it allows the person holding that metric to see it themselves and can to it, which takes training and it takes consistency from leadership to constantly point back to the metrics, to constantly be like, okay, ⁓ what   what is your metric, your standard, and then what did you reach? And when there's questions that come up like, Kristy, like, do I call this lady? You're like, well, what is your metric? Does it get you there? And I think that consistency is that accountability piece that people are lacking.   DAT Kristy (08:27) Yeah, I agree with you. ⁓ Just like you said, it's very easy once we've painted that clarity and we have understanding also for the team to report back to you. You shouldn't have to ask. But I also would say don't just report back. Report back and let them know your trend because maybe it is 90 % reappointment rate that we're looking at. ⁓ Literally, I was just on with an office that was   It's almost embarrassing to say they haven't looked at their rates for reappointment. She's like 50 some percent and I'm like, yeah, that could be a problem, right? ⁓ Yeah, let's not focus on 50. Let's talk that the goal is 90 and let's start talking about your trend, right? So even if I'm reporting it talk about your trend where were you and where are we going? And then I also like to say with that TIF is recognize what's working well and   reinforce the good. gets reinforced gets repeated, right? And then get team talking about what they will do to overcome any opportunities if we're not at the mark we want.   The Dental A Team (09:36) Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. you just, you saying that about the practice, I'm like, my gosh, that's fantastic. Like 50%, that's not fantastic, but look at how much space there is to create something different. Like that's really freaking cool because practices come in and they're like, I don't know what to do. And I don't know why it's this way. And I just need this. And it's like, this is so cool because there are spaces.   that are really, really simple to tackle that you just didn't uncover yet. And we get to come in and help uncover those. So it's like 50 % reappointment rate. That's fantastic because now we can implement two to three daily actions that severely change the projection in a company that you may have come to us thinking, and I don't know this client, I don't know what she or he was thinking like, but they may have been thinking like, my hands are tied, what do I do?   how do I get more patients? I need more new patients. I hear that all the time and I'm like, well, what about the patients we have? It's so cool. So you just got me really excited about that. So I'm like, holy cow, I can't wait to hear these results. It's gonna be fantastic. But that's case in point. There's a couple of people that probably need that metric, right? A hygienist, hygiene team and scheduling coordinators, like they need these metrics because now they understand what their purpose is in the company and how they can contribute to the overall goals.   DAT Kristy (10:40) Yeah.   Yeah.   The Dental A Team (11:02) Many doctors, I think Kristy, you and I both come across this, many doctors are really afraid, or business owners in general, to talk goals. And I think the piece that gets missed is that goals drive the courage to push forward in life. Without a goal, without a drive, we're just complacent. And so not talking about them and not talking about how   each position can contribute towards those goals, I think is actually a disservice and holding people back.   DAT Kristy (11:39) Yeah, I agree with you, Tiff. think a lot of times people get stuck because goals are related to a lot of times in dentistry, monetary amounts, right? But truly, it's no different than us at home. We have a checkbook and we have a bank account and we have standard bills that we have to pay. And it's not that we have to get nitty gritty on that stuff, but we all have to understand there's a cost of doing business unless we're a   not-for-profit organization, you know? And so again, I love ⁓ how you and Kiera talk about the metrics aren't to beat ourselves up, right? It's not a stick to beat ourselves up with. It truly is just a measure of how healthy we're getting our patients. And the minute that we really get transparent about the numbers and what they mean and relate it to just like patient health and practice health, I mean, we always talk about getting our patients healthy.   What about talking about a healthy practice too, right? And we need to let team know just because, I mean, we hear it every day as consultants, a practice could do $6 million and I could have another practice that does a million and the 6 million inevitably people might think is more healthy than a million and truly that's not the case. So we need to educate our teams and let them know those numbers mean more.   And ⁓ truly it's a reflection of how healthy our patients are and how healthy the practice is.   The Dental A Team (13:14) Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. And your individual metrics then add up to those results. So those of you who are building out the job descriptions, like yes, you need like a how-to, we need to know what those systems and protocols are. But separate from that, they need a heading. They need to know how do I show up? It's like, what are our core values? How do I show up in this position? If we've got, I don't know, a check-in spot, right? We've got a patient coordinator who's at check-in.   DAT Kristy (13:19) Thank you.   The Dental A Team (13:40) and her job description does not say you sit up straight, you smile, and you greet patients with eye contact as soon as they walk in, you can't complain when she's got her head down on the computer or she's got her cell phone and patients are walking in and they're not being greeted. So get nitty gritty on those spaces because that's easy to achieve, right? If she reads that or he reads that, it's like, ⁓ that's the expectation, that's how I'll show up. And then now that feeds into your reschedule rate.   DAT Kristy (13:49) I can't.   The Dental A Team (14:09) Right? Patients are like, heck yeah, I'm coming back. I love seeing Sonia up front. Like it just all feeds into one another. So I think breaking that down into what is this position accomplishing for my practice within the goals that we have set. So if this is my vision, why do I have this position? Why do I have a scheduling coordinator? Why do I have a dental assistant? And then some pieces I think that I promised Kristy we would talk about some positions that you don't always think about. Right? So like sterile tech.   come on guys, there are so many sterile technicians running around that don't know what the heck they're supposed to be doing, there's no job description for a sterile tech and we just kind of run in the mill, let them figure it out, that's the dental way. So like sterile tech or, Kristy, one I know is really big right now is virtual assistants and I have a client who has an entire team of virtual assistants and Kristy, how important is it for the metrics?   the job description ⁓ just in the VA space, so for the VAs, but how important is it for the team to have that VA job description too and know what they can count on those people for?   DAT Kristy (15:21) ⁓ 100%. ⁓ The cool part with it too, Tiff, I mean, yeah, they need to know the expectations of what's being handled so they can hold them accountable just as any other team member, right? But also, I love, especially ⁓ offices where we're looking to develop leadership, when you have in an OM or a practice administrator, if you have a virtual assistant, what if...   great opportunity for them to work with somebody to develop them, right? And you're literally paying them to be there and do a service, but yet your leadership team or developing leadership team can help them be accountable to the metrics, right, that the virtual assistant is there for.   The Dental A Team (16:09) Yeah.   Yeah, absolutely agree. I have a practice that was like, well, like, I know they're doing insurance verification. I'm like, cool. Well, one, how far out are they supposed to be? Like, what's the volume of insurance verifications they're doing? Because we've got some shifts in the front office. Could they take on calling on unpaid insurance claims? And they were like, I don't know. haven't. I have no idea what their time is like. And I haven't talked to them in weeks. I was like, ⁓ hold the phone. I'm going to I got to pick myself up off the floor real quick.   Who's holding these people accountable? You've got to treat them just the same as you would if they were in your practice. And I think that's multifaceted. I have a practice who does really, really well with a couple of each spectrum. But one in particular does really well with virtual assistants because they create them to be part of the team. The virtual assistants do so much as to even show up for Daily Huddle. They're there with them. We have virtual assistants that show up for Daily Huddle. We know our VAs.   practices that it's just like, they're doing this thing and they think of them as a separate entity. I think the VAs get lost. I think the sterile techs get lost. The sterile techs of the world are just lost in our dental field. And they're looking for that direction and they're looking for that drive. I think our VA, right, we've got a newly onboarded one as well, but our VA who just celebrated six months with us, I found out, he has incredible direction in his position.   And I see that he finds fulfillment in the things that he does for our company. And that's really cool to watch and to see. I know we get fulfillment. It's very easy to get fulfillment as a consultant. Like we get to work hands-on with the clients every day. Same as a dental practice, you guys get to see the changes you're making in the patient's mouths, right? And in their daily lives, you know? So then to find metrics where it's like, no, even as a virtual assistant, even as an onboarded,   outsourced billing company, like these are the metrics that are going to show us that you're actually adding incredible value to our team. And how cool is that to have that heading to be like, I get to go to work every day and I get to help this team do better for their community. And that's the piece that I just feel like is missing in a lot of different spaces.   DAT Kristy (18:15) Yeah.   Yeah, I love that you say that, Tiff, because a lot of, I mean, we're familiar, probably the most popular one is in the insurance realm, right? And so I know even a lot of the virtual companies will set up time to meet with the offices weekly, right? And so again, for the OM or the practice administrator, I'm like, how often are you on those? Not very often. I'm like, man, what a missed opportunity, right? Again, to develop your leadership and share with them.   What's your expectations? We want zero claims over 90 days. And again, the metrics aren't to beat ourselves up. If it's not there, how fun to celebrate when, just like the re-care, right? When they hit 60%, we're gonna be celebrating because one little change, right? But painting that clarity, where are we going? What's my expectation? And then getting the team's commitment into how can we...   The Dental A Team (19:17) massive.   DAT Kristy (19:27) improve this, right? But I think you also mentioned something earlier, even outside of the virtual assistant realm, but all of our team members, how often are we meeting with them? And how often are we ⁓ taking the time away from the business to grow and develop them? Right? And review their metrics. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (19:45) Yeah, massive.   Yeah, and how do you do that if you don't know what you're reviewing? Like, how do you do that if you don't know what their accountabilities are? And how do you help grow someone? know one of the big pieces of leadership that we train on is being able to develop people and giving them a growth plan. And I remember being asked, oh my gosh, I don't even know. I was probably like 28, I don't know, 27. I might.   boss, my office manager pulls me into the office for my one-on-one and she's like, well, where do you see yourself in five years? And I was like, I don't know. Like I think my only, that could be your position. Like what, I don't know what, I don't know what that means, right? Because in those positions in the practice, they don't know. They don't know what's possible, right? Unless they've been there before.   There may be somebody who's maybe worked in another practice and she managed or worked in another practice and he saw this great manager he aspires to be, but most of the time we don't know. And so providing that growth plan, even within the job description of these are the metrics that I get to help grow those. So I can find growth and fulfillment within my own position because I'm growing the practice and growing these metrics. I don't need to take your job.   DAT Kristy (20:45) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (21:03) I can be happy and satisfied in my own because it's written out for me and we're talking about it in the one-on-ones. We're seeing how, you know, where's my goal and how far away am I? Just the same as we're seeing the trends and everything else. So Kristy, I totally agree. Really my 28 year old brain would have been like, this is amazing if it had been like, here's some things that I see, you know? And otherwise I'm like, I don't know. Like how do I answer that? You know?   DAT Kristy (21:29) Yeah. Well,   and to your point, Tiff, with that being said, don't forget to rope in your virtual assistants and have those conversations with them too. Because I think, like you mentioned earlier, the practices that we see ⁓ truly utilizing virtual assistants well are incorporating them, right? They're sharing the expectation, but they're also giving them that feedback and they're treating them like a team member, you know? So if you guys are doing   a bonus system, don't forget your virtual assistants or your sterile techs, right? Include them. They're a huge part of the practice. So.   The Dental A Team (22:08) Yeah, yeah, and to your point, the team that I referenced that does really well with the virtual assistants, the virtual assistant that now does a lot of their scheduling started as insurance verifications and they grew her and she learned the schedule, she listened to the team on calls, they groomed her into that position so that she could take it on because she wanted growth. So I agree, I agree. So gosh, Kristy, this one became really, really fun. Thank you.   for that and taking that journey. And you guys, hope that there are some amazing tidbits that you're able to pick up from here. The biggest one is know your vision, know your goals. Like where is your practice heading so that you can then dial in where is each position heading within those goals. That's gonna be massive. So job descriptions, yes, we can talk about job descriptions all the time. Go Google it on our page, like search it. You're gonna find a million of them. The big point today is the metrics. Like what are these jobs providing?   towards your goal, what's inspiring them to do their work every day, and how are you talking about it and communicating it with them. So, Kristy, thank you so much. I love taking these journeys, and you made this really fun. I appreciate you today, and always every day. Yeah.   DAT Kristy (23:20) Thank you. Thank   you. Always back at you.   The Dental A Team (23:24) Thank   you, thank you. you guys, Kristy's always here for the fun, just expanding on what we're even talking about stuff.   for her name on these podcasts. You will never be disappointed. You're always gonna love them. And as always, leave us a five star review. We'd love to hear what you think and we'd love to hear anything that you guys have in addition to what we talked about. We know we don't know it all. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.   You can reach us there and we cannot wait to hear from you guys until next time  

Part 2 of podcast guest Dr. Lauryn Brunclik (of She Slays the Day podcast fame) and her conversation with Kiera. In this follow-up to Becoming Business Savvy with a Clinician-First Mindset, the pair discusses seeking other revenue streams to obtain financial freedom. The chat includes fixing your pricing structure, living below your means, understanding the spender and saver mindsets, time management, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and welcome back to part two of my chat. If you liked part one, you are going to absolutely love this. I am so excited and I can't wait to dive right in.   Kiera Dent (00:10) Lauryn, I'm very curious. Like you've talked about it at length. Like what do people do? Like what's the how, how do we get into this?   How do we have multiple streams because agreed all eggs in one basket? gosh. It's, ⁓ to me, that's like just a ticking time bomb. Like one bad day, one bad patient, one bad procedure. Like it's just going to explode because you're sitting like you're sitting on the edge of fear all the time to where you are in like cortisol adrenaline, like you are pumping. And then what you do is you go into complete shutdown because you can't handle it anymore. So your body and your system literally like just shuts down on you. You become apathetic to life.   Dr. Lauryn B (00:23) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (00:44) things aren't exciting for you anymore. You become very numb to walking through the world. And it's like, I feel like the world of color goes into very like gray. It's very subtle. It's like, it's, there's no, there's no life left. It's just, are living life, but you're not actually being and living day in, out. So what are some tacticals? Like I'm so curious. I love to hear that.   Dr. Lauryn B (01:04) Well, so,   I mean, ultimately what you have to, I'm no cashflow expert. My husband would like laugh, not, he wouldn't laugh. He'd just be like, what's she gonna say right now? So like cashflow will multiply the more you start putting your money to work, okay? So it's very, very, step one is simple. It's exactly what you said. You have to have cashflow coming from your clinic.   Kiera Dent (01:14) okay.   Dr. Lauryn B (01:33) You have to. Like, you need to spend less money than you are bringing in. Okay?   Kiera Dent (01:42) Ooh, love that. Ding, ding. All right, great. Got it, team. Got it all.   Dr. Lauryn B (01:45) Like, so it's   it's simple. what did you say? Like you said, there's only three ways to make it happen. Like lower your overhead. Yep. Yep. See more people. Yep.   Kiera Dent (01:50) There are, either cut your costs, increase what you're producing. like for how many patients you're seeing and   or collections, because a lot of times you're producing enough, but we're not collecting the money that we're actually producing. that then costs, people are have no money. And I'm like, you have 500,000 sitting in your AR that's not collected. So you actually have money. You just have a broken system of how to collect it. And to your point, my husband said this very early on when I started that company, he said,   I care, don't lose money. He was like, yeah, I'm not going to give you any rules, any parameters. He's like, just don't lose money because that's going to cause a lot of strain on us. And I thought about that a lot. It's like, ⁓ I guess that's a great, a great plan. Like it's really been a good thought for me. But it's like, if you are going to lose money on having a business, go be an associate for someone else. Like it's a hobby at that point. It's not a business. So I'm like, if you're not going to have your business make money for you, like truly no judgment.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:24) Thanks, husband.   Yes.   Kiera Dent (02:44) go honestly be an associate, go work for someone else so you're taking home a paycheck. When owners are working for themselves and making less than they are as an associate, I'm like, we have a big problem here. And now you're mad because you got way more problems. You can't just clock in, clock out and leave for the day. And I'm like, that's actually not a business. That's a hobby. And it's a bad hobby. You have no freedom. No, it's delusional. No.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:57) Mm-hmm.   And they're like, but I have the freedom when I'm the owner. You don't have freedom? can't afford a vacation. what? You have   no freedom.   Kiera Dent (03:11) Stop lying to yourself just because you own a business. People are like, I wanted this texture, have more time. And I'm like, yeah, tell me how that's going for you. Probably not great. All right, so we gotta have a business that actually cash flows. Simple stuff.   Dr. Lauryn B (03:16) How's that working for you? Yeah.   Yes, so step   one is very simple, but not is you have to fix the pricing structure, the collections, your payroll blow. You need to look at the profit margins of your clinic. Very easy, very difficult, but very easy.   Kiera Dent (03:37) And they're   industry specific too. I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I know in like dentistry, we say right now, even with all the things like I want 30%, we're talking all things, fringe benefits, 401k. Like 30 % for payroll, 25 to 30 is about average. And we aim for, I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I aim for a 50%, not including doctor pay, 50 % overhead in dental practices, 30 % of doctor pay, because I'm like, that's what you're gonna get paid as an associate. It's like, let's at least pay you that.   Dr. Lauryn B (03:45) No, that's pretty yeah, that's pretty healthy. ⁓   Kiera Dent (04:04) And then hopefully we've got a 20 % profit, but that profit debt services click in and that's a real fun zone and taxes. Like I love it. No, you're not getting your W two people are not taking taxes out. You own this business. All that money comes to you. So do not get trapped in that like tax trap. but like, like that's a very simple formula and you look, what is my supplies? What are my rent? Like, what are all those things? And if you figure out the benchmarks, then you know, which one am I bleeding money on quickly fix that hole. So we stopped bleeding it again.   It seems so hard. And you and I are on the other side of that equation saying, no, actually it's like real simple. You just look at it real quick, figure out what it is. You can build your practice to support whatever numbers you need, or we cut. Usually it's easier to increase production and collections than it is to cut. But a lot of people are just overspending in ridiculous ways that I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I have a practice, I looked at their numbers. They shouldn't giggle. I did giggle, because I was shocked. They're like, here, we have no money.   And I was like, all right, send me your P &L. Let's take a look at it. So I did. Year to date, they produced 528,000. So they're doing about 85,000 per month is what I calculated when I ran the numbers. But when I looked at their take-home pay, they're taking home, so it's 528. I'm super happy for them. Like don't, there's no judgment on that. They're taking home 250,000 of that 528 is going to the doctor, which again, I'm happy that they're taking home the money. But what's happening is the practice is not producing enough for that.   They're running all their kids through it. They're running their cars through it. They're running everything through it, which again is not a bad thing. But if you don't have cash in your business to hire people, I was like, we're a little off on the percentages.   Dr. Lauryn B (05:37) Yeah. One of my favorite things to teach people   is because people are like, I just want to learn tax strategy. I want to learn tax strategy, tax strategy. And you're like, okay, here's the thing about tax strategy is you can only do tax strategy. Can't see I'm doing air quotes here. If you have money that you don't want to give the government, if you are spending   Kiera Dent (05:47) you   Mm-hmm. Air quotes, I see them.   it.   Dr. Lauryn B (06:06) much as you make and the government's like, yeah, you're good. You don't know anything. Like there's no strategy to be had. Strategy can only apply to profits. you know, like to money you've made. So, so that's where it's like, okay, I get that you really want tax strategy, but like you're, you don't need strategy yet. You just need to create more.   Kiera Dent (06:09) There is no tech strategy. ⁓ That is a tech strategy. No.   Yes.   You   just need money to then pay taxes on. Then we can talk about what it's gonna be. Yes.   Dr. Lauryn B (06:37) Yes, then we can talk strategy.   But yeah, so like that's where it starts. The next hard part, and this is where I kind of touched on like, we went into this career because we believed this career was gonna take care of us while we took care of other people. And so everybody's got a little different version of what that means. ⁓ What car they think they should be driving.   Kiera Dent (06:42) That's a point.   Ready.   Dr. Lauryn B (07:06) once they have made it, what ⁓ their house situation should look like, how many vacations, their spouse, if they're buying their spouse, designer bags and things like that. Like we have in our head once we make it, what life will look like. And so after you fix your cashflow thing, the next thing is like,   you gotta kind of continue to live below your means for a while. Because if all of a sudden you've fixed your profit margins and you have an extra $30,000 flowing into bank accounts a month that does not have a job, like, you're just like, we're gonna move into a bigger clinic, we're gonna hire another doctor, we're gonna do this. And all of a sudden that...   Kiera Dent (07:58) Let's go!   Dr. Lauryn B (08:04) that potential, but like you have to have money in excess to build wealth upon. If you fix the first problem, which is we don't have enough money, okay great, now you have enough money, and then instead of building wealth, you buy a Birkin, which I still keep sending my husband all of the memes and reels that like Birkins are apparently, you know, they are also   appreciating, they're beating the S &P. So I'm just saying maybe a Birkin was a bad example because that would be an investment. ⁓   Kiera Dent (08:36) See?   I why not? think there's a   lot we could probably justify in the investment realm. Like it's fine. I'm here for it.   Dr. Lauryn B (08:46) Right, right. But   no, you know, if it's like one of those things where if you just lifestyle inflate after you fixed your cashflow issue, what's going to happen is, is you're going to still be, you're going to have like golden handcuffs where you're like, well, yeah, the clinic is bringing in 1.2 and like, yeah, I do keep 350 of that, but I still.   like I'm paying off my student, because your student loan payment now is increasing and like this and like your mortgage and all of this stuff. And you're gonna, you have the potential if you're not careful to feel just as squeezed financially, even though you've gone to the next level of salary and income, but you can still feel that exact same financial scare. And so like that's another thing where it's like, okay, you have to figure out,   the balance for you and your spouse because like my husband, ⁓ my husband is definitely, so this is from Garrett Gunderson. He's a really great financial wealth advisor. don't know if he's in your guys's world. Yes. Okay. Yes. So he was on my podcast and he was talking about how basically within all the   Kiera Dent (09:53) I love him.   Definitely. We love him.   Dr. Lauryn B (10:04) that he's coached people through, there's basically, he used a different word, but right now I'll just call it the the saver and the spender. Okay.   Now the spender tends to be the visionary, the CEO. It tends to be the person that's like taking the risks to build the things. They're like, we had a record year, we're   reward ourselves, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, life is fun, this is great, this is like a... And then they often marry a ⁓ saver that is just like...   I don't need all of that. I don't need another vacation. I don't need a fancier car. I don't need this. ⁓ And it can actually make them very uncomfortable that, you know, so my husband is, we'll call it   saver. ⁓ And we go, I mean, our travel budget a year is insane.   we should definitely be putting that towards crypto and like buying a duplex and like building more. But   Kiera Dent (10:57) you.   But why? But why?   Dr. Lauryn B (11:04) If someone told me like, no, no,   no, here's the plan. You get one trip a year and then we're gonna just like   all of this money and then you can start around 45, like, know, and then at 50, it'll open up a little bit more. Like, I'd like, well, that's no fun. I don't want that. And so you have to figure out, because there's a ditch on both sides of the road, right? And so you have to figure out like, when do you want to retire?   Kiera Dent (11:28) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (11:33) Like what is that number? What is that freedom number? How much money do you need coming in in like passive investments? Like how much do you need your crypto portfolio to be doing? Like your real estate portfolio. What's that number of monthly income or annual income? And when do you want to get there by? And this is going to be so dependent on whoever you're talking to.   if you're 50 and you're like, I want to get there by 55.   and you're starting,   not great. Like, yeah, okay, you know what? Your travel budget, you just need to not worry about that for five years. Like, you got some work to do. But like, if you're sitting here at 35 and you're like, I'd like to retire by 50, and like, I still wanna take our kids on some vacations, but I do think we should be, you know, then you just gotta pick where are you pinching pennies? Like, because you gotta pinch them somewhere. So like, maybe it's...   not designer handbag season. Maybe it's not getting the newest vehicle. Maybe you'd rather live in a bigger house, but drive a more reasonable car. Whatever it is, maybe you have no problem giving up vacations, but you need that pool in your backyard. Again, there's a ditch on both sides. think that as this couple, you need to come together and figure out.   that equation where even after you're getting some of these doctor luxuries that you've worked hard for, there's still money left over that is being invested wisely.   Kiera Dent (13:13) love Lauryn that you talked about Garrett Gunderson and I love that there's the saver and the spender in every relationship because this happens like it's a real thing. ⁓ And I love that you talk about like, okay, one step one is like, you got to make money and you got to keep the money. So it's like, make the money and keep the money. I have like, okay, if we could just follow that. Jocko Willings, he's got a quote. This is like discipline equals freedom. And it sits in my kitchen, which I think is a very smart place to stick this sign. I see it all the time. And I'm like, that really is step one is like discipline on this.   Dr. Lauryn B (13:28) Make the money, keep the money.   Kiera Dent (13:43) And I think that there's like, one of our consultants, says, choose your hard. And I think about this, like both sides have a hard, like spending all the money has a hard of like being broke. Saving the money has the hard of you've got to actually put like parameters in place. So both have it. But for me, I'd rather sleep at night knowing I've got money in the bank rather than like sitting there wondering how I'm going to make payroll. Like to me, that's the hard I would rather choose. I would not rather not choose the other side. So I'm going to be disciplined there. And then,   I really started working on and I heard at a conference about like just an easy way. Cause my husband, I'm the spender. He's the saver. And it's really thrilling for me because I felt annoyed. I felt like I was dragging him like an anchor. Like we were going on vacation. We're buying the cars and like, don't like cut my wind out of my sails. Like I was so angry about it. So we actually had to make a vision board of both of us. Like what are his dreams and what are my dreams? And we like co put it up on the wall. It literally sits in our bedroom. And it was one of the best things I ever did because he wasn't able to see what inspires me and what I'm excited about what   what's important to me. And I was able to see what's important to him. We also figured out like what's our BAM, our bare ACE minimum as a couple and where we want that. And then when you're talking about like the savings, I really found this awesome principle where it's kind of like, ultimately, what does it actually cost you to get to financial freedom? And when I did this exercise and I do it with a lot of clients, you can actually break it down. like, what does that like, bougie, whatever life you want that to look like, what does that look like? What's your mortgage? What's your HOA? What's the internet? What's the utilities like?   What's our groceries? What's our food bill? What's our children bill? Like how many cars do we have on this? And like literally build that out to what's like my highest end. And then you actually scale it back down to basically like, what's my security bucket? Like for me to just survive, like you said, like the monks, like what is it for me? Like scrap it all down. Let's go back to dental school. Let's go back to chiropractic school. Like when I was at my like most broke, but I could scrap like you guys, can top around and like a boss, like I know I could get through. So like, what is my like minimum amount?   Then what I do, so basically taking that all the way up to my financial freedom, like where I've got money making money, it's a money making machine for me. And then how do I actually break that down? So I've got security, then I've got like growth, then I've got independence, and then I've got freedom. And then beyond that are like your prosperity and your legacy buckets. And so when I look at this, it's like, you basically just chunk it down. And what I mean, I'm such a nerd, I really am. I've like learned to fall in love. I like took that amount of like total dollars.   Then I looked at like, how much money do I actually need to make? What tax bracket am I in? How much do I need like pre and post tax? Like again, total nerd side on my side. But then I was able to look and I'm like, okay, for this practice, I know that for them to be like, just baseline, they need to be making about a hundred grand a year. Like that's pre-tax. So we know like we're to take tax out. We can survive. That's like our security. Then our growth goes up to 202 post-tax. Then our independence is at like 553. Well, now I know my mile markers of what I need to do. And I also have those parameters. you said, where am I going to penny pinch?   This does not mean that I don't have certain luxuries, but it means that I'm like, it's like a gradient and I'm able to see what I'm working towards. And I remember my CPA, he told me once he said, Kiera, it actually becomes a lot easier to make money. And like once you, like in a few years, once you've bought a few of the things that you really are looking for, and I was like, you're full of it. Like, I don't believe you for a second, but it's true. Like as you evolve.   You buy the things you want, you get the house that you want, you get the car that you think you want, you get the designer bags, like it's not all overnight. And then you're like, wow, I have a decent amount because I've learned to make the money, save the money, not spend everything that I've got. I'm able to then plan for these purchases that I want. I love Profit First, Mike McAllags. He's like my fangirl central every time he's on the podcast. I like just love him so much, but I'm like, okay, then I have buckets. have my travel bucket. And you're right, Mike, my travel.   Dr. Lauryn B (17:18) yeah. Sweep account. Sweep! ⁓   Kiera Dent (17:28) amount, that's something that fuels me. So we pump money into a travel fund, but we have those to where I now have budgets and our clients have budgets and you can have budgets. And it's not for me, clients have even told me that's more freeing than it is otherwise, because they actually know I can spend this money guilt free and go on the trip. can go and buy this car guilt free because I have the money.   Dr. Lauryn B (17:46) Mm-hmm.   And that's probably really   helpful for your spouse too. A lot of times the saver spouse, like it's hard for them until there's like an act, like that's the permission they need of like, no, we ran the numbers and we like this amount of money was proportionally taken and it's there. It's only to be spent on this. And they're like, okay.   Kiera Dent (17:52) Thanks.   Yes.   Yes.   Okay. And then the spender feels good because they're not just blowing all the money. So it's on this like, it's a good balance, but I love it. Like it's very simple. And now I'm very curious, Lauryn, because you've talked about like not having your business as your only asset, like that's cash flowing for you. Once we've got a simple, we like make the money and we keep the money like check that off. Then we go into these like, I love the idea. There's a ditch on both sides of the road. So which one are we going to do? We figure out like, what do need today? What are my future like?   Dr. Lauryn B (18:28) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (18:41) kind of nice purchases that I want to, how do I build up to these other ones that I can save for? What's my total number? Like I know my number for financial freedom is psychotic. When I look at that, it really is. I actually have it.   Dr. Lauryn B (18:51) Is it really? Because I'm   interested that you said that because most people when they do that exercise are kind of like, ⁓ it's surprising to them that it's actually not higher. like, so.   Kiera Dent (19:12) Well, let me just clarify.   Let me ask this for you, Lauryn. What I found is for me to hit like my security, my vitality, my independence. Like we're talking like pretty much up to freedom. I'm actually it's good. Like we're there, but my absolute freedom, like where I never have to work another day in my life for me, that number, that number is a little more extreme. That one, but like even looking at it now, cause when I told you, I'm like, it's psychotic. I just pulled the spreadsheet up. What's fun though is I built this.   Dr. Lauryn B (19:30) ⁓ okay.   Yeah. Okay, the like I quit number, the like.   Kiera Dent (19:42) gosh, I like I should honestly look, I think I built this spreadsheet, I'm going to we're gonna hold everybody I know you're like on pins and needles, I'm just gonna scroll back to when I actually made this. It's on Google Sheets, you can go back to like when it was built. So I built this and I think this is really just telling for people I built this in 2022. So May 13 2022 at 1026 am is when I built it. We're now recording this in 2025. So we're only talking just over three years since I originally built it.   I told you Lauryn that my number for absolute freedom, we're talking like I put it all because I have a jet in there. I have a charter jet. I have a private like I put all these things like it was just I have like I want to   Dr. Lauryn B (20:17) You have a jet in there? Okay, well most people when   they do the exercise the way I have them do it aren't putting jets in there. I love you, Kiera. Okay, we're gonna stay friends because I want on that jet. Kiera error.   Kiera Dent (20:25) Like I'm telling you this is my absolute freedom. This is the absolute absolute like here is living this life I mean girl you can come cuz I just like   I wanted to see like what does this look like and I want to have like I don't want to retire in a retirement home I want to live in a villa like I've got some pretty lofty things in this like we're talking I went for like   Dr. Lauryn B (20:41) Right. Did you put the pilot   costs in there too or does that just come with a jet?   Kiera Dent (20:45) So my husband actually wants to be a pilot. So that's already like built in. So I've got like that. I also have friends that are pilots like, you know, yellow, we're gonna have that. Thank you, thank you. So on that, and I actually went through this, like I built it the first time, but we're talking three years. And I look at that to have that absolute freedom. The annual income pre-tax would be 4.6 million, which that can sound like an outlandish number. However, based on where the business is now, it's not that outlandish. And that was just a short.   Dr. Lauryn B (20:49) Okay. Okay. Okay. The jet makes a little more sense now, but yeah, got it.   No, it's doable.   Kiera Dent (21:15) three year period where I'm like, I mean, we got a jet, I got play money. mean, guys in-house chef, live in nanny, we've got all the cars, I've got my Lambo, I've got chartered flights in there, like you name it. And I look at this and I often assess because Kiera three years ago wanted some of these things and Kiera today might look at that and be like, know, I actually don't want these things, but this is what I'd rather. I'd rather like buy a house for my parents or I'd rather do this, but you will shift and change.   Dr. Lauryn B (21:16) And that's got a freaking jet in it.   Kiera Dent (21:45) But it's so crazy because when I look at that, I'm like, all right. So I know if things get tight in the business, I know, all right, rock on. Like pre-tax, we need to make a hundred grand. Like easy. We can handle that. We can create that. We can figure that out. That's it. Again, just a math equation. But then when you look up and you scale up, it becomes so much more doable and realistic. And then for me, I don't know how you feel, Lauryn. It's like, now the number doesn't feel like, got it. I know actually like what I'm working towards. I know how I can now do the math equation. It's not like I have to make   500 million to be free. It's like, no, I need this money because it will now go into investments. It will go into other places. I know how much that's going to generate for me. I know how much it's going to estimate grow. And I don't know. It just is pretty magical. So I'm very curious. Like, what are your other revenue streams that you recommend when we're looking at this and we're building that financial freedom? We're looking at like, okay, I kind of am. I'm hoping that people listening to this podcast are putting like dots together. Like, okay, got it. Like make the money, keep the money.   Dr. Lauryn B (22:17) Mm-hmm.   Hmm.   Kiera Dent (22:38) figure out how I'm gonna spend it, but not overspend it and still keep the money so I don't pinch on that side. Then I'm gonna look to see where I ultimately wanna get in my life. Now, like what are some other things like if we're there, how did you get it to where you weren't just reliant on your business anymore?   Dr. Lauryn B (22:52) So first I will say that none of this is any tax or legal advice and you must talk to your CPA or whatever. Yeah, here's my little disclaimer. I am not an accountant or anything, a lawyer or anything like that. So right now, so I just interviewed someone on crypto. So I am really, really lucky that my husband, he's a very early adopter. And so   Kiera Dent (22:58) This is true our little disclaimer there guys go talk to people that are not   Dr. Lauryn B (23:21) We have been pretty involved in crypto for   Kiera Dent (23:26) Which is why you said   do crypto like all the things like I should be putting this in crypto not going on trips. I now get it. All right, go on.   Dr. Lauryn B (23:33) So I just interviewed someone on my podcast who's like a crypto investor and like some of the predictions that the crypto people, the crypto people are saying about   going to happen with crypto, what could happen with crypto in the next five years,   4.6 million would be easy. So like if our current crypto ⁓   Kiera Dent (23:55) Chump change, like truly, truly.   Dr. Lauryn B (24:01) account like amount that we have invested   did even a fraction of like what like we'd be we'd be pretty   pretty pretty good even if that doesn't happen in five years if it like takes 10 so crypto for us   Kiera Dent (24:08) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (24:14) and like i said i just i knew that like that was the thing that for him but like i just really got i got off this interview and i was like how much did you invest last month we need   double it we need to like and he's like yeah   This is so exciting. Like I have been priceless. I've been really obsessed with a Cartier watch lately. Like a real like, and so I have was, I'm already   Kiera Dent (24:28) That's where he'll spend there, Lauryn.   Dr. Lauryn B (24:37) about my 2026 vision board because I'm in Enneagram three and we do weird   like that. And so I I was like, I want to go to Switzerland and   Kiera Dent (24:41) I love it.   Dr. Lauryn B (24:46) want to   to Switzerland and buy a Cartier watch. Cause that's where they're made. And like, and now I'm like, you know, maybe we should   Kiera Dent (24:52) Yeah.   Dr. Lauryn B (24:56) delay, that would be better put into crypto. And he's just like, this is the saver husband is just like, this is the greatest thing in the world. So anyway, so that's one bucket. ⁓ And you know, he spends a good amount of time each week, each day monitoring. So I won't even call that passive. I think that crypto can be a lot more passive depending on how you do it. I'm not going to get any deeper into the waters here because we are at my like limit of understanding of crypto.   Kiera Dent (25:02) He's loving it. Okay, so crypto. Okay.   Okay, perfect.   Dr. Lauryn B (25:24) I know   that you can   very active in investing and there are ways that can be much more passive. ⁓ So real estate, obviously   think that real estate is the secret of the wealthy for decades and decades and decades and it's not such a secret anymore. It comes with its own things. We both experienced 2007. I luckily had just gone into school, but there are people who lost their asses in 2007 with real estate. So not foolproof. Also,   Kiera Dent (25:50) only.   Dr. Lauryn B (25:54) not incredibly passive. We throw the word passive around way too much in this, but I will say where the majority currently and where we're like next year, how I'm getting to 3 million and this and that, a good percentage of it is very, very active in the personal brand coaching side of things.   Kiera Dent (25:56) I would agree on that. You gotta have a lot of doors, lots of doors, lots of time.   I agree.   Dr. Lauryn B (26:22) I have built and have continued building. ⁓ so, you know, podcast, sure, that makes some money, but like where very actively, where I spend more time on than in my clinic is in the online space of coaching courses, programs, webinars, membership. And that's when you find, and here's the thing.   is like every dentist listening, every chiropractor listening is like, okay, so I need to coach other dentists. I need to coach other chiropractors. And it's like, no, what I'm saying is, is online, there is a lot of money that can be made. It's not easier, but it's also not harder. It's its own hard. I just solved a different problem for someone. So I had the business that we solve this problem. And then I figured out a way. So we talked about the financial.   Kiera Dent (27:05) Right.   Dr. Lauryn B (27:18) freedom, but then I figured out the time freedom that I wasn't needed there all the time. So I could sit and go, what's another problem that I can sell a solution to?   Kiera Dent (27:33) Okay, let's like pause there. I'm very curious. How did you get, how did you solve the time solution? Like guilt free, like walk me through. I know it's like a pile whole nother episodes. Like do it in like a chunk or probably close to time.   Dr. Lauryn B (27:38) God, that's.   Yeah, well, I mean,   you ultimately, you pay for your time. So like, I am not collecting as much money from my clinic as I could if I was there doing the service. Like, that's just kind of obvious. ⁓ So I am paying for doctors that I wouldn't need a doctor. I could get rid of an entire doctor's salary if I just worked full time.   Kiera Dent (27:59) Right.   Dr. Lauryn B (28:10) I could also get rid of my amazing and well-paid director of ops. So this was a big game changer for us is so like, you may have a doctor on staff that's like your clinic director. You know, they're really in charge of like patient care, whatever, things like that. I recommend having a not office manager, a director of operations.   Kiera Dent (28:25) Thank   Dr. Lauryn B (28:39) Okay, like this is not an office manager. A lot of time your office manager is like by default, the person who's been with you the longest. Like we hired in a specific skillset that was going to be my eyes, ears, hands, feet, pretty much everything except my visionary brain.   Kiera Dent (28:40) Nothing.   and   Dr. Lauryn B (29:03) She does HR meetings, she does hiring, she does firing, she monitors stats. I meet with her once a week and I get reports. I pay her pretty well. And like honestly, she needs another raise and so does my other doctor. Like, so this is what's hard.   Kiera Dent (29:17) Yeah.   So let's just break it down. I   don't wanna know exactly what your Director of Operations gets paid, but let's give a range so people understand, because I think people don't realize what we're paying for that. So are we talking? Okay, perfect. And for some of you, might hear like, yes. And I would say that that, I would say it's probably 60 to 150 penny upon, for dentists, the size and practice, like I have seen that come through. So again, looking to see where it is.   Dr. Lauryn B (29:27) Probably 60 to 90 grand.   depending on your city and things like that.   can.   and   especially like if you're running multiple clinics. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (29:44) Yes. So   when you said that though, when we were talking about the audacious number and we're like, Hey, 4.6, like it seems so, but you're like, it's really big. But I think if people were to hear that and think K 60 to 90, if I were to pay somebody 90, but not have to do all the meetings, not all the hiring, not all the firing, what is your time worth? Go to Dan Martell, buy back your time. He's one of my favorites. Like what is your dollar per hour when you're doing dentistry or when you're doing chiropractic?   And could you hire that out? Like how many hours could you do or use your visionary brain to grow the business, grow other things? Well, yes, that's a great salary. It also, think when we put it with your time, I think a lot of people could see that on a balance sheet of a very good investment because I think time is one of your greatest assets. So again, I just want to highlight because a lot of people may think it's like 200.   Dr. Lauryn B (30:26) Mm-hmm.   Well, and I'm in a circle back.   So, cause I said, there's like the two different reasons you're burning out. Although I've listed like 17 at this point. You you've got the person who just wants to care for people and they have to run a business. And then you've got the person who's like, I've solved this. So like, I don't remember who said it, but they basically said there's like two types of people. And this is a really great question to ask when you're hiring. It's one of my favorite questions. ⁓ Are you the type of person?   Kiera Dent (30:39) Yeah   Dr. Lauryn B (30:57) who wants to solve the same problem every day and get more efficient and faster and better at solving that puzzle, or are you a person who would rather have a brand new puzzle every day and figure out   to solve that puzzle? There is no wrong answer here. You are not a less than person because people hear that and they go, oh.   I wanna be the exciting person. And this is why so many people end up in entrepreneurship that shouldn't is because they hear the air quotes, right answer there. the exciting answer is I want a new puzzle. Most people are not psycho like   if you   that you're that person, when you're really, this is totally cool to be like a more efficient problem solving, like same puzzle. But that's what a business is.   Kiera Dent (31:49) Yes.   Dr. Lauryn B (31:50) after a   certain point, you are solving the same problem. And so I literally couldn't. I couldn't, so like, yes, I could say like, well, I had the option of not spending that money on salary and just like stepping into my practice even more and being that director of ops and being that, I couldn't. I was done. At this point, this had been like 12 years.   Like, this is really more more recent. I've been in practice 15 years. So it was really more like three years ago that I was like, I can't, I want to. And I feel like a bad person that I'm like, I can still be the visionary. I can still check in and I still love hands-on patience. Like, ⁓ but like we need to hand this baton to somebody better because I will die if I have to keep hiring and doing some of this stuff.   Kiera Dent (32:47) You   How did your team and doctors take that? Because I think people are so scared of like, well, why does Lauryn get to go have one or two days in the office and we're here five days? Like, did you have any of that backlash? Like, how did that go?   Dr. Lauryn B (32:50) And so.   they're continue, you know, like, yeah, your people are people are people. And we can't, we can't, as if I don't get, my husband has to talk me off a ledge, you know, once a month about like, can you believe, like, we, they're just humans who are also living their experience and wanting more money and like seeing you live abundantly and feeling feelings of jealousy. Like you can't cure anybody who says like they've cured jealousy.   from their team culture, they are lying. So like feelings of jealousy and greed, these are natural human emotions that your staff is going to go through. And so, you know, I would say that more recently as we, because like we're talking about like, hey, the clinic numbers are not good enough for...   Kiera Dent (33:36) Yeah   Dr. Lauryn B (34:00) abundance and bonuses and raises. We've told you what we need the clinic numbers to be at in order for raises to happen.   Kiera Dent (34:06) I hope everybody listening   just heard how she was a CEO and she told them, these are what the numbers are. This is what we have to do. It's not, me give you bonuses and pay you more in hopes to get that number up there. Like rewind that, listen to that over and over and over again, because you have to have this team needs to see that. Otherwise, this is how you don't make the money and keep the money. You make the money and you pay more money and you're broke. Go on.   Dr. Lauryn B (34:27) Yeah, and for the first, that's   how I got to the worst, the best worst year of my life, you biggest revenue, but worst income was because we had been giving raises based on like effort and like they're working really hard. They deserve a raise. So an employee can deserve a raise, but there's not money to give them. So like we're simultaneously this year dealing with like, hey,   I wanna give raises, but like it's gotta be here and we're close, but we're not there. They simultaneously see me just fucking killing it in the online space and spending, because also like in the personal brand, like I coach healthcare providers how to launch a personal brand. And so like I talk about like, hey, I got a $2,000 affiliate check. We invested $13,000 from crypto. If you go find me on Instagram @DrLaurynB, you will see like,   My posts are about abundance and what a personal brand can do for you and how like the behind the scenes of like, yeah, we are, we're talking about diversifying income. Like this is how much our real   portfolio made last month. People want to know that, but my staff sees that. And so they're like, well, she rich. Why is she trying to tell us   she can't give us, why is it? And so, so like even literally this month.   Kiera Dent (35:45) that we don't have money. because the business, the business.   Dr. Lauryn B (35:52) We're in like calm, kind, one-to-one conversations having to be like, you know, but I will say my husband and I, like, this is like real life. These are conversations that literally happened like a week and a half ago where I came to my husband because prior the clinic was all the money. It was all the money. It was the biggest thing. It was really in the last two years that things switched.   where it was like, now my clinic is like, when do we call my clinic my side gig? Because I'm literally making four times as much on this personal brand in digital space. ⁓ And so we realized that,   Kiera Dent (36:20) Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (36:32) there isn't money for raises that they want. There isn't money for bonuses. But can I,   Lauryn Brunclik.   who loves my employees, can I give them, can I shower them with birthday presents and anniversary presents and Christmas presents? Can I buy them lunch because they saved my ass because I came in late from a podcast recording or this or that? Yeah, because Lauryn can, like the personal, like we are fine. We are rich, great, this is great.   But like my head was so like the only money from a business mind that we can spend is the money that's allowed. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Now we're entering a whole new ball field where it's like, you know what? I can, but it's not gonna come from bonuses and raises. Those come from clinic performance. And so we are kind of going like, okay, FYI, this isn't coming from chiropractic. This is coming from me.   Kiera Dent (37:30) Right.   Dr. Lauryn B (37:41) loving and appreciating all that you do in this clinic so that I can. So what does this look like? You take a week off and you go golf the greatest like golf whatever courses and like you just like have this bucket list thing. This looks like you showing acts of appreciation, bringing gifts, buying them dinner, like whatever it is like.   showing appreciation for your staff that they are there so you can live your best life. They were there so you could leave early and go watch your kids dance recital. So like, although our natural instinct is to only show them that we appreciate them through raises and bonuses, and that's what they want. So like anytime you can do it. ⁓   Kiera Dent (38:38) I agree.   I agree. I feel like both.   Dr. Lauryn B (38:40) Sometimes   you have to figure out more creative ways to show your appreciation to them that they are doing that so you can't.   Kiera Dent (38:49) I love that. Wow. Lauryn, this is such a fun podcast. think like to put a pretty bow on this. What would you say if a doctor, your listeners, my listeners, if they're listening to this, what would you say would be like, wrap up takeaways from I mean, we have gone the gown. I love this. I felt like we were on the most random road trip of like we were going to this stop going to this one.   Dr. Lauryn B (39:08) I'm not sure if we took this entire transcript   and uploaded it to AI. It would be like, no, you guys are amazing. Here's your silver thread.   Kiera Dent (39:17) That would be amazing. So what would you say would be kind of like key takeaways or things that maybe we didn't get to that you just feel like listeners, business owners, those running the day to day clinic, whether you want to be on whichever side of this burnout coin, if you want to be there and serve the patients but are sick of doing the business, if you're on the side of like, gosh, I like just want to run the business and do other things outside of this, like looking at the burnout, looking at the generations that we're going through. I mean, we went the gamut of   from investments and passive income to appreciating your team as you as a person rather than the business. Like so many fun, different like ideas and aha moments. Any last thoughts you wanna add to put a pretty bow on today's podcast?   Dr. Lauryn B (39:57) All well, that's a really hard question, but you're lucky I actually do have something to say. was like, oh God, okay. All right, so was listening to a podcast this morning. Simon Sinek had Arthur Brooks on, and Arthur Brooks is, I don't know, political science, behavioral science, I think behavioral science. And he just very briefly in the interview said that like,   Kiera Dent (39:59) I know. Hey, good, good.   Dr. Lauryn B (40:21) It's human nature that we go through a reinvention of our career and have to reinvent ourselves every seven to 12 years. And that's just, that's gonna happen. So from the time that you graduate high school until the time that you retire, you're going to need to reinvent yourself multiple times. And the more that you fight that, the more that you, you you're at that seven year itch or whatever,   and instead of embracing reinvention, whatever that looks like for you, maybe you're bringing on new services into your clinic. like, it doesn't need to mean you need to lean out at that point, but you might just need a little, like, re-ignition, a reinvention of your brand. ⁓ The more that you fight that and go, I shouldn't feel this way, what's wrong with me? Like, like if you're sitting there broke and you're just stuck,   in a place of instead of reinventing yourself into this wealthy, healthy doctor that you know you can be, but instead you're like, God, I'm 39. I don't have my shit together. I should be making more money. I should, like, the more you just sit in this, what's wrong with me? It's just gonna torture yourself. I truly believe that people, you know, let's say they get 12 years into their career.   I believe that there are ⁓ too high of a percentage of people that literally just plan on embracing the suck the rest of their career instead of reinventing themselves for something joyful and abundant. And that just makes me so sad. So that's what I would say is my final thing is if you feel wherever you're at in your career, if you're feeling this, like this is your permission. It's not from me, it's from Arthur Brooks. He's some smart.   Kiera Dent (42:17) Yeah.   Dr. Lauryn B (42:18) Like you were smart enough to be on Simon Sinek, all right? He's giving you permission. This is not just a unique thing. This is human nature. And so figure it out. What does reinvention look like for you? ⁓ And just start doing the work.   Kiera Dent (42:35) Lauryn, that was absolutely beautiful and I hope people listen. I hope they take action. They take advice. ⁓ Because I think what you just said is so freeing and so beautiful. So I really hope people don't just listen, but actually take action. So Lauryn, I love this today. It was so fun. How can people get in? It's a great time. I'm like when we in person, I guarantee you'll be someone we will be fast friends in real life. Like just loved having you on here today. How can people get connected with you? How can they see your   Dr. Lauryn B (42:51) We should meet up in real life.   Kiera Dent (43:03) life again, I believe like when we watch other people we become like them. So it's like, I want people like you. I want people that are abundant. I want people like this is what the podcast is for. This is why we bring people together. How can people get connected with you if they want to know more about you see what you're doing? How can they   Dr. Lauryn B (43:07) Mm-hmm.   yeah, and if you   related to this, you'll love my Instagram, because this is everything that I talk about. So it's @DrLaurynB and Lauryn is with a Y. So ⁓ Instagram is definitely the place I hang out the most. Send me a DM if you listen to this. Like I am in my DMs all the time. And I would just, yeah, that's the best place.   Kiera Dent (43:34) I love it. We are millennials. Instagram's our jam. We're not on Snapchat, all right? It's Instagram, okay? It's gonna be that way forever. But Lauryn, I loved it today. Thank you for joining me. Everyone here, I hope you picked up nuggets. I hope you take action. I hope you truly commit to living your best life. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team   Dr. Lauryn B (43:37) This jam. Yeah.  

Kiera is joined by Dr. Lauryn Brunclik (of She Slays the Day podcast fame) to take a good hard look at clinician burnout, different sides of the working mindset coin, generational styles of work, and so much more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so excited about our guest that's going to be on the podcast with me today. She is incredible. We're going to be talking about all things burnout, how to avoid it, how to just like live your best life. And so I have Dr. Lauryn Brunclik. She's an entrepreneur, chiropractor, business coach, podcast host, wife, mother, and sought-after speaker known for her high energy. You guys know that this is why I like her. mean, we're birds of the same feather, straightforward attitude and ability to make people laugh while discovering their truth.   In 2010, she founded Blue Hills Chiropractic building into a thriving seven figure practice. But after years of relentless hustle, she found herself overworked, tied to her clinic and craving more freedom. Dentist, can you relate? Now you see why I brought her on here. Now you can see why I want her here. ⁓ she truly is very similar to all of you out there. She was determined to create a business that worked for her, not the other way around. Lauryn built multiple revenue streams, streamlined her operations and reclaimed her time without sacrificing income.   She took that passion and launched She Slays the Day, a podcast helping professionals and clinic owners break free from burnout by creating multiple revenue streams, recleaning time and building financial and lifestyle freedom. So welcome to the show, Lauryn. How are you today?   Dr. Lauryn B (01:07) Thank you. As you   were reading that is so funny because like in this world of virtual assistants and AI, I'm always like, what bio is she reading? And I'm like kind of holding my breath like, ⁓ and I'm like, okay, yep, that's true. That's true. this is good. I did really get sad and burnt up. It's like, I just went on a journey with you while you're reading my bio.   Kiera Dent (01:25) Usually both.   You and me both. was on a podcast the other day and I had the exact same feeling because they were reading my bio and I was like, huh, I'm super curious. Like which bio did you get? And wow, yeah, like I did just get to go down memory lane. but   Dr. Lauryn B (01:40) You're   like, that's a good bio. Good job, AI. Good job. Which is like always waiting for like the wrong thing where it's like, no, I didn't do a stint as a clown or anything. No, that's not true. That's not true. So.   Kiera Dent (01:49) Exactly.   I, Shelbi got us connected and I was super excited and you know, I was looking up on it and she's like, here, I think you and Lauryn are going to have the best time on the podcast. She's like, you two are birds of the same feather, the high energy, the tactical, the like we talk about it's like life on purpose and business on purpose and not having it to where it's the other way around. I say all the time, like your business should be working for you, not the other way around. It should be supporting your life. So I'm just super jazzed. So Lauryn.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:04) Mm.   Kiera Dent (02:17) I mean, that was a great bio. agree like kudos to AI, virtual assistant, whomever wrote it for you. Kudos to you for living that actual bio and being the human on the other side of that. So anything else you want to add? I mean, we're here today to chat shop. We're here to ⁓ share with your audience, our audience, and just really collaborate together and talk about some things that you're super passionate about and that I am too.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:22) Right.   Yeah, so I think that one of the things is that, you you kind of address of like, I think you probably typically have more dentists on   of thing and your audience is like, wait, what's happening? So I started as a coach for chiropractors, you   Kiera Dent (02:51) you   Dr. Lauryn B (02:56) this is, I see this a lot of what we do ⁓ as especially high achieving people, you know, we spend a lot of money and time getting this degree. And then we kind of, when we start to get   bored, burnt out, ADHD, whatever it is in our career where there's this kind of a couple years in and you're like, wait, is this on repeat? What we tend to do is we repurpose our current knowledge set. And so it's like, I have this degree in this, so I'm gonna start a podcast for those people, right? And so that was kind of my experience too. She Slays the Day started as a podcast for chiropractors.   But then I started to realize like as we were having these conversations and you you're just networking, you're meeting. And I started to talk to dentists and veterinarians and you know, realizing like, ⁓ you guys deal with the same shit we do? I had an ENT on a private practice, ENT ⁓ on the podcast, on my podcast because I was following him on Instagram because he was hilarious, but I was like.   Kiera Dent (03:51) Yeah.   Dr. Lauryn B (04:02) you're dealing with the same stuff we do. And ultimately, that's kind of where I expanded in 2023 to be more for healthcare providers outside the traditional hospital system, because it's like, none of us learned business. Like, we, while we were doing anatomy and infectious disease and all of this stuff, there were people outside in the college getting like MBAs and entire business degrees.   Kiera Dent (04:18) Exactly.   Dr. Lauryn B (04:31) And we didn't take a single class. we just, there's such this atmosphere of shameful entrepreneurship. What I mean by that is like, especially within chiropractic, and I've talked to vets and dentists as well, that's like, well, if you're not gonna own your own clinic, are you even like really that good? And so there's this forced entrepreneurship in a society where only 10 % of   Kiera Dent (04:54) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (05:01) people truly have the grit and resilience for the shit show that is ⁓ entrepreneurship. But you have like 80 to 90 % of a profession going into it. And so it's just so natural that it's like, we didn't learn this stuff. It's so natural that burnout is such a common thing. So that's where really it's like, I've realized that like, yeah, I promise you that the same stuff we're dealing with, you're dealing with too because I've had these conversations.   Kiera Dent (05:13) Right.   Amen. And it's actually funny, and I didn't mention this prior, but we actually consulted a chiropractic office and we've consulted eye clinics and ⁓ optometrists and we've gone into CPA clinic firms. And I realized business is business is business and healthcare business is very similar. I think we do ⁓ outside of mainstream medicine, which is our chiropractic, our vets, our dentists.   We're not in the hospital setting. We have more of that autonomy to have our own practices and our own businesses and I agree with you. It is a I think I think the memes out there with business ownership are so accurate the ones where you're on a roller coaster and they're like it's the highs and the lows the ones we're like holding on for dear life and you're like giggling and then crying all within a matter of seconds and I'm like that is the role that is the realm and so that's why I really wanted us to collaborate together Lauryn to talk about because   What you see in chiropractic, what I see in dentistry, what we see across the board of these incredible clinicians. like you, go to school, you learn, you, you have all this experience in this knowledge. And like you said, It does not train you to be a business owner. yet also, like you said, it's well, why not? Like, and I think that that is kind of the, it's like for team members, like you want to graduate to be the office manager. You want to be the regional manager. You want to get to that level. Like that's where you like it. There's a ladder ascension. And I think in business ownership and with   Like you wanted to be a chiropractor because you wanted to help people. You wanted to be a dentist because you want to help people. You want to be a vet because you want to help people. You want to be an ENT because you want to help people. But it's, think that there's this unsaid natural ladder that people feel there's a push to go for a business ownership when it's like, but I just want to be a clinician. I just wanted to, to do my craft, but I also wanted to do it my way. And that's where I think the business ownership vibe comes in. But you're right. It's, it's stressful, not having profits, not having   understanding cashflow, not understanding how to run teams. Like awful.   Dr. Lauryn B (07:20) The number of people,   doc, clinic owners that have been in practice for 10 plus years that I am teaching what profit margins are and what is healthy and how to calculate it is astounding. It's like, So, you know, I think that ultimately when you, you know, the different personality types, you know, when they find themselves in practice,   Kiera Dent (07:31) Yes. Yes.   Yes.   Dr. Lauryn B (07:46) I feel like they almost burn out for two completely different reasons. So let's say that you have, know, so 80 % of humans are just more meant to be more like caregivers, supporter roles. I would guess that that's even higher in someone who's called into healthcare, right? That like, they went into this, believe me, if you are about to decide what you should do with your life and you are like, I'm an entrepreneur and I wanna be.   Kiera Dent (08:05) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (08:15) rich. Do not go into chiropractic. Do not go into dentistry. There is so much easier ways to make money. like 99 point whatever percent of people are called to this profession in healthcare because they want to serve. So let's say you start your clinic. There's a good chance you're going to burn out from one of two reasons. One, you don't want to run a clinic. You truly   And that's what's burning you out, is that you're just like, I am here for the patients. I want to pour into the patients and I want to serve and I want to do that. But like, I have to hire another front desk person? Didn't we just do that last year? I don't know what the ad should say. I don't know what we should pay them. Or like there's office drama and you're like, I have to create a SOP on that, what? And so that will burn you out because so much of being the CEO and the clinic owner is like,   pulling you away from patient care. So you either have to divide your patient care down or in half so you have time and now you're spending half of your time not doing what you wanna do or you just pile on the admin stuff on top of it so you're working 60 hours a week. So that person, obviously they burn out. Now the other one is I think a much more, like is much more my personal story and I'm so curious as to like why you started the podcast, why you started doing what you're doing but like.   Kiera Dent (09:30) Mm-hmm. Right.   Dr. Lauryn B (09:43) So this is, I was not someone that like was a natural entrepreneur. Like I never would have, you there's certain people you hear these stories where they're like, I'm kindergarten. was like, you know, I'm like, no, that wasn't me. Like I had no idea until really after I, you know, I started my practice, but that was out of convenience. Cause there was no job. Like I had kids and like somewhere along the line, the entrepreneurship bug just got me.   Kiera Dent (09:56) Hahaha!   Dr. Lauryn B (10:13) And then all of a sudden, that's what I wanted to be doing. Like I wanted to be scaling, looking at marketing strategy, looking at like growth projections, creating higher, like I wanted to do that. But then like Barb needs me in a room too. And I'm like, like I love, okay, I like serving. Yes, yes, yes. But like I really.   Kiera Dent (10:36) Yeah.   Dr. Lauryn B (10:41) This is what was exciting to me. And so then, and this is where I'll kind of like be vulnerable and share my story, because I know from stage that this helps people, people see this, but it's embarrassing to admit, but the patient care became boring. The patient care became repetitive. Like in the beginning, you're like, ⁓ how do I fix this? And like, you're not getting results, how do I do that? And it was this problem, like new problems to solve.   But once you've been doing it, five, seven years, I mean, for everybody it's different, you're kind of like, I can do that on autopilot. And it wasn't challenging a part of my brain that wanted to solve new problems. And so there was a lot of shame and guilt that came with, because at this point, I've been in practice seven years. I'm in my early 30s. Okay, well, you're doing this for the next 30 years. And I was like, I can't.   Kiera Dent (11:38) Right.   Dr. Lauryn B (11:39) can't do this for the next 30 years. And so that's just like, whichever side a clinic owner sees themself in, like, you you're not safe on either. You have to figure out burnout on either side, but ⁓ they're completely different reasonings. And I think understanding what, why are you feeling that burnout is really important.   Kiera Dent (12:04) Yeah, I love that you talked about both sides of the coin because I think there's guilt at least from what I see working with dentists working at myself. They actually got like I've heard I don't know like where this is coined but it's like the seven year itch or stitch like there's like you just kind of get into this and some people get it at five years some people get it at 10 years but there is ⁓ I also love Tony Robbins when he says like progress equals happiness.   Dr. Lauryn B (12:20) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (12:29) And so if we're not progressing and some people love it, they love the autopilot of patient care is easy for me. But like when you first get out of school, all of that is hard. It's a puzzle. You're progressing. You've got to figure out how do you navigate and get patients to say yes to treatment? How do I run my books? Like how, like there's so much how, how, how to, how do I like serve my patients better? How do I make this for dentists? It's like, do I make that perfect crown margin? Like, how do get that perfect? I imagine in chiropractor, I'm actually a chiropractor.   all the time. I love her. She's incredible. We do talk business often. She's a fee for service. And I'm like, let's talk shop on like going fee for service versus in network, like, just like dentists, right, the fee for service versus in network. And it's how can I make this body like looking at people that have weird symptoms and trying to figure out how can I fix that? Like, I know there's a way to fix this long term. ⁓ But also the like annoyance of running a business and also be like,   need for growth. I really love and I never thought about those two sides of the coin until you mentioned that of that really is what causes people to stress. And I think that there is guilt on both sides. I think there's guilt of I want to be with patient care and I don't want to run the business, but I know I have to like, this is kind of the, the card I signed up for. And then the other side of I want to leave the chair. I had a dentist the other day and one of our masterminds say to me, I only want to work two or three days, but I feel guilty because my team's working five days. And I was like,   Dr. Lauryn B (13:52) That's   a really common one.   Kiera Dent (13:54) so good. And the great news is you built the business, like you provided them the job, like you've created that. That does not mean you need to stay in the day to day, five days a week, like whatever is best for you as the business owner and creator. And that can shift and morph. But there is a lot of guilt. I think that that creates, like you said, a lot of shaming and thanks for being vulnerable on that because I think so many people can relate to that. I think when people are listening, they're like, yes, yes. Like, I feel either side of that and   I think people don't know how to get out of it. So instead it's just this like, let me keep doing the same. ⁓ let me listen to other podcasts. Let me see if other people are like me. And I'm sure it's the same in chiropractic dentistry. say that it's like this isolated Island and I'm so grateful for podcasts. I'm grateful for communities, but I still think people feel that way because you're day in day out in your own clinic, in your own practice by yourself, even though you maybe know there's a few other islands out there that are maybe similar to you. ⁓ but I think it's such a, I think that's also business too.   Dr. Lauryn B (14:36) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (14:52) I don't think it's just being ⁓ a provider in your own practice. I business entrepreneurs feel this way as well, like, how can everybody else figure this out? And I don't feel like I can. ⁓   Dr. Lauryn B (15:00) And you have no idea that they haven't figured it out. I was at   a seven figure female mastermind a month ago. so it's all seven figure females all over the board, as far as like industry striving to get to eight figures. And like, there were so many moments at this retreat that every single person just felt like their business was duct taped together. And it's just like, everybody's just doing their   Kiera Dent (15:07) you   Dr. Lauryn B (15:29) absolute damn best. And so it is really, ⁓ but you know, I wonder how much of how much of this burnout conversation has to do with like generational differences. You know, like, I'm assuming that you are a millennial. Yeah. And yeah, I know, we really are the best. really are. Don't tell everybody else, but we are the best generation. ⁓   Kiera Dent (15:46) Mm-hmm. Yep. I like the emojis. I'm here for all the millennial vibes. Like, I'm here for all of them. I feel like I really fit it.   Dr. Lauryn B (15:59) And so I will point this out on stage a lot because when you're talking, giving continuing ed, you'll have a lot of, Gen X is still in the workforce. Like they are still here. from the time I was in school up until like the last couple of years, they really were a lot of the stage presence at conferences.   Kiera Dent (16:12) Mm-hmm.   Yes.   Dr. Lauryn B (16:28) And so you being a millennial would sit and really just get advice, business success, career advice through the lens of Gen X. And why that's something that we just have to be aware of is like each generation has a very different script that they have downloaded, like they've just absorbed kind of.   automatically without putting too much thought into, know, it's just like the culture of their generation. And Gen X was like, shut up, don't complain about it. There is work life balance. Like your career is the most important thing. Like raising your kids, like you have a spouse for that and you will enjoy your life once you have accumulated enough money.   And if you've done it right, that'll happen by your like 60, between 60 and 65. But the goal is to hustle, hustle, hustle, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate at all costs. You can enjoy your life if you need a second, if you need to get a divorce and you just get a new spouse in your sixties, that's what like, and so like not trying to give them shit or anything. Their work ethic is phenomenal. My favorite employees are Gen X. Yeah. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (17:41) I always love to hire them. I was like, perfect, come on in, you're gonna work forever. Like, it's great, amazing.   Dr. Lauryn B (17:47) So they're great. But then like we come in and you know, I know that in chiropractic now 50 % of graduates are females. Do you know what that is in dentistry?   Kiera Dent (17:58) Dentistry   actually tipped over. There's more females that are graduating than there are men. It just recently tipped this scale, which I was quite impressed by, which is awesome. So it's exciting.   Dr. Lauryn B (18:09) It's so cool,   but we're kind of screwed because we as millennials, we're not going to not have children. We're not going to delegate that completely to somebody else. I mean, my husband, I'm definitely the primary breadwinner in my husband's profession or career has like molded to what our family needs are, but like.   Kiera Dent (18:13) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (18:35) So we're not gonna do that, we're not gonna do that, like we're not gonna give up our career. And so it's not like we're complaining about work-life balance, it's just a necessity. We're like, no, no, no, it's not like I'm like, like I, it's like, no, this isn't I want to raise my child, it's I have a child, I have to raise them also and the business. And so like we're trying to figure out, like, well, I can't follow that script.   Kiera Dent (18:47) Right.   Dr. Lauryn B (19:05) that script that we saw from stage for so long is just like, that's not gonna work for me. we're trying, that's why everything feels duct taped together is because we actively reject it. We were given a script to follow, like work six days a week, just do it. And we're like, nah, I don't want that. And it's like, okay, well then we're literally creating a new path. And so to any millennial, I would say like, if it just feels   Kiera Dent (19:15) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (19:34) messy, this probably isn't a youth thing. This is like, are truly carving a brand new way to do things, which we're kind of wasting our time because Gen Z is coming in like, no, I'm not doing that either. And we're like, we're fixing this for you. And they're like two months into their, yeah, they're like two months into their profession and like, ooh, 30 hours a week? That's not gonna work for me.   Kiera Dent (19:44) was going to say, they're coming right behind. Exactly.   They're like, no, no, no, no. We see that. We're not doing that either.   Yeah, not happening.   No, they're like, I could be a YouTube, like I could I could do all these different things. I can be an influencer for like five hours a week and make way more than you are not here for that.   Dr. Lauryn B (20:10) And you're like, well,   I don't know how to solve this for you.   Kiera Dent (20:13) they're like AI,   why are guys like still doing stuff yourselves? Like, no, we're gonna have robots to do all this stuff for us. Like, absolutely not. It's incredible. Like, good. But I don't disagree with you. I think it's ⁓ and as you said that I thought about how agreed and I think every generation actually makes it better from the last and I do agree that ⁓ I don't know, I started thinking about it. This struck me about probably, I don't know, eight years ago. And I'm like,   Dr. Lauryn B (20:20) He probably will. Like, damn it.   Kiera Dent (20:42) my gosh, like people used to get married because they needed to be married. Like you used to have to have like a husband and a wife to be able to have kids. And I'm like, you don't need that anymore. There's IVF, there's ⁓ different things that you can do. You do not need anybody anymore to live the life you want to live. It's very much becoming this like self ability. But I'm like, our parents couldn't do that. I mean, women even coming to the forefront to be able to have businesses.   to own land in our name. Like that has not been a long change and shift for women to be here. And then I also think that there's a whole dynamic for women as well coming into this scene. Like you said, they are coming in there. We're, having stronger professions. are being stronger business owners. We're like the kid having children is being delayed much longer in life. And so I do think it's a, a walking through and not understanding like where are we even supposed to go? Because what we've seen as the model isn't the model for us anymore.   like that doesn't work. Our lives look different. I mean, my mom, didn't work a lot of my friends moms didn't work or if they did, they worked at the schools or they didn't work like high level powered careers, a lot of them and I'm so excited that women are coming into the workforce and because there's so much talent and beauty. But I do think that there's a whole dynamic and for men too. think that the whole shifting like you said, a lot of women are becoming breadwinners. They do.   Dr. Lauryn B (21:41) Mm-hmm.   yeah, they want to be dads. Like that's the   thing too is like, they're like, hey, I just cause I'm a dude doesn't mean like I'm okay with missing my kid's childhood. It truly is a generational shift.   Kiera Dent (22:11) Exactly   Exactly. And so I think I just through all of it, I think you're highlighting what makes me excited. And the reason I'm just like jazzed about this today is it's normal. It's okay. And there's solutions around it. And also, I think just aha moments of, my gosh, like maybe this is why. And I do agree. Generations behind the millennials, you're probably giggling at our conversation right here. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys don't even know what you're talking about. But I think like we're in it. Exactly.   Dr. Lauryn B (22:41) Hey, we say you don't know what you're talking about.   Kiera Dent (22:44) I'm like, but we're in it and there has to be a solution here.   Dr. Lauryn B (22:44) Hey! I have the microphone.   Kiera Dent (22:48) Who's on this podcast and who's listening? All right. I think when I look at that, I'm like, but for millennials, think that they're, and most generations probably feel this. think we're a taffy stretch between one way of thinking and a new way of thinking. And we're kind of that like middle child syndrome right now where we really are trying to carve that new path that's making it easier for other generations behind us to see easier modalities.   But I do think that that kind of tug of war, I mean, I feel it, you felt it. We've had our personal experiences through it. We see people, we coach people through this, we work with people. But I also think in a way life has become easier to learn. I don't know how you feel. And like easier with air quotes, meaning there's so many things that do things for us. Like washer and dryers were so great for our parents' generations. But I'm like, for us, we now have, like you said at the beginning, we have AI that's writing bios for us. We've got virtual assistants that are doing it.   There's ways, like you said, there's easier ways to make money outside of just doing your day in, day out, eight to five job now. There's different ways that we can build retirement. There's ways like the Airbnb market and having real estate investments. Like there's so many different ways that I feel like wealth is oftentimes easier to achieve. But I think with that, because there's so many things and not to say that it's perfectly easy, but I think as we conquer in life, just like the washer and dryer, the cell phone, like those things were conquering big problems.   Google coming in and the internet taking over, those conquered a lot of challenges. I think so much of today's challenge, and I don't know how you feel, Lauryn. This is like Kiera going off on her own soapbox. I feel like you said so much of it now is our mind and that space of centeredness, of balance, ⁓ not having to work all the time. I think a lot of jobs have shifted from labor jobs to mental labor jobs. So we're not having as much physical.   Dr. Lauryn B (24:32) Hmm.   Kiera Dent (24:35) Like you said, patient care can be a lot of just like mindless. I miss the days sometimes of being a dental assistant, sitting there and having like hours of time to dream of all these ideas to where now I feel like I wish and crave for that quietness that my mind never gets anymore. And so I feel like even with some of those shifts and how we work and how our family needs are in the necessities of family dynamics in, we don't need to work clear up to 65, but people are able to retire now at 35, 40. And then it's like, now what, what am I supposed to do? So also then finding your purpose in life.   I think you combine all that into a cluster storm and voila, welcome to millennial dilemma. Like, you know, we can coin that of what do people do? How do they, how do they exist? And I think the future generations coming will have even more of this at more grand scale. So it's like, let's have conversations of how do we prevent that burnout? How do we have the conversations about not working in like having nothing left to give to our families of having that balance? Like you said, if I want to run the business and I want to progress, but I also want to be a human at the same time.   So Lauryn, think you're more the expert at this than I am. I'm just here for the like great conversations and talking it through because I think it's such a necessary conversation that now is starting to really bubble to the surface out of necessity and also out of curiosity and also out of like desire to fix this and not have it be our day in day out norm anymore.   Dr. Lauryn B (25:54) Yeah, well, so I'm gonna say another kind of controversial thing then. ⁓ So you touched on it and like with any time, we don't love, as care providers, we don't wanna come across as greedy, right? And so what we end up doing is like, we'll just be like, it would be great to be wealthy, but like not too much, like I don't need to be rich, and you didn't do this or anything like this, but like.   Kiera Dent (25:57) Ready, I love this.   Dr. Lauryn B (26:22) other people is just like, yeah, I would like to make a little more money. ⁓ so part of my story, ⁓ I'll give you the very short version, was ⁓ we had our most successful revenue year ever. And it was with like the least amount of money I had taken home in like seven years. Yeah, yeah, we call this payroll bloat. You need to fix your pricing structure so we could talk about pricing increases.   Kiera Dent (26:42) Happens all the time, all the time.   Dr. Lauryn B (26:50) And so like I'm a cash clinic. So like this was my own fault. This was, I set my prices and I just did a bad job at it. And so part of like, if when people are like, well, how did you like, were you burnt out? And I was like, yeah, I was burnt out at like 32. And you're like, are you burnt out? I'm like, no, I freaking love what I do now. I still serve patients 10 hours a week. actually.   as of last week went down to like seven. We got a chef, yay. So I still serve patients like seven hours a week. I still spend probably like three hours a week ⁓ running meetings and like running the clinic. ⁓ But now we have other investments. ⁓ Whereas that clinic portion that used to be all of our eggs were in that basket.   Kiera Dent (27:22) I'm not.   Dr. Lauryn B (27:46) Right? So like, as we had kids, my husband left corporate consulting to help our family and clinic grow. So all of our eggs were in this one basket of whether the clinic does well that quarter or not. we want to remodel the kitchen? Better go get some more new patients. Like, want to go to Disney? It's not in the budget, but like, ugh, like all of these things. And we're not even talking about time freedom. Like we're just talking about like the key to burnout is having time freedom and   financial freedom. When I'm working with docs, the ones that are like the hardest to fix are not the ones that are like, I am working 60 hours a week. I have like oodles of money that I know should be like, I should be doing something with in, but it's just like $50,000 in this bank account. And like, I wish I had time to go to Disney, but I don't, I don't want to belittle that. That is a different kind of burnout.   Kiera Dent (28:32) Mm-hmm.   Right,   it is.   Dr. Lauryn B (28:45) and   everybody right now is playing a little sad song for you, but I relate to you, we can fix this. But the harder ones are the ones that are broke. Like being broke, and this has to do with like just core psychological, like I reference Maslow's hierarchy of needs a lot in my talks because like.   Kiera Dent (28:49) Mm-hmm.   I agree.   Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (29:07) You cannot get to the tip, the Maslow's for those of us that took Psych 101 10 years ago is the triangle where at the top is enlightenment and at the bottom is like your base survival, food, water, shelter. And if you are broke, now granted, monks, I'm sure they can figure out how to have enlightenment without having food, water, shelter. Most of us cannot, okay? We are doctors and there is a certain amount of debt.   Kiera Dent (29:12) Mm-hmm.   I agree.   Dr. Lauryn B (29:34) and a certain amount of expectation is maybe the right, I don't know if that's the right word, with like, I'm gonna serve people and this career is gonna take care of me. I'm gonna go into debt and it's a lot of debt, but this career is gonna take care of me. I'm gonna care for people, as long as I focus on serving, the career will take care of me. And we have too many people that it's just not. And they're like, I...   did not realize that I was going to struggle this much financially. These are not people that are like, can't afford a yacht. These are people like truly who are like my margins for financial investing and building wealth are a lot more narrow than I thought they were going to be. And that's a harder thing to fix, but that...   Kiera Dent (30:22) Hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (30:27) is a deeper kind of burnout that we just need to be more comfortable. Again, following generational stuff, Gen X, like we don't talk about money, right? That was the script that we got from them of like, you just focus on the patients and the patients will take care of you. And you're like, ⁓ okay, so we don't talk about money. And then millennials are like, I think we need to start talking about money. I think we need to start talking about money because if you were being paid,   Kiera Dent (30:38) Bye.   Hahaha!   Dr. Lauryn B (30:56) whatever you feel is appropriate. If you were feeling wealthy. And again, I'm not talking about that. I'm not putting on you that like you feel like you need to be making $3 million a year. Like, although that is my goal for next year is 3 million. just, but like, you know, just so we're clear, that is my literal goal for next year. So you can want that. You have permission to want that if you want, but we're talking about like, I don't know. Maybe if you made $500,000 a year, life would be a little easier and you could breathe.   Kiera Dent (31:10) Yeah, exactly.   Dr. Lauryn B (31:26) And if you can literally financially breathe, you have more bandwidth   make calm decisions for your business. Where you don't feel like if you have a bad quarter, you're gonna have to lay someone off. And like that's one of the first steps to helping most people   burnout or recover from burnout.   is like, we gotta talk about money and we gotta fix your personal financial situation because if you're constantly in a place of fight or flight   you can give yourself an extra 10 hours a week and time to be the CEO if all you're doing is worrying about how you're gonna make payroll. Like, it's not, you're not gonna   from burnout.   Kiera Dent (32:22) think that that was such a good ⁓ way that you highlighted it. And I'm just very curious now, like, how's the how, because agree, like people, what you're saying, Lauryn, I can tell you've lived the like the life. This is something that you've done, you've been there, you can speak to it so authentically. I've been there many times. And I'm always like, I want our doctors to get paid so well. I see how much you go into school for debt.   I see the, and I think that that's a different piece too, if we're to talk generational, people who are not walking out like half a million debt.   Dr. Lauryn B (32:55) And y'all are way worse than us,   right? Like what's the average dentist, like 350?   Kiera Dent (33:01) Average dentists right now are coming out at almost half a mil of debt when they walk in. It's bonkers.   Dr. Lauryn B (33:05) That is bonkers, you guys. Like when I heard that, because I posted a reel that went   so viral and it was just about like healthcare debt and reimbursement rates. And that's when I learned they were like, 250? Talk to a dentist. And I was like, wait, why? How long? And they were like, yeah, 350 minimum. And I was like,   Kiera Dent (33:25) Yeah.   Dr. Lauryn B (33:30) That's insane. That's insane.   Kiera Dent (33:32) That's insane.   And then you go buy a practice. So the practice that I helped start with a dentist straight out of school, we were, I called her 2.5. I got to walk by and I'm like, get that spine up like you're 2.5. We were 2.5 mil in debt. So that was coming with student loans. So schooling was 500,000. Living expenses during that time were about another, you know, two to 500. So like they're walking out with this.   $500, $600, $700,000 worth of debt, not just including your schooling, but all of life expenses, because you're probably not working while you're going to school. And then we went and bought a practice that's about a $2 million practice. So we were like 2.5, not like we were 2.5 in debt. I was like, keep that spine up, like put your hands up when you walk across the street, like you've got to keep those hands in motion because otherwise how are we going to get out of debt? And I think for me, when I look at that much debt,   when I look at that much risk and I look at the benefits that healthcare providers are giving, I'm like, no. And I tell teams all the time, I'm you want your doctor to be ridiculously wealthy. Like I do, and I preach this hard and I say, no, you should and you deserve it. And we want you that way because you're a better boss, you're a better clinician, you are better at doing your services because you're not stressed about making money. So we're not like you said, like, I want to go to Disney, let me go find more patients. I get.   No, I have confident, predictable payroll or cash flow. I'm very successful in what I do and you can make the margins there. Like I was the girl who did business that did not understand numbers. And now I say like, I love numbers and numbers definitely love me. And I'm like, it's now just a fun math equation. If I want to make X amount, you just back it down. You figure out what your costs are and you figure out the three levers you can use. We either drop our overhead, increase our production and or our collections. Like it's very simple when I'm like, okay, got it.   Dr. Lauryn B (35:05) and   Kiera Dent (35:17) Like got it when it's just those three levers, people make it so much more complex. And I think it does feel complex. Like reading a PNL is ridiculous. If you don't know what that is, that's okay. We're here where there's no judgment. It's a profit and loss statement. And I love educating people on this. Like this is where the fire in the belly comes. This is where it does. We get lit up because when I have someone who's cashflow positive, like you said, they can make calm decisions. They're not sitting here stressing all the time, but Lauryn, I'm very curious. Like you've talked about it at length. Like what do people do? Like what's the how, how do we get into this?   How do we have multiple streams because agreed all eggs in one basket? gosh. It's, ⁓ to me, that's like just a ticking time bomb. Like one bad day, one bad patient, one bad procedure. Like it's just going to explode because you're sitting like you're sitting on the edge of fear all the time to where you are in like cortisol adrenaline, like you are pumping. And then what you do is you go into complete shutdown because you can't handle it anymore. So your body and your system literally like just shuts down on you. You become apathetic to life.   Dr. Lauryn B (35:54) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (36:15) things aren't exciting for you anymore. You become very numb to walking through the world. And it's like, I feel like the world of color goes into very like gray. It's very subtle. It's like, it's, there's no, there's no life left. It's just, are living life, but you're not actually being and living day in, out.   The Dental A Team (36:33) that wraps part one of our part two series. Be sure to tune back in for part two of this podcast. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Feeling stuck? Kiera helps listeners create a three-step framework to diagnose a growth ceiling and push through with strategy and confidence. The steps that follow can be done in order or reversed. Find your true cap rate (then get a second opinion) Rework your systems for scale Set a bold new vision Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope today is just a great day for you. I hope that you're loving your life. Today's podcast date today is the day I get to share with you for whatever we're doing today. So whether we're driving to work together, whether we're driving home together, whether we're doing laundry or mowing the grass or traveling together or whatever you're doing today, thanks for taking me along with you. ⁓ it's truly something so fun. And today I think is going to be great for you to, what do do when you hit the plateau in your practice? ⁓ so   reality is we like didn't build our practices to be stuck or to feel like we're stuck or like there's no like we don't know our next move. ⁓ The reality is like if you plateaued or you feel stuck, it's just time to evolve. It's an indicator for you to know what the next step is kind of like when our seatbelt buckle beeps in the car, it's an indicator to put our seatbelt on ⁓ or we get the indicator from the gas light. It's an indicator to go and fill up our car with gas. Same thing when we're practices like it's plateaued or it's stuck. It's just like   Cool, let's diagnose, let's create a framework. Today I'm gonna help you have a three-step framework to diagnose your growth ceiling and how to push through it with strategy and confidence. So that's about what we're gonna do today. The Dental A Team is obsessed with you, I adore you. I'm so excited to be a part of your life or your practice. Our goal is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and we do that through helping you say yes to more. So you having a vision for you and your life and your practice, earnings to make sure that you're profitable and it's predictable profit.   and then new systems and team development to ensure that everything you want to say yes to in life, you, your team and your patients is doable for you. And we do that with fun. We do that with ease. We do that with ⁓ creativity and love for teams. And we've been there, done that and done it successfully many times. I truly can hang my hat on the fact that I believe Dental A Team is the top notch consulting company. If you want to grow, if you want to do it with fun, if you want it to not just be directed at dentists, but you want your team involved in it and to do it from experts who have done it thousands of times successfully. And that's something I'm really proud of.   Most of our offices see a 10 to 30 % increase in production or a decrease in overhead within their first 90 days. We track these stats, we're very obsessive with it, and we do it through really fun, easy dial turns. So if that's something you're obsessed with, rock on. Let's work together. Reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thank you guys for sharing this podcast. The goal is to get this into every dentist's hands, every single practice's hands. So please share, like, leave reviews, whatever you can do to get the word out and to help me on my mission to truly give back to our community. If you're ever looking for topics or   episodes head on over to TheDentalATeam.com click on our podcast page we have thousands like literally this is a free wealth of knowledge for you that we put on because we I truly just love dentistry and I want to help you have the best life life is my passion dentistry is my platform so head on over to TheDentalATeam.com click on our podcast page and you can literally type in anything so cash flow overhead ⁓ team growth leadership morning huddles case acceptance routes like you name it   type in any of those and of every single episode we've ever done, will actually filter for you and bring anything forward for you. So just make sure life super, super easy. Ease is one of our core values and trying to make your life easy is what we're obsessed about. So today when we're going to, a lot of times I see this in like a 1 million, a 1.5, a 2 million practice where they're just like, gosh, I feel like I've just like hit my level and I don't know how to grow beyond it. It's kind of like my hair. My hair grows to a certain length and it won't grow beyond that. Like I can cut it shorter.   but it just grows and it has never once grown beyond that. It's like, I don't know how to get my hair to grow past this level. Well, some practices feel like stuck hair, ⁓ but I just want to help give you this framework of three simple steps to help you diagnose it and then figure out what the next step is. So number one is to diagnose your true ceiling. And ⁓ this is where we're going to figure out like what the true cap rate is. Now, why we'll put this with an asterisk though, because a lot of offices think they've tapped out capped out.   but maybe they're just so used to sitting in there or they don't know how to have an eye for it. I went into a practice once upon a time. They had four ops and they're like, Kiera, there's nowhere else we could ever fit an operatory in here. So we're just gonna build out, we're building a building across the street. Well, within about 15 minutes, I was able to find another operatory. They added that operatory. They were able to add 200,000 to their practice just that year.   just by adding that one operatory in place. And they were like, well, we wish we would have met you like even a few months ago before we started building this huge, expensive building. I have another client where they got huge design plans out to like expand the building. It's a huge, huge expansion. They sent me a video of their downstairs and I was like, gosh, we could add like six ops down here with less effort, less reno. ⁓ And so I think also before you like truly say you pick capacity.   maybe getting a second set of eyes on it or a third set of eyes to see is there any hidden potential in here because we're looking at chairs, ops, providers, and hygiene days. That's going to truly be capacity of what can we do. Now again, getting creative because could we add maybe an hour in the morning? Have we maxed out all five days in the office? A lot of times people tell me we're maxed and I'm like, but you're not even working five days. That doesn't mean you have to work five days, but if you're practicing your building sitting empty, that space that we could actually grow that isn't the true ceiling.   So if we are not maxing out all five days, if we're not maxing out ⁓ all the operatories or all the space that we've got, you truly have not hit your ceiling. You might just not want to do the things that are capable for you. So looking at that, could I add more chairs? Could I add more operatories? What about more providers? What about more hygiene days? What about more hygiene hours? Is there space to expand any of that? Before we truly go to expand, these might be some areas that might be able to help you get past this plateau of some other areas. Also, let's look at our leadership.   ⁓ Is our owner acting as a manager and not a CEO? Are they managing the day to day? ⁓ Are they involved in all the meetings or are they truly as a CEO? And our office manager is acting as the manager within the practice. So looking for that because sometimes just freeing that owner doctor up to be a CEO actually can expand your practice very quickly with minimal effort. You actually can have all that in place and there's very little effort that you actually have to do because now the owner is able to look at things   It's like, give me a day of nothing and I will create so many possibilities. And so getting that owner out of the manager seat and into the true CEO seat, if that's the right seat for them, can also help. And then let's look to see like, what are our gaps? are there scheduling apps gaps? Do we have block scheduling in place? Can we maximize our schedule even more? What about our case acceptance, our AR? ⁓ What are some of the other areas of bottlenecks within our practice that maybe if we look to see changing them, like I've added hundreds of thousands.   including millions to a practice just by doing a different scheduling tactic, looking at the flow of the practice, just changing up the flow with pediatric practices, looking to see where do we put our ops versus our, our profis. You can actually readjust that whole schedule and actually squeeze out more juice in your practice, giving a better patient experience with little to no effort, just reworking how we're doing things. So I really, really, really love this. Like there's a practice.   that cure were totally maxed out. Like we don't know what to do and should we like expand our practice? They already have the huge practice and looking at it, I was like, but we're only here four days. So why don't we even consider that fifth day and or evening hours a couple of days? Again, that does not mean your current team. We could hire other team members for this, but like let's just run some numbers and see just adding that extra day, those lower, those evening hours. We were able to add over 550,000 to a practice just by doing that one simple thing.   no extra cost to the building. We were able to bring in two team members for that. Everything ran super easy. So I think I would go and look to see like in your practice when you're thinking I've plateaued, run a quick audit and say, where are we losing time? Where are we losing money? Or where are we losing energy? Like what are the true bottlenecks in our practice? And this is where like a CEO has to have that visionary time. Because if we ran a 60 minute audit on your office,   Could we quickly find those? When I walk into an office or our consultants walk into an office, that's what we're doing. We're auditing your practice. We're looking for these bottlenecks. So even if you can't figure out that, maybe it is time to consider bringing a consultant on site to just look at your practice to see. And we can do this virtually or in person. In person is obviously a little bit easier, but virtually too. Take videos and we can diagnose that space real quickly for you just to see what are maybe some of the options that we could do for you. So then when I look at this, SIP 2 is going to be like,   reworking all of your systems for scale. ⁓ It's like the saying is like, what got you here is not going to get you to where you need to go. So we've got to rework those. And like there have been practices that I walked in and they're actually too systematized. They're too in the weeds to be able to grow and expand it. And so for that, like, what do we need to upgrade? So like I said, for block scheduling or for handoffs or for our morning huddles or for accountability systems or reporting or KPI or tracking, like, ⁓   everybody doing a time audit to see what is on your schedule that should not be on your schedule that we could actually put into different people's spots. So often offices will tell me like, Kiera, we're so maxed. And I'm like, you're actually not maxed. Everybody's just overlapping. So we're like two or three people on the same task versus separating it out, delegating it out, getting everybody crystal clear.   ⁓ That way everybody can see and can have clarity. And I don't necessarily do it by person, but by seat. So especially for an office, we've got chair one, chair two, chair three. What do each of these chairs, what are they responsible for? What are the numbers and the metrics that they're responsible to do? So really like separating it out, dividing it out, making sure our systems are very scalable. So think like, okay, if we're a five-op practice doing 1.5 million today, what would a $4 million business that's maybe an eight-op practice do?   How would we have to change those systems and even starting to implement those systems now into your practice can exponentially help you go beyond this plateau space. So I really think like when you look at it, those simple changes like we're able to add 10,000, 20,000, 15,000 to a practice per month just by adjusting some of these systems, just by adjusting the KPIs, just by adjusting what people are doing because a lot of times smaller practices are more.   Overlappy, I think is the best way to say it rather than the larger practices the larger practices do read a little bit leaner they have more ⁓ More clarity of who should be doing what because they have to and so really looking to see what do I need to do? And how can I optimize the systems? What what's outdated in our practice that maybe we could revamp refine? Do differently now on the flip side sometimes practices that are so large actually have so many old dated systems that they just keep bringing forward that they need to actually   get rid of some of those dated systems and pick one or two systems to update. So like, are we so clunky in everything that we're tracking on our scorecard? Could we eliminate some of the things that we're tracking? So there's either, we need to track more or we need to track less. What is it and how can I actually update and rebuild our systems to be able to scale with ease? So that would be a quick thing to look at of like, what's outdated or what's to like, not like nuances.   what areas, and again, these are hard things to see. So fair warning, you've never done this before. So you might not even realize something's dated. And there was a practice who was still using paper charts. And I walked in and I was like, I've worked with you for a year. You didn't bother to tell me you had paper charts. But for them being in the day to day, they didn't realize that that was dated. So sometimes for you, you do need a bird's eye perspective. You do need someone who has seen hundreds of offices of what should be happening or what could be happening in your organization.   that maybe you're not even doing. So truly I am big on, yes, I am a consultant. So of course I have that. We do it within our company too. Bringing in people who are smarter than where we are. We know we've hit our ceiling and what we know how to update or what we think is outdated, we've already fixed. It might be time for you to also have that. And sometimes that's where the plateau happens is because...   You've grown as far as you know how to grow. You don't know how to go to the next level. And I've been there. I'm in there in my company right now. Like we're getting ready to bring somebody in from large, large, large corporation to still keep our like our boutique feel, but allowing us to scale in ways that I don't even understand how to do. So truly like even myself, I do this for our company because I think it's so wise to see somebody else who can help me figure out like what's dated, what's not working to help us scale even more while maintaining the feel of.   we are. Excuse me, step three.   Step three is going to be setting a bold new vision. So ⁓ when we feel like we've plateaued, we gotta figure out like, where do we want to go? Where do we want to grow to? And for me, it's like defining what the next level looks like. So is that team profit schedule lifestyle? When we work with offices, we set a one, three, 10 year goal that helps have this bold new vision. And sometimes you might be in this, I was in this and at year, gosh, it was year seven. ⁓   I like kind of lost the vision and I was like, I don't really know if this is where I want to go. And so we've got to just like clear up the vision and figure out where are we going? What does that look like? Team members schedule, like how many hours is the CEO working? Things like that. And then getting the whole team bought into it. And this is something I really love about leadership teams is we, build the vision together. So owner, yes, like I need to know where you want to go. You set the lighthouse for us and then we build around it. And so then what we do is we then tie quarterly goals into it. We run off of traction, but really like,   What I see happen so often is the owner doctor feels like they're just like dragging the boat along when they feel like they plateaued, but they don't have the whole team bought into it. And this is actually a question we ask offices when they're coming to work with us is it's your one through 10 year vision. Like how clear is that on a one to 10? And a lot of times you're like, well, I know where I want to go. And I'm like, great. Now does your team know where you want to go? And usually that's where it's fuzzy is the team has no clue. So the doctor really is like, just imagine like, this is how I visualize it. Like these huge chains and I'm holding them and they're like,   pulling this boat and I'm like sluggishly like walking down the beach like trying to pull this boat along versus throw the chains in the boat. So it's not on my back anymore as the owner. I hop in the boat with my team as a team collectively. We know that we're headed to this island at this time. We've got the map. We've got the road map. We've got somebody guiding us if we need to well now like everybody's rowing together right like that's so much easier like even like if you're watching the video you saw my like it's like this like   I don't know, hunched over, exhausted, like trying to pull this whole heavy boat versus like, we're all just rowing and I'm in my seat and I know what I need to row. And well, I guess rowing is not easy. It's much easier than trying to drag and force results. And so with that, a lot of times what I do is teams that do this, I have an office and they sent me a text and I'm like, yeah, remember when you were in our office and you helped us set the goal of hitting, I it was like 350,000 a month. They were like, we were barely producing like,   200 at that time. They're like, there's no way this is going to happen. Four months later, they were breaking 350. And like you went, that's 150,000 added to production. No extra days. Like all we did was we aligned the team to see where we needed to go. And what's crazy is when you get that alignment, well, now your system's become easier. Now the clarity is there. Everybody truly can figure out like where we're going and what our next level is because it's a collective group.   and it's a collective growth and it's a collective mission and effort that we're all headed to. I don't come in and say, you guys should be here. I come in and say, all right, collectively as a team, this is where we are. This is what industry standards are for growth. What do we feel as a team? And now when I'm doing this, also, I don't break it down and say like, all right, you have to add 150,000 a month. Well, no, if you're working 20 days, like I'm literally pulling out my calculator, 150,000 divided by 20 days, that's 7,500 extra a day. Well, 7,500 in dentistry.   is actually pretty easy to produce. And so what things could we do to get there? How could we have each department work on this? So now it becomes not 150,000. It's like, great. How do we add that 7,500? Why are we doing this? What's the purpose behind it? But getting that next level figured out really can help a practice get out of the plateau because now our sites are bigger. We know where we're headed. Then we can figure out our systems. Then we can figure out all the different pieces of like, what is my true ceiling? Am I really maxed out? You get more creative. So   For this, yes, I did these steps this direction, but really I would reverse them if I was listening to this podcast. And step one is I would figure out what my vision is. What's my next level and where do I wanna go? Then I'd look at my systems and what are my systems doing that I need to either add, take away or improve to get me to this next level and then figure out like the ceiling and is my practice truly maxed out or based on my next level vision, what could I do within my practice currently? And I think, yes, it's always fun to go buy a new house or a new car, a new   practice expanded out, but also cashflow wise and business wise and savvy business, if you can make it work where you currently are or just do a few small changes, is that worth it? And does that give it? For some people, they need to go build it. And the next level for them is to build something more dreamy, more fun. And that's like, what's going to ignite them. So everybody has to know what's going to be for you. But really, truly, I believe if you've got this great plan, you've got these pieces in play, it can help you get out of the plateau. It can help you figure out what your next level is.   honest to goodness, a lot of times you do need somebody outside to help you if you're not great at seeing this. And that's okay. I am not good. My husband and walk in a lot of rental properties and real estate properties. And I'm like, I wish I could see the vision on houses like I see in dental practices. When I walk in, I can see what needs to happen. Our consultants can see what needs to happen quickly. Where do I need to the numbers? What do need to do from that? That's something so magical versus like in a house. I'm like,   I don't know, I can't see where to move the walls. And some of you might be able to see in a house very quickly how to renovate it and how to change it. For me, that's not a talent I have. For you, a talent you might not have is being able to see how you can get beyond the plateau of your practice. Here are some tips for you. Hopefully you can take them on and try them out. But really, if you need help, reach out. This is what we do. This is what we do all day long. We've seen multiple practices. We've seen them from five ops. We've seen them up to literally have a practice of 25 ops.   The difference between those two practices and the way they operate in the systems and what we do for the large practices versus what we do for the small practices is pretty similar. Actually, it's very similar of what we do. ⁓ It's just on a different scale and it's growing the smaller practices into the larger practices. So for you growth, truly, I want to remind you isn't luck. It's leadership that has systems and clarity of where to go and what the next step is in the next vision. So if you feel stuck,   You're not failing. You might just need a new vision. You might just need a different perspective. You might need somebody to come in and help you see the gaps that you might not be able to see. And so truly I would love to help you. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. This is what we talk about on our practice assessment calls. We talk about where you are, the potential. There is a lot of free consulting on that for you, whether you work with us or not, just to give you what the next step is or what some of the blind spots are in your practice that maybe you didn't see because you're in a day in a day out. I do this for our company.   And it's such a joy and an honor to do it for practices, to be able to help you from someone who's been there, done that and done it successfully over and over and over again. So let's do it for you. Reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. It's time for you to grow into the vision that you were meant to have. It's time for you to have fun with it. It's time for you to get excited, to get reignited, to have the best time. And we're here to help you do that. So reach out. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Dentistry isn't always the front of the pack when it comes to innovation, but Tiff and Kristy tackle the topic with digestible takeaways from a marketing point of view. In this episode, they touch on easy questions to identify your practice's brand, why that patient avatar is so critical, and how to ensure your brand spreads through your office, down to the check-in staff member. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back here with you today. This is Tiffanie, because I forget to announce myself, and Miss Kristy. I have Kristy for the long haul today. She's doing a couple of different recordings with me. And I can't wait for them to come out. Actually, Kristy, I have had so much fun. I think this one, I don't know what order they go out in. So whatever. If you guys have listened to the leadership ones we just did or have not, they're coming.   You're going to love them. So Kristy, thank you for taking this ride with me today and just busting out a ton ⁓ with me on this beautiful, it's a Thursday morning right now. How are you doing? You holding up over there? You got your water? Awesome.   DAT Kristy (00:40) Absolutely. It's always the   day goes by fast when we're doing this. love it.   The Dental A Team (00:45) Yeah, me too. I really do. I do love it. And I ⁓ love when we hear from listeners. I love when we get, you know, we get to go through the reviews below and see what people loved or I know a lot of people will leave like info of their own that there is suggestions I should say. And it's just a lot of fun. Always hearing from it. And I love hearing from my clients when they've listened to one. So I agree the podcast is fun and it's like a collaboration time for us.   I enjoy it. this podcast topic, the subject, is something I really, really love. ⁓ I was talking actually, it's on marketing guys. So don't fret. I think you already saw the title, but it's on marketing. ⁓ I joined a marketing call yesterday with a client and it was a marketer I've not worked with before and she was fantastic and she was very collaborative. It was great, but she...   She was like, is this something you guys do? You guys work, like you do marketing for them? And I was like, no, no, no, let's not get wild here. Like I don't do marketing, but I love it. And I know my consultant team loves marketing and internal is our jam. And we are really, really solid at that, but really finding different ways that we can leverage our skills to show patients and potential patients that this is the right place for them.   I think is something that consultants on our team are really fantastic at. And I wanted to dive into some of that with you today, Kristy, is really just like how to just innovate a brand. And the most fun part about this for me in today's market is that I don't think that dentistry has always been in a space of total innovation.   I think dentistry has always kind of innovated, like, my gosh, can we just talk about how long we've been using the same stuff for like root canals, right? Or whatever, like, come on, right? But there is a lot of innovation in like filling materials and scans and x-rays, the, know, CBCT scans, all of these different modalities, in-house crowns, like Botox, lip fillers, but I've got...   Practices that are doing facial aesthetics, know having estheticians in the office We do have a lot of innovation when it comes to that space but something I think is truly innovating within the last few years is the understanding of a Dental practice and a dentist needing to have a brand. I don't think marketing Has been easy in the dental world. I don't think it's been understood and I don't think it's been super effective if I'm honest and the   Idea of innovating is really cool to me. I love innovation. That's one of our, I don't think it's innovate, it used to be innovate or die, a core value of ours. I hated that. But innovate is just something that we live by at the Dental A Team. We're constantly looking for, okay, well that didn't get us the result we wanted. Let's do something different. Let's try this. And changing things and marketing allows for that in so many really cool ways. But really looking at it and saying, what's my brand?   Who am I? Like how is my practice showing up in our community is something that I don't think that, Kristy, we've really ever spent a lot of time diving into within the dental world. And I think it's starting to come up. But what are you seeing, Kristy, even with the practices you're working with today, do you see a lot of practices really thinking, what's my brand?   DAT Kristy (04:25) Yeah, no, I think we are still behind the time in that regard for most other industries. They've kind of dialed this in. ⁓ It's definitely an area I believe that we can do better. mean, obviously, I just moved from Idaho and there's like, I don't know, three or five dentists on every corner almost. Do you think I'm exaggerating? finding out and   The Dental A Team (04:49) Literally.   DAT Kristy (04:54) And brand again can be such a broad word, but to simplify it, I just ask doctors, what's your purpose? What's your niche? What do you wanna be known for? Start asking yourself some of those questions to identify and set yourself apart. Here's the thing, dentistry, it goes back to what you said, Tiff, we only offer so many things.   And so how do we put ourselves apart? Like why do they want a filling from you versus your three neighbors next door? So yeah, again, one of those words brand, it's like, it's so broad. So narrow it down. What do you want to be known for? What's your purpose and what's your niche? And if you've been in dentistry for a while and you still haven't done this, go look at your reviews right now.   The Dental A Team (05:28) Yep, I totally agree.   DAT Kristy (05:48) and start highlighting some common words. If they're saying friendly or, I don't know, nice, kind, whatever it is, start highlighting them and see, does that fit you? Right?   The Dental A Team (06:00) Yeah, yeah, I   mean you could throw that into chat GPT. You could say chat GPT, go look at my reviews and find commonalities. Innovation guys, innovation. 2025 chat GPT, that's our best friend. No, I totally agree with you and ⁓ you said a few things there that I just totally resonate with and it made me think of a client, ⁓ actually a conversation I had with my financial advisor boyfriend who is just like,   DAT Kristy (06:07) There you go.   The Dental A Team (06:28) He works with a few dentists here locally in Arizona and Phoenix and he asks me a lot of questions and he's like, how is this possible? And I'm like, you know, he sees the profit and he sees the things that dentists are able to achieve and what they're able to achieve for their team members and being able to see like how, they're the 401ks and there's the different things that they're able to do and there he's not seen that in another industry.   right, through the work that he's done at least. And the conversation we had was, we were talking about a cosmetic practice and he, I think I upset him if I'm honest with you, we just at the gym, right? And he was just like, I just don't understand how it's possible that one, because I said, don't know, it could be, you know, for this specific cosmetic dentist, it's probably $2,500 of an year, okay?   DAT Kristy (07:11) ⁓   The Dental A Team (07:25) pretty average honestly for a cosmetic dentist like 2500 a veneer and his mind was blown right because he's looking at like cosmetic procedures um at a plastic surgeon right like you can get minor cosmetic procedures for similar amounts of money on your physical body right and not just one single tooth and i said well you know while i understand where you're coming from like let me tell you the hours it takes   to do a cause, like what it actually takes and what a lab cost of one of those crowns could be, et cetera, et cetera. But long story short, he just was mind blown and was just like, that is wild. And I thought to myself, this is it. Like this is the marketing and the branding because you do have to set yourself apart and you have to reach the people that want to be reached by you, right? My boyfriend, I love him to death. He is not.   DAT Kristy (08:14) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (08:18) this he's not a cosmetic dentist avatar, it's not their dream, right? Because you're going to be convincing him. Like nobody wants that. if you want to you want that number nine implant crown replaced by a dentist who's going to make it look 100,000 times better than it does right now, honey. It's you're going to pay money for that, right? But if you're not concerned about it, then you're not going to care, right? Who you go to. So   My conversation with him yesterday made me really really think how important it is for practices to understand their brand and their avatar patient. So what is it that you want to do and within the capabilities of your surroundings I think is a good statement. I have practices that are like I want to do cosmetic dentistry and I'm like well you're in a like this you've got   20 miles around you of Medicaid. People aren't coming here for that, so we've gotta move your practice or change your avatar, right? So within the confinements of where you're at, of course, but what is it that you want to provide and then who are you providing it to? And Kristy, I think one piece that's missed in the branding conversation, one, we all wanna be like, I wanna do this, right? But it's like, okay, is that avatar here? So then looking at what your patient avatar   Who is your patient avatar? Who is the person you're speaking to? And then what do they need, right? In our company, Kiera and I love nothing more than to brainstorm and innovate. Like we want to innovate. We want to change the world, right? And we get on these tangents and then thank goodness we have like Britt and Shelbi on these calls with us because they're like, okay, cool guys, this sounds like an awesome product. It sounds like something that is gonna be really cool and that you will love doing.   Does it speak to our client's needs? And we're like, ⁓ yeah, that's right. We can innovate and we can do all of these cool things, but are we meeting a need of the people who need us, right? Of our client avatar. We know who we wanna work with. Are we just creating to create? Or are we creating something that meets a need of that avatar, of the person that we want to work with? And if it does, then fantastic, then let's move forward.   DAT Kristy (10:14) You   The Dental A Team (10:37) And so I think with the branding conversation, we're speaking to those needs. So who are we looking to work with? ⁓ Who do we want to inspire to have better dental health? And then what are their needs? And how can we show up and speak to that? Where our brand, Kristy, tell me if I'm totally off here, but we'll add to it as well. I think our brand...   really is how we're showing up to speak to those needs, right? And how we're showing up in a way that those people who need those things find us, right?   DAT Kristy (11:14) Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And to your point, I know people almost have a adverse reaction when we say buying dentistry or selling dentistry, but in the big scheme of things, guys, we are selling dentistry. what are they looking to buy? And it's usually they're not coming in saying, I want to buy a root canal, right? They're buying health or they're buying   The Dental A Team (11:39) Yeah. Yeah.   DAT Kristy (11:42) They're buying something it's going to give them. And so I think sometimes we miss the mark by speaking our language instead of the language they're looking for. Right.   The Dental A Team (11:54) Totally agree. I remember one of the first like all on four over dentures, whatever that we did in my practice. I was like, ⁓ my gosh, I get it because the guy bought because he was like, I just want to eat a steak again. And I was like, that is brilliant. So that became our brand of our all on fours. Like eat a steak again because it fit our target audience, our avatar and our demographic. We knew.   DAT Kristy (12:10) Hmm?   The Dental A Team (12:23) the area that we were in had that need and those were the patients that we wanted. And so we took that as a brand of our practice and we were like, do you want to eat steak again? So it's like that, now we're speaking to their need instead of selling a denture, right? Like people might call the denture places, right? And I'm not talking about prosthodontists, I'm talking about these big   you guys have seen the commercials, they might, those are not your avatar. Those patients are not the patients that you want. You want the patients that are emotionally tied to being able to eat a steak again. I had a patient that had regular dentures. I will never forget this lady. She was so sweet and so sweet. She just had dentures and she would not go for.   the lower support adventure and we're like totally fine, totally fine. She came in like once a month for quote unquote adjustments because   She couldn't eat lettuce. And she brought in a piece of lettuce and she put it in between her teeth and then pull it out. Her need was that she wanted to eat a salad again. And I get that, I eat a lot of salads, I eat a lot of steak. So it became the brand of that specific procedure. And it became one of our brands. Lettuce gets you healthy in all the ways. ⁓   speaking to what you said, right? So I think something action-wise that I have a lot of practices do is, and we do this in multifaceted, ⁓ is building that avatar. We help clients build the avatar of their ideal patient, and then, side-step, I love avatars, building the avatar of your ideal team member. Because within the brand conversation,   If you, I like to think of companies who have a really, really easy brand, right? And kind of match up with, I think, what a lot of the dentists that we work with are kind of looking for, their style, right? Everybody says the Ritz-Carlton, but nobody knows what that means anymore, doctors. Please just know your team members don't know what the Ritz-Carlton is or how they show up, so it doesn't work. ⁓ But brands that do resonate with a lot of team members, and it's easy for a lot of doctors to understand the importance of hiring,   DAT Kristy (14:44) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (14:57) And emanating the brand that you want and I think Lululemon is a very easy one, right? Everyone knows there's not a soul who does not know what Lululemon is. They've done a phenomenal job. When you walk into a Lululemon, same, you could copy and paste that person. I've been to Lululemon's all over the country. Sadly, don't tell my boyfriend. I've been to Lululemon's all over the country and you can duplicate the way that they show up.   They are a brand, they are a piece of that company and they are showing up that way. Dental A Team, we run the same way. We are speaking the company culture constantly and we all show up the same. Chick-fil-A is another one. Yeah, great training, but also they're hiring the personalities that fit within their culture that they can train. Same with Starbucks.   All of these different brands who have and companies who have branded themselves really well are ensuring that that messaging and that branding is in all of those spaces. And something I see doctors do is really come to the space of like ready to elevate where they're at, but they're not fully ready to innovate in all the different ways. And narrowing those avatars down helps bring light.   to situations that maybe is kind of sitting in the shadows. And I've seen sometimes where it's like maybe our main check-in gal who's been there forever and she loves the patients that she loves and she's a great human and she doesn't need to go anywhere, but is she right person, right seat? Is she exuding your brand awareness of like, my gosh, we are so excited to see you today. Thank you so much for coming to our practice. We love new patients.   Or, right, is she like, I really love the patients that I know, thank you for being here, fantastic human, again, I'm not saying people need to be let go, I'm saying do you have them in the seat that's appropriate for them? Or is there maybe a seat that, like I walked into a practice yesterday, we were consulting, holy amazing find for their check-in girl. And I am telling you right now, I went through this avatar, ⁓   assignment, whatever you want to call it, with them, this exercise, literally within a week, this girl walked into their office randomly, walked in, said, I don't know if you guys are hiring or not, if you need it. Like I am not really looking, but like, are you looking for somebody? She is amazing. Dental experience, beautiful, beautiful girl, so happy, and just is like,   loving everyone and she just wants to help everyone to a T. I remember the office manager calling like in tears, Tiffanie, you'll never guess what just happened. And it was because they had it, in my opinion, so narrowed down that it walked right in front of their face. Had they not known exactly what their avatar was, they might've been like, that was really weird, right? Like, I'll take your resume, but like, you're cute and all, like, maybe I'll call you. But they were so dialed in on exactly who they wanted at that check-in desk.   DAT Kristy (17:57) Thank you.   The Dental A Team (18:13) She walked in and they were like, yep, she's the one. And that I think happens with our avatar for our patients too, for marketing. And I think that's our brand awareness. Like that's how we stay relevant is knowing how we wanna show up, who we wanna show up for, and how do we help their needs and speaking to that from our brand. Lululemon is not here to serve everyone. That's totally fine.   DAT Kristy (18:17) Pass it.   The Dental A Team (18:42) Talk to, I use Lululemon branding as an example in a lot of different ways with a lot of offices and I've had team members that are like, I'm not spending money on Lululemon. I'm like, you're not their avatar. That's totally fine too because you're someone else's avatar. You are a different brand's avatar and they need you. So what they've done is they've made it easy for people to say yes or no. And if you're a cosmetic dentist who is branding, right, you've got your brand so wide.   that you're getting calls for people who only want to do what your insurance is going to cover, that's not your avatar. That is someone else's let them have that patient. They are working their tail off for new patients too. Let them have that patient. That's not your avatar, right? And I think we try, Kristy, to bend to what is coming. And we're like, well, we can do that. And we don't hold our boundaries of what we actually want.   and what our practice needs and what fits us that we end up confused. And then we get the calls of the doctors that are like, I need systems because it's not working and not something doesn't work for everyone. Right, Kristy, do you see where I'm going with that?   DAT Kristy (19:54) Yeah,   I sure do. I love where you're identifying and it's not just the who, but it's the how behaviors too, like how will they show up, right? Identifying who is the first step for sure, but then take it one step further and identify the characteristics of how they behave as well because then you'll bring that in. Yeah, I love   I love everything you're saying there. think it's kind of bringing me back. I believe I had this conversation with Kiera the other day about... ⁓   a doctor wanting to elevate his practice and should I offer this service? And I'm like, well, have you ever considered taking a poll with your patients to see are they looking for this type of service? Yes, it's fine to, I mean, do what you love for sure, but before you get frustrated, go take CE for this course and learn how to, I don't know, do Botox and none of your patients are wanting it. And then you get frustrated and   fizzle out, you know what I mean? Find out first. And another cool area of that tip is, you know, have your admin team keep track of ⁓ how many patients are calling and asking for something that maybe you aren't offering and see if that's, you know, see if it's in your wheelhouse or is it matching your avatar?   The Dental A Team (21:05) Yeah.   That's a great idea. ⁓   Yeah, yeah, and I think to speak to that too, if they're calling asking for that and it's not something that fits your avatar or that you want to do, is your branding reflective of your avatar because somehow they found you and they called you. So what messaging is out there within your marketing that has attracted the wrong avatar? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.   DAT Kristy (21:48) Yeah, 100%. So it works both ways, right? Yeah.   The Dental A Team (21:54) Love marketing. just it and I don't know I just I don't I truly don't know why I love marketing so much but it just gets me excited and the idea of being able to change something and really target in and achieve the result is really cool to me and the idea of being able to attract someone to something that they need and want by   saying things right by presenting right. Like that just gets me so giddy. So thank you for doing this podcast with me today is my point.   DAT Kristy (22:27) Yeah.   I was going to say to your point, you said something very poignant there that you have to be tracking it. You have to be paying attention to it and you have to be willing to test, track and adjust if it's not getting the results you want. Too many people start and they throw it out and then they stop there because they get frustrated that it's not bringing it. And it goes back to your innovation. You've got to be able to ⁓   try something different and it could be something very minute. A word, right, could make a big difference.   The Dental A Team (23:01) Yeah,   yeah, totally agree. I totally agree. And I think that's the most exciting space is what you just said. Like even the word, the one word in this sentence on this marketing, whatever this ad that's on Google or postcard that somebody's getting one word can totally change the outcome. And I think that's what gets me excited is like, okay, how can I, how can I get the result that I want with the words that I'm using? I love that. And when we can,   hone in on that, I think massive changes. I think there's a ton of takeaways here. think biggest action item, you guys, is really, really figuring out your patient avatar and your team avatar, honestly, your team member avatar, because I think that points you in the direction of your culture, how you want to show up in the world, what your brand is, and then start realizing and understanding that your culture, your core values, that is your brand, that is your brand awareness. And when we live and breathe,   By those, think you guys can, anyone who's listening and has listened before, anyone who's following the Dental A Team on Instagram, Facebook, clients of ours, coming to our webinars, we do free CE webinars every month, you guys, anyone who has experienced Dental A Team in the slightest, I think can agree that we emanate the Dental A Team. Every team member we have, as far as our virtual assistant,   Joe Ash, who we love and adore all the way in the Philippines. He emanates the Dental A Team because we understand that those pieces of our company, the mission, the vision, the core values, brand awareness, all of that is who we are. And we live, breathe it, we show up, we believe in it, we stand behind it and we're consistent. So it makes everything else kind of fall into place really easily. So.   Go do that, you guys, narrow it in. Don't let it feel so big. Just do one chunk. What is your avatar? Who is your avatar? How do they show up in life? What do they look like? What do they love to do? Narrow in your avatar of your patient and of your team members. Make sure your mission, vision, core values are in alignment with what you actually want. And then take a step back and look at it from bird's eye view of how you need to innovate your brand.   and how you can do that. And like I said, I love this stuff. The consultants loves this stuff. Kristy is fantastic with her clients. She's done this so many times and all of them have Dana, gosh, Monica, Trish, everybody, every single one of them have done these types of exercises with their clients and they're really good at it you guys. So reach out. If you're a client and you need this, you're like, need to innovate, reach out to your consultant. If you're not yet a client,   you're soon to be or you're just like, I'm just a podcast listener right now, that's okay too. Reach out you guys, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We have the resources that you need, we're here to help you. Instagram, Facebook, wherever you can find us and then as always you guys leave us a five star review below. Let us know how helpful this was and if there's anything you've done to innovate your brand awareness that you think people could benefit from as well, people really do read those comments and it could be super beneficial. So, Kristy.   Thank you so much. I love taking the avatar roads with you, because I think you're just really good at it and you love people. So really keying in on parts that you love about people's personalities, I think opens you up. So thank you, Kristy, for being here today. Of course. All right, guys, go do the Things Five Star Review. Reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Follow us on social if you're not there yet, and we'll catch you next time. Bye-bye.   DAT Kristy (26:37) Thank you.

Kiera is joined by Dr. Hunter Bennett of Bonita Endodontics to dive into the ins and outs of dentistry partnerships, including hiring for passion, splitting tasks, going DSO, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I am like beyond excited for this podcast. This is all of my worlds combining into one in such a beautiful, magical way. The guests that I have on today actually is a throwback to my Midwestern days. So I met Dr. Hunter Bennett at Midwestern when he was a pre-dentist ⁓ in the sim clinic of good old Midwestern University in Arizona. ⁓ That school is better known as the Harvard of the West and Hunter was a dental student there.   And then he went on for endo residency at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2017. Following his residency, he returned to Arizona and practice in the mountain town of Prescott for two years. In 2019, he moved his family across the country all the way over to Florida. He is married to his beautiful wife, Lacey. They have five kids from 12 to seven months old, 12 years old to seven months old. Hunter is busy. And the reason I wanted to Hunter on is because yes, I love a good throwback to Midwestern. Like it is truly the highlight of highlights, but Hunter has gone through   being an associate, being an owner, selling to a DSO. And I wanted him to come on and give perspectives of all of those, because I think so many dentists are questioning, what's my path? What's in front of me? And Hunter is kind of like, I feel like you're the buffet of dentistry. So like, which one was actually best for you? And I'm really excited for that. So Hunter, welcome. I'm so proud of who you are. I'm like, mama bear heart over here. Just so proud of you. Welcome to the show today. How are you?   Hunter Bennett (01:25) this is so good. I'm so excited. I love the buffet of dentistry. That's like maybe the nicest name anybody's ever given me. I love it. It's so good.   The Dental A Team (01:31) Hey, you're welcome.   You're welcome. And how fun is this? As we were like prepping, told you, was like, Hunter, it's just like you and me, Sim back in Sim clinic. Like we're over there. Like you're prepping your like class ones, classes. I still remember you walking up with loops, gloves on. You knew I'd smack you with a ruler. Like not really smack guys. I was nice in that. But if those gloves did not come up at Sim, like take those off. Kiera, come on. Do I really have to? Yeah, gross. I'm training you. Do not have cross contamination. So welcome back to Sim. It's so good to see you again.   Hunter Bennett (01:59) I   haven't forgotten that I changed my gloves just literally all the time all the time so I appreciate it. It's how this has come full circle though truly I mean like and you haven't changed like you're still the same person just awesome and you're just always that bright personality that bright in the lab so and it's cool just to see how far you've come I'm really proud of you it's awesome.   The Dental A Team (02:19) Thank you, thank you. I think it's serendipitous because the whole reason I built the company was for students like yourself. I think the love, I feel like emotions coming on and I don't wanna cry. Like I genuinely just love the Midwestern students so much. I like just so proud of you guys. I watched your journeys. mean, shoot, how long has it been since we graduated? Like I left Midwestern in shoot, like 2015, 2016 realm.   Hunter Bennett (02:44) That's where   I was. I think you got hired like when we got there. I think that that was your first year was my first year in the sim. And then you, I think you left with us too. So yeah, we kind of went to dental. We basically went to dental school together essentially. So yeah, you're basically a classmate. Yeah. 100%.   The Dental A Team (02:47) I did.   I think I did.   We did and helping you guys learn x-rays. Honestly, Dr. Smith   and Dr. Morrow did tell me that I care if you ever want to come to dental school, we don't even care. I didn't like confess this on like to the world. They didn't say all these words, but it basically was like, hey, we don't care what your death scores are. Like we'll accept you no matter what. I'll be that student. But then I decided I just love helping dentists. I love helping you guys. I love being that teammate to you. Like I was able to be in sim. I love seeing you succeed. I love being that support.   Hunter Bennett (03:06) Yeah, they won't care. They won't care.   Just get in. ⁓   The Dental A Team (03:23) that person that's there. Like when you're having those bad practicals or you need to chat shop or whatever it is. it's just real fun. And again, like mama bear proud of where you are and what you've done. and I ran into each other at the Dennis Money Summit together. And that was a throwback. You, Jeremy Mahoney, was like Midwestern crew was back together and just a fun time.   Hunter Bennett (03:28) Yeah.   You don't even, you   don't realize how huge our little side conversations were to me. And I texted you a little bit about this, but like, we don't have to get into all of that, but like just those few conversations literally changed my life. And I'm not exaggerating. I'm not exaggerating. So we can talk about that later, but ⁓ yeah, I so appreciate you and some of your insights and watching your journey and your presentation was just so off the charts.   The Dental A Team (04:03) Yeah. ⁓   Hunter Bennett (04:10) Everything about it was so good. Your stage presence, the delivery, ⁓ the message. I still can remember a lot of the stuff you said. So, ⁓ yeah, good job. It's just, I'm not surprised you are where you are. And like I said, it's been fun to watch and I'm just grateful for the opportunity to connect again. So, but yeah, you literally was life-changing for me. I'm not exaggerating.   The Dental A Team (04:18) Thank you. Thank you.   Well, that makes me really happy. And thank you. And we'll say that that's the dessert of the dentistry buffet here. So we'll save that conversation for our dessert. ⁓ But I think what you just said is what Dental A Team's purpose is like my purpose is life is my passion dentistry is my platform. And so I feel so blessed and lucky that dentistry brought all of us together and but able to help you have your dream life to be able to give conversations about that.   Hunter Bennett (04:34) Okay.   Sure.   The Dental A Team (04:56) At the end of the day, if businesses aren't serving our lives, then what are we doing? And I'm really getting sticky on that. I'm really starting to hunker down on that harder because I think it's so easy to obsess about the profit, the numbers, like what route should I go? But at the end of the day, if it's not serving the bigger purpose of our life, of our family, of who we want to be, I really think it's a good time to question that and to ask to make sure the star we're headed towards is truly the North Star that we actually want to achieve.   Hunter Bennett (05:01) percent.   The Dental A Team (05:23) So I'm really grateful and yeah, I'm just excited for you to share with our audience of Hunter Bennett going through a associateship, residency, ownership, DSO, and then cherry on top of side conversation that we had. ⁓ and just know that all conversations, I think it's a good Testament. They're just, they're genuine. Like, I just want you guys to succeed in whatever path that looks like. And if I can be a guide in any of that rock on, that's what I'm here for. So just like I used to give you teeth.   help you learn to take your gloves off. I'm here to help you make life choices and better practice decisions too.   Hunter Bennett (05:58) Absolutely. You're crushing it. Well, so yeah, yeah. Pros and cons. So I think, you know, before diving into that decision, I think it's really important. Like the big part of my journey was I've just learned so much along the way that my first job was in a place where in Prescott, like that's where I wanted to like, was like, okay, this is, I'm going to be in this town until I die. Like I'm so happy here.   The Dental A Team (06:00) Okay, take it away. Walk me through. Walk me through the pros cons. Let's hear about it.   Hunter Bennett (06:24) And I was in an amazing practice. Like he was such a good practice. the guy that I replaced, ⁓ Nate Duesnup, he, my coming there sort of sparked his leaving because that he had been trying to get in that practice as an owner for quite a while. He'd been there seven years. so my coming sparked a lot of those conversations and they didn't really come to an agreement per se. so ⁓ Nate went and bought a practice in Florida. I, you know, I kind of found that out along the way and I showed up and then me and Nate became friends.   But I knew within probably the first two months I wasn't going to stay at this practice like long, long, long term. Um, it was very clear to me that there wasn't going to be a pathway to partnership. I was a business major. I always planned on owning practice. Um, but this was a really good opportunity. I'm really, really grateful for, um, just that, that chance that I had, but I knew immediately, like I wasn't, um, I wasn't seen as a partner, you know, which is very like, wasn't, I was just an associate and I felt like I just had way more to offer.   The Dental A Team (06:59) you   Hunter Bennett (07:22) I was, I was probably as much of a gung ho person as, as you can be coming out of residency as far as trying to be an owner. ⁓ but I was willing to like sort of sweat my way in if that's what it took just to be where I, where I wanted to live. ⁓ so long story short, like I learned pretty quickly that wasn't going to happen. So started just taking a bunch of CE, ⁓ traveling and then became good friends with Nate. Nate's like, Hey, just come check out Florida, you know? And, ⁓ so yeah, I went out there and, and, ⁓   The Dental A Team (07:35) Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (07:52) If I've ever had a prayer answered as clearly as that, that was it. I mean, was, was clear as day. That's where my family was supposed to be. I actually served a mission for my church in Florida. I never planned to go back. ⁓ And that's ⁓ Tampa. So they actually, yeah, it was inside my mission, but I live in Naples and so didn't spend a ton of time in Naples, but yeah. So anyways. ⁓   The Dental A Team (08:03) No way. Same place?   Yeah?   I know Naples. I consulted a practice in Naples.   It's a beautiful place. Yeah, it's awesome.   Hunter Bennett (08:16) Yeah, yeah.   It's a, it's an awesome place and, ⁓ coming here was, it was definitely not like what I envisioned, but the practice was and the partnership was, and we experienced just like when I got here, he had bought the practice and the old owner was staying on like 50 % of the time and Nate was just grinding, you know, expanded the office. He had already done a lot of the footwork to get us to seven ops and.   We grew so fast, like we tried to find associates, like within my first six months, I didn't even bought in yet. We were already interviewing for associates and we couldn't find anybody that we just really wanted to send offers to. But yet we were just like in the chair all day. And I'm sure you hear this all the time. Like, I'm sure you get this all the time, Cary. It's like just grinding and grinding and then like you get done and then you're dealing with, you know, assistance and days off and they want to raise and, and just drama.   The Dental A Team (09:01) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (09:12) Taxes, know workers comp I mean you name it like all the things that come after work that are so stressful and Having a young family and and then just like like responsibilities outside of work like, know for us like there's a lot of stuff going on at church ⁓ At home. I was coaching my kids. So again, I think a lot of people that are listening can relate to this lifestyle and I think   The Dental A Team (09:14) Yeah.   Hunter Bennett (09:36) I as as I prepped for this conversation, we had a couple options. One option was to bring in a consultant, which we had thought about, and we already because we both came from the same practice in Arizona that had used a consultant, we felt like we sorta. We already knew how to be efficient. We already had a ton of systems in place. I think we struggled a little bit culturally. And I think frankly, this isn't a. You didn't put me up to this, but like had we hired someone like you like honestly, we may not have gone to DSO route. Frankly, like.   The Dental A Team (09:50) Yeah.   Sure.   Hunter Bennett (10:05) Cause all the things we were struggling with, think could have been dealt with in a different way. But we saw the DSO route as, as an option, you know, um, and there's, mean, we went back and forth and like, that's all we would talk about. We'd get done and then we talked about it for like an hour and then we'd go in cycles and circles. And this is the pro, this is the con. And ultimately we landed on, you know, um, this is just a really good way to sort of bring some balance in our lives. And I'll be honest with you. I, I hated, hated.   The Dental A Team (10:10) Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (10:35) hated like the first six months, the transition period for us was particularly hard. We have a very unique practice. But I'm in almost four years now, and I will say like, I feel like it all happened for a reason. And it's really allowed me a ton of flexibility in my life, and my lifestyle has improved a ton. So kind of what you described as sort of your purpose and letting people   The Dental A Team (10:40) Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (11:03) kind of see like what is your North Star? Like what is your real purpose? ⁓ I don't think that would have been, I don't think I would have been able to discover that had I continued on the path that I was on, honestly. So a DSO I think is good. First of all, when you talk about like a DSO, it's like a swear word, right? Because there's so many types of DSOs and there are some bad players out there for sure. And so like deservedly so, there's a lot of companies that should have a bad name, but there's also some really good ones.   The Dental A Team (11:14) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (11:33) And that was one   thing, like we interviewed around and we met with a lot of different groups and talked to people from different groups. And I think there's a lot of good groups out there, but I'm actually quite happy with our group overall. And it's been four years and I will say like a lot of the turmoil I felt in that first six months was just the change, know, the change in trajectory, like giving up. I still run my practice. The thing is like, no one knows that I'm in a DSO. Like people know like my referring doctors now, but like they don't care.   The Dental A Team (11:44) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   Hunter Bennett (11:59) Because nothing changes like nothing I run the way I want to run it and that's very unique to my group. I would say we hire we fire we make days off like we do pretty much anything we want we bought you know, we can get equipment so I Feel like my day-to-day really hasn't changed and I know that's not true for every DSO I think DSOs can be compared to like like restaurants for example. It's like ⁓ don't go out to eat because it's not healthy It's like well, I mean generally speaking probably true, but there are some healthy options out there   The Dental A Team (12:00) Right.   Mm-hmm.   Totally.   Right.   Hunter Bennett (12:29) And   ⁓ that's kind of how I see DSOs is like I do think there are some healthy options out there and it totally depends on personality. So. ⁓ I will say like the pros for me so far and you can ask me like maybe some more specifics, but yeah, yeah, so I'm so. Yeah, like that's that's just the general story, but I will say like you know this far in like that's kind of the general gist of my experience and if I could do it all over again, I I probably would. ⁓   The Dental A Team (12:37) Mm-hmm.   I'm going to ask some questions. I'm like plunging behind. I've got a decent amount. I'm excited for it.   Hunter Bennett (13:00) I say though, like I am very curious to see what it would have been like to have hired, you know, like to bring you in and just say like, all right, come in here. And a couple of my assistants were like, don't bring the consultant, don't hire a consultant. And I don't think that really influenced me as much as I felt like, honestly, I just felt like I didn't need one, but looking back now, I think that definitely would have been a really good option. So I think you either go the DSO route or you bring someone in. But again, I talked to dentists, I work with a bunch of different dentists. I talked to a bunch of guys all the time, every day.   The Dental A Team (13:08) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   Sure.   Hunter Bennett (13:30) And they haven't had such good experiences with consultants either. So I'm sure you'd get the same thing, you know, but.   The Dental A Team (13:33) I do. That's   one of my first questions when I walk into an office. Tell me what you think about consultants and it's a rip. And I want them to, because why not? Like let's get it on the table. And I think, I think the difference with us consulting versus others, because consultants are going to be there's good and bad, just like there are of DSOs, just like there are of marketing, which is like there is a people. I think the difference is one,   Hunter Bennett (13:39) Yeah, yeah, totally.   The Dental A Team (13:58) I come a team member first. So like my job is to help dentists and I'm a business owner and a multimillion dollar business owner second. And so when you combine those two perspectives together, I very much understand the business side of it. And it's not just theories and ideas. It's true, like hard knocks, ⁓ hundreds and thousands of offices and team members of what are the processes. But second, like I don't hire MBA students. I don't hire people that are just like,   you know, they, want to be a consultant. hire people that have a passion for it. They've been in the front and the back office. So I think teams, that's why I actually named it Dental A Team. want it to be dentists and teams because so many consulting companies either focus on the dentist or they focus on the team, but not both. I'm like, but you have to get both on the same page. And teams are freaked out by consultants. Consultants come in and fire. Consultants are stressful. Consultants are rigid. They make you do it this way. And my thoughts are no one, it's you with your vision.   Hunter Bennett (14:42) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (14:55) it's what do the numbers tell us and the profitability and three based on those two pieces, what are the systems that we need to improve based on like the problems in the practice too. And when you go about it that way and my job is to make life easier, not harder. I think when you go about it that way, teams are not as scared. And that's also why we built the podcast. So teams could hear us. They could learn like, what do we talk about? Because I think a lot of it's just the unknown. And so I, that's going to be like my two cents for a consultant, but I'm going to like back up for you Hunter on, have questions for you.   Hunter Bennett (15:24) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (15:25) I have question marks all the way around. One, think actually excellent point on the associateship and doctors listening, Hunter, you said you were a very equipped, very eager associate. You have a degree in business. I mean, you've got like the little gold star around you, a prime, ⁓ an associate prime for partnership that I think so many doctors are afraid and they don't know how to build partners in that they actually miss a lot of golden opportunities. And so   I like that was one of the nuggets I picked up from your story of like, I don't know who the doctor was and I'm not here to judge. They have their own story, their own reasons. But I think when doctors have great associates like yourself, you're destined to like, I know you're going to own a practice. When you come in with that type of acumen behind you, you're going to own a business. So either I can be smart and snag you and partner in with you and have you help me build and create it. Or I can let you go and you're either going to become my competitor or you're going to go somewhere else. And so there's no right or wrong.   but I think so many owner doctors, do see this. They're afraid bringing on a partner, you do like take home less pay. Like with air quotes, you get paid upfront, but you're like day in, day out is less. ⁓ But I really wanted to highlight that because I think like, well, it all worked out perfectly for you, Hunter. I think doctors listening to this could definitely learn from that. And it's okay if you don't want a partner. Some people are adamant of no partners. They don't want to give any of that up. They don't want to give away the control. That's okay. Don't hire someone like Hunter.   Or be okay that he's gonna probably leave you in about one to two years. And like any thoughts around that? They do.   Hunter Bennett (16:50) Yeah. I think everybody goes through that. Yeah. No, a   hundred. Like I have a ton of thoughts about that because it's, it's, I do, because I mean, I hear it all the time, like every week where Dennis is like, well, I'm just going to plug in an associate and then I'll just take some time off. it's like, that's not really how it works because you have to decide in like Jeremy Mooney, for example, like I talked to Jeremy all the time. He's one of my best friends and you sort of, I know it, I feel like every time I talk to him,   The Dental A Team (16:57) Talents.   Hunter Bennett (17:19) And he wouldn't mind me saying this, like just inevitably what happens is when someone doesn't buy in all the way or they just treat it like a job, like they come and go, you know, and that's, that's the price you pay. And so as a specialist, like we have to maintain relationships and referring offices. if associates are coming and going, that is such a, it's it's a rough look. And then for a dental practice, it's the same thing where patients, know, patients come to me they're like, I went to this practice and I saw the third doctor in my third visit, you know, and it's, they don't like that turnover.   And so what you make in money you pay for in stress and headache, I think on an associate, like when you're making money on your associate, not to mention all the headaches that come with training, reviews, stuff like that. ⁓ And so, yeah, I think ⁓ I totally see both sides of it. And the doctor that Nate and I both work for, he's got like four associates now and he's crushing it. So like, good for him. know, like that's, he's doing really, really well.   The Dental A Team (18:14) Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (18:16) ⁓ Me and eight are like best friends and we have this relationship that like will be friends for life like he's like he doesn't have any brothers like I'm like his brother he's like my third brother, you know, it's just We just have this amazing relationship that I wouldn't trade for anything, you know, and not all partnerships are that way I think we've been super super blessed and super lucky that way but when both partners are both givers and you both want to just work hard and you have their back no matter what like you can find that man like   The Dental A Team (18:21) Mm-hmm.   Agreed.   Hunter Bennett (18:44) whatever money you give up by being a partner, you'll get back in like that, just sitting down at the end of the day and having someone to talk to that you're equal in business plan with, to take risks with, to, you know, even just to have like that comfort of talking to someone, you know, like you you get done with a tough day and just having that person there is, is priceless. I don't think you can put a price tag on that. So I wouldn't give up my partnership with Nate for anything, you know, and, and,   The Dental A Team (19:00) Yeah.   Hunter Bennett (19:09) Yeah, and and I think that's quite unique like in our DSO like no one really knows like we have like 400 partners I think now and Like when they think of Nate they think a Hunter or when they think a Hunter they think about Nate like we're just known like you usually don't see one without the other so to the doctors out there that own if you can find someone like that or someone even remotely close like man and someone that's gonna stay long-term like you eliminate so much stress and so many headaches by being open to having a partner and then if you have associates that might come and go   The Dental A Team (19:20) Awesome.   Hunter Bennett (19:38) And you want, you have the space and the availability and you want to do that, that's an option. But if you feel like you're drowning and you can find someone that's a really good business partner, I definitely see the value. Cause Nate and I, spent the better part of two years looking for associates to work for us. And again, it's that whole thing of like, well, man, I don't think they're going to be, I don't think they're going to have the personality that we need. But you know, then you hire, then you interview the really good ones. You're like, well, they're going to want to be a partner so we can't hire them. So you're just always playing that game of like.   There is no perfect answer. You know, you don't, you don't have like a unicorn associate that's just, and maybe there are a few where they just are just a total 10 out of 10, but then they just don't want to own. just want to show up. So it's pretty rare. They will. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (20:17) Totally. And some will. It is.   But okay, that actually led me to my next point I wanted to dig into because partnerships, some are magical like you guys have and others sink ships. So I want to hear how did you get into the partnership? Like what, what does that look like? How much did you both bring? Like as much as you want to get into the nitty gritty with me, because I think partnerships are so challenging to do well and to hear that you and Nate have a great thing. So I'm almost like, okay,   Hunter Bennett (20:24) Yeah.   Yeah, totally.   Yeah.   The Dental A Team (20:46) There were some tips about associateships and bring us and I agree like, welcome down, like have these people with you. They're going to grow your business. I could not do a Dental A Team does without incredible consultants. And while none of them are partners per se, a lot of them, I've given them opportunities to do different pieces, tip from the get-go. We talked about, offered her to be a partner. She's like, heck no, I want nothing to do with that, but give me my time and give me my life with my child and girl I'm with you forever. So get read, there are different things, but I mean,   Did I give up money when I first brought in all these other consultants to help out? The answer is yes. But I look at it now and it actually like makes me so giddy to see there are so many practices we're impacting that me as a solo person could not serve at that level. So that's, think the beauty of like, yes, there's a dip, but there's also growth in and serving that you can do at a higher level. So with that said on associates, now we're moving into partnerships. Walk me through Hunter. I want to know the like ins, outs, good, bad, like partnerships. I'm sure you guys have had.   some knockout drag outs. I'm sure you guys have had highs and lows in partnerships. I'm sure you like, but I'm curious, like, how did you guys structure it to make it great for both of you? And then I'm to go into DSO. So I want to know partnership though, because like, it's my buffet. I'm choosing an associate now buying and being partners in DSO.   Hunter Bennett (21:57) Yeah.   Yeah,   yeah, for sure. think the key was ⁓ for me and Nate, like we're both givers. And so, you know, we never have fought over money. you know, there's just never, we've just been lucky to not have that. We're very similar because we kind of cut our teeth in the same practice. We had the same philosophy too. Like just we're very, very efficient. both work super, super hard.   The Dental A Team (22:25) Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (22:26) So we're both hard drivers that way. We're both very perfectionistic Like we we both do the same type of root canals like we we kind of have the same treatment philosophy, you know, ⁓ And granted he's seven years older than me So like Nate you I have to give him a ton of credit because he's just been super helpful clinically and like I felt like after years like I was actually I wasn't at my prime prime for sure But like I was I was I was cooking I was doing pretty good and he helped bring me up to where I am   The Dental A Team (22:50) Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (22:53) Now, you know, I've been here like seven years now, but like that first year, like he still just helped me, you know, deal with some of the tougher cases. Naples is just a place that tough cases. But the thing that, thing, yeah, it's old people, retired, calcified, whatever stuff from Europe. That's like totally, totally crazy. But ⁓ he was just so patient. And so just, man, he was just so happy to have me here. Cause he was like, he was burning out. Like he was so tired. And so he was just grateful I was here. He always told me that.   The Dental A Team (23:01) Right? is. It's a good place for business.   Hunter Bennett (23:20) The way we structured it. I worked for him for a year and I was supposed to buy in after the first year, but COVID had hit. so banks weren't like, they were like, hold on, chill out. Like it was literally like March I was supposed to buy in. And so like, you know, we were like, me and him were like alternating days and like, you know, like sharing N95s cause that's all we had. And I mean, that's a whole nother thing. So that delayed the buy-in like six months. And during that time, like, yeah. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (23:27) ⁓ huh.   Yeah.   And hold on, before you go to that, when you moved out there, was it part of   your contract and agreement that you were going to buy in in a year? Was it 50-50? Were those things like in place? Were those like in your contract? Okay.   Hunter Bennett (23:51) Yeah, one year. Yeah, yeah, it was all agreed to.   And you know, I actually don't know if it was in, so the thing was like, when I was in Prescott, I went to the same church that Nate had gone to, like I went to the same congregation. So everybody that knew him just absolutely loved him. Like he was like the cream of the crop. Everybody was just like, you know, like I felt like I was partnering with like, you know, just this.   The Dental A Team (24:10) Mm.   Hunter Bennett (24:18) Completely amazing person which he is so I had no doubts. Yeah, it's like the Michael Jordan like not even I don't even know like analogy would be like Muhammad Gandhi like he was like just such this Just a good dude, you know and so I didn't have a lot of reservations as far as our agreements go and then just again, maybe not the smartest thing but like I don't know it may have been in the writing but I don't really remember and I wasn't that worried about it because I guess naively I trusted him and just felt like it would work out but this was all verbally agreed to   The Dental A Team (24:18) Michael Jordan of dentists.   Wow.   Because I do know for some people   like some people have it's the verbal agreement. I'm sure   Hunter Bennett (24:47) I would, mean, he would have been willing to, he would have been willing   to, and maybe it was, like it might have been in our first contract. I had David Cohen write it up, I had to go back and look, but he did our partnership agreement too. He's awesome for anybody that needs an attorney, but yeah, I've sent him a ton of people. But that was the thing, like we had all that agreed to, then the other conversation that I know a lot of people don't have, and a lot of people hold resentment about is how you're gonna   The Dental A Team (25:00) We do love David Cohen. We refer to him quite a lot.   Hunter Bennett (25:17) split profits. And so we decided early on, it's like, eat what you kill. Like if you do, so the way I did it, I, we, sort of calculated a rough guesstimation of what our overhead was. And then we gave ourselves like, we would do, okay, you get this percentage. We each get this percentage of our production. And then let's say it was like 45, 55, then we split the profits that same way. Whatever's leftover, we're going to split by that same amount. And frankly, like, I don't think we were ever correct.   The Dental A Team (25:18) Totally.   Mm-hmm.   by the amount that you produced? Is that correct? So,   okay.   Hunter Bennett (25:45) collected. we're   fever like our collection is same as product like we're yeah, so it's the same number but Yeah   The Dental A Team (25:50) Right. So sorry, let me back this up. So you guys go produce   and let's just use numbers. Usually in GP, it's 30 % of what you produce. Usually in specialty, you're like 40, 45 % of what you produce. Like let's just use some like loose numbers, hypothetical.   Hunter Bennett (26:03) Sure.   The Dental A Team (26:04) Nate, you produce, you're welcome. We've got this. So let's just say you produce 100 grand in a month. Nate produces 100 grand in a month. Let's say you guys are both taking 30 % your specialist. So giggle at me because I know you're not 30%. You both would be taking 30 grand of that leaving. We've got 70 from each of you, but we have overhead in that as well. So we've got to take our overhead out of there. So we've got 70, 70 hypothetical we're going to take. Let's just do let's leave at the end there's 60,000.   Hunter Bennett (26:21) Yep. Yep.   Yep. Yep.   Say 50.   The Dental A Team (26:33) 60,000 of profit   Hunter Bennett (26:34) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (26:34) at the end of it after you guys have produced 200,000, collected 200,000, you both have been paid your 30,000 each. Of that 60,000, how was that split? Was that a 50-50 split or was it based on like, let's say you produced 100 grand, but Nate produced 200 grand. Did the 60,000 at the end get split based on production amounts or was that like, how was the profit split?   Hunter Bennett (26:54) Correct.   Yeah, so we would just split the profit exactly like you described in the latter example where it's based on what you produced that month or collected that month, then we would split the profits that month. And I just had a spreadsheet, I did all the math. And so we would just work it out between the two of us. And we never had an issue. I would just plug it and just plug and chug and it was never an issue. And truly like...   The Dental A Team (27:09) Nice.   Hunter Bennett (27:19) We were never more than like 52 48, you know, that might've been like, ⁓ you know, I don't remember a month ever being off by more than 2 % or 4%. So it really wasn't a big battle. And one thing too, that I told Nate going into this, and this was for me, I had to just like, was president of like my business school, like my junior year president of the whole business school, like the vice president of all business school, my senior year, like   The Dental A Team (27:23) Thank you.   interesting.   Hunter Bennett (27:45) I was used to being leadership positions. I was used to sort of being in charge. But I knew coming here, he was there first. And I told him, was like, I know you're going to be the alpha. All the referrals know you. I'm just going to have to take that backseat role. And I think me just acknowledging that and accepting that was so important because I had no ego. I didn't have to prove that there was no competition between me and Nate. We were 100 % on the same team.   The Dental A Team (27:56) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (28:12) ⁓ Again, and maybe that's unique to a specialty practice because you're kind of working together maybe more than you would in a GP office. I don't know. ⁓ Or maybe you're competing for patients a little more. I'm not sure. I've never worked in a GP office. But the dynamics for us is like, we're just, there's like all the referrals. It doesn't matter which doctor you want. Like you're getting your next available doctor unless there's a few exceptions. So we were very good about having no egos. And that was really important to our partnership too. But   financially it was quite easy for us and convenient just because our numbers were pretty similar. Or if he took a couple weeks off, then obviously he'll still get his collections from that month, but then I would get a little bit bigger chunk of the profit. But then when I took my time off the next month, they would just work itself out. so, ⁓ and he was always, like I said, he was always at the end of the year, Nate always produces just a little more than me. And I was just okay with it. You know, I was like, whatever, hang on.   The Dental A Team (28:46) Mm-hmm.   Sure.   Sure.   Hunter Bennett (29:06) And this I think is the desert that we can talk about later because how do we   The Dental A Team (29:07) Fascinating. Yeah.   Hunter Bennett (29:10) measure success? How do we measure fulfillment? And when we tie it to profits and numbers and income, it's just not super healthy. And I've had to learn that. Like that's probably been one of my biggest paradigm shifts over the last year, year and a half and sparked by your presentation and the conversations that we had. So.   The Dental A Team (29:27) Well, that's fascinating to me and thank you. That's a huge compliment. ⁓ I'm fascinated by that partnership split and the fact that you both were eat what you kill. I actually love that because then you got two very motivated partners. Also, you don't accidentally get one partner who's not pulling their weight. I know a lot of times ⁓ and I think the difference that I sometimes see in GP versus specialty is sometimes I have a super producer in GP.   So one who's doing hybrid and implants and all these different cases. And then I've got another doctor who's doing bread and butter. Well, obviously the super producer is going to produce more, but you need the bread and butter dentist to be taking care of all those profie patients and all the day in day out. So you can super produce. So those ones, often will see that it's more going to be a 50 50 split, but I do oftentimes see the super producer gets a little annoyed because they're like, if they're not both givers.   ⁓ I've seen this wax hard on partnerships just in the fact of you look at the numbers and what are you putting up on the board? But I think those partners really have to look at this. It's the ultimate whole. And if the ultimate whole of the business is doing well, both parties are winning. And they have to just see that they bring different strengths to the table, just like in a marriage. And we're not looking at dollars on the board. We're looking at collective as a practice. But that is one where I do watch. And so I do think in specialty, that might be something I had not thought of.   but I love to hear how you guys broke it down, how you picked it apart. And also the fact that there was no ego on taking a patient. Cause I do sometimes see that in partnerships where, if I'm going to get what I kill, I want more of these patients. I want to take them on because that's going to impact my production. But at the end of the day, you guys are still doing well on the profit side. So fascinating to me to hear how it was set up, how you guys got into it, how the buy-in was, ⁓ and then moving forward. And I'm guessing Hunter, I don't know Nate.   Hunter Bennett (31:01) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (31:18) But I'm excited. I mean, I have a quote over here by Gandhi. So when you said that I was like, well, perfect. ⁓ But my hunch is typically in a partnership, I see someone who's like yourself, who's really big into business, like they know the numbers, they have the business acumen. And usually the other partner tends to be more of the people side or this is like, you usually have a separation. So I again, I don't know Nate, but my guess would be not to say that you're not great with team members to   but I'm guessing you're very business savvy, you're very system savvy, and he's gonna be more people savvy and relationship savvy. Again, I don't know, maybe both of you had that, but I'm curious, did you see that dynamic in your partnership that maybe blended you guys really well coming together?   Hunter Bennett (31:54) Yeah, no, that's a really good point and we do compliment it. You're pretty much spot on. would say Nate definitely like is a lot more of a calming, know, I'm kind of like people tell me I'm just fiery, you know, like we've had different.   The Dental A Team (32:07) You   I do remember you walking   up. You wouldn't even shut your light off on me. Like you were busy. You were down to business. Like, here, I need these things in the most respectful way. ⁓   Hunter Bennett (32:14) Yeah, I'm   Pretty pretty focused. Yeah, pretty focused I would say and so I would say there is that little bit of balance But Nate's not a dummy like he was harvard number two in his class at harvard like he's super smart and so He would always lean into me for the business stuff just because I had a degree and I could speak the language and accounting and depreciation and all you know, like that stuff I think sort of intimidated him more than it needed to because once you explain it, know, you know But because he hadn't trained that way like he would sort of lean into me and that stuff   The Dental A Team (32:33) or.   Right.   Hunter Bennett (32:43) But even having someone to talk about because he'd already dealt with the accountant. He already dealt with workers comp. So I'd be like, hey, how does this work? Cause I'd never done it. So he'd explain it to me. And then as a team, we would work it out. You know, as a team, we would make big decisions. So yeah, I mean, you'll both bring different things to the table. And it's actually good that you can be different. I had another opportunity to partner somewhere else before Nate. I was way too much like that guy. I was like.   The Dental A Team (32:49) Thank   Yes.   Hunter Bennett (33:10) This isn't gonna work. I knew right away like I said, you know I went and visited the practice did the whole thing sent like a follow-up email and I think we both knew it's just like yes, isn't gonna work and The negotiations didn't go very far and it was fun. It was like we're still friends and we keep in touch So I think it's important to like you think ⁓ we're so alike man That's not always like the best thing. And so our differences are actually probably what what bring us together and make us strong ⁓   The Dental A Team (33:19) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   No.   Hunter Bennett (33:37) Yeah. And so that's, that's like a, that's a super fair point about that. And again, a lot of it's just been serendipitous. Like that just happened to fall into place. It just, it's just worked out that way, but it's, it's like a marriage. That's the perfect thing. It's like, it's like a marriage without all the benefits per se. Like you just, you're just like, you're just, you just get the hard part of them. Yeah. You just get the hard, you get the hard part of the marriage where you have tough conversations, but again, you just take them head on. And when you have no ego and, or a limited ego, and when you just want your partner to succeed, like   The Dental A Team (33:38) Yeah.   You get the profits benefit.   Hunter Bennett (34:08) You can't really fail in my opinion. ⁓ even when it came to like negotiate, like I had six months of partnership income that I was missing out on, but then there's the COVID thing. And, at the end of the day, said, Nate, like what number, like what, what, what do want me to do the whole valuation? I didn't really care. I was willing to pay whatever I didn't. To me, the relationship was way more important than any number. And so we just came to a number that we both felt good about based on the valuation, but I was flexible and frankly, I didn't care because it was so important to me. And, ⁓   The Dental A Team (34:09) That's awesome.   Yeah.   Hunter Bennett (34:37) And we came to what we thought both was fair and it's been, it's been a dream. you know, and those, we're like best friends and those conversations can still be a little awkward and a little hard, but they don't have to be. And they, they were always fine. You know, um, if there's a book I could recommend, talk about it all the time. It's Crucial Conversations. Um, one of my favorite books of all time. think everybody should read it before you get married. You should read it like in college. Like I think it should be required reading before you graduate college.   The Dental A Team (34:50) Right.   Hunter Bennett (35:04) But that's one book that's just helped me a ton. As a leader, business owner, as a partner, ⁓ husband, it's just helped me a ton.   The Dental A Team (35:05) Definitely agree.   I love that. I also love that you guys just, I think when you said like it just works and it was serendipitous, I think that's something to look for in a partnership. I think if anybody's looking at partners, if it's hard and it's just not flowing, don't force it to work. ⁓ The best partnerships I really do see where they kind of fall into place this way, they're aligned, you hire people that are complimentary to you, not just like you, because you do need the two halves to a whole.   Hunter Bennett (35:29) Hmm.   The Dental A Team (35:39) to make it really great. And then I think you guys have done a good job of keeping egos in check. think you guys, what you said Hunter, that I hope all partners listening to this or potential partners, you want your partner to succeed and that's your ultimate goal and that's what you're driving for. when Jason and I learned that in our marriage, where like my greatest success is Jason's success, it went from a like, what are you giving for me? And what am I getting out of this relationship to a like,   I want Jason to give me five stars because he's a raving fan because like I am, I'm doing all that I possibly can to make sure he's succeeding and his life is incredible. And when both partners are in that, it goes away from you and it goes to them and to make sure that they're succeeding. And I really do see that that works great in marriages, partnerships. So I'm obsessed with that. Kudos to you guys on that. I love that also Hunter, I hope people buying in.   the partnership and having that, I say the way you start a partnership is how you're going to end the partnership. I love Hunter that you came in as the quote unquote junior partner, but you, leveled yourself up to be an equal partner to him. And I'm really proud of you because I think a lot of associates are stay very timid. They say very junior. They act like they don't know anything rather than being like an equal partner. And I'm like, no, no, no, if you're going to be a partner in this, you need to be a partner and bring your weight. So kudos to you on that.   Hunter Bennett (36:49) Yeah.   Totally.   The Dental A Team (36:57) And then I also just really love that you guys have just had multiple conversations that you just have blended it so beautifully and that you said you were willing to pay whatever he wanted. Like, of course, you're going to be fair. You knew the numbers, but the partnership and the success was more important to you. And I think when you go into it and that's how you start your partnership, I can tell why you guys are actually really great partners. So great job and thanks for highlighting that. And now I want to know about selling to a DSO because I do agree. ⁓ Having a consultant.   oftentimes makes it where you don't have to sell to a DSO. And we do that sometimes. Sometimes I'll grow the practices for you and it's like, well, why would you sell to a DSO when they're just gonna come in and grow your business anyway? Like, let's do this on your own. I had a doctor who we were chatting and he's like, yeah, Kiera, they're gonna give me five mil for it. And I said, cool. Next year, you're probably gonna do five million on your own or within two years. So you can pay them out and they're just gonna do what you were already going to do. And agreed, a lot of that stress comes.   Hunter Bennett (37:36) Yeah.   Yeah.   The Dental A Team (37:55) from that, but Hunter, you said something in the very beginning that struck me when you said you sold to the DSO. You said your life has exponentially gotten better. Your work life balance has gotten better since selling to the DSO, but you also said that you're doing pretty much all the same things you were doing as a business owner. So I'm super curious. How did your life get better while you're still doing, like you were like, I'm still hiring, I'm still firing. And I was like, so what was the perk of selling to a DSO and helped me understand how your life got better?   Hunter Bennett (38:19) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (38:23) And then I also want to know about your cell deal too, if you're open to that.   Hunter Bennett (38:27) Yeah, for sure. don't, um, I probably should have illustrated the point that it's not like we didn't just get overwhelmed and all of sudden decide, okay, we're not, we're just going to throw up our hands and sell. Like we had hired a different office manager who was like, went through like Gary Katas's training. Like, like she was phenomenal. She was amazing. In fact, like she was a lot like you in a lot of ways, just really great personality, new dentistry. And I thought she was going to change our lives, you know, and she is awesome. Like she's an amazing person.   But it didn't end up working out. She left the practice that was being transitioned to a new doctor. So she came with us for a few weeks and it was going okay. And then they had a big crisis back there and she's like, is it okay if I just go back and help for like a week? And we're like, yeah, do what you need to do, you know? And then that doctor offered her equity in his practice. And so she ended up staying there, whatever. Yeah, whatever, it is what it is. And so my point is, like, I feel like we tried a different office manager. We tried restructuring and we tried.   The Dental A Team (39:15) I mean, good deal.   Hunter Bennett (39:25) The only thing we didn't hire a consultant, we definitely talked about it, but we didn't, I think in some ways I was probably just a weak leader in that way where I was maybe a little bit too proud to just get the help that we probably needed and instead just went a different route, you know? And so hindsight's always 20-20, but that just to create a little bit of the background to the story though. So it's not like we just, you know, all of sudden decided, you know, we're gonna,   The Dental A Team (39:47) Of course.   Hunter Bennett (39:55) just sell. So we had done all this other footwork. Sorry, what did you want to know about like the structure of the deal or what? Yeah. Okay. So when we, so when we, you know, after having done all this, we kind of, we had interviewed all these doctors, we had one kind of in the holster, maybe you can associate and we were just like, we were interviewing people, but we was just so, we were just tired. It's just like when you're doing root canal, it's like from like seven to five and you don't even have time to use like the bathroom.   The Dental A Team (40:03) I do, I do want to know structure of the deal. Yeah, tell me it.   Yeah.   Hunter Bennett (40:25) get a drink of water. It's just, we just burned ourselves out because we were chasing something and I don't even think we, we just wanted to change growth. Like we just wanted to, we just wanted to grow. We just always said all the time, were just grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And so we just kept the pedal to the metal. Excuse me. And I would say we just sort of outgrew ourselves and not that the wheels ever fell off, but like the culture in our practice was okay. Like we had good people, but we did have some of the wrong people on the bus. ⁓   The Dental A Team (40:27) Yep.   Hunter Bennett (40:52) And so when we started talking to DSOs, they saw our numbers, they saw our trajectory and we knew we had a lot of leverage. It was 2021. So the market was just red hot. We got a really good evaluation. We got a really good multiple. they were, you know, and so, you know, I actually talked to Matt Molcock, you know, he's my advisor and, ⁓ and just, I talked to my mentors, Dr. Jones, like, you know, ⁓ just people that I really respect. He's the man he had started nine, nine different endo or worked in or started nine different practices and   The Dental A Team (40:59) I see. That is hot.   Mm-hmm.   Aw, Dr. John.   Hunter Bennett (41:19) And his advice to me was like, you know, like I would do it if I were you. And so a lot of people would just had kind of encouraged me. And so at that point, me and Nate said, you know, we, and we got opinions both ways. And at the end of the day, our conclusion was it doesn't matter. Like, if I'm being honest, like that was kind of our answer to a kind of a joint prayer was like, it's not going to matter. Like it just, doesn't matter which way you go with this. ⁓ for the things that are truly important, it's not going to matter what you do.   The Dental A Team (41:35) Agreed.   Hunter Bennett (41:46) And so we, we, we decided to do the deal and I will say, like I said, the first six months were rough, but to the credit of my, company, like the group that I'm with, like our team and the people that we work with, they're phenomenal. Like I've never like had a, they, they just always bend over backward to accommodate us and help us. And we've done our part. We've grown like crazy, you know, are there times where I'm like, man, we could have done this on our own and, ⁓ our   The Dental A Team (42:06) Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (42:12) whatever, you know, and you look at your paycheck now because now I'm paid on a percentage and I have equity in the company. And so you're just waiting on a recap. And that's a whole, again, talking about, we can get into this too is DSOs have so many different types of structures. Ours is not like a joint venture. So we don't, we don't profit share in ours. It's all in our equity. so equity events are like super important for us. and so Scotty Hudson Smith is our CEO and he's the one that did smile docs. they, he's done it three times.   The Dental A Team (42:21) Yep.   They are.   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (42:41) He came to our dinner like the night that they were recruiting us and he wasn't officially the CEO yet But like he was sliding in that role. It just hadn't been announced I think it was like the next week or something, but he came and he just sort of created the vision for us and we just honestly we a little bit of a feeling and sort of that answer like it's not gonna matter and Now looking back Are there days that are where I have resented like seeing what I produce versus what I take home sometimes?   But I've got to remember they give you five or six years of your profitability upfront. And I've been able to put all that to work, you know, for the most part, I've done pretty well with that. Like not like home run, like you, you know, it's not like crazy stuff, but it's fine. I'm diversified now. Um, it's not all in my practice, but I do have a bit still in equity quite a bit. we did a 70 30 split. did 70 % cash, 30 % equity in the group. Um, and I just,   The Dental A Team (43:09) Sure.   Sure.   Right.   Nice.   Hunter Bennett (43:36) Some groups will give you flexibility, some won't. That's just the number that we wanted and they agreed to. And looking back, I'm still glad I did it that way. I actually had an opportunity to buy more equity about a year in, which I did. And so I bought more. And so that allowed me to just be a little bit more leveraged into the company.   on a bigger scale, like me and Nate work real hard for each other, but now you just got all these partners that are counting on you. And I think the mojo and the culture in our group is quite good. So.   The Dental A Team (44:04) Yeah, that's it. That's actually really, really good to know because I think so many people wonder about DSOs. And so what did the DSO take off of you guys? Because I know there's some people that get scared of the equity. Like they get scared of equity because some DSOs have actually gone under. And so I actually love to hear that you were a 70-30 split, then you were able to buy in more if you wanted to, because if it goes under, that is your retirement. And so I love that you were able to put money into work so your retirement's not solely like   Hunter Bennett (44:12) Yeah, that's what you asked.   ⁓ Yeah.   The Dental A Team (44:31) vested into this company. I really am big on that when DSOs do purchase, but what did they take off your guys's plates going in as a DSO?   Hunter Bennett (44:31) Totally.   Yeah, sorry, that's what you asked me and I kind of got off track there, but...   The Dental A Team (44:40) That's okay. I wanted   the deal. I wanted the deal. I actually wanted to know that a lot.   Hunter Bennett (44:44) So we skipped to the deal,   but going back, like the thing that they've helped with the most, would say is like, just as an example, like, like, ⁓ there's like this employment tax, you know, that we'd always get these letters about every year with Florida and we'd call them and then I spent an hour on the phone, finally getting to someone. And then I had already canceled it, but then they automatically renewed it for it. And so it's just like, that's like one example, work, workman's comp. ⁓ even just like we had an office book for like policy.   And again, this might speak more to maybe my lack of strong leadership where when a team member says, well, I understand that's the policy, but this is what I have going on. And then when you bend the rules for one person, then it sort of just creates this culture of favoritism. And again, that was probably partly being a new owner and then a people pleaser. and something I've worked on a lot. And again, I'm not the same leader I was even five years ago, you know, four years ago when we sold, but, ⁓ having seen that now they, because there are just   The Dental A Team (45:34) Totally.   Hunter Bennett (45:40) company policies in place. And again, it might be a little maybe feel corporate, but now you sort of see the reason why things are corporate because otherwise people, if you run it like a small business and you do those little things here or there, all it does is create resentment within your team. And so ⁓ I will say just having a really, we've gone through like, man, we hired like two or three different office managers through the company that they helped us hire. And finally we hired internally and she's   The Dental A Team (45:53) Totally.   Hunter Bennett (46:09) man, she's phenomenal. she has just totally, she was at our front desk, she wasn't in dentistry, she came to the front desk and really for first couple of years she was pretty quiet. And then when we interviewed, we're like, we need to interview, are you interested? And she said, yeah, like I would. And she's absolutely just crushing it. And so she is a big reason because we finally, you know, like it's just a good fit for her, you know? And our old office manager is still with us and she's amazing, she's amazing. And she's just so humbly taking the role. She's she's like,   The Dental A Team (46:10) Amazing.   Yeah.   Hunter Bennett (46:37) just want to be in the front and she's the best front office person in the world. You know what I mean? And that's she didn't want to be an office manager and so it's kind of worked itself out and but I don't know if we would have made those decisions without being sort of forced into it with it with our structure in the corporate, you know in the corporate group. If I'm being honest, you know, there's a couple things like we were salary like we just paid our girls salary for example and so there was always sort of this resentment because here it's very seasonal.   The Dental A Team (46:39) Mm-hmm. Yeah.   Totally.   Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Hunter Bennett (47:06) So during winter, like our population in Naples doubles. And so the girls are working more hours. So they might work 42. I don't know if I should say this is, I guess it doesn't matter because I don't do it anymore, but they might work 42 or 44 hours one week. But in the summer, they're probably working 32, 34, 36. Or I'd just say, go home or whatever. So over the year, it just worked out. so they came to us, like, you can't do that. And so was like, so then we had to switch to hourly, which I really resented in that first six months. I was so mad. But now looking at it, it's actually the   The Dental A Team (47:06) Right.   Right.   You   Hunter Bennett (47:35) It's actually the fair way to do it. You know, it actually makes sense. ⁓ they like our, always get.   The Dental A Team (47:38) It is. So it sounds like you just got a lot of like,   you got like a lot of company backing is what I feel like it is like the structure of a business. Yeah. Yep.   Hunter Bennett (47:44) Totally, it's just more structure, more structure. I didn't have to be the bad guy, I guess. I sort   of get to say that's just how we do it. And so again, I think now, like the older version of Hunter sees that as, well, man, were kind of, you could have been a stronger leader, but I didn't know what I didn't know. ⁓ But now again, too, like looking at it, like this is exactly the path that I'm supposed to be on and it's fine. And truly like...   The Dental A Team (48:01) Totally.   Hunter Bennett (48:11) There's so many reasons to join a DSO. Some people are looking for an exit. Some people are looking for a lifestyle. And for me, it's just worked out that I, don't know what I was looking for besides relief from all the pressure I felt and, um, and it's worked out, you know? And so I still make enough money that I can do the things that I need to do and want to do. And if the equity works out, that's a cherry on top. And if it doesn't like it's okay for right now. And if I want to do something later,   I can do something else, you know, and that's the other thing too, like with, with the DSO is if, if you want to leave at some point you can. And I don't really have plans to leave per se, but like I, now it's an option. Whereas if I own the practice, that was one reason too, with me and Nate, who part of our thought process was, well, we're from the West in 10 years. If we want to sell in 10 years, who's going to buy us? Are we going to wait 10 years? Why don't we just do it now and grow with the DSO? So that was a big part of it too, is like, what is our exit? And so even though I'm only, I'm not, I'm 40 next year.   The Dental A Team (48:38) can.   Totally.   Hunter Bennett (49:08) I still was sort of planning an exit at some point because the practice was so big and we couldn't find a partner. So maybe that gives some insights retrospectively into our thought process because we did the same conversation every day for six months. But looking at it now, like that's what they've taken off our plate is all those little nuances that are just so mentally exhausting that now when I come home, I can just be present with my kids. I've changed my schedule. Like it's totally benefited my life.   The Dental A Team (49:14) Totally.   Hahaha!   Hunter Bennett (49:38) Lifestyle wise but it's not perfect but I would say an overall net positive, you know If you're not just looking at money, you know If you're not just looking at your month to month income I would say that's like the only downside is I don't make as much money as I used to but my lifestyle is way better so   The Dental A Team (49:43) That's amazing. Sure.   And so we traded a few things, but who knows it can pan out as well to where you actually make more in the future. That's not a given, but like today you're at least in a good space. You've traded ⁓ like money for time. And I think that that's one of the most beautiful things, which ties to, as we like quickly wrap up. I love that you just talked about all the pieces of DSO. I love that you have a great experience. I love hearing the pieces that they were able to take and agreed a lot of businesses actually need to sell to a DSO because they've grown too big that there's not a buyer for them. And like that is   Hunter Bennett (49:57) Yeah. Good.   Yeah.   The

Tiff and Kristy go into the DNA of an effective leader. These are the common traits that Dental A-Team has seen from the top dental practices, with Tiff and Kristy breaking down how exactly these leaders were able to cultivate such characteristics. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Awesome. Hello, everyone. Dental A Team listeners, thank you so much for being here. I had the pleasure of having an email exchange with a really, really well-rounded office manager, regional manager. And anyways, my point was that she mentioned that she is an avid Dental A Team listener, and she has been for many years. And it was just so special to hear that and to have this email thread with her and to hear how much it has impacted her   professional life and I just wanted to give a massive shout out that came up this morning and I wanted to just thank you guys for being here because as much as this may impact your life and and hopefully add value to your systems, your practice, whether you're a dentist, whether you're a team member, office manager, and you know what I mean we've worked with CPAs, we've worked with chiropractors, we've worked with eye doctors.   anyone who's here listening, you found value in this and you continue to come back or if this is your first time, welcome. And I just want to give a massive shout out to you guys and a thank you for supporting our team and our company through the podcast. We love being here and we love what we get to do with you guys every single day. So massive shout outs and welcome to today. I have the beautiful pleasure of honestly having a very relaxed and calming   podcasting day and I have Miss Kristy here with me today and Kristy, know I've told you off camera, off mic, ⁓ how relaxing podcasting with you is and truly, truly from the bottom of my heart, you make podcasting very easy and stress free and knowing that we had a few today, really I was like, goodness it's Kristy, because I am just so excited to podcast with you. So Kristy, thank you so much for being here.   and just for being you. You bring a sense of ease, a sense of joy, and a sense of fun to our company as well as a multitude of other things and I value you. So thank you, Kristy. How are you this morning? It's still morning here as we're recording. How are you doing?   DAT Kristy (01:58) doing well and I'm with you Tiff. I mean we don't get to spend a lot of time with each other so whenever we get to spend time even if it's podcasting ⁓ I always enjoy my time with you so yep it's a good morning.   The Dental A Team (02:10) Thank you.   Thank you. I agree. I agree. The sun is shining. It's supposed to be cooling down. So I'll be missing it. But you should be able to enjoy some great Phoenix weather here in the next week and enjoy that pool of yours. And when I get back, we need to set up a coffee date because it just hasn't happened yet. And we need that time together. I'm really excited. In a few weeks, we've got our in-person mastermind that we've got a ton of our doctors.   DAT Kristy (02:27) Yes.   The Dental A Team (02:39) coming out to Phoenix to spend some time with us. And I know I have a few doctors, you have a few doctors that are coming. Each consultant has quite a few actually offices that are joining us. We're just super, super excited to host everyone here in Phoenix. I am, my clients, my clients know who they are. They are near and dear to my heart. They are some of my closest friends in my life. And I have a couple coming that I am so excited for you guys to meet.   And one of them is just so special and she knows who she is and I'm just giving her massive hugs and massive shout outs. She is such a supporter of everything we do. She's a supporter of me as a human and you know, I just am so excited for you to meet her, Kristy. So I wanted to just shout that out and let everybody know what's coming up in our lives. We've got a lot of Dental A Team fun happening and part of that is this.   course this mastermind that we've got coming up and the things that follow it that go along with that. mean we've got every month we have our doctors only mastermind for our clients and most of what we do is center focused around really truly building leaders and ⁓ within that I think I think something I tell my clients and my teams especially my teams when I'm working with teams is our goal is to create ease efficiency and joy.   in your jobs. No matter what your job is, no matter what your position you hold in the practice is, I want you to love going to do that every single day or at least I say like 95 % of the time there's going to be those days where you're like heck no Tiff I don't want to do this. But a lot of that comes down to I think effective leadership and being able to create a practice that works for you, a business that works for you instead of you working for the business, meaning it's just like gosh I'm exhausted every day and   Will this ever end? And new doctors, it does end. Okay, but not yet. Don't get too hasty. You gotta put your time in. You gotta do your time. But it does end. And Kristy, I think a lot of that, and something you're fantastic at, I've watched you do this with doctors. I've watched you do this with startup doctors. They know who they are. They're here listening too. And I've watched you do this with doctors who have been in practice for 10 years plus. You build incredible leadership.   through really solid systems and efficiency and culture and team. Kristy, my biggest question to you, I told you I was going to ask you this kind of defining question. When you think of a leader, when you think of a practice leader, a dentist leader, an office manager, and anyone who is deemed a leader or wants to be, what kind of characteristics do you think of within that person that either they innately have or can be developed?   DAT Kristy (05:27) You're going deep today, huh? ⁓ Yeah, I think number one, compassion because   The Dental A Team (05:30) I am, yeah. I don't know what's up today, but I am. It's in me.   DAT Kristy (05:44) With leadership, I think we owe it to our people to be brutally honest in a way, but do it in a compassionate way, if you will. the ability to be honest and share from that space of, want to better this person or I want to grow this person versus coming from a place of criticism.   You know what I mean? Because you and I have talked about this before. I don't think anybody walks into a job on any given day saying, I'm going to make it heck today. I'm just going to come in and raise havoc. And I don't think anybody intentionally does that. And so having a leader that can come from a compassionate space and understand that people really are trying to do well and be able to deliver from that space.   The Dental A Team (06:43) Yeah, I totally agree with you. think compassion's a fantastic word there. And ⁓ the way you described it, I think, defines that really clearly. Because I do think there's just so much confusion wrapped up in empathy, sympathy, compassion, being nice. And I think a leader is everything, is all of those pieces. But well-rounded and doesn't get lost in them is, I think, a good thing to say there. ⁓   They're all fantastic characteristics, but being able to navigate that and being able to navigate ⁓ clear and kind, like I really, I really truly love looking at the difference between kind and nice. And I think, you know, nice, even when you say like, ⁓ nice, it doesn't feel in your body as good as kind does. And when someone can be clear and kind, that's that compassionate side of I'm here with you.   And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you the way I'm going to show you the way. Right. And when we get off track, we're going to do it together. And I'm going to tell you when we get off track, when you're off track, when, things aren't being met, when the accountability needs to be put into place, I'm going to do that for you because that's kindness. I think a lot of leaders shy away from that because they want to be nice. They don't want to hurt feelings. They don't want to make someone feel like they're not a good team member or they're not doing a good job because they are doing a good job. They're just doing something that needs adjusting.   And I know Kristy, you've had these conversations too. I've listened to you have them with doctors and office managers of the not saying something to someone holding back information and holding back what could inspire them or just make them a better manager and leader is actually hurting the other person. So where we're trying to be nice and save their feelings, we're actually making it way worse and we're doing damage.   to the human, the person, and that think, Kristy, is where that compassionate side comes into play of compassionate kindness, of that joint. always say, ⁓ use words like I'm partnering with you, and can I partner with you in this? Are you open to me giving some feedback here? You really lay it out very well where it's open and, again, compassionate and kind. And Kristy, I think you do a great job with that.   How do you help to coach leaders and doctors to have those conversations and with verbiage like that? What are your biggest suggestions that even if somebody could take one thing away from today, maybe it's a suggestion of a hard conversation. ⁓ How do you suggest to your doctors and your clients how they can do that?   DAT Kristy (09:25) Yeah, I think there's a few things, Tiff. Honestly, in onboarding new people, I love to have the conversation before it even needs to happen. with new employees just opening the door that, hey, there's going to come a time when we have to address a few things. So finding out what their style is for addressing and always trying to accommodate in that way, I mean, you don't   always have the room to do that. But if I can find out, hey, there's going to come a time when we have to have a conversation, what is the best way to address you? How do you prefer me to approach you in those situations, first and foremost? And that obviously works well for new team members. But as we're learning leadership, we might not have all new team members. So coming into it,   for our existing team members just being vulnerable and honest and saying, hey, I'm looking to grow my leadership skills too, right? And so I may not always hit the mark, but I wanna open the door for honest open communication. And so just like what you said, asking permission and ⁓ I guess with that too is in that approach, always trying to make it from my point of view.   You know, maybe referring back to a situation and being able to address it like, hey, you know, I need to clear the air. And earlier when you were talking about the story I'm telling myself is, I'm sure, you know, that may not have been your intent and that's why I wanna open this space for communication. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (11:17) Yeah, that's beautiful.   That's beautiful. And what that leads into is kind of our next chapter of this whole podcast. And it so succinctly goes together because that communication that you just gave and that openness. I always think of when I when I hear you speak and when I hear you speak of ⁓ verbiage to be able to use like this, I think of you said vulnerable and I think vulnerable for sure. We're open, we're vulnerable, we're honest. But I think you also bring a sense of ⁓   like humility and humbleness to the conversation. And when a leader and a doctor or anyone who an established team member who's been there for a while can be humble and say, you know what, don't know everything and I am growing and learning because I'm a human and we're doing that in every space of our life. Who I am today as a mom, who I am today as a girlfriend, as a best friend, as a friend, a coworker, who I am today is different.   than even two weeks ago, right? We're constantly changing. So being able to be humble allows the space for the other person, for the other, and when you're a dentist and leader or office manager, having these conversations with the team, either individually or open forum, like allows them the space to know. They don't have to know it all either. And they can be in the space of learning and they can ask questions. So.   Kristy, think one of the biggest things we get asked, well, number one thing we get asked when people call in and say, Dental A Team, please help fix my family, is systems, right? And I was actually in a practice yesterday with our consultant Trish, and it was so much fun. And we did the team meeting, and one of the things I said to the whole team was, listen, everybody says we need systems. We need systems implemented. And I'm like, for sure, you need systems.   But systems without communication and without leadership, you already have systems. You know why they're not working, why they're quote unquote broken. You have systems. You're doing a lot of the things I'm going to tell you to do. You're just not doing them consistently and you're not talking about it. So if we can fix the communication and really bring that sense of humbleness, think what you've done there, Kristy, with that conversation that I hope people will take away and go spread is you have inspired.   a culture of positivity. Because whenever we're in a space, we've hired consultants, we have people on our, we have team members on our team right now that have said, I have never worked in a place that I didn't feel like I had to know everything. And when I didn't know a thing, I was scared to say it and I had to like go find it on my own. So we're like behind the scenes trying to track down information and hoping we're right. I remember in my dental practice,   Kiera talks all the time about how she didn't know the definition. She didn't know what KPI stood for, right? She knew it was important. She didn't know what the actual acronym meant. I only knew, and I tell her this all the time, I only knew what KPI stood for because when I became a leader in my dental practice, the office manager wanted me to come into the KPI meetings. And I was like, yeah, of course, I'll be there. Sure thing, no worries. Meanwhile, I'm over here Googling. What the heck is a KPI meeting?   I had no idea, but I also wasn't comfortable enough to be like, yeah, sure, whatever you want. What does that mean? How do I show up? What do I bring? How can I be valuable to that meeting? I Googled it, and then I sat there like, none of this makes sense. I sat in those meetings with the CPA, and I'm just like, I am not, I'm not the same as you guys, and I feel so small right now. But I was not in ⁓ an environment at that time that felt, and it wasn't because,   DAT Kristy (14:34) you   The Dental A Team (15:03) she wasn't supportive or helpful, I just didn't feel seen, heard, and ⁓ like I could be vulnerable, right? I had to just be, you had to put on a face and you had to do the thing. And I think, Kristy, what you've done with that communication is you've opened up space for the culture to really be what our clients are constantly asking for. They're always asking, Tiff, how do I fix the culture, right, Kristy?   Help me fix my culture. How do I get my team engaged? And it's like, you just did it with one sentence, right? Have you seen that, Kristy?   DAT Kristy (15:36) Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ It's communication out of the gate. I don't know the exact statistic, you may know a little better than me, but I know it's up in the high 90 % that all communication is misunderstood just out of the gate. So we already have that going against us. Anything we can do to help open that door and create that safe space. And again,   I guess my biggest thing, if you kind of said, if there was one takeaway, don't ever start a sentence with why. Don't ever start a sentence with why because you'll automatically put them on the defense. Maybe asking a question of, you share with me how you came to this decision or not, why did you do this?   The Dental A Team (16:17) I totally agree.   Yeah, yeah. think a lot of communication starts that way. And I think I try to encourage teams in general, people, when I go into practices and I'm having these meetings and I'm having similar conversations of teaching even just a full team how to communicate together, I actually try to encourage them to stop considering that they're two different people in their lives. Because we think   I'm at work, I have to be this person at work, but at home, like, are you saying if you were to go to your husband or your kid, like, I think of Brody, my 17 year old son, and for those of you who have been listening for a long time, he's 17 now, yes. But I think like, if I came to him and I was like, why did you do it like this? He'd be like, well, why wouldn't I have? And I'm like, well, that's not, like, I actually needed to know why you did it this way. And he's like, well, why are you asking, right? It would just be this like back and forth.   But instead, come almost like I tell people, think about how to get around it. The why this hard statement is the rock in between you guys. And if you try to push through that rock in the middle, you're not going to get anywhere. I massively hurt my wrist one time trying to move this rock that did not look as heavy as it was for years. My wrist hurt. That's what you're doing. But walking around that rock, walking around that boulder and saying,   I actually really want to understand because sometimes, Ray, I tell practices, if you don't agree with what I'm saying that we need to implement, like tell me because I could be wrong. I might not know your practice as well as I think I do and we need to talk through it. And that's the same thing. Like maybe we got a different result than we wanted, but I need to know how you got there because number one, if you use the system that's in place, it's broken. Number two, if we didn't use the system, we needed to know.   what we did use, right? So I think that's brilliant, Kristy, and really just a way to like get around that issue that's in the middle and keep defenses down.   DAT Kristy (18:27) for sure. Another technique that I've used before and especially from leaders is make sure you keep speaking to the results you're looking for. It's painting the clarity for the person on the other end. What's the end result? What are we trying to achieve here that we're missing the mark? You know, another great thing is being able to state the behavior that you are seeing now, maybe even what it's causing.   You know, for instance, when you are in morning huddle and you go, what about, you know, can you see how that maybe drags everybody down and moving forward, stating the behavior you want to see moving forward? It's OK if you feel that way. But can you refrain from saying it in front of everybody? And you and I have a conversation on the side, you know. So again, it's what's the behavior today that's happening that   isn't so favorable, what's the result we want to see and speaking to that versus the person.   The Dental A Team (19:30) I love that. And again, that is like infusing the care into the person and the situation. But like I want I want you to be looked at as a leader in your position. And I know, just from my own experience, when you do come to the table that way, people actually like the people lose trust in you, you lose value, right. And so I do agree being able to show up. And I think the flip side to all of this that I   of thought of while you were saying that piece, because that's massive, is being able to show up how you want others to and then backing this up. So there's a difference in having this conversation and just being like, cool, had the conversation, Kristy. My team didn't do anything about it. They don't care. They're not changing. And then having the conversation and walking the walk, backing it up and continuing. know, Kristy, you probably get asked this a lot too.   DAT Kristy (20:03) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (20:26) They're like, well, how many times do I have to say it? They're not listening. And I'm like, they are, but they've been, if you're working with a team that's established, right, even established with you, they've been down a road already. So we're retraining behaviors and habits. But the only way to do that is by continuing to show up how you want them to show up. You can't tell someone, I can't tell Brody to do this thing. But if I do it, if I.   If I show him and care and love him enough to show him how to behave and how to be in the world, he mimics that, right? We are all just mirroring each other. We are literally duplicating and repeating what we're seeing. So if your team, this one's a hard truth, this just popped in, but if your team, you're like, my team sucks, be like,   Actually, you know what? Maybe I should look in the mirror and reflect to myself because if I look at my actions, I were mirroring myself and watching myself, how would I show up? Because if you're not walking that walk and you're like, yeah, sweet, vulnerable, humble, come tell me, and then somebody has a conversation with you and you're like, well, this is why, let me tell you why. Guess what you're gonna get when you say, why did this happen? You're gonna get the same behavior, right, Kristy?   DAT Kristy (21:30) Mm-hmm.   Yeah, 100%. You know me and my analogies, but we literally are a product of what we live, right? We learn what we live. And so if we're always coming from that critical spirit, we're going to get more of that, you know? So coming from that space of ⁓ understanding, right, versus criticism. ⁓ And to your point, it's coming full circle again.   A lot of times we don't lean into those difficult conversations and those literally are so powerful. Like really that's where our growth comes and I challenge people to see them as a caring conversation versus a negative conversation if you will. ⁓ Really our growth comes from that and not addressing it is also validating the behaviors.   The Dental A Team (22:34) totally agree.   Totally agree with you. That is, drop the mic right there. I totally agree. And that's that nice space, right? Where we're like, well, I don't want to make them feel bad. Well, you just told them it was okay what they're doing then. So either you have to get over that and be okay with whatever it is. You can no longer hold it against them. And it has become a standard of okayness or you have that conversation. Those are the only two options. That is a.   do or die, like only two options. You cannot personally or professionally continue to hold something against someone if you're not willing to help to change that behavior.   DAT Kristy (23:16) Yeah, and you know, with that tip, I would say I was in that space too, when I was learning, learning to be a leader, because yes, we all have innate characteristics that can guide us to being a leader, but it is a muscle that has to be developed and leaning into those conversations had made me a better leader. But also, I would say having a mentor.   or a coach like us to practice the conversations can be very helpful. Before you get into those conversations, I tell my doctors that all the time. mean, think of professional football teams or baseball or whatever. I always say, how much time do they spend practicing versus how much time do they play on the field? And how often do we practice having hard conversations?   The Dental A Team (23:47) Totally.   Yeah.   Totally. I agree.   Mm-hmm. I totally agree with you and I tell leaders all the time practice at home. I have thank the Lord he blessed me with Brody I have practiced so much communication on him and watched how it's molded him and been like, okay or watched his Reactions or just how a situation altered based on my communication and been like, okay Well, that was a misstep because I think our kids will always tell us ⁓ and it's just it's   DAT Kristy (24:13) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (24:35) training and teaching and guiding them to. So practice on your family. Tell your family, I'm going to practice this. Tell your husband, tell your wife. I don't care. But I do. I totally agree with you. Practice is key. And I think effective leadership and dentistry comes down to being able to have those conversations and being able to back it up. And if you're trying to create a great culture, you're trying to get your team engaged, this is the way to do it. And like Kristy said, you don't have to do it alone.   DAT Kristy (24:41) You   The Dental A Team (25:03) You never do. You never have to do it alone ever. We are always here. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. You guys know that. You've listened to this a million times, but also if you're a client, reach out to your consultant. ⁓ And if you're a future client, like reach out to us. We are here. We're here to have the conversations and we know that you can do it. This is how you inspire culture. So my auction item, Kristy, I think for everyone is to take a look at their leadership style, at the things that are maybe driving you crazy.   DAT Kristy (25:03) Mm-mm.   The Dental A Team (25:33) ⁓ that you feel like you're hitting a wall or maybe your team just isn't right where you want them to be. And then just have a moment of self-actualization and really look at what's creating that. And is there something that you can do differently as a leader that could get a different result? Because that's how you're going to inspire a team to be solution oriented as well. So Kristy, this was beautiful. I hope everyone enjoyed this deep dive of communication and effective leadership conversation. Thank you so much, Kristy, for your amazing   words, you really do handle communication in a way that a lot of people don't yet know how to. So thank you for sharing that wisdom with us today. Everyone, go drop us a review. You know I love to say that, but I really do mean it. And five stars are always fantastic, but really, truly just tell us what worked best for you. If there's anything that you've done that's working, people really do read those reviews.   DAT Kristy (26:13) You're welcome.   The Dental A Team (26:28) drop some information in there as well. And then as always reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. are here to serve and help you, whether it's through leadership, whether it's through systems that is leadership or really just finding those spaces that are overlooked. I know when we were in a practice yesterday, we found just like the easiest, most simple, low hanging fruit possible to make a massive difference. And the office manager said, how did you like that is, I can't believe I didn't think of that. And I said, you know what?   You're here every single day. You're in it. You're in the thick of it. You're in the weeds. You're busy. This is why we exist, is to be able to come in and see areas that are unnoticed that could make a massive, massive difference. So reach out. We are here for you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And we cannot wait to meet you. Thanks, guys.  

Kiera shares with listeners how to run quarterly meetings to get clarity, alignment, and accountability. She touches on the creation of 90-day plans, creating a definition of done, and why instilling a traction cadence is so helpful and practical. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to the podcast today. I hope you're having an amazing day. I hope today's a great day for you. And today we're going to dig into quarterly meetings, ⁓ traction style. So this is based on the framework by Gina Wickman in traction. I've talked about them before. I used to talk about them a lot more and I feel like it's been a hot minute since we brought this up. There's tons of episodes on quarterly meetings. Quarterly meetings are one of my favorite things in the annual planning.   and how to do this because practices who run like this, who operate like this, they truly do so great. Like honest to goodness, so great. And I'm so excited for you to learn how to do these quarterly meetings. ⁓ To me, they're like the guiding principles of a freaking successful practice. So I hope you're excited about it. ⁓ A lot of practices skip these or they run them very loosely. And I want to help you learn how to run these.   very effectively, very efficiently, what they should look like, what you can have. I've been running these for, gosh, I don't know, seven years plus. I've learned a lot through the ways. I have somebody who helps coach our meetings, because I used to self-implement myself, and it's been so beneficial to have somebody help and how much my perspective has changed by having somebody help run them who knows how to do them so well. I love doing this. Yes, we've been trained by traction. We are not traction ourselves.   We do portions of it, but we do Dental A Team's version of it. ⁓ And what I've heard from offices that work with us on them ⁓ is they love that we have the dental background too. So we're able to help solve a lot of their issues, a lot of their problems, but to give the clarity, to give the confidence in these. So I'm excited. We're going to kind of go through how to run a quarterly meeting to get clarity, alignment, and accountability. And that's what it's ultimately for. And two, I feel like give simplicity too. Because once you know like what you're supposed to work on for the quarter, ⁓   Everybody's now aligned, everybody's rowing together. So for that, ⁓ I just want you guys to, I'll kind of walk you through a whole journey of how to do this. So number one, I want you just to go back on last quarter and how did last quarter go for you? What worked, what didn't work, what got done? I think right now you don't even know what happened. Well, it might be time for you to start looking into adding quarterly meetings to your plate. If you do know, rock on, how did you know that? Does your whole team know how you did?   Does the whole leadership team behind it? And then what is like, what are you working on this quarter? Do you know, is there a focus? Is there a plan? ⁓ And so what we're supposed to do is, and I do this with lots of offices and honestly, offices that get this, the leadership team gets more ⁓ honest conversations, more accountability, more peer to peer accountability, more ownership, and the whole organization goes. So the way I break it down is your annual goal is like a mountain. So it's this huge mountain that we're trying to climb and each quarter are the big boulders.   to build up that mountain, so the rocks, and then we have little pebbles and to-dos of the day in, day out. And so every quarter we need to dedicate a full day, yes, a full day, where we actually break away, the leadership team does, and then the leadership team builds what they feel the next quarter needs to be, and then they take it and break it down per departments. So that's kind of like my favorite way to do this. So what we do is we have our mountain, our annual goals, where we're going, we know where we're headed, and then from there we're gonna break it down and build those smaller rocks.   When we're going into a quarterly, we look at where we are based on where we want to be for the year. How did last quarter go? What were the wins? What were the losses? We started having people grade the quarter in the leadership team and that's been real fun. And that's just to see if everybody's aligned. So how do we do on an ABCD? Did we accomplish the things that we set out to do? Are we on track for the year of where we wanted to be? What are we seeing from all that? And what lessons did we learn that we should either do again or not do? I think that's so paramount when I'm going into leadership departments and   working on them with these quarterlies is to see like, what did we do really well and what did we not do and what should we do again and what should we not do again? And when you break it down like that, it's so incredible. And then you go into building your next 90 day plan, if you will, is what these quarterly meetings are. What are the most important three to five things that have to get that in this next quarter that are going to take us three months that are big boulders to help us reach the top mountain point that we've all agreed to is where we want to get to by the end of this year. So if our goal this year is to produce 3 million.   We've to break that down by quarters. We've got to have projections. Obviously, not every quarter is going to be the same based on the ups and downs within a practice. That's something very common. ⁓ Usually, December is not as high. September is not as high. So let's make sure that we're on track for that. Then we're looking at our overhead. We're looking at big initiatives. So maybe it's an operations manual. Maybe it's hiring an associate. Maybe it's getting all of our assistance CPR certified. Maybe it's getting all of our assistance to where they can do   oral surgery, whatever it is, there's big initiatives. Maybe we need to bring billing in house. Maybe we need to outsource billing. Maybe we need to figure out medical billing. Those are big initiatives that are going to move an organization forward exponentially, depending upon your practices needs. So then we break it down. And what I love to do is when we build these 90 day plans, not just have people like what I used to do, and this is something I've learned that I think can really help you out a quarterly is I don't just set up a like, we need to get an operations manual done in 90 days. No, no, no, no.   What is, and this comes from the book Come Up for Air, what is the definition of done? So that means that every department needs to have a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly skeleton. We need to have 20 protocols done per person for all the different departments. That's what the definition of done of getting this operations manual done in 90 days looks like. What does onboarding an associate look like or onboarding a front office team member? It means that they know our company core values, they know our company mission, and that they're able to independently do X, and Z.   Well, what's awesome is when we have a definition of done, now everybody knows what that goal is. Is that realistic to get done in 90 days and what the focus is? Now, when I started working with teams and depending upon the size of it, a lot of times rocks are individual and they're individual department focused. But as organizations get larger and larger, sometimes we do what's called like a rallying cry or like a centralized focus. So maybe it's that this whole quarter,   the focus is getting everybody up on par for operations manual. And that's what we're all gonna focus on. If we just got that thing done amongst all departments, the whole organization would move faster. So there's no right or wrong way to do it. I've just found that depending upon the size of the organization and where they're located and what they're focused on, sometimes that whole collective initiative is the right thing to do. Other times the departments need individual focuses. So once we get those rocks or these big boulders with a 90 day plan with a definition of done, who's doing what,   is this realistic? Do we have the capacity to do it? Then from there you move into like solving issues and resolving. And if you set really, really good rocks and quarterly 90 day plans, what I found is a lot of times the issues actually break apart and there's not as many issues and we solve a lot of the issues because they're fixed in our 90 day plan. And it's so incredible. And so like really having solid, solid ways to solve issues.   to set this up and then we work through the issues. That's one thing I love about being a consultant running these is because we have so many resources. So it's like, oh, we're struggling with scheduling. Great. We have scheduling templates. We're struggling with hiring this person. Great. We already have that. We're struggling with this 30, 90, this 30, 60, 90 onboarding. Great. We already have that for you. We're scheduling with hygiene capacity. Great. We have solutions for that. So helping offices then learn how to solve issues independently is also really beautiful.   what the process is for that and how can we do this in different ways that we can make this even better for the offices is something so good. So when you walk out of your quarterly 90 day plan, you should have one, how did we do last quarter? Two, where are we at for the entire year? What does that look like? Are we on track? Are we off track? And if we're off track, do we have a plan to get back on track with our 90 day plan?   what every person and every department is doing for these next 90 days and their specific, measurable, attainable, realistic with a timeframe with a definition of done on all of them. And they're truly the most important things. We've solved issues, we have massive clarity and all of us agree to have healthy debates. And then what we do is we track it every single week. So it becomes so clearing, so clarifying, and especially for practices that are, I think more obsessive with. ⁓   trying to get so many things done, what this forces you to do is to prioritize, to focus. Now, owners, lot of times, like myself included, I have so many great ideas. And I always think like, this is so great and I want to do X, Y, Z and all these different things. Well, what I found is that actually is really hard for my team to ever feel like they're making progress, they're making traction, there's nothing for them to really do. And so with the quarterly plan, all my great ideas get like pinned for next time because the 90 day plans rolled out.   Now, sometimes things happen. Like we might lose a team member unexpectedly. We might have other things that come up. But if I do this really, really well and my quarterly plan is really set up right, then we shouldn't stray even when things happen. And the goal is that 80 % of your boulders or your 90 day plans are accomplished every single quarter. And your office manager, your regional is responsible and accountable for making sure those like get across the goal line. And so   I love working with offices on this. love setting up. It takes eight hours. So you start out, you start out with some fun like trust building or leadership growth things are how you start. We review the quarter. We look to see how that goes for everybody. We give it a rating of how we did it. Then after that, we go through our vision of where the company is going, our core values. Are those all in alignment? We check to see if our team's all in alignment. Do we have any people we need to?   ⁓ rise up or rise out. We review that. We look to make sure our accountability or org chart is correct and that we've got right players, things are clear for all of it. So to me, it's just a good like housekeeping every single quarter. Then we build our 90 day plan. We overcome obstacles, we solve issues, and then we go to work that next quarter and we check it every single week. And saying that seems so simple. And that's actually why I love traction. That's why I love this model. It's why I love ⁓ the cadence of it.   But what's really amazing is if you pair it with Patrick Lanzioni's five dysfunctions of a team and you really start working on that trust and vulnerability and then healthy debate.   But what's really amazing is when you build the clarity with the quarterly, with the plan, ⁓ and you're working on those healthy debates, the peer-to-peer, the ownership, that's when you really start to win. That's when you start to win as an organization. That's when you start to build trust amongst your leaders. That's when you start to make sure that you're really focused on where you wanna go. And so I'm just so obsessive about it. This is what people do in large organizations and...   When I go to conferences and I talk to really brilliant businesses, they're all running on this. And so I'm like, if this is what the best of the best are doing, and I do think it's the easiest, the most consistent, the easiest to follow. But when I said at the beginning, I used to self-implement and I used to run these meetings and having somebody come in and run them, who's not me, has allowed me to sit in the owner seat, to sit in the CEO seat where I don't have to sit here and think about running it.   But I can actually sit back and I can look and watch my leadership team evolve. I can watch the different pieces. I can ⁓ really truly observe. can think I'm not having to sit here and make sure we're putting things together and I'm pushing my own initiatives. But I have somebody who's there that can see my team from a perspective I can't see them from. And it's such an amazing experience. And so I just strongly recommend if you haven't done it, start, start implementing it. If you need help, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.   We do this for so many offices and it's something just really magical to be able to help you get the clarity and offices that have implemented have told me like, we just feel alignment. We feel traction. We feel clarity. ⁓ Quarters are not as hard. It's easier to hit goals and expectations. All of that becomes easier. And so I just encourage you to try it, to commit to putting it into place. And this is something where if we can help you guys set it up and to run in for you.   something that we do. So reach out hello at thedeadlyteam.com but truly, this is something that I think you, your organization and every team member deserves. And then you go break it down in departments and we make sure that it's clear, it's tracked, it's measured, and it's focused. And you're actually able to like move the company forward so much. So all those big to do projects that you've always wanted to get done, this is how you get them done. So don't hesitate. Don't wait. Be sure to commit to your practice. Start with the quarterlies. This is how to like   a quick overview of how to run them. There's more in depth. You can reach out, ask questions, but truly you, your practice and your whole leadership team and your whole team deserve to have this. Now, if your team's small, that's okay. You can actually start with your whole team. We can get alignment that way. If your team's larger, you can move it into leadership meetings. So there's a certain spot where I actually move it that's recommended, but other times a lot of it is actually like open to the whole team and there's strategy in both ways to do it. So reach out.   Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Commit to running amazing quarterlies and just get it done guys. That's what this is about. Thank you guys for listening and as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.  

It's book club time! Kiera talks about The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and how the method can propel leaders into the best versions of themselves. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is book club time. It's been a hot minute since we've done a book club and there's a book club that I feel like is just a really good one. It's a popular book right now. If you've read it, great. If you haven't, well, welcome. I'm excited to share with you and it's from Mel Robbins and it's the Let Them Theory. I was very fascinated by this. I'm still fascinated by it and I think it's something of like when Mel Robbins said that you do not need to control everything.   and that peace might come from letting go, not holding tighter. I thought, hmm, I might know a couple of dentists, CEOs, business owners, AKA myself, which means that there's probably several of you that might be struggling with some of these pieces. So whether you wanna read the book or not, just giving some highlights of how you can truly reduce your stress, lead with more confidence and stop micromanaging team and patient behavior, like that might be something worthwhile today. So I wanted to just.   Bring that on today, share with you some quick tips and tricks on how you can even apply this principle in your practice that I've been seeing. As always, Dental A Team is here to grow leaders that are not just successful, but truly like having sanity and happiness in life. ⁓ Today, our podcast is going to be giving you tactical practical tips. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And we do that through expert consulting for dentists and teams. I am not.   Shy to admit that I think Dental A Team is probably one of the top-notch consulting companies out there where we don't just understand you But we are you that we don't just sit here and tell you doctors what to do But we actually actively work with your team to help them We have grown practices 10 20 30 percent within their first 90 days of working with us. We've added multiple millions We've added hundreds of thousands to offices and we've done it with ease simplicity fun teams actually love to work with us they enjoy working with us and that's something I'm really really proud of as a company of   We don't just come in and like dictate to your team and force them to become robots. We literally help them, ⁓ give them some tools and then elevate them to be their best selves. And doctors, we teach you how to be successful owners for your path, for what makes you happy. And we do it in such an easy way. People are always shocked at the gains and the growth that we're able to do in such an easy, non-confrontational, non-stressful way. So that's what we're about. And I'm super, super excited about the let them theory.   ⁓ Because the let them theory I think works so well for leaders. So anybody listening today this is really is leaders and I remember in the book she talks about how like She just has to let them like let people be who they are and it's actually helped me with my family So today I don't think it's necessary just solely for your practice But also pieces for you within your personal life and that's something Dental A Team were really big on is growing you as a person not just as a practice I just got a   a voice memo from a doctor I worked with a couple of years ago. And this doctor said to me, they said, Kiera, ⁓ the year working with you was actually one of the most impactful years in all of my dentistry career. ⁓ This doctor is doing incredible things. And the doctor told me like just the mindset shifts that we were able to help them have ⁓ of helping them become more efficient of, they said, you pushed me to do certain things like hire an assistant and to   Be accountable to you. And this doctor was really, really, really, really brilliant doctor. And to hear that compliment that ⁓ their time working with us was something that was the most impactful in their growth of their business. I just took as such a huge compliment to what we do because we're not just shaping you as a business owner, we're shaping you as a human. My background is marriage and family therapy. My passion is dentistry and my love of all things is life. Dentistry just happens to be the platform that I get to talk about it on.   And so for this within the let them theory, it's let people be who they are. Truly we can't control other people's actions, but we can control how we are responding. And I know that sounds so simple, but ⁓ in there, like if we let team members show up late, it tells you who they're going to be. We let a patient cancel last minute. It's information for better boundaries in the future. Letting an OCA ignore feedback, it reveals growth readiness. And so like for that, I'm not here for you just to like...   allow people to walk all over you. do believe that there is a standard within a practice that you should maintain and that is perfectly acceptable. However, you can allow people to be who they want to be and that doesn't mean that they need to be on your ship. It's allow them to have the opportunities outside of your location that are perfect for them, but you don't need to try to control every person's actions. ⁓ With my mom, my mom and I view the world so differently and when I read this book, I realized   what my mom wants. Now she's not an employee. Employees for me, there is a code of conduct and there is a way that we show up. That's the standard of Dental A Team. And if you choose an elect not to be there, rock on, we're going to coach you through it. And then we're going to coach you out of it. Like it's one or the other where they're going to coach up or coach out. Both are amazing because I want you ultimately in your dream space. ⁓ and there is a, there is a code of conduct that Dental A Team will operate by. And so with that, with my mom, I realized in my personal life, my mom just wants to be loved for who she is.   She doesn't want to be coached. She doesn't want to be corrected. She just wants to be loved for who she is. And so for me to let my mom do things that make me absolutely crazy, there actually is this whole relief. And when you realize like, can allow team members to be who they want to be in, that just means that there's isn't a place for them. Like that's okay. I can allow patients who don't want to follow our processes, like allow them to find another practice and to have that. Now there's ways that we can coach them through this. There's ways that we can do this.   But I've had practices when they finally decide to stop having patients just show up, cancel last minute, and they're like, no more, this is how it's going to be. Here's the rules of the game. And patients who do like not to, they get to leave the practice. Their production actually exponentially increases. Their patients exponentially become better patients. Like all of it rises up. The ones who decide that they're going to allow team members to be who they are, this is how we're going to operate. And if you choose not to, that's okay. Their practices actually start to thrive. And so   The question is, who are you trying to force right now to change? And what if you let them and focus on our... The word boundaries is so obnoxious to me, because I feel like people put boundaries up of like, this is what I will or won't do, which is great. And for me, it's more like, what are the standards? What are the standard processes? What's the culture of our company or our patient base? That's I'm going to enforce. That's what we're going to focus on instead. And then I'm going to allow people to be who they are. And I'm going to attract the people that I want in here.   Like what would be, who am I trying to force to change right now? And what if I let them and just change my focus to the standards and the processes in our company? Question number one. Okay, number two, stop micromanaging and start leading. So micromanagement's rooted in fear, not in leadership. And so what they did is they said like, let them miss the mark once, they'll learn faster. Let your office manager handle the upset patient, it builds ownership. Let your hygienist structure their day ⁓ that's within, again, the parameters of our company culture.   That way they'll be happier. so like ⁓ micromanaging, do feel there needs to be a foundation first in place. And then once we have that, we don't have to micromanage everything. And for me, something I found, there's the founder's theory too, and something I've been learning is as a founder, as someone who started a business, you tend to hold onto so many things because you've had to. Like you've been in the day to day. And so being able to let people and stop   being obsessed with every single detail because we've got the foundations in place. Now, if you don't have the foundations in place, it becomes a lot harder and a lot scarier. But if you have those things in place, what we can do is we actually see a team rise up and what we're telling our team is they're empowered. Like here's the rules of the game within our practice. Now go create our consultants. Here's how we consult. I want you to go be the most autonomous humans and I want you to figure out how to help these practices. And it's crazy because the consultants rise up, they take ownership, they love to be able to do that.   anything within your team being able to see that as well is really something beautiful for them. looking at the call to action on this would be look at your life, look at your practice and where are you holding on so tight? And let's figure out what protocols or processes need to be put into place so our company standards and expectations can be met. And then can we put into practice the let them this week and observe what shifts. Two questions for you to consider. And don't worry for those type A's who are just like gritting.   They're like knuckles right now. Don't worry, that's me too. So I'm not here to say that I'm perfect at this. I just think it's a good perspective shift to help us have more space, more happiness, more peace, and also to figure out where we can like set up the parameters within our company. Number three is let go to grow. ⁓ And so when we hold on tight, just like I talking about, like the white knuckling.   Like even my body, there's stress, there's resistance, there's burnout. Like this is what causes it, because we're trying to hold all the balls in the air. We're trying to do all the pieces and literary practice will outgrow you. ⁓ I watched it happen time and time and time again, and doctors will either learn to let them and like build the processes, build the structure, allow the team members to grow, or they're going to hold on and they're going to shrink. It's one of the two and it happens every single time. There's no right path. It's your path. ⁓ But like let your leadership team run the meetings.   Let your team opt in and out of culture. Don't force it. If they choose not to rock on, they can go find another dream job. That's okay. Let other opinions be theirs. It doesn't define our worth. Like what can we allow like letting go of that? So when we, ⁓ when we stop obsessing about this, like, for example, we stopped trying to hold onto a toxic team member. watched this constantly in offices where it's like, no, I have to keep them and I need to have them like, let them not be great and let them leave because they're not fitting the culture.   And what's crazy is like even that, like my whole body releases, like let them. And I know we're so afraid of like, yeah, but then I won't have team members. Or could it be like, yes, and I've created space for the ideal team member. I will tell you when I have done this every single time. There's not been a single time when I've been like, and we release it, we let them. Someone just as good, if not better has shown up every single time. And so looking at this of...   Where are you maybe holding on too tight that you could allow team members to rise up that you could allow them to take ownership that you could allow them to start to put into place the things you've done. And what's wild is like, tell doctors all the time, like you have to go on vacation. Like that's it. That's a necessity to see where are things broken in your practice? Where do things need to shift and change? ⁓ where can you let your team rise? And if they choose not to rise, that's okay. You know, you don't have the right leaders in place. Like all of it's just data back for you. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing broken. There's nothing that you need to be mad about.   It's just truly data and information to help you then set better foundations, put better protocols into place and to hire team members that more align. ⁓ You will outgrow your team and your team will outgrow you or you will grow together. It'll be one of those three things. And so looking at that and all of that's okay. So I think for this, as we look at it of let people be who they are and stop micromanaging and release what's weighing us down.   This isn't a passive theory. It's very powerful. Letting go is leadership. Letting go is ⁓ truly putting the parameters in place and allowing team members to grow and to thrive within. And again, me coming on here, I feel a little like imposter syndrome because I don't feel like I am always here. I feel like I'm holding on so many times and I'm having the control. But when I like, I make lists, you guys, I feel like a crazy person. Like it's a beautiful mind. That's my office. I have...   papers everywhere and I'm looking at different things. And when I look at what causes me the most amount of stress, it's because I'm trying to do it all. And I'm trying to hold on to everything rather than saying, okay, what's the protocol I need in place? What are the things that truly I need to care for? And as a founder, again, I think that this is, this is a stripping of identity. It's a stripping of things you've always done, but it's also freeing and it's also creating and it's also allowing you to flourish versus just survive. And so for this, ⁓ think like,   Let it looking to see where can I let go and where should I let go? What parameters do I need to put in place? And how can I allow my team to flourish and thrive? I promise you autonomous people and great team members want you to let go. They want to know the rules of the game. They want to know how can I excel? And then once I know the rules of the game, let me like get out of my way and let me show you, let me do more than you ever imagined I could do. ⁓ let me, let me blow your mind with the ideas that I have.   Those are great team members. That's what we want all of our team to be. And so I think for this of possibly, if you haven't read the book, go read the book. If you've read it, maybe read it again and look at yourself to see where am I holding on that's holding us back? Where could I let team members or patients be different and maybe create space for people that I want that have a different code of conduct, not right or wrong, just different. ⁓   And where can I be a stronger leader where I can truly lead and not manage? Leading versus managing, they're two, they feel so interchangeable and they're so separated. And so where can I show up differently? And again, this isn't letting go of standards. This isn't letting go of your standard of excellence. This isn't saying that we're just going to allow chaos because we're just gonna let people be themselves. It's saying, here's the code of conduct. This is what we do. And then we allow people to show up as that.   rise up or rise out, both are great options. ⁓ And so looking at that. really something powerful on the podcast is not just giving you tactical pieces within your practice, but helping you show up as a better leader because leadership is ultimately going to impact the success of your business. I can always tell if a practices as a consulting client will be successful and it's due to the leader. Truly a hundred percent. Who's on my leadership team? How are their behaviors? What are they willing to do? That is the number one indicator of success in consulting and in your practice.   And so for this, I feel it's very relevant that we have to give leadership tips for you, that we have to help you evolve into the next version of leadership that you can be. This is for me, this is for you, this is for all of us. And remembering leadership's not a destination, it's a journey, it's an evolution of soul. Someone once told me having kids will strip you down to the bare ⁓ bones of who you thought you were and ultimately helps evolve you into who you want to be. And I would say, I think business is very much...   a similar and different process. ⁓ It strips you down to nothing. It rips away all the things that you thought you were. We build these businesses to create these different cultures and we end up creating very similar cultures and we have to work so hard to become these different versions of ourselves, to show up differently for our teams, to show up differently for ourselves, ⁓ to evolve. The person that you were is not the person that you need to be to take you to where you want to go. I hope you heard that. The person that you need to be is not who you were.   to take you to where you want to be. And so you have to evolve, you have to grow. And so I would also say, let you become that person. Let you evolve into a different version. Let you become the person that you were meant to be. Leadership is a growth. This is something that I love helping offices do. This is what our consultants obsess about. So if we can help you in any way, reach out, ⁓ figure out how you can lead with clarity, calm and confidence. See how you can be like that practice I told you about where.   your best year of your life or the best year practices lives or the years that you're with Dental A Team because you became a better person. You became a higher version of yourself and we did that for you and your team. That's what we're about. That's what we're obsessed about. And that's what I'd love to help you with. So reach out if that's, if that's what you want, let's chat. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com or click on our website, TheDentalATeam.com and book a call. I'd love to help you. I'd love to evolve who you are meant to be for the practice that you deserve to have. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.

Is running a dental practice the most stressful part of your life? Does hiring and retaining the right people seem impossible? Do you question whether dentistry was the right choice for you? Kiera reflects on DAT's recent CEO Dentist Webinar, including what dental leadership ideally looks like — from an individual and team perspective. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so giddy to be recording this podcast. If you missed it, you missed out. We did our CEO dentist webinar workshop and it was so rad. We did it in August and just kudos to all the doctors that were there. If you missed it, you're in luck. I'm going to give you the highlight reel. But I really hope that you plan to join us. It was a three day, ⁓ full playful out workshop that I just thoroughly loved. had doctors.   joining us every single night and really just having that mindset shift of how do I go from being this day in day out operator to a CEO owner of my business? Like what are the things that I really should be doing as a CEO versus what should I be doing as a founder? Like how do we shift that mindset? And we did it based on our proven model, the yes model. You guys have heard me chat about that. The focusing on you and your vision, earnings and profitability, and then systems and team development. So it was just really, really fun. This really was something to help.   Honestly, like afterwards, had so many calls with so many people that were there. And it was just joyful because they said, Kiera, I really want to learn how to be the CEO. Like as you talked about it, I finally understood like what my role should look like and how I should be evolving. And so just really fun. So just want to say thanks for our entire team. Thanks to everybody who joined. And for all of you, if you didn't ⁓ get to be there, you missed out. It was like full blown. And I did a little surprise. I wasn't expecting it, but I actually ended up ⁓   like doing an after party and it was really fun to just have real conversations. So ⁓ really, truly just a highlight. And today I'm going to kind of like break this down into what we did. I'll give a couple of highlights from each day of just for you to kind of get the highlight reel of it. And then, Hey, if you ever want to chat about how to become the CEO dentist of your practice, this is what we're doing for a lot of offices. I've kind of been shifting our model to help dentists and teams really elevate to have practices that run with team.   leadership to have dentists to truly run in their realm of being that healthcare provider that you love and or exiting and going out of the chair. No, there's no set path. It's your path and really helping dentists ⁓ just elevate to that level of like, do I own this business and not have it own me? So just super jazz. That's what we're working on. Just really, really, really fun and exciting things and getting your team bought into this as well. So with that, I'm just excited. Welcome. If you're new to the podcast, I'm Kiera. It's super nice to meet you.   ⁓ I love all things dentistry, including my last name is Dent. ⁓ I came from self-made, ⁓ being able to help practices grow to the level, the growth, the fulfillment, the joy that they want, helping doctors and teams align. And this is coming from real life, all of my experiences, all of our collective experience of our consulting team, bringing you tactical practical tips to make your life and your business work for you and not against you. So with that,   ⁓ was just a jazz. Like it was so fun. So the first day we really talked about, ⁓ just some topics of like who can relate. So if you can relate to this great, this podcast is for you. number one is running a dental practice is the most stressful part of your life. hiring and retaining the right people seems almost impossible. Some months so great. Others feel like you're drowning. Your patients are canceling last minute, leaving your team and you helpless. know how to be a dentist, but you have no clue how to run a business. You're alone with your problems.   You question if dentistry was the right choice for you. You feel like everyone has it together, but you don't. ⁓ and I hope if you answered yes to any of those questions, you realize that truly, truly, truly, you're not alone. And every single dentist feels this at some point and some survive and others thrive. And so the whole goal of the CEO Dennis workshop was to help you thrive. And so on the first day we really went through like, what exactly is a CEO? I remember there was this aha moment in my career where I'm like,   what does a CEO actually do? I'm not joking, I Googled this and I was like, what is a CEO? Like, what do they do? And it was a good, I would say a good, ⁓ probably identity shift for me. To realize like a CEO is your chief executive officer. So like, this is the person who executes. So you oversee the execution of day to day, but you don't do it all. So your job is to lead the vision, plan for the future.   Create and protect the culture and do big opportunities, but stay out of the weeds. Like that's genuinely what you're supposed to do. And a lot of dentists, we'll add one more Asherick. A lot of times you do the dentistry. Sometimes you do it full time and other times you hire associate dentists to do it with you. So like, that's what it means. It means you oversee. You think about a CEO of Amazon, they are not packing the boxes and shipping it out. They are not calling on all the customer service things. They are not creating the bots and the software.   Their job is to look over the vision. Their job is to keep people accountable. Their job is to plan for the future, look for the big opportunities, ⁓ really truly protect the culture and stay out of the weeds. So I think when I looked at that, I'm like, how many dentists actually live like this? Probably not a lot. So what we did is we like went through an audit and then we worked on like the key foundation and this might feel a little fluffy and I'm sure some participants might have thought this, but if we don't get the you portion of the yes model correct, we can't say yes to things.   The number one, and I purposely built the yes model in the pillars in the exact formula of you first earning second systems third. And if you will follow this model, you really truly can get there. And so what we talked about is how like how you show up as a leader directly impacts the success, the relationships, your financial and personal freedom and the overall happiness and fulfillment you have in your practice. So when I look at this, like, okay, great. You have to take care of you and   We talked about like actually how to shift your identity. And so a lot of times people identify themselves today. But if you knew like Tony Robbins said, the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves, not who we actually are, but how we define ourselves. So what we actually had ⁓ everybody doing the workshop on day one was to create this new identity of being the CEO dentist. Like what would the CEO dentist do or not do? ⁓ you're still checking charts at night. What a CEO handle end of day task like that.   Yes or no. No one's held accountable. What does CEO allow chaos to become culture? Your team's just clocking in. How would a CEO reignite motivation? You're bleeding cancellations. How would a CEO oversee the systems to prevent that? Your schedule's full, but your profits don't show it. How would a CEO fix that? Cashflow is unpredictable. How would a CEO create stability? You're doing busy work and have no time to look at the big picture. How would a CEO solve it?   So just again, it's like when we shift our identity, not from who you are, but to a CEO. So I now am, I'm not Kiera, I'm not dentist Kiera. I am now, you guys, I was never dentist Kiera. I was dental assistant Kiera, I'm consulting Kiera. But for you, like you're dentist John, you go in, you do the fillings, you are this practice owner. But what would CEO John or CEO Kiera or CEO Sarah or CEO Marsha or CEO Tom or CEO Tony or CEO Kevin, what would they do or not do?   And when you can shift this identity, you can actually start to see, and you can look at the delegation ladder. And we talked about the delegation ladder of what tasks, because when you're a small business versus when you expand and become a larger business, you actually have different, like it's literally in a tier of what you're going to delegate and when, because as a founder is a new startup, as a CEO, you're doing a lot of the work. You don't have the cashflow. You can't afford it. You're going to do all the work. So at that point, that CEO is doing that.   But as the practice builds and evolves, a lot of CEOs stay there and they don't actually evolve into delegating the tasks that they should be. And so when we go through the entire delegation ladder from like administrative tasks, a patient experience, treatment coordinator, and selling cases to marketing, to leadership, these are all the zones of where is your name out on that delegation ladder and where should it be based on the current size of your practice. And then what, even if you're small, what's your next hire? Well, first hires administrative tasks. So it's either a front office team member, it's a personal assistant, or it's an office manager.   that's going to immediately delegate all of those front office tasks for you, but they're going to do all of that. And then you move into, you're doing the patient experience, you're doing the closing of the cases, you're doing the marketing, you're doing the leadership, like, but you, you offload that first and then you offload the next and the next and the next. And so really looking at this of like, we, it was really cute. We had this fairy godmother and it's like, you are now the CEO. It's time to be the CEO. And I think for us on day one of people just being highlighted of   you now have this new identity. And so looking at it of when I look at this, what's standing in my way of being the CEO? What does my dream business look like? What does that vision timeline look like for me? And what must change now to become the CEO? So as you go through that, that was a quick recap of day one. And then we rolled right into day two, which day two is a lot more tactical. Day one's a bit more of you, you becoming and taking on this new identity. And I will tell you,   when I got on calls afterwards, because it was actually real fun. We had a lot of calls, really excited to welcome the new offices to our company and to our group. And they're already shifting and changing. had some people text me after that of saying, I'm now committing to being the CEO dentist. And when you take and embody a new identity, like, because I thought through this and we were brainstorming as we were prepping this webinar or this workshop. And I thought, how am going to get people to recognize that the you portion is the most pivotal pillar of this whole success model?   And how do get them to do it quickly? And I realized change identity is the fastest way to change. But like changing identity can feel hard. But if I tell you like, it's like putting on a t-shirt and I say, all right, today you're wearing CEO t-shirt. How are you going to act? Just like I can be Kiera, the executor. I can be Kiera, the consultant. I can be Kiera, the sales. I can be Kiera, the customer service. Those are just t-shirts and hats. But if I'm going to put on my main t-shirt, my main hat, I change my identity and I walk into that office every day. And I'm now the CEO dentist.   you will start to act quicker and faster. It's just like the person who wants to get healthy read Atomic Habits. say what they do is they don't ask them to like become healthy. They say, what would a healthy person do? Well, they would walk to their car instead of driving and get the closest parking spot. They would eat snacks like celery sticks for snacks rather than other things. They would have their tennis shoes by the side of their bed. They would go walking every day. you don't, and that's how you'd be able to like, what would a CEO dentist do? What would a CEO dentist not do?   That's how you can start to shift this identity and become that. So that was just a quick, like I said, quick recap of day one and then day two is just fun. It's about numbers. ⁓ Numbers are one of my favorite things because you've got to really understand numbers because numbers are your superpower. Not knowing your numbers, believe it or not, causes more stress than knowing them. Even if they're bad, even if they're good, not knowing because you're getting this constant fear of like, are they good? Do we have money? I don't know. It's also helping you make confident decisions.   develops the steps of where you need to go. And it also helps you track progress to take action before it's too late. So really numbers to me are the proactive approach in a business rather than the reactive. And it's okay, it does not matter where we start. It always helps us then become more proactive as we're going through. So we went through KPI. So a key performance indicator, which one should you be looking at? What are some common ones? We went through stats and KPI spreadsheets, how we look at these, like what we need to do on the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. So like daily we're looking at month.   Today production collections, we only have that 98%. We also want to look at our end of day sheet, making sure we've got all of those procedures built out weekly. We're looking at our KPIs to review during doctor and OM weekly meetings. So looking at trends, creating action items before things get too late, like literally our entire team and our clients, they track stats every single week. Cause we're looking for trends. The offices that do this are always my profitable offices. The offices that don't are the not profitable. Like it is science though, like what you track and measure improves. So track.   Monthly, you do your month and number review, like all the KPIs, what were the trends and what are we going to do better next month? Where are we at? I just talked to an office the other day. We realized we're a hundred thousand behind where we want to be for end of year. We have four months left or two months left or one mother, wherever you are. But if you plan and you look ahead. Four months, trying to make up a hundred grand is way easier to do than two months, trying to make up a hundred grand. So when we look at that and you just change the game, you change how we schedule, we change how we're going to do our block schedules. All of it is really easy, but if you don't look at this and you don't measure it.   Huh, you're in stress. This is stress. ⁓ We look at our overhead, we look at our PNL, and then quarterly we look at our year to date, where are we at? What are the gaps? We're gonna set reach goals or quarterly goals, and then we track weekly and make sure we're on track for that. So we went through a monthly cost spreadsheet too. This is honestly my most favorite spreadsheet of all time. So legit, I love it, and it's here, and it's something that I have of what is our monthly BAM, our bare ACE minimum? What does it cost us to run the practice?   on a high end, low end and where we currently are. So if I've got to scale and add more people, if I need to reduce in times of chaos or hard times, I at least know those numbers and that will give you so much confidence because now you've got a piece of the puzzle to then know what do we need to produce? What do we need to collect? We went through an overhead calculator and what are the benchmarks? What should my payroll be? What should my supplies be? Labs, advertising, all of that. What's my overhead? What's my doctor salary and where can I cut? Because the way to fix your numbers are three things. One, decrease what we're spending.   That's one, two, increase production and three, increase collections. If our collections, cause you can be producing and if you're not collecting, guess what your overhead sky high strip, like that's a stressful zone. Just go collect the money. You've already done it. Collect the money. If we're not producing enough to cover our bills, well, we need to increase our production and build block schedules and different pieces like that to make sure what we need to produce for our practice is actually there. And then like looking at our costs, what can we cut? What things could be more efficient in? do we maybe need to delay a hire or do we need to make the hire?   whatever it is, but knowing those areas, like that's where math becomes very fun. Numbers become fun. It's just a simple math equation. It's not hard. We're not going into algebra and geometry and calculus and all of that trig. No, it's literally simple, basic math where we can say, okay, this is what I'm making. This is what I'm spending. And this is what we're collecting. Which of those levers do I need to turn? And so showing offices how like collections matter and different pieces like   going through an overhead calculator, had actual spreadsheets for KPIs, for a monthly cost spreadsheet, for our overhead calculator. All of that was actually really, really lovely. And then showing offices like we're aiming for you to be 20 % profitable after doctors paid, after all expenses are paid, 20 % profit is what we aim for with our practices. And so when you look at your profit, and if right now you're like, I don't even know profit, hey, let's chat. Let's talk about it because you gotta make the money and keep the money. We're gonna make sure we're not spending more money than we're making. And then we're prepping and preparing and we're working towards that profit margin.   having cash flow, having profit at the end of the month will lower your stress radically. So we went through all that. We also had like a whole KPI checklist to have, and it was really fun because when we look at these numbers, this is where the stress stops. And we actually went through like a real life example with the people that were participating with us and they could quickly see, you don't even know this practice. Look at this KPI scorecard. What do you see and what should this practice take immediate action on? Again, a CEO hat, a CEO shirt.   That person's going to look at the trends. They're not going to go dig into the weeds. Most of the time, they're going to look at this and say, okay, well, if my production's 160 and my collections are a hundred right now, even you listening on the podcast, you can tell that's my gap. We're producing 160, but we're collecting a hundred now that one succeed because we're putting in our numbers in gross, not net production. That's a problem. Fix that. Maybe our collections are good, but if we're producing that in net and we're only collecting a hundred thousand, that's a huge gap. What do we need to do to fix our collections?   Our year to date collection presented 62%. You know right there. And when this office had an overhead of 85%, well, to me looking at that without even knowing this practice, they have a collections problem right there. They increase the collections, their overhead goes down, money instantly becomes available. So many offers like, here, we don't have the money. And I look and I'm like, you got 500,000 in AR, you've got the money. We just need to collect the money. You're producing well, your expenses are in line. Or other times like our expenses are high. Let's reduce that. Let's figure out how we can get it.   So giving some parameters in that and really knowing like, when you look at as a quick review for you, do you actually use your numbers as super power? So one, do you have KPIs? Two, do you review them weekly? Three, does every team member have their own number and do they track them? So meaning like a number that's going to move the business forward that they know that they can impact that they own as ownership. Does your team know how they can impact the numbers? Do you know your overhead? Do you know what's in your AR right now? How much money is sitting out?   And do you have a plan to get to ideal profit? So answering those questions really will help you kind of have an overview of, all right, got it. These are the things. And I will say for anybody, you want, we actually gave away a lot of these worksheets. So to anybody who scheduled the call. So if you're like, Hey, I'm just curious, like, how can you help me with like maybe my you portion, maybe my earning portion or the last person of systems and team development. Hey, schedule a call with us. I'm happy to share a lot of these spreadsheets with you in a lot of the pieces, because why not? I know you weren't there and I know you didn't get all of it.   But I would love to help you out and I'd love to give you a lot of these resources. So book a call. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com or go to our website, TheDentalATeam.com click book a call. I think it's really something lovely to be able to help. And honestly, Hey, why not? You're going to get all the resources and we're to be able to give you a true roadmap for your practice. actually do. ⁓ it's about an hour long complimentary call where we actually go through your practice. give you a highlight, ⁓ of where to go. What are kind of the big pieces in your practice and then also give you resources. So really it's a no risk for you.   ⁓ It's no pressure, just truly clarity and momentum. So, ⁓ and like I said, the KPI scorecard, the monthly spending, the overhead calculator, those types of things I think are just so powerful to be able to access those and to even see what you should or could be doing. So then as a wrap, day three of the workshop was so fun. It was one of my favorite days. Shout out to Eve, our marketer. She said, Kiera.   I want you to really try something for me. And I'm all here for innovation creation. Like let's try something new. And she said on systems, I want us to do like a rapid fire. And so what we did, because what I found is one, you have the vision, you take on this, this, this new hat, new identity of I'm the CEO dentist. You now know that numbers are your superpower and you're going to use your numbers to not be used by your numbers. So you're to look at the numbers and we're going to see where are the gaps.   whatever your numbers are. So the numbers need to lead to the vision and whatever numbers tell us, the numbers tell us a story. Just like that example I gave you, there was a collections problem. Well, great. If there's a collections problem, that's the system that we now go implement into a practice. So it's really, really great to see like, my gosh, I don't have to like eat this whole elephant. It's very simple based on the vision and the numbers to tell you which systems are broken, which systems are lacking and what things we need to implement, improve or optimize. So the last part was systems and Dental A Team, I   I like cadences. like to see like a map. So I put 12 systems for the 12 months of the year. And some of you have heard these things in the past. You can look these up on our website. We've got lots of them, but basically just like, okay, what's my kind of outlook for every single month? So January's office management mastery and leadership, February's doctor optimization. So making sure like endo, CE, Botox, like whatever it is, we're just optimizing our doctor procedures in-house, looking to see what could we do to optimize that more.   March is billing with ease, April's five-star patient experience, May is smooth sailing scheduling, June is maximized case acceptance, July is dynamite dental assistance, August is elevated hygiene, September is confident marketing, October is complete operations manual, so get that thing done, November is practice profitability, what we just discussed, and December, yes, pun intended, A-Team hiring and onboarding. So like a little calendar for you to, as you're going through as a CEO,   Now you don't have to think of like, I've got to do all the systems. You've got a checklist of, all right, let me go look at this system. Let me go look at this system. Let me look at this category and see what could I optimize? What could we improve? What could we enhance? So what we did is we actually did a speed round and it was a yes or no. You weren't allowed to have anything gray and we had three questions under every system. So they went through 36 different areas of their practice and it was either yes or no to then say, how are your systems in those areas?   So for example, and people were giving a zero out of three, a one out of three, a two out of three or a three out of three. So let's go to management mastery. This would be your office manager. I review weekly KPIs to ensure we're on track to hit goals. It's either a yes or no. There's no in between. My leadership team runs effective meetings and follows up on action items. Yes or no. know each team members receiving regular one-on-one coachings for growth monthly. Yes or no. And I'll give you a trickier one. Cause why not? Let's like, people were like, I was doing so good. And then I got into.   Some of these other ones, so let me grab, let's do maximize case acceptance. This one would be our practice maintains at least a 75 % patient case acceptance and tracks it daily. Yes or no? You might be having that. And if you don't know, then it's a no. We have a solid follow-up system for unscheduled treatment and offer easy financing options. Yes or no? Next, visits are scheduled in the back office to help increase case acceptance. Yes or no? So what we did is there's so many things within every single system, but tried to break it down so people could quickly see.   of the 12 systems, where am I maybe lacking to then maybe take execution and action and also as CEO. then no great. have a focus for every single month that I can really look at. I can have a checklist. I can look at this and then we actually take action to improve our practice consistently. So we worked through that. And then we said that the piece is we can talk about you as a leader. We can talk about money and profitability and systemization, but for excellent systems to stick.   You have to have extraordinary leadership. And this is where it was like, but wait, what about the CEO dentist? Do I have to do all of this? And the answer is again, as a CEO, your job is to lead the vision, plan for the future, create and protect the culture, big opportunities and stay out of the weeds. That's your job. That's what you're supposed to do. And maybe we can add in their clinical dentistry if you want to, but like that is what you do. So for that, Britt and I actually then went into their, their two dimensions of leadership because we started thinking about this and in that delegation ladder,   There is this zone of leadership and one side is going to be the executive and that's the future planning, the vision, the culture. Like that is truly the CEO dentist, but there's a split side to it. And the other side is the management side. So Britt and I actually make the yin and yang of the leadership team. I've got the executive side. Britt's got the management side. And management side is operations and systems, people, and then nitty gritty details. Britt is amazing at this. I'm amazing at vision and you need both of those pieces to work in harmony together.   to have it and it's usually not the same person. And so helping people go through that and to see where am I strong? And as the CEO of your practice, you might actually flourish in the management side and that's a okay. You need to hire somebody who's a visionary next to you. Or you might be freaking awesome at the visionary side. You need a strong manager that does all the pieces that you are actually not naturally good at, nor should you be spending your time on to pair gently with you and perfectly with you.   This way your practice can flourish and you can actually be the owner of your business rather than being owned by your business. So looking at this, was really like, where do you actually fall as a CEO dentist, executive leader? Where are you doing? What needs to change in your practice? And as we go through this for you to even kind of do an assessment of how am doing on my vision and owning and being the CEO dentist and that identity and truly sitting in that seat. Then what about my numbers and how's the profitability of my business, the future progress and growth?   And then looking at my systems, how are we on those 12 systems? What needs to happen? And then on my executive leadership, am I on the visionary side or on the management side? And who do I need to have? And do I have a strong person? Is that the right person in the right seat there? Or does that need to be evolved? And so it's one of those pieces of like, we have all the pieces, like we, we know, but how do we actually make this go from like knowledge to action? And I think that was the piece of really helping people.   ⁓ recognize that time is so fluid and so fast. And when I look back, I shared a story of where I truly was sitting in a room of a bunch of really smart business owners and I'm like, I don't even know what they're talking about. And I think so many times when we hear a podcast like this or we listen, we know we should be doing it, but we don't actually know how and we feel inferior. It's what we do is we just keep doing the same thing. And rather than that, I would maybe suggest you take a pause and you say, are you really the best person as a CEO to do this? Or...   Is it maybe worth it to hire somebody who knows how to do it and has been there, done that and done it successfully to help you and your team. I really, really dislike coaching for myself. So that's why I built that only team the way I did. I don't like to be coached as the CEO and then have to try and take that back to my team. That's exhausting. There's things that I need to know. And there's things that my team needs to know. And that's actually why we built Dental A Team the way we did. We coach doctors and teams. We teach doctors how to be the executive.   We teach you how to be the CEO, how to get out of the weeds, how to empower your team. And then we teach teams how to follow up so dentists can actually let go. We can build the leadership. We build the tracking. We build the numbers so you can sit there and confidently run your business rather than being ran by your business. And to think about like when I took the leap of faith to hire a coach, when I didn't know and was so scared to do it, I look, and that was six years ago that I hired her. And in those six years, things that happened like Dental A Team,   has definitely grown. Like we have hundreds of clients that we're able to serve on a very personal intimate level. I was very adamant as we built this company that I would never go to a spot where people just felt like a number and not a person. And so being able to scale it to grow, because my mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry and to do it in the greatest way possible. Like truly, how do I do this, but make people still feel like a person and to be seen. So Dental A Team, you want to be here? If I would have not like taken the leap and.   gotten the help that I needed and truly owned that I'm a CEO. I'm not expected to know everything. And I need to hire people that are smarter than me, better than me, and help me grow and optimize in areas that I don't even know. ⁓ My confidence wouldn't be here. My passion, the certainty of myself, my growth, my purpose, my freedom of life, like the life that I get to live now versus the life I was living, the ability to say yes to everything I need, want, and deserve. And that's why I built the yes model, because to help other doctors, other team members be able to say yes.   to everything you need, want and deserve is life changing. That's why we've got the Yes model. And so for that, it was just a really fun, like it was such a beautiful thing to walk people through a complete workshop to help them see where am I at? And I hope today you took kind of the notes and you look to see like, am I at? And just know that being the CEO and owning your business is not a destination, but it's a journey.   It's a space and you'll get more and more into that, but it's a forever evolution. You're never fully systematized. You're never always profitable. You're never always going to sit perfectly in the CEO seat. You're going to ebb and flow and it's just like a mountain and climbing the mountain. There's peaks and valleys and there's highs and there's lows and that's the game of business that we signed up for, but not doing it alone, not trying to figure it all out on your own, not trying to solve all the problems. I think is one of the most beautiful things. So if that resonates with you, we really talked about like joining consulting.   is only for offices that want to thrive and not just survive. It's you want strong systems in your practice that work with or without you there. You want to improve your leadership skills and actually learn how to be the CEO dentist. You want to be the CEO dentist that you were meant to be. You want to have a team that enjoys their work and owns their work. You want to be with peers like other dentists, other office managers, other leadership teams that make you better. Not that of like comparison and competition, but out of true genuine lifting each other up.   bringing part of a bigger community that's more that gives you hope, gives you help, gives you ⁓ benchmarks to look forward to, gives you ideas of how to do it differently and better. And you know that there must be a better, easier way because you know that there truly is. And so if that's something that you're interested in, like I'd love for you to reach out. Like I know you weren't able to attend the workshop. I hope you tend next year. Cause it was like so much more than I could even give on this podcast. But if that resonates with you.   Schedule the practice growth call. Like truly we're going to go through it. It's complimentary. We're going to dig through all the pieces of your practice. Look at a lot of things we just discussed and the added bonus is you will get all of the resources. So KPI scorecard, KPI checklist, fixed cost spreadsheet, ⁓ our monthly cost spreadsheet, the overhead calculator, the cashflow guide, some really, really incredible things that I think are just so valuable and powerful for you. But more than that, you're going to get clarity and momentum. And I think right now that's one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself. So book the call.   take action. You don't have to do it all yourself. And I think that that's like get out of the weeds because we need your vision. We need you to be the leader of the business. We need you to actually be looking at the numbers, having a team, driving that forward because no one else is doing that. You're the leader at the helm and it's either you or it's got to be someone else. But generally speaking, it's you, the dentist, the owner. And so let's help you out. Let's give you that freedom. Let's give you that confidence. Let's give you that roadmap.   and do it in a way that's for you and your practice. So reach out, head to the website, TheDentalATeam.com, book a call, email us, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And truly let's help you out. Let's do a complimentary call and just see where are you at? How can we help you? And like I said, as an ad bonus, let them know you listened to the CEO Dennis Workshop ⁓ podcast and we will happily give you those downloads. ⁓ They are tactical, they're practical, they're able to be put into place right away because you all know I love tactical, practical, and you know that my biggest passion is you.   It's you being successful. It's you having the life that you want. It's being able to have life on your terms, to be able to say yes to everything that you want, need and deserve. That's why you did this. That's why you went to dentistry. And so let's give you the life that you had always envisioned. And let's take that from a dream and a wish to a reality. And with that, thanks so much for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast. ⁓  

Tiff and Dana take a close look at a practice that wanted to get a handle on its growth. They discuss knowing numbers inside and out, forming a growth plan, keeping your team involved in any expansion. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am just so excited. It is Friday today. I don't know what day you're listening to this or what day it will drop, but you know, these are prerecorded. are not live. So that is not a shock to you. This Friday is almost ending. I think we've got a couple hours left under our belts for both of us, but I get to end it with Ms. Dana and I have missed you, Dana. I was on vacation last week and I feel like I barely saw you the week prior. And then this week has been crazy for both of us and   I love our time together. think I scheduled this extra time just to chat next week because I miss you so much. So, Dana, you're rocking this outfit today. I told you that this morning on our morning huddle. Yes, we do morning huddles. And this cut you've got on your hair, I've told you already, but I freaking love it. You look stellar today. So welcome to Friday, Dana. How are you?   Dana (00:51) Doing good. I'm excited to end, well, almost end my day with you two. I'm excited. I know we probably don't want to get into it on this podcast, but I can't wait to hear about your trip. And, you know, I'll take as much tip time as I can get. So I'm super excited to be here and to be able to chat with you and to maybe help some people too while we're at it.   The Dental A Team (01:13) ⁓ thank you. Thank you. know I did. I scheduled our time next week and I was like, that's our catch up time. But I can say I did figure out I know you recently went on a cruise. ⁓ I am not a cruiser. It's not my jam. So I figured that out. But it was a great sampler platter and I fell in love with Italy. So we'll say that and I've got a lot of stories. I literally yesterday I was like, I need to like, type these out or write them in a journal or something because you know, in 10 years, I'm gonna forget half of them and there are just so many stories out of   the nine days that I was gone. So I'm excited to chat with you. And we can share our cruise stories, I guess, right? They're wild. Cruises are wild. Cruise people are a little wild. If you're out there listening, like you're a little wild. I don't know about these 11 PM, like bingo nights and stuff. I'm like, guys, it's wild. But here we are.   Dana (01:59) Yeah. I left mine   feeling like you. not necessarily, I don't think that like I put it at the top of my list. Would I do another one maybe? But I don't think that it's at the top of my preferred methods for traveling.   The Dental A Team (02:15) Same, same,   same. But you know, Vegas isn't on my top list either. And it kind of felt like Vegas on water. So maybe it's me. I said 10, 15 years ago, you know, in my young years, I would have been all about it, you know, and I would have stayed up all night and gone to Rome the next morning. But at the age that I'm at now, not so much, not so much. I'm tired. My kid puts me to bed every night at like 8.15. He's like, all right, mom, we're part and ways. I'm like, you're right. I'm falling asleep on the couch. Let's go. So.   Dana (02:43) you   The Dental A Team (02:44) Anyways, anyways today, ⁓ Dana, I'm here to pick your brain. You've had, you've had monster success. think all of our consultants have had a lot of success, but you've had some pretty monster success with a few practices that you've got a load of practices under your belt, ⁓ over the years and currently working with quite a few rock stars and some that have come back around because they miss Dana so much. So, you know, if you're out there and you're missing Dana, you guys, she's still here.   We love her and we're keeping her. She's not going anywhere. But you have actually worked with, ⁓ a few of us have worked with clients out of the country too. And you specifically, you've worked with a handful. I think you've probably worked with more than any of us have out of the country. So today's conversation is kind of fun because it is chatting a little bit about somebody who's out of the country, like their successes that they've had. not in the United States, but.   for one, kind of notifying everybody out there, especially our Canadian listeners here. We do work with clients in Canada all the time. And Dana is actually a super stellar. She's trained a lot of us on a lot of things she's learned. And we've all been able to really kind of figure out how to manipulate some of our US standards and our ideas and our protocols and really translate them towards Canadian. And I think the biggest pieces in the Canadian world there are the billing.   and the way the claims go out and the things that you're able to build and collections processes, things like that. But we've kind of got that down. Dana did a ton of work with this practice in regards to that. So today's actually super fun because it's also really cool to see, I think Dana, I think it's awesome to see that like business is business. I say that all the time, like I don't care what your company is. We've worked with CPAs, we've worked with ⁓ podiatrists, we've had...   you know, chiropractors that we've consulted because business is business protocols or protocols. So it's really cool to see that even dentistry outside of the country, so many of the systems and the protocols that we use every single day that I would say some of us take for granted are totally transferable. So today's conversation, I really wanted to dive in and kind of pick your brain, on how this client was able to see so much success. They were really, they're really a fantastic client. And I know that they implement really well.   ⁓ And that's a huge piece of the success, you guys. If you come and we give you the tools and you don't implement them, I can't do it for you, right? So Dana, I know this client does really well in that aspect, but I mean, you took them, I mean, I'll let you tell the story, but their production, their collections kind of skyrocketed once you started really cleaning up some of those systems. Where do you feel like was the best starting point? Like I know you had like Keaton on,   on some things we always do, what was our journey like?   Dana (05:32) ⁓ The first thing is this office came in and they were they were doing well, right? They weren't sure how well they were doing though. So we really really started with numbers. ⁓ Knowing numbers inside and out, knowing expenses inside and out, knowing what goals should be. ⁓   you know, even knowing where payroll expenses were sitting and things like that. So it first first started with number review. So that we basically knew how well they were doing to be able to kind of put projections in place and look at growth trajectory and talk about like what growth should be or could look like. But it started really with honing in on those foundations and getting the doctor to understand.   their numbers and what they were telling them as far as ⁓ growth and opportunity that there were for the practice. So we really, really started in with that. We did create a scorecard so that they could look at numbers every ⁓ month. We looked at trends together and really, really got them comfortable in what the numbers told them. then it was like, okay, I'm ready for the growth, right? I can see, I think some doctors come in and it's like, well, I feel like I'm doing okay. And I feel like I want to grow, but I actually don't know if I can grow.   because I don't know like what my foundation is. So that was really, really eye opening. The other thing was this doctor was working a ton of time and didn't necessarily have any time to work on the business, right? It was always working in the business. So then it was taking the numbers and creating a plan to work them out of the business at least one day a week ⁓ and to also then create some admin time.   within the rest of the week. getting them to have those pieces really allowed for them to have discussions on what a growth plan.   looks like and it kind of helped us take off from there. So looking at the numbers, we realized, you know, the number of patients that they had, he really couldn't serve on, you know, solo. So then we started looking at associates and bringing in associates to the practice. And then when associate schedules started to get full, was like, what's next? And so then it was adding surgery services and sedation and getting hospital days. And so it was really, really fun. And then we got to a certain   point of growth and it was like, this is so much for me to manage. And then we built a leadership team. So there was just a lot, a lot of pieces that happened. ⁓ But honestly, and truly practice came in at about 3.2 million and was projected to end that year at five. Right. So it was a ton of growth, but it honestly and truly started with knowing the numbers and knowing where the potential was and what we needed to do, what levers we needed to do to pull to make growth really happen.   The Dental A Team (08:02) Well.   Mm-hmm. That makes sense. makes so much sense. So the projections and that growth plan that you did with them, how did you project that? So to know that you could take them from that 3.2 that they probably didn't even know they were accomplishing. It sounds like they were successful, but like you said, they didn't know their numbers. They didn't know how successful, which happens, think, a lot for our clients. We attract clients who are doing well and just don't know the space that is left to target.   So how did you help them find that within that growth plan?   Dana (08:47) Yeah, we first started just looking at like patient number because it was feeling like yes, they were doing well, but you know being like schedules were jam-packed. So looking at active patients and actually saying hey you do need to actually grow your hygiene department.   right? So to be able to serve the patients you already have within the practice. So then we really honed in on how many, how much hygiene time do we actually need, right? For this practice. And then looking at, and this is one thing that like where Canada does differ in their billing, especially for hygiene, they, can bill for time, right? We bill for services in the U S they can bill for time. And it does still illustrate a point though, that when we're billing for what we're doing time or not time, right? It's important. So making sure that there are standard billing.   and for the US, right, it's not necessarily billing, it's actually like perio and what we recommend in the time that we have with the patient, but really getting them calibrated on that and really getting them all moving in the same direction.   And then I was expanding the hygiene department. Once we've expanded the hygiene department, then we needed the providers. We needed the providers to do the restorative dentistry since we expanded the hygiene department. So we really started with hygiene and started with adding hours there, really making sure that we fine-tuned the billing process so that, know, hygienists were producing really what they should be producing for their time. And then adding, again, the doctors in there for the restorative that came out of hygiene was just kind where we started.   started.   The Dental A Team (10:16) Awesome. And it sounds like they were at a space then where I think a lot of doctors get to, or a lot of practices get to where it's either I'm good and I'm going to like steady eddy this and I'm just going to, I'm going to stay where I'm at, or I want to continue growing. And I think a lot of doctors get to that space and they think I'm supposed to continue growing. And that's not a hundred percent always the case. It's not necessary. You should continue to grow to keep up with inflation.   obviously, but I think ⁓ something that needs to be said is you don't have to add more hygiene. You don't have to add more doctors. You don't have to do all of those things. But if you want to continue to grow, you want to continue to see those ⁓ numbers increase the way this practice is did, that's a great step to take. And being able to first see all of the patients that you have currently, ⁓ not even including, it sounds like any new patients, we're just   trying to handle the current load, I think is fantastic. And then like you said, it sounds like you did a decent job really honing in, not just the billing, because we want to bill for time, right? I get that. But also honing in their peri-o protocols. while you're increasing, well, we added, you know, added associates. But while you guys were increasing the value on the doctor's side over there, you made sure, it sounds like that.   hygiene was able to keep up with the increased production on the doctor side. And I think that gets missed a lot, Dana, where it's like skyrocketing doctors and we're like, why is hygiene at 12 % of our production now? Well, because we forgot to focus on them. And I think that's something you guys did really well. And I'm sure your hygiene background helped you see that this is an important space. those perio protocols really, really helped, I'm sure. And how did their team do?   Dana (12:05) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (12:07) A big scare I think doctors have is getting hygienists on board. Our hygienists have a scare of maybe changing their thought process on a lot of those pieces. How did this practice do with implementing those changes in their period department?   Dana (12:22) They did a really, really good job, but I will say when we decided to kind of tackle that, we really booked out a set of meetings where they really were able to work through it, to look at each other's patients, to look at what each other built, to look at what each other did for those patients, to pull x-rays and FMPs and all of those things and really work through it together and really calibrate. ⁓ They had a series of, I think,   monthly meeting for four months and really really work through it together as well as at that point we had a leadership team and so having the lead hygienist really double check those things and have conversations with   you know, some hygienists initially took it on really strong and they did really well. Other hygienists didn't do quite as well, quite as fast. And so just having individual conversations, using some of the other hygienists as examples, and really letting those that were really strong give verbiage tips, give billing tips, give all sorts of tips to the hygienists who weren't as strong. And they really, really leveled up and learned from each other, which I was super proud of them for.   The Dental A Team (13:28) That's awesome. That's awesome. So the planning and the prepping, I think, is key and having those initial conversations, but then also having follow up. Because I'm sure some of those conversations were, like you said, seeing the other patients and being able to see those spaces. But I'm sure some of those conversations were like, how did this go for you? And what was your case acceptance? Or how many times have you talked about it? And how did that conversation go? And really kind of batting ideas back and forth. And I would venture to say you probably also   had those meetings set up for the doctors too, where they're calibrating. You've got your owner doctor and your two associates who are calibrating, especially as you brought on more dental surgeries and, you know, it looks like you guys worked on hospital privileges and all kinds of things for them. But I assume based on what I know is that those doctors had to calibrate as well. So he's not only training doctors, training hygiene, but they're all kind of training each other. Is that what you saw?   Dana (14:27) Yeah, it was. And that's why we really put leadership meetings in place. ⁓ And the cool thing about this growth, like you said, you get to a point where you kind of have to choose, right? Do you want to stay where you are? Do you want and he didn't want growth, right? But he didn't want to necessarily take on more dentistry. And I think that was a key thing to really talk about is what does that long term picture for you look like so that as we build it, gets you to those points. And so we knew it meant bringing on other doctors, we knew it meant expanding services in some ways to get them   massive amount of growth that was wanted, but without it being him, right? Because, like, young kiddos family, like wanting to just prioritize that and have days away and, you know, totally understand that but how can we still have growth and have that happen?   The Dental A Team (15:03) him. Yeah.   Mm-hmm, that's awesome. That's awesome. Now within that growth trajectory, and I know we have a lot of team members that listen, not only is this helping the doctor and the practice and the associate dentist and all of these different pieces, but it's also helping the team because I think when you have, that kind of a growth trajectory for a practice and you've got a growth plan set, you've got the goals set, this also trickles down into the growth of the team.   Right. And so I think something you mentioned, right, was the leadership team. so one, you don't always have to have a leadership team in place before you have the growth. First of all, because I think a lot of people are wondering like, what's the chicken? What's the egg? Which comes first. And it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't, you can have one, but you don't have to wait for the growth. You don't have to until you have one. Right. But part of that growth trajectory and the growth planning was that leadership team.   Right? And so did you kind of help them timeline that and kind of figure out, well, when you get to this many patients, when you get to this many people, when you get to this, like this is where we need to bring somebody up. Did you help them timeline it and kind of org chart that and like job descriptions? How did you guys work that?   Dana (16:26) Yeah, OrgChart played a big piece in it because we knew like with this kind of growth you're going to need additional team members. I knew Leadership Team was a big piece because it just   didn't want everything to fall on owner doctor, right? So yeah, we did. We looked at org chart, we timelines, like when we were going to add new seats to it, what we might need for the future to get there. And that was really fun. Because I think when we build an org chart, we tend to just have it be like, well, what do I have? Right? Who do I have? And what do they do? And I build it based on that versus like, no, actually, what do you mean? Right? And, and what will you need in the near future? It's okay to build an org chart for now and an org chart for the future. And then   The Dental A Team (16:56) Yeah.   Yeah.   Dana (17:08) map out how you get there. And so that is definitely something that came into play here and was super impactful ⁓ in the journey.   The Dental A Team (17:17) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's amazing. So if we were to peel this back a couple layers for our listeners today who might be in a space where they're like, gosh, I don't know if I can grow. I have the capability and the capacity to grow? What would you say, Dana, is a first step for someone who's really in that space or even trying to figure out if they want it or not?   How did you, like what's that first step look like with your practices that you've worked with or this one specifically that you're like, is where we start, this is how we see that.   Dana (17:52) ⁓ I think that first it becomes like the vision. Where do you want to do? What kind of growth do you want if you even want growth, right? And what I mean by growth is like getting bigger, right? Or getting larger. And what are the pieces that you want? And then secondary to that, and I think in conjunction with that, knowing your numbers and where the health of your numbers stands so that we can kind of align those pieces together. ⁓   The Dental A Team (18:04) Yeah.   Dana (18:21) And I think that those are the two key foundational pieces that I think really helped to drive this doctor too.   The Dental A Team (18:27) Awesome, awesome. So it's kind of looking at where do you want to go? And then looking at what you're capable of right now. What have you done? And I think that gap in between, then you have to kind of figure out, well, if we're doing 3.2 now and I want to do 5 million, how do I get that 1.8 in the middle to get to that 5 million? And then that kind of backtracks into, well, how like financially, right? So dollar per hour, doctor's dollar per hour. How many chairs do we have? What's our dollar per chair?   per day, what's our daily goals, of figuring that out. And then time-lining, I know that's, you know, I did a ton of time-lining for a practice that just grew like crazy. And I was like, okay, by this point, you're gonna need this many people. But knowing that gap in between to be able to set some parameters to really see how far you can go. ⁓ And I guess maybe action items for today would be.   Go look at your mission, your vision, your core values, make sure that you're in alignment still. Those change, you guys, they change constantly. What you wanted 10 years ago is probably very different than what you want today, and that's okay. You don't have to stick with the business plan you set out with when you first started. I think, Dana, you're 100 % spot on. Go look at that mission, that vision, make sure that it is in alignment, and then figure out where do you want to go, and then what does that mean? And if you need help with that, hello at the TheDentalATeam.com., we're always here for you, you know that.   But really figuring out what that means and then looking for that gap so that you can project and look to see. There's a lot of prep work that we didn't talk about today that goes into adding associates. So I would hate to blindly walk into anything and just tell people that an associate is a great idea. I don't think that it's a horrible idea whatsoever, but you have to be prepared and there's a lot that goes into that. just build out your plans. If it's something that you look at and gosh, maybe it's 500,000.   You want to make an additional million next year. Look at the hours in your schedule. Are you capable of that? And maybe there's some scheduling tweaks that we can make. We have found in many, practices just implementing blocked scheduling increases $5,000 a day. We have seen crazy amounts of money come into the production just by fixing the scheduling. And I think I've ventured to say that this practice had to do some of that as well.   and really, really maneuvering what those schedules might look like. this is great, Dana. Thank you so much for all the work that you do with all of the clients that you see, the work you do with our consulting team, and you're constantly finding new avenues and helping us to expand our entire team. So thank you for that. Thank you for sharing this today and just sharing all your love with everybody, Dana. I appreciate you.   Dana (21:11) Anytime, thanks for having me.   The Dental A Team (21:12) Of course, of course. All right, guys, go do the things. Mission, vision, core values, peel back those layers, really look for those gaps. And then I would say look at your open hours. I found a ton of money just sitting there, like, could have been, could have been gotten for so many years for so many doctors that was just open hours and mismanagement of schedules. So double check those things. Drop us a review, you guys. We love those five stars. We love to hear what you loved. We love to hear ideas that you have.   You know I always say people really do read those so go do it. And Hello@TheDentalATeam.com we are always here to help you and if you want to sign up for a free practice assessment it's on our website TheDentalATeam.com. You guys we will help you figure out what your next best growth movement is whether it's with us or without us we don't care we just want to give you the tools. So thank you all and I hope you have a great day.

Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! Kiera is all about key performance indicators in this episode, and why they're important. When framing KPIs as the vitals of your practice, it makes a lot more sense! Some of Kiera's favorite KPIs are … Production (net, not gross) Collection (at least 98%) How many new patients you're getting Average diagnosis Acceptance rate Overhead There are a lot more indicators she talks about in this episode, so whether you're a beginner with KPIs or elite status, there's something you can learn. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:05) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you.   Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A-Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast.   Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And you guys, how's your day today? You guys loving it? Are you crushing it? I hope you are, wherever you are. I am actually sitting in my bedroom. I ⁓ rarely ever podcast here, because usually my husband's home. But tonight, I have some friends over there in the front room, and I definitely needed to get some podcasts done. Sissy was asking me, I just love having team members that are great at what they do. And I hope you guys take time to acknowledge the team members that make you great. The team members that are   just awesome at what they do. guys, Sissy keeps me so on the ball and I love her for it. Shelby does, Tiffany does, Brittany, Dana, Kylie, they are just an incredible bunch of people. And guys, if you ever get the opportunity to meet any of them, you are one lucky person. So I hope you're having a great day. I hope you're loving it. So podcasting today from the bedroom. I hope the audio is great. I hope you're loving it. Sun's just going down and today I just wanted to dive into a topic that I think is really awesome and it's KPIs.   So what the heck is a KPI? A KPI is Key Performance Indicator. I'll be completely honest. You guys, know I'm like authentic Kiera Dent. People when they call me and they chat with us, like interested in working with us, the number one thing I get told is, Kiera, you sound just like you do on the podcast. And I'm like, this is really great because it is me.   I don't shake it up, I don't change it. The only thing I do differently is I talk in a microphone so my voice sounds a little bit like smoother, if you will, on the podcast than in real life. But beyond that, same cadence, same tones. This is Kiera real life. So you guys know I am always, I try really hard to just be authentic Kiera. So if you ever come meet me in person, you peel back the Wizard of Oz current, I would be the exact same person as I am on the podcast as I am in real life. So when I first started as an office manager,   I did not know what a KPI was. I did not know why they were important. I didn't know that I should be tracking these things. I literally had no idea. So guys, if you're in my boat, hey, welcome, welcome to the CureDent No KPI Boat. If you know what they are, welcome, welcome to the Elite Boat. And if you are using them, welcome to the Rockstar Amazing Boat. Let's make you even better. So KPIs, I call them, the way I describe a KPI is they are the vitals of your practice.   So just like when you go to the doctor and they take your blood pressure, your temperature, they listen to your heart rate, all those things, those are the vitals. They take your weight. ⁓ I just went to the doctor the other day and it's super cool, like, right? You sit on the chair and they say they'll take your weight. And it was funny, the gal asked me, she said, do you wanna know your weight today? I was like, wow, thank you. Like, thank you for not making me have a bad day if I don't want to or thank you for giving me the opportunity. It just made me giggle.   But bottom line is the vitals, we go to the doctor and they take those vitals first because if any of those are out of alignment, that's the first sign that we have trouble. So that's what I think of with KPIs in a practice. These are the core pieces that are going to show you, is your practice healthy or is it not healthy? So yes, it's tracking and there's lots of different KPIs you can track. That's why it's called a key performance indicator. I am a firm believer that you should be able to change these up.   I think there are certain things that you should be tracking consistently. But I also think as human beings, we get stagnant and bored. So give yourself a decent amount of time to track and then shake it up. That way you're growing constantly and we don't get bored with KPIs. So for me, some of my favorite KPIs, this is a question every consultant who comes to Dental A team to work with us, we ask them, what is your favorite KPI to measure? One, I'm checking to see if they know what a KPI is. Guys, I probably would have flunked the consulting test if I would have come on.   We're a more elite company, guys. I have to keep these consultants on their top notch. They can't be lower than us now. So I ask what your favorite KPI is to track and why. Most of the time I get production and collection. Production is a great KPI to track. It's something, and again, be careful on production. Make sure you're tracking it on net, not gross. A lot of people wanna tell me that they have.   These huge successful practices, but guess what guys, if you can't collect it, don't even tell me that number. I don't care. It does not impress me because guess what? That high gross number feeds your ego. Your net number feeds your family. So I don't care about it. So report that number in net. Next up is your collection percentage. I want to know how you're collecting. So if you're a $1 million practice and you're only collecting 700,000, that's stressful. That means you're at a 70 % collection rate. I am aiming for a 98 % collection rate. Now,   There are lots of other KPIs and I will say there are some great softwares out there. Practice by numbers, dental intel, divergent. Those are my top three favorites. I'd probably put them in the order of dental intel, divergent, practice by numbers. I think all three of them are great. I love them all for different reasons. The reason I'm pro-ing for dental intel is because they just merged with Medento and guess what? They are kicking it. So I love that. I love what they do and I love Medento as a company. So any company with Medento, that's going to be my favorite company right now. But bottom line is a lot of these track KPIs.   What I found that gets tricky and what a lot of offices do is we often track too many things that we don't actually move the needle on anything. I'm guilty of this. So in our company, was having Cissy track how many Instagram followers we were getting every single week. At first, I thought it was a great marketing metric. I thought it was great to see how our marketing was doing. Guess what? It was actually just feeding my ego. So guys, if you want to feed my ego, please just go follow us on Instagram. I would love it. Get your friends, get your family, get your siblings, get your kids. I don't care who.   You can boost that number just to feed my ego. At the end of the day, do the Instagram followers actually matter? No, they don't. They don't move our company forward. What matters, just like you guys, how many new patients we're getting. So don't actually care about social media followers. Yes, it's a fun number to track, but what I care is how many new patients are we getting? Then after that, I actually care about if I'm going to the elite boat or to our rock star boat on how many new patients you're getting. Do you know how much each patient's value is?   Do you also know what our average diagnosis is on each patient? And do we know what our acceptance rate is on each patient? If you don't know that and you're already tracking some of these numbers, that might be a fun zone for you to go to, to be 2.0 or 3.0 of KPI tracking. If you're just starting out, don't go there. Let's just get you tracking new patients and where they're coming from. Bottom line is these are the vitals. So first steps first, I want you with your KPIs to make sure that you have the vitals of your practice. Production, collection, new patients.   case acceptance, reappointment percentages. Those are like your main shebangs that are really gonna tell you where you're going. If you wanna add in your overhead, I also love that because that's gonna pull in the business side of it to make sure that we're actually profitable as a business and we're not just running around trying to serve, but not even being profitable as a practice. We need our practice to be profitable. Otherwise we can't serve more in our community. Those are my main things I love to focus on. So if you're just starting out, start tracking those.   I prefer you track them at a minimum every week at best. I actually like these ones to be tracked on your morning huddle. It's great. Everybody has it, have it on a whiteboard. Everybody can see it. That is the vital heartbeat of your practice. I would love you to do it. Just like on my Apple watch, I'm watching the rings on my Apple watch. That's honestly the only thing on my watch face guys, because it'd be really fun. But I decided I don't want to get distracted by other things. I need to master these items before I move on.   So that's why I love it to be front and center. Get these KPIs front and center. Get a whiteboard, guys, they're real cheap. Put it up, track these items. Production, we talked about it. Net, not gross. Collections, we wanna make sure we're collecting at least 98 % if not higher. And then I want you to know how many new patients you're getting out of goal, what your case acceptance is. A healthy practice, if we're talking dollar for dollar, I'd like you to be anywhere from 35 to 65%. Now there's a wide range on that because I actually, if you don't...   diagnose a lot of ortho and you're not diagnosing a lot of implants in larger cases, your dollar for dollar should be way up higher. If you're diagnosing these huge treatment plans constantly, you actually should be hanging out lower because we're presenting so much treatment that I'm okay with a lower case acceptance. If we're one for one, meaning one thing accepted off of our treatment plan, no matter how large it is, I want you actually to be sitting at at least a 90 % case acceptance. If you're not, we got to talk.   That's right, you and me, we're going to have a date, we're going to chat. We need to get that case acceptance up because what we're doing is we're dis-serving our patients. We're not helping them find a way to get this treatment done. You as a treatment coordinator, your job is to be a solution creator with the patient. So do your job, find the solution, get those patients accepted. That way we can help them have healthy mouths and a better life, right? That's what it's all about. Hey, Dental A Team listeners, how was your 2021? Have you reflected back? Where did you really win?   Where did you really not win? If 2021 was a year of years, congratulations. I am celebrating with you and I would love to invite you to take it to the next level. If 2021 wasn't quite your year, hey, it's all right. I'm there for you. And I would love to invite you to make 2022 the year for you. That's right, guys. If you're ready to take massive action, if you're ready to take your practice and your team to the next level, increase your profitability. Yeah, guys, through an easy way.   Get your entire team aligned and you're ready to just have your life be different. That's right. Team development, top to bottom system development, top to bottom, changing and shifting your culture, improving your team morale. If that sounds like what you're interested in guys, I'd love to invite you to join us in our Dental A Team platinum group. It's the exclusive group where we physically fly to your practice. We give you insider tips. We share with you. have a quarterly newsletter that goes to that shares all the updates we're coming up with and we share it with our platinum group.   We'd love to have you and I would like to invite you because guys remember you're always one decision away from a completely different life. So reach out guys. I'd love to chat with you. I'd love to see if you're a great platinum client or what works best for you. Email me Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and I can't wait to welcome you as our newest platinum client. Take massive action. This is your year. Let's make sure 2022 is your year. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Can't wait to welcome you. So those are my main KPIs that I love to track.   Once you get those dialed in and you're consistent on those and you know, then we're going to start diving into even more data. I want to know how well our hygiene department's doing. They should be producing at least three times their pay. So if I'm a hygienist making $10 an hour, wouldn't that be a dream guys? Welcome to 2022. Hygienist $10 an hour. Yeah, right. You guys are like a hundred and a billion dollars an hour. Like it's crazy how much hygienists are at right now, but let's say for the sake of this podcast, it's $10 an hour. Okay. I should be producing at least   $30 per hour as a healthy hygienist. That's on a PPO. If I'm fee for service, I like you producing at least four times your pay. So if I'm in a fee for service practice, I'm producing $40 an hour, okay? So that would be another great KPI to track. You can also break it down per department. So we might have our doctors. Great KPI to track on our doctors is what are they producing per hour? Most doctors should be producing at least $500 per hour at a minimum, okay?   So if we're working in an eight hour day, that's a $4,000 day per doctor, again on net, not gross. So that's a great metric to put in there. What are our doctors producing per hour? What's our doctor case acceptance? What's our doctor diagnosis? Great KPIs for you to start tracking. If we move on to our hygiene department, you can track fluoride, you can track perio. Perio is a great set to track. We can track ⁓ how many night guards they're doing. We can track how many orthostarts they're doing.   Great KPIs to track, again, if you're in the elite rockstar status. ⁓ Dental assistants, I like to track how many same day conversions you get. Also, how many times you leave the room is a great KPI to track. Also, how many Google reviews do dental assistants get? Those are all really, really great ones that you can do. For front office, scheduling. How often are we scheduling our hygiene and doctors to goal?   So I usually like between 80 and 90 % that they're scheduled to go. Schedulers can be how many openings they have in hygiene. It can also be how many new patients you're scheduling. For our treatment coordinators, case acceptance, right? We want to make sure that we're getting those cases up there. For office managers, what's our collection percentage that can also go to our billers? Billers, I love you to be tracking your AR. Also outstanding claims. ⁓ How long it's taking us to get our claims paid. It's a fan-freaking-tastic KPI to be tracking.   because we want to be paid quicker. Guess what? If I'm tracking that, I can see, are we not sending our claims clean and are we having errors? Could we fix that? Could we enter data better so we don't have these issues happening? Could also track how long our patients are waiting in the waiting room. If we're working on VIP new patient experience. As I just listed, there are a myriad of KPIs you could do. What happens is we often try to track too many things that were actually focused on nothing. So I suggest you usually have at least one primary KPI per   person in the practice. It's their primary. That's the one that no matter what, they're going to hit that. And we make sure it moves our needle forward. So what's going to move our doctors forward? What's going to move our hygienist forward? It's going to move our dental assistants, our scheduler, our biller, our office manager. What is the one thing if we could only focus on one thing, what's going to move each of those people forward the most and move our practice forward the most? Focus on that. Master that. Set a goal of what you should be hitting and report either weekly or daily.   on those. I'll be honest, if you report it daily, just like working out daily, you will probably see greater results than if you do it weekly or just monthly. So I also have with KPIs that you should really, really, really, really be ramping those up and making sure you're reporting consistently and that people know the goals. If we miss it, let's find out why. What's going on? Let's diagnose the problem. Let's find out what can we do to improve that. Again, I want you to think of these as vitals. KPIs are vitals of a practice.   If you don't track these, if you don't check them, you will die. Okay? If you think about it that way, well, instantly I'm like, maybe I don't need to track that. Maybe I don't need to focus on that. If you're already tracking it and you're breathing imperfect, guess what? What happened to the doctor? They start checking other things. They run blood tests on us and they check a thousand different things in that. Okay? So there are lots of KPIs you can do, but I would say keep it simple. Do the kiss method. Keep your KPIs simple. Then add to it. Maybe each quarter we add something.   Maybe each month we add something. It's also fun if you have your team help create these KPIs with you. What do they think is going to the practice board? What did they get excited about? Maybe they want to make social media posts. Maybe they care about how many followers we actually have. Maybe you guys want to do that. Maybe they do it on how many new patients they can get. I just had an office, super fun. The team decided that they were going to try and get more family members scheduled. So on average, this practice was averaging about 35 new patients. Guess what?   Guess what? Just by focusing on asking for referrals from patients and getting more family members scheduled, they use the phrase, what other family members can we get scheduled for you today? They have increased their new patients with no marketing to 50 new patients a month. Is that not rad? That's because they focus on a vital that the practice needed to do. They focus on where they were weak and they're able to move their practice forward. So guys, I would encourage each of you.   Look at these KPIs, get them set. If you don't have a regular KPI tracking, let's start there. If you do, I want to bump it up. Are those KPIs being reported weekly by all team members? And does the doctor and office manager review this? I will tell you at our company, Shelby, she's a rock star. Our whole team reports on a Google drive. We call our leadership scorecard. Those are where our KPIs hang out. Every person has a number that they're tracking. We review these, we make sure that they're the vitals of our company and they're moving us forward.   Every person reports on this every single Friday. We have a reminder that goes out, so everybody fills it in. Shelby then makes sure it comes over to me. I then with Shelby review this leadership scorecard. Then on our leadership team, we look at this every single month and make sure that those are vitals. And then we look to see where are we weak? What do we need to move forward? This is how you start to track. Also, if you want to stamp out and do more practices and you want to have more growth, having a leadership scorecard where you track these KPIs consistently.   allows you to then be able to manage and oversee multiple locations because everybody's tracking. And at a second, you can glance at this and you'll be able to know where your practice is weak and where it's strong and where you need to dive in and give it massive help. So guys, I strongly encourage you, if you're not doing it, do it. If you're doing it already, where can you ramp it up? If you're already ramping it up, get your team members involved and ask them where they want to take it to the next level. KPIs are magic. They're vitals. Also, if you're in that top, top tier,   Maybe I challenge you and say, where could you simplify? Are you overtracking? Sometimes when I look at dental intel, I'm like, holy guac. That's a lot of items you're tracking. How do they know where to focus? I think about the book, Essentialism. If you haven't read it, I would strongly encourage you to do it. If we're focused on too many things, we actually don't make a lot of progress anywhere. We make minimal progress. If we're focused on one thing, we kill it. We knock it out of the park. We dominate it. So I challenge each of you, look at those KPIs. Could you simplify them if you're already doing them?   What are the main drivers of the practice? Keep it to three per department is my recommendation. Make sure that what we're truly focused on is actually going to move you guys forward. If you need help getting those KPIs set up, if that's something you want to start doing, we make sure our practices are all tracking. Our offices have vitals. We look at them. We actually call it their vital scorecard. Truth. That's really what we call it. So if you guys want to help with this, if you'd love somebody to help hold you accountable, email me. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I'd love to help you out.   nothing else guys, go get these KPIs in place and know that you guys are in control of this. You can see your practice at a glance. You can know if you're healthy or not just at a glance, just like the doctor does when we go in for our medical doctors. So guys, try it out. I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear your successes. Post your KPI scorecards and tag us. We'd love to see it. Share. If you guys want to, you can start to get on our Facebook group, Donuts with Dana. She's literally going around and she's pulling these ideas and she's sharing and she's answering questions.   So join her, she's on Facebook Live every Friday, Donuts with Dana. So hop on over there if you have questions getting this set up, she's there, she'll help answer questions. And as always guys, just take action, do it. Don't be afraid of KPIs, they're very easy. And if we can help you, email us, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I'd love to share it with you guys. If you need a sample, email us, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast. And that wraps it up for another episode of The Dental A Team Podcast.   Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.  

Tiff and Kristy break down the concept of work-life balance, and why so many people can't seem to acquire it. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am back today and you know, this is me Spiffy Tiffy I never say my name and I just assume everyone knows me. I actually this is a funny story. I actually had ⁓ Someone the other day it was a child was like, ⁓ you record podcasts you you're on a podcast Are you famous and I said well maybe in the dental world like for ⁓   small, tiny percentage, people might know who I am. So, it's Spiffy Tiffy, Tiffanie, I'm here, I've been here for a while, and I'm just super excited to bring so much fun and joy, and one of our core values is fun, and it has been Kiera and I's core value since the day we met, and that is one that I have refused to get rid of, even though every year we update our core values and they shift and change a little bit, fun has stayed there. The definition of fun has evolved and been   tailored down to what we want it to be, but it has remained and I think we have some fun. So I hope you guys have fun on this podcast. I hope you enjoy it. I have Kristy here with me today and she is ready to rock out some fun, you guys. And I, you know, we've already recorded one this morning and Kristy, you said it perfectly. I was going deep and I don't know. It's a feeling today. We got a lot of leadership stuff we're chatting about and I feel like goodness gracious, Kristy, you're my gal. You keep me centered. You keep me calm.   DAT Kristy (01:07) Thank   The Dental A Team (01:21) and you allow me the space to go deep. So thank you for being here. Thank you for recording so many podcasts with me and just for being you, Kristy. How are you?   DAT Kristy (01:30) Good, thank you. I'm excited to be here. It's always a good time when we can get together and help with anything ⁓ with our doctors, hopefully up and coming doctors, new to dental aging doctors. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (01:42) Yeah. Yes. Right? Yes.   I agree. I totally agree. And I love that you said that because there are so many listeners here. I think sometimes I forget, we get a lot of clients that have listened to our podcast in the past and that's how they found us. And it's just such an incredible resource to be able to get information to people and a tool to be able to reach so many new dentists. And then Kristy, I think I forget when they come,   from the podcast, right? Or they've listened to the podcast in the past and came from, I don't know, Zenist advisors. They maybe said, hey, talk to these ladies, they're great. Whomever, wherever, however they found us, I forget that they still listen. And then I'll have a client that's like, I get texts sometimes that's like, Tiff, I'm listening to this one, and you just said this, or Kristy said this, Trish, and I get these texts from clients that I've had for years. And I'm like, my gosh, that's funny. I didn't even consider the fact that you   You were still here. So repeat offenders. Thank you so much for being here. We love you guys. So like Kristy said, clients who are here. Hello. Um, those of you who are listeners and maybe you're just like, no, Tiff, I am a listener. I'm a diehard listener and I will be here for that. Hello. And if you're a listener who's like, gosh, I just keep thinking about it. I keep considering and this information is great. And these ladies sound amazing, but today's not about it's and, and, and.   DAT Kristy (02:43) you   The Dental A Team (03:10) I'm gonna call them because whether you say yes to success and you're our newest client or you say this is incredible information, I'm gonna implement some of these tools that you just gave me and we'll talk again soon. We're here for it. I want you guys to understand that we are not the company that you call and it's like, if you don't say yes, we never talk to you again. No, you say yes and, right? Yes, this was great information.   and I'm ready to start. Yes, this is great information and I'm gonna go implement it I'll talk to you soon. Okay, pressure's off. So just call us. That was great, Kristy. I think that was a wonderful reminder to everyone. There's literally no pressure. Gosh, Kristy, I love you for so many things and today I am just loving on you for leadership communication, conversations and just like effective balance, right?   We have a fun topic here, and I told you I have some tangents on it, and I think you do too, and I think we align pretty well on this topic. We really wanted to chat, and there's a newsletter. If you're subscribed to our newsletters, you should be getting a newsletter as well that will have similar, probably very different conversations in it, but make sure you're signed up for our newsletters that you're getting that as well. So today's topic, this moment's topic, is work-life balance. And I...   get asked this by a multitude of professionals, whether they are team members, leaders, managers, owners, doctors, dentists, I don't know, and financial advisors, like anyone under the sun who does a job, I have heard, I want work-life balance, TIF, how do I have work-life balance? And I think it's a really tricky statement, and I think it's overused and misunderstood. And I think you just need   balance. My opinion is by separating, Kristy, tell me if I'm crazy. By separating and saying I want work-life balance. It's like saying I have a life and I have work. For me, I have a life and I work within that life. I don't have my work-life that is like, in your brain, it just creates these two separate entities that then you're trying to smash together. It's like saying I'm a dentist.   and I'm a chiropractor and I want to do both out of my office. So I want to, while I'm drilling and doing this crown, I also want to be cracking their neck. You can't do that. It's literally impossible. So I think saying I want balance in my life is more clear and more understood than I want work life balance, which confuses it and makes it feel impossible. It feels literally difficult when I say I want work life balance.   it in my body feels difficult. It feels hard. But when I say I want balance, that feels achievable. That is like graspable. can see it. I know what it feels like to have balance. So I can emanate it. I can mimic the feeling in my body and I can find it. And I just think people just misunderstand that. But Kristy.   What are your thoughts on it? How do you feel about the term work-life balance? And then we'll get into, I promise you we'll get into how to achieve some of this balance. But Kristy, first, think definitions are always most important. So tell me your thoughts.   DAT Kristy (06:39) I know we never want to go like political or anything like that in that realm, but listening to you takes me back to growing up and hearing how moms entering the workforce and how can they work and be a mom. And so it just, kind of makes me laugh. And honestly, what you said is spot on. I don't, I don't know how you can do both at the same time, but   The Dental A Team (06:52) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (07:06) but I do think you can be wear many hats. It's just how do we devote our time to it? So identifying, honestly going back to the results, what are we looking for in the first place? So when you say work-life balance, tell me more about that. What does that mean? What does that mean to you? Because it may mean something different to somebody else. I for one get,   a lot of gratification from my work and purpose from it. So it brings a lot to my life. So to separate, yeah, I can't. But to devote certain amount of time to certain things, I can grasp that 100%.   The Dental A Team (07:51) Yeah, I love that clarity that you brought even to maybe like potentially realizing where the term comes from, because I agree with you. think that that is a huge space and a huge learning curve for everyone. And we're still kind of in it. think we're, I think we're still so much in that world. It's 2025, but we are still so much in that world of moms and not even just moms, but   primary caretakers coming into the workforce or primary caretakers also working. And it's like that, I think you're right. I think that is a confusing factor. And I love what you said that work gives you, it provides something positive to your life. So to keep those separate feels wrong. And I think so many of our leaders and our dentists feel that same way, which also confuses it. And you said,   tell me more, tell me what that looks like. And I know I've asked the question before and I've had a doctor be like, that means I'm home before 5.30 so that I can cook dinner for my family. I'm like, that's easy. Like, what's keeping you at the office? Like, why are you there? Right? Like, let's remove some obstacles. And I've had doctors that are like, well, I have a doctor that was like, Tiff, I wanna work three and a half days a week and I wanna make a million dollars in collections a year. Cool.   He's like, then I can be home. I be with my kids. I can do all the things. And he does, he does that. That's his work life balance. And, and that's his balance, right? His balance is being able to target and hit all of this areas of his life that are important. And Kristy, it makes me think of, ⁓ in March, we did our in-person event with so many of our amazing platinum doctors came out to visit us and their office managers. And we did a blocked scheduling, ⁓ exercise for.   personal life and like for our ourselves and for crowns, root canals, etc. So by personal life, mean like ourselves and what we did it was super cool of really looking at the like six areas of our lives six to eight areas of our lives that are truly valuable and important that we want to contribute to so, you know your relationships your marriage your work ⁓   DAT Kristy (09:52) Hahaha!   The Dental A Team (10:13) Right? Remember in Summit, I forgot to add work in there. ⁓ If you were there for Summit, you guys are laughing. But all those different areas that make us who we are and where we want to show up in life, and then time blocking and saying, this is how much time, like you said, time, this is how much time I want to dedicate to this area for it to feel valuable and balanced, because it's not all going to be equal.   I'm not gonna spend as much time maybe going on dates with my boyfriend and having one-on-one time as I am recording podcasts and showing up for my clients. That doesn't mean it's imbalanced. That would be wild. He would go crazy if I were spending that much time like, we're going on a date or we're going on a river cruise. I don't even know what we would do with that amount of time. Couple times a year for our long vacations, we do that and it balances.   When we say work-life balance, it almost sounds and feels like we're looking for equality between the time spent. And that's just, it's just not realistic. There are a lot of people who have more time outside of work that they're doing other things with their life. And then there are other people who are like, no, I'm passionate about my job and I want to pour into it. That's their balance. And I think you nailed it, Kristy, by really   keying in on that time and saying how valuable it is to consider that there's even more than just work and quote unquote life. Like there are attributes to your life that need that value and that time consideration.   DAT Kristy (11:53) I almost wonder Tiff, like listening to you talk, we almost have to identify, like the first question should be what's missing, right? Because really why is that even a term, work-life balance? Wouldn't you agree it's likely there's something missing in that equation, so how can we do more of it? And the other part that...   The Dental A Team (12:03) Yeah. Yeah.   Totally agree.   DAT Kristy (12:22) Again, you know me, queen of analogies, but it's like people come in to the office and they go into hygiene and they're like, are you flossing your teeth? No, I hate flossing my teeth. Well, you need to be flossing every day. Why do we go from zero to a hundred? Like, can we maybe start with, how about flossing Monday, Wednesday, Friday instead of all or nothing, right? So I almost feel like that question, work-life balance needs to start with what's missing that I need more of.   The Dental A Team (12:35) Yeah.   Yes.   I love that because there's a gap we're not seeing and we feel out of alignment and we're not taking the time to step back and see it. And I think you're spot on because there's an area of life, the six to eight components, how many ever there are, there's an area that's out of alignment with the definition of balance for you. Kristy, I think what you're really good at and what you said even earlier was, well, what does that mean? Right? You're really good at   speaking to your clients in a clear and kind way and asking questions that evoke thought and results. So when you ask those kinds of questions to your clients, I've seen them, I've watched them, I join all of our consultants' calls at some point or another. So I've seen this happen live. They are able to give themselves the space to find it because you interrupted their thought pattern with something different so that they could   think of it from a different point of view. And I think it's just really, really something that is missed in a lot of consulting that's just systems focused, right? Like we are systems focused, we do provide systems, but we're people focused first because without this, without these kinds of definitions, your systems aren't, they're not gonna stick. I promise you, they're just not gonna stick, okay? We've seen it. So Kristy, something you do really well with your clients is,   DAT Kristy (14:09) Thank   The Dental A Team (14:16) keying into those definitions and then asking the thought provoking questions, you might even already have the answer, right? You are like, I know exactly, but if you tell the person, right, they're like, maybe, but if you evoke the thought process, interrupt those thought patterns and get them shifted onto a different, it's kind of, makes me think of when you're driving along, driving along and you're like, shoot, there's a detour.   And then you like scooch over to the next road. It's detouring you on and you're like, wow, these are beautiful houses. Like I've never been down this road and I've lived on this street for 20 years, right? But your pattern was disrupted and you were able to see something new and beautiful and fresh. And, or sometimes you're like, wow, this is ugly. I can't believe I live this close to this street or this, like sometimes you go down and you're like, what is this building? Like this looks horrible.   DAT Kristy (14:58) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (15:11) Right, so sometimes you open a door and you're like, wow, that is really ugly and I have got to spend some attention there. Doesn't mean every time we open a door, it's gonna be like rainbows and butterflies, right? But sometimes we open a door that's like, I need to sprinkle some magic fairy dust in here because this is a space that needs some attention. And Kristy, I think you truly do open those doors for clients. And my question in that, ⁓   What do you think that opens up for them? So you open those doors, you get their thinking differently, but then how does that process change their business ownership and their, literally their profitability? Like these pieces that we work on with our clients, how do you see it totally improve the reasons that they come to us, right? They say systems, profitability, we want to pay our team more, we want a more engaged team.   that system change, that thought process change, how do you see that positively affecting those things that they've come to us for?   DAT Kristy (16:15) Yeah, well, to back up one notch, Tiff, even finding out like their why, once we get there, I think it's also asking one more question of, okay, wonderful, that's what you want, right? We've identified that. ⁓ What will it give you? And it's usually something emotional, right? So then when we're doing the hard work, we can remind them back to that this is what you were looking for.   And again, it's if we're off track, did your vision of what we want change or are we still going for this? Okay, great, we're still going for this and that helps them get the momentum back for getting there. will ⁓ you repeat your question for me, sorry.   The Dental A Team (17:00) Yeah.   No, I talked a lot. Thank you. ⁓ My question was, when we do get these definitions in place and figure out what does balance mean? Why are we doing this? And I think you're right. When we know that why, then the balance is easier to find because we know what's going to support the why. So once that's discovered, which you do very quickly for your clients, I again have watched it happen.   What do you see the positive impacts on the business, the leadership? Because they come to us, right? And they say, I want systems, I want profitability, want a happy team. Like, how do you see those things improve by defining these and really improving their personal selves and finding that balance?   DAT Kristy (17:41) Yeah, so I believe that when we identify it and we start working toward it, they do start to feel a sense of balance. And so when they are back in the rut of things or in the weeds of things, they approach it more refreshed. They have a different outlook. It's not a drain on them. And so literally, it's the same thing as like when we start coaching, all ask clients, know, how much time are you spending working on your business? How many team meetings are you having?   Well, we used to, but we don't. And I'm just a firm believer that the time we spend working on the business, you will achieve outcome because you're in a sense creating that balance to then when you are in the business, you're a lot more effective. I've seen it time and time again, you know, even to the point where... ⁓   I have one client that literally she takes off two more weeks a year, but she's producing the same this year on trajectory to make more. literally the first year she took those extra two weeks off, she's making just as much as she did the year prior, but she gained time, right? So when she achieved that balance of the goal to be able to take time to do X, Y, Z, she identified it. Then when she's there,   The Dental A Team (18:47) Yeah.   them. Yeah.   DAT Kristy (19:05) She's way more productive and focused on what she's doing. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (19:10) I agree. And   I've seen that with your clients, I've seen that with mine, I've seen it with Monica's, Trish's, Dana's, everybody's clients. I've seen that exact thing happen where you're just, when you have that balance, you have a better sense of ease in life. I think when you're misbalanced, when you're out of alignment, I know I have a doctor that we've worked with that, this doctor is an amazing human being and showed up.   and was just like, I have to work, I have to do this, I have to grind, I'm the only one that can. And I think we hear that a lot. And so then they almost get to the point where they don't know how to not do that and feel successful, first of all. And then they don't know how to, then they don't know how, they start resenting their work. And when you resent your work, you're slower, you're less detailed, you really care less, so your diagnosis goes down.   acceptance goes down, your schedule starts falling apart, because the universe is like, oh, you don't really like this, let me take it away from you. Hygiene falls apart, team members start quitting, and it's typically because, again, like my example earlier, I had a doctor that was like, I just want to be home by 530. Then do it. Typically, it's because we're there till six, seven, eight o'clock at night, because we think we're the only ones who can. It's so out of alignment that everything else just sucks, and we start to hate it.   DAT Kristy (20:26) Yep.   The Dental A Team (20:32) But when we can find that balance and even just defining it brings the balance to center stage and it's much easier, that I totally agree with you. That's when we're intentional with our time. And when we're intentional with our time at work, we bust through things quicker, we enjoy it, we diagnose better, we are more invested in our patients than the outcome. And so case acceptance naturally increases. And we've seen like, we've seen huge.   huge profitability increases, 30 % within three months I've seen because they were intentional, they did the things they had to do and they listened, they implemented really freaking well and they were like, all right, Kristy, I believe you, I trust you, that's why I hired you, I'm gonna do this and we're gonna celebrate at the end. And we've seen it, we've seen so much happen in such a short amount of time with that kind of mindset.   I totally, I totally agree with you. think this is, I hope this is really, really valuable to even people who are showing up as amazing leaders. It's still very easy to get caught in the trap of ego filled. I have to. And I've seen incredible leaders be the ones that, that ego, it sneaks in there. It has to be there on some level. Always our ego has to be there. You can't totally get rid of it. It's, it's a good.   but it needs a balance. And sometimes that ego, when we're busy, starts to creep up and starts to get louder. And we start to get to the point where we think, this is all on me. I have to do it. No, Tiff, you don't understand. I have to be here till seven. And Kristy, I think that's the space where you're able to come in as a consultant and really say, but do you really have to? Is there not a way out? Let's explore that together.   you do that by asking those questions. And Kristy, I've watched you do it and I think it's incredible.   DAT Kristy (22:33) Thanks. Yeah, I'm hearing you say delegation and honestly, know, again, flipping it, we have to take ourselves out of the equation. I think, again, we see it every day. We're in our own way. And so when we approach something and take ourselves out of the equation, just even with the delegation part of it, when you are able to flip that, then you can see by not delegating,   you're hindering your team's growth. And that's a different perspective than my team won't rise up to the occasion, right? I'm part of that equation. So yeah, I love it.   The Dental A Team (23:14) Yeah, amazing. Amazing. And you pulled out a great word and action item there. think delegation is key. So I think a couple of takeaways are action items that you guys have. giving you, I'm gifting you those today is number one is to really, think Kristy, you said like, look at your why. Why are you doing this? And then where are you out of balance that is making you feel like you have no work life balance? So what is, what does the terminology actually mean to you? What is your why? How can you get there?   when you get to these points and you need help, please reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com You can reach us on our website. You can reach us with a review below, like however you need to find us and get to us, Instagram, Facebook, I don't care, reach out. We're here to help you through it. So go figure out what's your why. If you know your why, figure out how are you out of balance on getting there. And then Kristy, I think your word delegation, like find something, even if it's one thing today that is on your plate that you can successfully delegate to someone else.   And as an example, I was on a marketing call with an office manager with an outside marketing company. This is first time I've ever met them. she was great. The gal was great. And she said, no one's responding to your social media interactions, right? There's no engagement responses. So we've got TikTok and a massive amount of great social media following, but there's no responses happening. And she's like, we don't have to figure it out today, but I'm just.   I'm letting you know and the manager was just like, okay, I'll figure it out. I'll get on it. And I looked at the manager and I said, well, your new patient advocate who's only seeing new patients, who's not getting enough new patients in her, we're not seeing enough new patients. That's one of our issues. Why doesn't she do it? Like her job is to ensure that start to finish, new patients get the experience. This is the very baby start is engagement. And she sat back, you could see she relaxed and she was just like,   my God, you're right. And so my point of that story is sometimes it's something so simple. And I said, you're investing in her and you're telling her that she is worthy and value valuable enough to take a task like this on. That's really cool. And I think it's going to inspire her, encourage her and give her just so much strength in her position. You're actually helping her be better.   by giving her a task that was going to, you were gonna resent, you were gonna hate that task. So my point of that story, doctors, leaders, team members, look at your balance and say, what's keeping me out of balance? And is there something as simple as social media engagement, whatever it is, that I can pass on to someone that it makes more sense for them to do it? And it may make them feel better about their job. Go do those things. What's your why? What's keeping you from getting there? What's got you out of balance?   And what's one thing you can delegate to someone else to help inspire them in their career? Kristy, this was super fun. Thank you so much for taking the rides with me. And just you have incredible input. And I really appreciate you, Kristy. Thank you.   DAT Kristy (26:22) Thank you and just a little tip for somebody if they want to go do some research go look at the Eisenhower Matrix and Start to put your things in there. You'll see very clearly What can be delegated and ⁓ even things that maybe you thought were important that no longer will be important So little tip there for the end ⁓   The Dental A Team (26:43) That was great. Thank you, Kristy. All right,   guys, you heard it straight from us. Go do the things. If you've been here for a long time, you know doing the things is worth it. If you're just here, trust and you will reap rewards. I promise you. So as always, you guys, we are here to help on your journey wherever you're at. Please reach out. I've told you a million times how to get there. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. You can go to our website, TheDentalATeam.com. There are ways that you can schedule calls with us. There are ways that you can reach out to us by   Text you guys Instagram Facebook email review below five stars are fantastic and I appreciate them However, you can get to us. I don't know a smoke signal like just reach out to us We are here to help you and we want to be that support for you Hello at the only team calm you guys we will catch you next time. Thanks for sticking it out with us  

Dr. Len Tau, aka the Reviews Doctor, is on the podcast. With Kiera, he goes into the most critical nuts and bolts of making sure your practice stands out (or at least keeps pace with) online reviews amid AI. He explains jargon terms like ranking power and factors and velocity of reviews, whether or not you should actually be responding to reviews of your practice, and a ton more. Visit SuperchargeYourDentalPractice.com and enter the code RAVING to save $100 on registration for Dr. Tau's annual conference. About Dr. Tau Dr. Len Tau thrives on helping practices maximize their online reputation, marketing, and social media strategies. As a speaker, Len is known for his lively and engaging presentations packed with ready-to-use strategies. He regularly travels the country sharing his marketing brilliance and passion for practice growth with audiences. As a consultant, he offers practice leaders with real-world solutions tailored to fit their specific challenges and opportunities. Len loves to help doctors and their teams understand and implement successful online systems to build their practice. He currently serves as general manager of the Dental for Birdeye Reputation Marketing Software. Selected as one of Philadelphia's Top Dentists by Philadelphia Magazine, he continues to experience growth year after year in his fee-for-service practice focusing on general, cosmetic, reconstructive and implant dentistry. Following his father into the dental profession, Len graduated from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and continues to pursue ongoing continuing education opportunities. He has had the privilege of serving patients for two decades. He is an active member of numerous professional organizations including the American Dental Association, the Pennsylvania Dental Association, the Academy of General Dentistry, the Eastern Dental Society, the Northeast Philadelphia Dental Implant Study Club, and the American Academy of Clear Aligners. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I am so excited. This is one of my dear friends. We've known each other for several years in the industry. I'm super freaking pumped. I'm going actually be at his event next year in September. Little teaser. Stay tuned. He's got an amazing event he does every year in September. I have Dr. Len Tau. He is one of my faves. He is better known ⁓ as an authority in the dental consulting world, reputation marketing, and a practice growth. He's recognized by dentistry today as a top dental consultant for eight straight years.   He is the author of Raving Patients and 100 plus tips to 105 star reviews in a hundred days. Like this man knows how to do it. He's one of my faves. We really do collaborate on so many fun things. After 20 plus years in clinical practice, he now helps dentists nationwide, increase revenue, case acceptance and visibility. He leads the dental vision at BirdEye, hosts the Raving Patients podcast and runs the Supercharger Dental Practice Conference, which is the one I was alluding to that we're gonna be at next year in September, empowering practices to thrive in today's competitive landscape.   He's truly one of my faves. And today we're gonna dig into like, how do you get online reviews? But Len, welcome. I'm so happy to have you on the podcast. How are you today?   Dr. Len Tau (01:06) I'm good, thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here.   Kiera Dent (01:08) Of course. And this just came about because Len like, let's just do a little teaser. You're prepping full like steam ahead right now for your event that's coming up in September in Florida. ⁓ I love like the last time you and I were on the podcast, we talked about you in clinical dentistry. And then we reconnected after some time and you've left the chair, you're living your best life and you full blown gone into the event space. So just like, I know we're gonna get into like online reviews and how AI is changing that it's going to be just a really, really fun episode today. But tell us a little bit like   How is it going from like full blown dentist in the chair to now full blown events, like running these awesome events that we're super excited to be a part. Just kind of give me a little insight to that.   Dr. Len Tau (01:46) Well, it's been, it's been a lot of, a lot of fun. It's been very different, obviously, you know, for 23 years, I practiced dentistry, um, for about 12 of those, 13 of those who was full time. And then I went part time in 2017 until I sold and retired in 2022. Um, but one of the things I've grew up on in dentistry was going to dental events and, the big, the ones, the small ones, you know, all over the country and as a dentist first, and then as a vendor.   Kiera Dent (02:08) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (02:15) Um, since 2013 or 14, so a long time in the space. know, one of the things that really hit me was that the events are not really put on very well. They're not, um, you know, whether you, if you're a dentist, there's issues when you're a vendor, there's issues. And I said, you know what? I want to change the game. And, um, one of my goals when I retired from dentistry was to start putting on events. So in 2023, um, in, in September, we did an event in Delray had 208.   Kiera Dent (02:25) Right.   Dr. Len Tau (02:44) Dennis there, 33 sponsors. was, first day was business, second day was marketing. Excuse me. First day was marketing. Second day was business. Had a 13, 14 speakers. It went off better than I could ever imagined. I then moved to the last year in 2024 to Scottsdale. And we were at the Scott Resort and Spa, which is a beautiful hotel and the event was good. It wasn't great. Definitely moving to different coasts.   I felt there was not as much, know, engagement, excitement about the event. So I, my family and my wife and I decided, Hey, we're going to do this. Let's have people come down to me. I live in beautiful, you know, part of Florida. we're having this year's event and the next three of them at super at, ⁓ at pure 66, a brand new hotel, ⁓ in Fort Lauderdale. It's literally half hour from my house, five miles from the airport, easy to get to. So this year event is September 26th and 27th.   Kiera Dent (03:32) Bye.   you   No.   Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (03:45) We've got 14 speakers, ⁓ mixture of business and marketing. So we've got people talking about social media, about content. We have people talking about saving money on taxes. We're talking about how to become a fee-for-service practice. ⁓ So a lot of different great content and top speakers, Steve Rasner, Paul Goodman, ⁓ Jeff Buski, ⁓ Richard, Rich Maddow. So some real, real heavy hitters. And then some people who people haven't really heard of, Melanie Diesel, who's new in the dental industry.   So, but I like to do it differently and my events are very high end. You come, you're going to see things you probably have never seen before. I give a ton of time to the vendors so the vendors love me because they make sure that they get integration or interaction with the attendees. So you're going to be speaking in 2026, same weekend at September 25th and 26th in 2026, same hotel, pure 66.   Kiera Dent (04:28) Sure.   Yeah.   Dr. Len Tau (04:40) We're ramping things up right now. We're literally a month out from the events. still have people signing up. I still have people wanting to reach out as sponsors. And it's, it's, it's, is the fun time for me. Cause when I'm done, I'm, you know, I get a couple of months of break and then I start promoting 2027 again. So ⁓ it's been a good time. I really enjoy it. And I find that I've kind of ⁓ created something that's very different and the attendees really enjoy it and the vendors really enjoy it. So if I can make everybody happy,   Kiera Dent (04:45) No.   Dr. Len Tau (05:09) That's all I'm looking to do here.   Kiera Dent (05:11) ⁓ and Len, I hope the audience, if they can't see it, they can hear it. I think it's so fun because I mean, I've seen you in different spaces in your career, in your life. And there is just this like giddy, like younger version of Len that I feel is emerging of like, it's like giddy boyhood, like excitement of I'm excited to put these on. I'm excited to do these events. And it just makes me so happy for you. And what I think I'm hearing is yes, attendees are happy. Vendors are happy. But I also hear that Len is very happy and to do something   in dentistry is just very, very fun. It's very exciting. And so we're jazzed. I'm really excited. I love good events. I love great time. I love to help. love business marketing. Everybody can take that. That's not Kiera's jam. Like I, that's why I wanted to bring you on. You guys are very good at marketing. You're very good at that space. but to talk about how to help people have their best lives to grow the practices that they want to grow. I think you and I are so synergistic in that. So we're super excited and I love, I mean, I'm not going to highlight the fact that there were   a couple of sixes in that is September 26 at Pier 66. You guys hopefully like, I like the alliteration. Don't put anything weird on it guys, but I do appreciate that you made it easier. September six and nines flipped upside down are a six. Like hopefully everybody can remember September 26, Pier 66. It'll be a good time in 2026. I mean, we got four lines, so we're okay. We've at least got four sixes, not we didn't end on three, but I really hope an exciting step. We'll make sure we put some info for people.   For this year and for next year, I think it'll be a fun time. Dental A Team will be there, so come hang out with us. ⁓ Len, I'm super excited. I will not spoil secrets, but a lot of the things he told me for the events, I will say he does put his heart and soul into it. So Len, excited about that. Thank you for sharing. Good luck for this year. We're gonna be rooting you on this year and next year. And now let's pivot. Let's go into like your jam. You're in BirdEye, you're in marketing, you're on online reviews. AI has come into the scene. Practices are changing.   I also will say, I hope everybody listens to you of their like succession story. You hung up the hand piece, but you are still full steam ahead in dentistry. And so I hope people see that like there is no path to dentistry. Like you just, it's a, it's a beautiful world that you're in. So let's talk though, online reviews, AI, how is this working? How do we make sure that practices are still being visible? Chat GPT is on, on the prowl.   There are clients signing up with us now that have found us on chat. GPT, which is so random. It's changing how people have been doing things. Walk me through. What are you seeing with these online reviews? The importance, how to bring AI in? Like, let's just kind of go in a rift on how practices can still be visible with AIs. Like just showing up to the scene.   Dr. Len Tau (07:43) So I wanna talk about chat CPT for a second. ⁓ I refer to it as my best friend. ⁓ It helps me edit. No, I haven't named it yet. No, I haven't named it. ⁓ you have?   Kiera Dent (07:50) Have you named it? I've got to just ask Len. Have you named? I have! Me and Chet,   I had a name and now her name is Wanda. I don't know why, I don't even know where Wanda came, but people are like, here, are you hanging out with Wanda again? Cause I agree. Like they're our best friends. So go on Len. I can't wait to hear what you name your Chet GPT cause mine is currently Wanda.   Dr. Len Tau (08:06) I'll have to, I   have to name it now that I have to think of something. ⁓ but no, I started using it. I'm like, this is really helpful and it's only gotten better. And, just to give you an idea is, ⁓ my wife and I, and my son, my son just graduated high school. He's literally just started his freshman year at, university of Florida on a free ride. ⁓ smart, smart ass kid. I'm very proud of him. But, you know, and I travel a ton, but I travel a ton for business and I made a commitment. I think I told you that,   Kiera Dent (08:25) Boo? Yeah.   Dr. Len Tau (08:35) during the summer when he was going away for school, I was not going to travel. So from March to literally next week, beginning of September, I haven't traveled at all for business. we did plan some really great travel for our personal lives. And one of the things we did was we had a cruise, a 17 day cruise to Europe. ⁓ And when I decided I did not want to do the excursions to the cruise, cause they're really expensive and you're with all these people. I prefer to kind of just go and tour myself.   Kiera Dent (08:44) It's awesome.   Dr. Len Tau (09:05) So I use ChatGPT in every city. And I said, I'm going to the city. This is what I'm going to get in. This is the cruise I'm going on. It got the cruise itinerary. And I said, I want to set up private tours in every city with different people. And it helped me pick the best tour guides. They referred me to a website called Tours by Local, which is an amazing website that you can meet people who are local that will take you around.   show you the city and it was amazing. It was amazing. So I thank Chachi PT for doing that because I wouldn't have known about half these things if I didn't do it. And in fact, one of the women, and actually the very first place you went to, which was in Split, Croatia, which was beautiful. I told her that literally that's kind of how I went down this road was I asked Chachi PT, what should I do in Split? And they said, you need to use this tour guide. She's the highest rated tour guide and has the best reviews on tours by local. like,   What's towards by local? And that started this whole thing. So she was, she was amazed to hear that. So, ⁓ I have been using Chad GPT for a long time, like I said, and even now it is people I know type in, know, get me to the best dentists in the area. And it's very much based on reviews. So you have to be a highly rated practice. you may not believe in reviews and if you do, think you're not smart, but you know, if, if you want to be at the forefront of where people are looking,   Kiera Dent (09:58) Yeah.   Yes.   Dr. Len Tau (10:25) You have to generate reviews in a significant amount. Velocity now, which is how often you're getting them, is one of the biggest ranking factors on Google, whether you want to believe chat GPT or not. ⁓ But you have to get reviews. You can't, you know, rest on your laurels and say, well, I have enough because you never have enough. Okay. And, ⁓ and you've got to let Google rank you high. And there's been a big discrepancy in the industry, a big, I don't want to say a misunderstanding.   Kiera Dent (10:43) read.   Dr. Len Tau (10:52) But I've been in the review space now since 2013, so 12 years. And in the past, dentists thought that if they get reviews, they're going to rank. And that's not the way it is anymore. If you have reviews, but don't pay attention to the other ranking factors, you actually don't rank well. And that's a problem. So, chat GPT AI is so important, but you still got to dominate Google. You still got to get to the top of the pages.   And that's really where the direction is going. and if you aren't there now and you are ignoring it, you're never going to get there. So I would love to talk to you about our list in instruct or educate the listeners and viewers of these ranking factors that they need, need to pay attention to, or they're going to be left behind when it comes to ranking on Google.   Kiera Dent (11:27) Yeah.   absolutely. And I'm excited for this too, because, I did notice that you've got to like, AI is just crawling the web. That's where it's getting, it's being taught. It's crawls it. It looks through all of it. And so agreed with you. have a lot of clients and like, we want the secret pill of marketing. And I might get your reviews up. Like it is constant and consistent that if you get those reviews up and you bring pieces to the table, that people literally like that's what's going to rank you higher. So I'm excited, Len to, to dig in deeper because it is like how   getting more reviews, but to hear that there's more beyond just the reviews really can help these offices like get the best bang for their buck, help more practices. And I'm like, it used to be when I first started consulting when I used to tell offices get to like 100 Google reviews. It is now I'm pushing people like five, six, 700 reviews that you need to be getting ranked into. And I don't know if you're seeing like a cutoff line or if it matters on that. So I'm really excited to dive into like, what are the rankings? What are the pieces? Is there a difference? But I'm like now   100 reviews, when I look at somebody I'm like, hmm, like if there's another dental practice that has maybe 400, 500 new clients come on, the first thing I do is I go look them up to see how many reviews do you have? And I'm shocked at how many dental practices actually are not showing up when I Google their names and they're like, no, no, care, we're here. And I'm like, but if I'm a prospective new client that doesn't work in your practice and I don't see you all the time and I just tried to find you and I'm looking for you.   How many patients who are not looking for you are not finding you as well. So yeah, take us away, and I'm super curious, very intrigued by this. It's fascinating. And I'll also say, because AI is new, feel like people got like a reset slate. Like, hey, you can actually get back into the game if you haven't been into the game, if you just start playing now. If you don't, I agree with you. I do think that you will unfortunately get obliterated without trying if you don't get into the game now.   Dr. Len Tau (13:28) 100 % so and I couldn't agree with you more. So the best thing to do here is if you're listening to this, I want you to go to a Google search and I want you to type your practice name in. Okay, so that's the first thing to do. Right.   Kiera Dent (13:39) and not in your office. Don't do it in   your office. Go somewhere else. Like try it somewhere else.   Dr. Len Tau (13:44) Right, well, and 100%, that's another thing is that if you're gonna look up your ranking specifically, you do not wanna do that from your office location, okay? Because you're not gonna get real results. You also wanna go into incognito mode or private browsing mode on your phone or your computer if you're doing that to check ranking. But this is not specifically about ranking. This is more about how you appear online. So go to Google and type in your practice name. Not your name unless it's the name of the practice, but your business name, okay?   Kiera Dent (13:52) Yes.   Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (14:13) and it doesn't have to be what's registered with the state board. It's how you, when you answer the phone, what you say, okay? Pennsylvania Center for Dental Excellence was my practice name, okay? So you wanna look yourself up. So these are some of the ranking factors that Google looks at. Obviously one of them is your total number of reviews you have. Definitely a ranking factor, but the total number has not been as important as some other factors as well. So.   Kiera Dent (14:20) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (14:40) Average number of reviews in the industry right now is about 350. It used to be like 100 was the golden number. Now 350 is the average in the industry. So are you average? Are you below average or are above average? Okay, that's something to look at. The second ranking factor, which is even more important is the velocity of reviews. So how many reviews, how often you're getting them. Okay, so if you're getting once every two weeks, not enough. If you're getting them once every week,   Kiera Dent (14:46) Yes.   Dr. Len Tau (15:10) Not enough. You don't need them every single day, but two or three every single week is ideal. Okay, because you think two or three every week gives you eight to 15 a month times 12 months is 100 reviews a year, which is a nice number. Okay, so you have to have that velocity. All right. Third ranking factor is the total score, your average number of stars. So   I would like you to be anywhere from 4.6 to five stars. Okay. I don't think you have to be only five stars. think there's a negativity related to that. If you're only five star reviews, but I also don't want you to below 4.5. Okay. ⁓ And if you're at 4.3, 4.2, or even 4.1, another better review or two, and you're to be in the threes. And that's really where you don't want to go. Cause you lose a huge percentage of patients who may come in if you're less than four stars. Okay. Another ranking factor.   is the primary category. So how do you know your primary category? If you look under your Google, your name, will say right where the stars is, will say, hopefully dentist in your town or dentist in your county or dentist in your city. Okay. So your primary category should be dentist because we're a dental practice. Okay. If you're an oral surgeon, you may want it to be oral and actual facial surgeon. If you're an endodontist, want it to say endodontist. You don't want it to say dentist if you're a specialist. Okay.   ⁓ That's a big ranking factor and I'll give you an example. I, ⁓ my wife had some plastic surgery over the last couple of years and we were referred to that doctor. So we didn't need to search for him. We were referred to him. went in, we liked him, we used his services. ⁓ And of course, being a plastic surgeon, I talked to him about reviews. He now uses BirdEye, but he had me speak in an event that he holds down here in Boca Raton.   And I talked about this exactly. And I asked everybody, cause it was a small group. What is your primary category? And he goes, he said to me, literally, he says, I'm listed as a nurse practitioner. He wasn't listed as a plastic surgeon. He was listed as a nurse practitioner. So his categories were all messed up. So when you actually typed in plastic surgeon near me, he never showed up because his category was wrong. So primary category is a very important ranking factor as well. Now you also have to make sure your secondary categories are also. ⁓   Kiera Dent (17:15) No.   Dr. Len Tau (17:35) ⁓ under ⁓ are there as well as under the proper categories. So secondary categories, if you're a dentist, dental clinic, teeth whitening services, denture care center, orthodontist, if you're doing aligners, if you're endo, you're doing root canals, you can have endodontist. If you do periodontist, can do periodontist. You want to make sure you have nine secondary categories. Okay, if you don't have them, you want to add them.   Now, how do you add them? It's very easy. You go to Google using ChatGPT or anything and say, how do I add secondary categories to my Google business listing? Okay. It will tell you exactly like a recipe how to do it. You need to add those secondary categories. All right. And if you want help doing it, you can always reach out to me. The last ranking factor, which is really important is making sure that the practices name, address, and phone number is consistent. Okay. So just to be clear, most   website companies do not do local SEO. They do website SEO, which is making sure the website is SEOed so the website ranks higher on the organic rankings. We're talking about getting the Google business page ranking higher, which the website companies are not focused on. So when it comes to the name, address and phone number, is it consistent? You have to be consistent. And this is a Google requirement.   It is not a patient thing. It's not a me thing or you thing. It's a Google requirement that this data is consistent. So the name is obviously important. So if you have the and or the ampersand, you may find things inconsistent. When it comes to the address, if you have, you know, South State Streets, Unit 510, you can have South or S, you can have Street or ST, and then you can have Suite, Unit, Number, or STE.   All these variations need to be consistent. So one of them has to be done and one and stuck with. And then if you are using a tracking number for whatever reason on your Google business listing, you may find your inconsistent there as well. So when you make everything consistent and you get a higher velocity of reviews, guess what happens over time? You rank higher on the maps. And when you rank higher on the maps, you get more visible for patients to find you. So that's where the secret sauce is. And   Not that this is a sales pitch about BirdEye, but that's exactly what BirdEye does. BirdEye does those. We check all those boxes for you. And then what ends up happening is a practices get more reviews. But more importantly, when they ask patients how they find them, they're going to see that they found them because of their ranking online and the reviews drove them to the practice. So that's how this whole thing plays a role in getting a practice more visible and credible.   Kiera Dent (20:06) Thank   Wow. So I was over here like taking a lot of notes, which I really loved. I love the number, the 350 at the average, the velocity, like three to five per week you were saying. It doesn't need to be an everyday, but I do agree like them consistently coming through the total score, the 4.6 to five primary category, secondary category, making sure we have nine. And then you were talking about like the practice name, phone number, all of that has to be consistent. So the addresses have to be the same. And that's going to help you rank higher.   Did I miss anything? Those are my notes, Len. And I'm just curious, like, did I catch them all? Because there was a lot of pieces to consider. And then I have some follow ups as well. So like, did I miss anything in that list?   Dr. Len Tau (21:02) No, I   think you got it all there.   Kiera Dent (21:06) Okay, so hopefully that was a good recap for everybody. If you were listening, I tried to like summarize everything he said, because I really feel that those are super valuable pieces to know. Now, Len, there's a couple of things that happen and I'm very curious of what you've seen. Maybe you know, maybe you don't know. It's just a riff for me genuinely curious over here. Does it impact for the business to respond to the reviews? Because I know there was like a big misnomer out there like for a while, like you have to respond to every single review that helps you rank higher. What's the   What's kind of the lay of the land right now responding to the reviews that come in?   Dr. Len Tau (21:39) So there's been a big push over the years to respond to reviews. And there's also been those naysayers who don't want you to respond to reviews. So I want to make this very clear. When you respond to a review and you acknowledge them as a patient, you are technically violating HIPAA. Okay. Now by the letter of the law, if you do that, you violated HIPAA and can be in trouble. Now in all the years I've been doing this, I've only seen one   Kiera Dent (21:49) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (22:08) example of a positive review being responded to and the dentist got in trouble. Okay. So if someone writes a review for you and it's five stars and you say, thank you so much for your feedback. We were glad you had a great experience in our practice. Okay. You technically violated HIPAA there because you acknowledged that they came into the practice. I don't think you'll ever run into any problems with that. I don't, I've never seen any instance when a, when a practice has got into trouble. But again, by the letter of the law, it's a violation.   Here's where the person ran into a problem. Okay. So the review in question, the patient wrote, I'm so happy with my appearance after I went to so-and-so's dental office. I think they were in Texas. The dentist responded, we're so happy that you, thank you so much for your review. We're so happy that you loved our magic needles. Okay. So it, from what I understand is the patient had Botox or   dermal fillers placed and that's what they call their magic needles. So the patient wrote, wrote a letter to the practice saying, I didn't appreciate you letting the world know that I had Botox done and asked for the review response to be taken down, which the dentist immediately did. Took it down and apologized, but it really pissed the patient off and the patient sued the dentist and won. Okay. Because the dentist went out of their way to   Kiera Dent (23:08) Mm-hmm.   Right.   Dr. Len Tau (23:33) you know, release private information that wasn't supposed to be done. So in that case, you shouldn't be doing that. Okay. Now on the same note, I would be very careful responding.   Kiera Dent (23:37) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (23:45) to a review that's left by a negative, a negative review that's written by a patient. I would be very careful responding publicly to that because it's very hard to respond without violating HIPAA. So a simple response like, we're sorry to hear about your experience. Please contact the office to discuss the concerns as we're unfortunately unable to comment due to HIPAA release privacy stuff. That's fine. But.   Again, I just not sure it's the best thing to do. So you have to be careful with negative reviews. What it doesn't do is we really haven't found any relationship between responding and ranking. Okay, so you have to, I always leave it up to the people to respond. I like using AI to respond as well, because I think it comes up with HIPAA compliant and really good responses. ⁓ But you have to decide what you want to do for your own practice.   Kiera Dent (24:16) Mm-hmm.   Interesting.   That's actually really helpful to know. ⁓ Okay, good feedback for people to ponder and decide what they want to do on. The second piece is   some people lose their Google My Business and they're not able to be found. ⁓ And I don't know if you have reasons why. I don't know if it's from like a name change or it's inconsistent. So like a lot of offices have a lot of reviews, but when you go to search them, they're hidden on Google My Business. Like it will show up on the person's side, but nobody externally can find it. Do you have any ideas of like what causes that or what offices can do if they're struggling with that?   Dr. Len Tau (25:11) So I want to clarify that what question you asked there. I'm sorry to ask a question when you asked the question was when you say that you're saying that when they search for their Google business listing, they can't find it or when someone is searching for the office, they're not visible on the maps.   Kiera Dent (25:15) Hey, that's okay.   So when they're searching, so if I just go into Google and I type in like my perfect smile, the website might link, but the Google My Business with all, and they might have like 150 Google reviews, like it might be, like they've got them all and the office can see it when they like log in as like, this is, you own this, but they've lost it and it's no longer visible publicly. Do you know what causes that or how they can get that back? It's okay if you don't, I'm just genuinely curious. Cause I know some offices struggle with this, especially with like name changes of practices.   going through different ownerships. ⁓ Some of them have told me it's like when I changed the name of my practice, it no longer showed up. Like we have all these reviews, but we're not showing up. Do you know what causes that or how practices can get back being visible?   Dr. Len Tau (26:02) Yep. Now that you   asked it that way, so that usually means that your Google business listing has been suspended. And if you can't find it on search, but you see it, means it's suspended in most cases. Name changes, address changes, other things you do can cause it to be suspended. There are, if you look up on use chat GPT, ⁓   and say, why is, why can your Google business page be suspended? There is a list of different reasons why it can get suspended. ⁓ if you're getting reviews the wrong way is a big one. So, like you should not be incentivizing for reviews. And I'm talking about incentivizing the patients. You shouldn't be getting reviews in your physical office space because there's IP address conflicts and location services on the patient's phone. So if you're doing that, not only will you can potentially lose reviews, but you can't get it suspended, but you can look on.   Kiera Dent (26:37) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (26:55) on chat GPT or Google and just say, what are the reasons that your business page can be suspended? And they're there. So usually you have to ⁓ re-approve it or re-verify that page. And there's certain things you do. You'll have to take a video of yourself in front of the practice, showing the address, showing the name of the business on the door. So there's things you will have to do to get it over to Google. So they'll re-verify you. And then once it happens, there's a good chance they'll unsuspend the listing. But that happens for that reason.   Kiera Dent (27:24) Gotcha. Okay. That's super helpful because I know a few offices have struggled with that. So was just curious for that. All right. This has been so helpful to figure out rankings. It's been helpful to understand. ⁓ My last question as we wrap up today on reviews has been so helpful, Len, is how do offices go about like, what are your recommendations? Yes, bird eye, swell, podium. Like there's a lot of review in Weave. I do, I usually recommend using an external one outside of things. think that they like, if they're just, if that's what they do, they're going to be experts at it.   But how can offices ethically and appropriately, like obviously great patient experience, but how do they increase these Google reviews? What are some of the best tactics you've seen to help these offices out?   Dr. Len Tau (28:04) So being biased, I mean, I'm a true believer in BirdEye because we help with the reviews and the ranking part. ⁓ Swell, which is a great product. know the guys who swell really well. A lot of their doctors don't rank well because they don't focus on the listings part of it or the ranking part of it. ⁓ I'm not a fan of Wee from a review perspective because they swell BirdEye and Podium, make it very easy. Weave doesn't. It's just the way we do it with our three other products. ⁓   I always say this, you can get reviews any way you want. The most effective is gonna be use some software, simple as that. But it all starts with the practice and it all starts with, I like to create a reputation culture in the practice, which means you know that every time a patient comes in the practice, that they're going to be evaluating you and reviewing you potentially. And you've gotta be on your best behavior, you've gotta put a happy smile on your face, you gotta treat them like they're the...   Kiera Dent (28:40) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Len Tau (29:00) king of the world, okay? You gotta roll out the red carpet. And if you don't do that, they may write a bad review, okay? But if you don't create that reputation culture, I think it's gonna be hard to get the practice to really accelerate the reviews. So creating that reputation culture using great verbiage skills. I love calling it feedback, not a review. If you call it a review, it sounds like you're begging for it. ⁓ The feedback conversation is much more comfortable to have. So, you know, it's an interesting situation, but if you don't ask, you don't get.   So you've got to ask. I think if you ask and you combine it with a really good software, you'll get a really good number of reviews. If you don't ask, you don't get. It's that simple.   Kiera Dent (29:30) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   ⁓ well, that was so great. I appreciate this so much. And it's fun to hear about how AI is helping. It's fun to hear about how you still have to be great on Google. So ⁓ I just appreciate you. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate the knowledge you shared. appreciate for offices. I hope they take action and Len any last thoughts, how people can connect with you if they want more help on this. know ⁓ like truly in my opinion, this is the simplest marketing. Everybody wants to like sexy magic pill of marketing. And I'm like, no, it's like really great experience. Ask for the reviews, ask for the feedback.   like rank so that way people can find you I've had offices that had like three four or five new patients and they're like I need this marketing I need all these things which I'm not here to say not to do it but I will say great reviews will boost you very quickly so Len any last thoughts you've got how people can connect with you because it's been truly just an incredible episode today   Dr. Len Tau (30:26) So ⁓ I'm around the country a lot. So you can always connect with me in person if I'm at some of these events. If you wanna come to Supercharge, you can connect me there. SuperchargeYourDentalPractice.com You can use the code RAVING to save $100 on registration. ⁓ We also have some scholarships available. So if you do wanna come, you can reach out to me personally. So ⁓ my cell phone's all over the internet. The easiest way, if you have any questions, you want advice, you want help, I'm the guy to reach out to. My phone number is 215.   Kiera Dent (30:40) Awesome.   Dr. Len Tau (30:55) 292-2100. And my best email is Len, L-E-N, at drlentau.com, which is D-R-L-E-N-T-A-U.com. And you can email me, you can text me, you can call me, tell me you heard about me here and you need some advice. I'm more than happy to offer it to you. I do it all the time. ⁓ I love when people reach out to me because they know I'm an expert. So I do it kind of as a favor to people. ⁓ But no, you reach out to me, I'm happy to give advice.   Kiera Dent (31:23) amazing. Len, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'm super excited for Supercharge 2025 and especially 2026. So everybody snag that. And truly, I hope you take action from today's podcast. This is easy ways for you to boost your marketing, be found and seen online. And Len, thank you for joining me today. I truly, truly appreciate you.   Dr. Len Tau (31:41) Thank you for having me, Kiera, I appreciate it.   Kiera Dent (31:43) Of course. And for all of you listening, thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Kiera shares some motivation everyone could use a bit of right now, especially if you're facing significant challenges. Her episode reading recommendation: Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I just want to give you a quick tactical, amazing, miracle morning recap. I have a friend in my life right now who is just struggling and I struggled last year and like I realized, my gosh, like maybe it's time for me to give you guys a quick boost on how we can create a little bit more momentum, a little bit more magnetism in our lives with a lot of ease. So if that's what you're here for, I'm here. Today's more about a life rather than a tactical tip.   but I believe that this tactical tip is going to set your DNA up to be the successful practice, the successful office manager, the successful hygienist, successful team member, giving you the DNA and the blueprint for it. So my name is Kiera. We love helping dental offices, their teams and their doctors and their patients truly live life at a higher level to be happier, to be more fulfilled, to be more profitable, to say yes to more things in your life. We call the yes model. You as a person being fulfilled, happy, vibrant.   E stands for earnings and profitability and S stands for systems and team development. Like let's put the systems in place. Let's teach you the tacticals, but let's make sure we get the DNA right. ⁓ Miracle Morning was a book that came into my life by Hal Elrod at such a vibrant time. I was at my lowest of my lows and I just needed almost like ⁓ a roadmap out. And I feel like this book was so magical and so powerful for me. And I just really, really, really appreciate it. So ⁓ I'm going to give you guys like kind of a rift on it.   But like helping you just get this into your life. Because like I said, my friend is just struggling, high anxiety, burnout, feeling like, can't I be, like, why can't I do this? A new mom, feeling just truly burdened and down. And I remember I was talking to them and they said, Kiera, I just don't understand. Like, I feel like I should be able to do this and I feel like I can't and I don't understand why. And I thought, gosh, how many people feel this day in and day out? Like all of us.   And that's the lie is we all think that everyone else can figure this out and I'm just the schmuck and I just don't know how to do it when it's all just a stupid lie. And I'm so irritated about it because the life experiences that we're having right now are truly gifts to us to help us evolve into the person we ultimately want to become. if you could realize that the challenges we're facing right now are truly the gift of your soul to propel you into the version of yourself that you need to be.   is something so hard to comprehend when you're going through it, but so easy when you're on the other side, like, wow, that was the greatest gift life ever gave me. And remember life is always happening for you and not to you. So how Elrod, like it just helped me have like a routine, like a routine of pieces. So like I said, I'm just going to break it down for you. He goes through what he calls are the lifesavers. And the lifesavers on there are S stands for silence, A stands for affirmations, V stands for visualization, E stands for exercise, R stands for reading.   and S stands for scribing. So on the silence, the way he describes it, it's like, be quiet in your mind and block out the chatter through meditation, prayer, or focused breathing. Okay, so I do it, I do meditation in the morning. I love Joe Dispenza, that's the one who's come in for me for a long time, I didn't. I've done calm, I've done lots of different things, prayer, whatever it is, but the goal is to quiet our mind. And I believe that our mind is like a muscle and we need to strengthen it. And so this is a great way to almost do like bodybuilding for the mind is to every day.   just have a moment and like a time of silence. And I usually do this before I start my day. So it's kind of like setting myself up, building that foundation, creating this affirmations, tell yourself encouraging words to achieve goals, overcome fears and feel happy. And what they've proven is like one thing that I love about Joe dispense is he talks about like the future causes anxiety and the past causes depression. And how can we be in this future moment in this present moment? And then how can we create our future and actually break the pattern and the habit of things that are known and create an unknown?   of what we actually want to become. So when we do these affirmations of like X, Y, Z, and then we go followed up with the visualization, a visualization, imagine yourself doing things you need to for the day in your future life and imagine what it feels like to succeed. So for me, it's like, what is that? Like, don't have to say that he's always like, what is that future life? Like I hear him in my head because I listen to him every single day, but it's like visualizing, like, what do you want to be? How do you want your life to be? Who do you want to be? And I was like, what things? you're   You're basically creating this future that's pulling you, that's compelling, that's something you don't know. And you're able to like literally bring this into your world. Now, I'm not gonna lie to you, this is not an overnight sensation. It's something that you build up over time. But it's really beautiful when we're giving ourselves affirmations, which I have like a ton of I am statements. And then we go into E stands for exercise. So doing something of movement. It can be a one minute movement, but like just go for a walk or a jog. Getting moving allows the blood and oxygen to flow to your brain.   like my morning walk, like the shower for my brain, clear out all those cobwebs before I take off, doing something to honor my body which is this beautiful billion dollar asset that I have that I promise and committed to treating her with so much respect and love. R stands for reading. Fill your brain with positive thoughts and ideas to improve yourself. So any type of reading, anything, even if it's like two minutes like you could grab, but it's not scrolling, it's something of positive. Like you'd be shocked at how many books you get through if you'll just read like a page of morning. ⁓   to just fill your mind with something positive. And then S stands for scribing, write a journal to process thoughts and reflect on what you've achieved. So they have the short and condensed version of the savers, because I was like, wow, that feels like a lot. But again, it gave me a roadmap. So like, cool, I do meditation. Then I visualize within my meditation. Then I have affirmations. My husband says his affirmations in the shower. Like, truly, that's not a joke. Or he says that on his drive to work. And then we have our exercise. We have our reading. And we have our scribing.   I have cut a few of these things down. That's like the quick down dirty formula for it. And so for me, what I try to do in my journal is every morning I do what I'm grateful for, accomplishments I had from the day before, because I want to build that momentum. I do my improvements. And sometimes I just do one. I don't give myself any more than three. So my improvement was live in gratitude more. That was my improvement. I just want to see where life is more abundant and beautiful for me. That was my improvement. So it's nothing hard. It's nothing berating. It's truly just that.   I always do a portion of joy, like what was my greatest joy from yesterday? What's my self love? That one was really hard for me. I put that in and I had to write three things that I loved about myself, whether it was physically, mentally. So the one I wrote in here is that I love my brilliant mind. What's wild is like, why are we not our best friend? Like, why do I not look in the mirror every day and be like, gosh, girl, I just love you I'm so grateful for you. Like, why not be the biggest cheerleader for ourselves? So that was a big thing for me. I write down my goals of what I want to achieve.   And then what are my results for that day that I want to accomplish? So that's my scribing. Journaling for some reason makes me feel weird. It's been a few years block for me that I haven't been able to journal. So that's kind of my quick formula. And then just so you guys know, I have my like just a couple IM statements of like four year affirmations. I say, I am creative. I have growth and expansion. I am love. I have divine connection and collaboration. I have self love and compassion. I am honest. I have an abundant mindset. I'm fun and playful.   I have trust and flow, I have queen strength. So those are just a few. And then some of my affirmations are like, my success is inevitable. This is one that I always have like, hold on, I'll read you my favorite one. I'm 100 % committed to being so dang good people can't ignore me. Kierda is a name that is known across the world for good and for changing those she touches through word, deed and presence. And that's who I wanna be. That's how I wanna show up in this world. I also love this one. I am committed. Let me read this one to you.   ⁓ I think this one's just funny. ⁓ I am committed and choose to be happy each day by laughing so hard, doing super fun things weekly. So just some like really fun things for you. I have another one. This was at a time in my life where I did not have great relationships in my life. So it's been on here for almost nine years. It says I am 100 % committed to only having healthy, positive relationships in my life. I immediately cut out toxicity from my life. ⁓   I am 100 % committed to being grateful for the amazing life that is already mine and continue to watch success, joy, money, grace, friendships, employees. Yes, I added employees. Don't worry, that was for surely added. And happiness flowed to me with ease, acceleration, and continuity. So for you, I hope whatever it is, whatever your version of Savers is, whatever your version of Miracle Morning is, that you remember that you are the greatest asset, that you're choosing you, that you are showing up for other people.   This is the dumb analogy that I hate, but it's true. Put the oxygen mask on you first to give to other people. This is your breath of oxygen. This is your, whoosh, is the way to have a simple foundation for you every morning to prime your mind. For me, I feel like, why don't I prime my mind for what I want to see rather than priming my mind for whatever comes in my way? I truly believe that I am a creator of my life, not a manager of my circumstances. And I want to be creating this beautiful, abundant, radiant version of me.   And I hope that you want that for you too. I will tell you when I first started this, 90 % of what I just read to you, I didn't believe and I didn't feel and I didn't think was mine. And over time, after doing it day in and day out, and it's not lying to myself, it's just again, like Jodis Benz says, it's not looking forward and causing anxiety and it's not looking in the past and causing depression, but being present and then co-creating my future life of what I want, what I believe, what I can create, and then allowing that to come to me.   with ease, grace, continuity. So if you need help with this, not only do we coach on dentistry, but we also help people become the best versions of themselves. And I hope that you just take this because life's too short. We are going to have bumps, we're going to have bruises, we're going to have pieces come through. But what I hope is that you're able to find hopefully something in this miracle morning to give yourself the foundation, the ritual, the routine, the system for your life to give you the extraordinary life that you deserve. If we can help you reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.   I hope you choose you. I hope you choose to love you the most. I hope you realize that giving yourself 10 minutes, 15 minutes a day is the greatest gift you can give yourself for everything that your body and soul does for you day in and day out. Commit, love yourself, and if we can help, like I said, reach out. I'm betting on you and I hope you are too. And as always, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Kiera and Kristy talk listeners through the patience of the hiring process, with specific attention to understanding training capacity, establishing onboarding expectations, utilizing available resources — and what to do when you do all this already, and it still doesn't seem to work. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team Listeners. This is Kiera and today's an awesome day. I'm so excited. We have the one and only Trouble Hunting Kristy on the podcast today. I call her the truffle hunter because she finds all the money in the practices. Like Kristy, I don't know if you've looked at the stats, but you are rivaling me on the amount of production you're bringing into practices, which I think is a huge shout out to you. Kristy's one of our incredible consultants. So Kristy, with that intro, how are you today?   Kristy (00:27) doing wonderful. Thank you.   Kiera Dent (00:29) Good.   Yeah, of course. I feel like I need to get like a good nickname for you. So I've been like, clicking Kristy, but it's like, that's not what I'm going for. I'm going for like hunting Kristy, but I need like something. So if anybody out there can think of it, like in my mind, Kristy sits there. I don't know. It's a really funny image I have of you, Kristy. I see you like with your little shovel. You're like digging for the gold and the practices. You're like, I'm going to find it. It's like sleuth status Kristy.   So if anybody has a great nickname, send it on over. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I'm always here for good nicknames. So, Kristy will find one for you. You know, here we go. But Kristy, we've been working on some practices together and ⁓ just like in general consulting, I think there's some fun things. And right now I think it's like, what do you do when you can't hire team members? I think hiring like hygienists for an office, the hiring climate is really tricky. And I think we've been coming up with some good ideas.   Kristy (01:01) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (01:23) that might be really fun to dig into if you're down with that today.   Kristy (01:26) Love it, absolutely.   Kiera Dent (01:29) Awesome. All right, Kristy. So with practices, I were pretend I'm your office and I'm like, hey, Kristy, I need to hire, but I can't hire. Like what's step one, two, three? Where do we even start to find these people? Because I think this happens in almost every single practice. I've said it before in our company. Like how do we break beyond that to help offices really find some people? Because you had an office that like could not find anybody. And now they're onboarding three people in one moment. Like it's pretty incredible how we went like   the swing and the shift. So how do we get to that other than just having patience through the process?   Kristy (02:03) Yeah, well, I think there's multi steps to it. But first, I think we have to take a look at ourselves and figure out, are we the type of person that likes to train people or not? Right? Because if I truly am not a person that likes even training people, our avenue may look a little bit different than ⁓ if I really enjoy developing and coaching them up, if you will.   So first there's that step, if you will. And then I think the next step Kiera is, I get my doctors and teams brainstorming. What attributes are you trying to find within this person? What do they need to possess as a person, personality wise? And what skills are you looking for them to possess?   Kiera Dent (02:31) Okay.   Mm-hmm. Yeah, because I love that you actually brought up do I want to train and develop somebody and then who are we looking for because I think Sometimes people like know thyself and be free I think is the best way to phrase that I am someone who we used to try and hire consultants and train them up and honestly we did a dang good job, but I got to a level as the company grew where I'm like   We just need people who are already expert consultants that can come in at the level that we need. And so even though I might love to develop people, I think also looking at the size of your practice to see, is this a position that we have the space to grow them? Like if I'm a brand new practice owner, trying to grow and develop an office manager, probably not a great idea. Like that's hard. And that person also, you have to look at too, the ROI of this position that, well, I might not feel like I can afford it.   they're actually going to bring money like a very experienced office manager who knows how to bill and knows how to close cases. Even though they're very expensive with air quotes around it because you're brand new will pay undue dividends. Just like when I hire, I remember hiring my first treatment coordinator. I looked at her in the interview and I was like, listen, her name was Kristen. I still remember this. And I'm like, Kristen, I begged our doctor to like stamp off and let me hire you, but you have three months to prove yourself. Otherwise I have to fire you. Like   literally can't afford you for three months beyond this. So, but you should. I mean a treatment coordinator should be putting money on our books. Kristen was amazing. She paid for herself ten times over but it's that like risk too. So, when you look at this of do we have the time to train them? Do I have the skill set to train them? And is our business like for us? Training consultants right now does not make sense. I can't teach a consultant.   how to run a $6 million business that sells to a DSO and get them trained up to that level of expertise. That's something we've outgrown the training space. So now we need to bring in expert consultants that have been there, done that, done that successfully rather than trying to convince them. So I think it was a really solid point you had on that. But Kristy, what happens when you as a consultant know that this doctor could train someone? So for example, like a dental assistant, like we could train them.   but the doctor maybe just doesn't want to, but they don't really have the funds to pay for the higher level. especially like a dental assistant. I'm like, dental assistant is not necessarily gonna put money on my books. They might make me move faster if I have a highly trained one. Like that is, it's nice to have, but what do you do on that type of a practice that like you as a consultant are looking at the numbers and like, maybe we should try to train this person up. What are your thoughts on that?   Kristy (05:34) Yeah, well, to back up, think speaking to what you were talking about is what's the end result we're looking for and within what timeframe, right? Because again, realistically, if we need, if we're a startup and we need butts in the chair, we've got to be producing. We don't have time to train someone up, right? And if a doctor isn't really that great at it,   we've got to find different solutions for acquiring that person. And I think reaching out to your team members to find ⁓ their resources, who do they know? Who can we tap in that maybe they know and worked with and has been successful, right? And bring them on. But also I do believe we have to have a good onboarding process with expectations. You know, what by when and set them out.   not just for the person coming on, but for team members to enroll them in helping them too.   Kiera Dent (06:38) Mm-hmm.   Yeah. Kristy, brilliant point on that of like onboarding expectations. What results do we want by when? And I think that also is probably like the pivotal piece when we're looking at this of what is our result? When do we need it by? That way we can see like who should I really hire of all my candidates? And then I loved how you said like, let's figure it out. You and I were in a practice together and we were like, okay, what sets us apart? Why should people want to work with us? And then who do we want to hire?   and this office, they like run on roller skates. So I'm like, put that in the ad, say like, we run fast and hard. We don't want people that like, if you don't love spinning around like 50 plates going in the air, this is not the place for you. And it's been crazy, because like, that really does speak to, now the person who wants that is going to come rather than just hoping and praying. ⁓ But Kristy, what do you do like this office?   The one I'm thinking of this doctor, it would, it just like the cards were falling left and right. Like every time we'd get on a call, was another team member was gone. And just so you know, this is not just isolated to this doctor. Kristy and I have seen this over our careers. Like this happens. It just comes in waves. And then we're like, we sit here and giggle empathetically. It's like, gosh, like this is just so frustrating. And it's like a giggle of like, I don't know what else to do. I'm either going to cry or I'm going to laugh with you. So like, let's choose the laugh and figure it out. What do you say to those offices? Like when it feels like,   Okay, I'm putting the ads out. I know who I want. I've got my onboarding expectations. Like I literally can't find anybody. What do you do in that spot? Or like where should they even go? So first of all, I guess question A is where should we be posting these ads? What can we be doing to hire? So all of our fishing rods are out there. And then part B will be like, what do we do when all fishing rods are out there, but we're just not getting bites? So where do you recommend fishing rods should go to find people?   Kristy (08:08) Yeah.   Yeah, well first off with your team, who do they know? Who can they reach out to? What are the resources they have? Also schools in your area, know, they may have contacts, not necessarily new grads, because this doctor didn't need a new grad for sure, but they might have relationships still with part of their ⁓ alumni, if you will.   and or lists of their names that they could reach out, you could solicit, you just never know. And I don't mean solicit in a bad way, because there could be people that are out there working, but aren't happy where they're at and are looking for something a little bit different. Or they're happy but want growth opportunities, you know? So again, pull your resources, look at your teammates, and don't think just my assistants. It could be an admin team member, it could be a hygienist that worked   great people before. ⁓ The other areas, obviously, if I wasn't looking for somebody that was hugely experienced and I had the ability to train, I like looking at restaurant servers or you find people that have great customer service and are willing to go the extra mile. I love dangling a carrot out there and   not only dangling the carrot, like promoting them as well. Like, hey, you are a fantastic server. If you know any friends that are just like you, have those qualities and are looking for a career, I would love, you know, to have you give them my card. And sometimes you'll do that and they'll look at you and go, well, why not me? You know, and you just found someone. So.   Kiera Dent (10:17) Exactly.   Kristy (10:20) Those are a couple avenues. know you have some as well. ⁓   Kiera Dent (10:24) Yeah, Kristy, I love that you talk about that. And I love that you're   scrappy like this. And if you're hearing Kristy's voice, Kristy loves where she's at. She loves, like, I just feel the love and compassion and just like helping team members feel that. And I think when you can convey that, it really is an easier path to get people to want to work with you. ⁓ dentistry is so small and I feel like we're a nice patchwork quilt where we're all somehow connected. Like we have the oddest family tree where every single person, I mean, Kristy and I,   Kristy's like, hey, I met you a few years ago. And I was like, this is really funny. I literally have an email from you in my inbox, but yet our worlds came back around a few years later. So just remembering like we all, and once you start brainstorming with your team, people are usually like, my gosh, I know this person or hey, I live next door to a hygienist. Let me ask them or hey, what about this person? And so I agree, Kristy, like the power of networking. And like, I remember we went to, I was in a drive-through and there was this girl who was like,   amazing at customer service. It was at a fast food restaurant drive through and I just handed my business card to her and was like, girl, you're incredible. Like if you're ever looking for something or know someone who's just like you, have them call us. And this girl did call me like it's wild Shelby, who if you've met her in our company, literally my next door neighbor, she wanted my plants and knocked on our door. So look and hunt for good people all the time and always, always, always be on the hunt. I think let's not get ourselves into these pickles where we meet people.   but let's always be recruiting, always be looking for great people. And then of course I'm here for like writing really awesome ads. So we love using a company called Ava HR. We have a promotional code through Dental A Team. I've negotiated down to get you the best pricing, but you can post one ad and it will like, you can post how many ads you want and it's just one monthly fee. So I'm really big also though of like, this is where I put my fishing bait. I'm out there putting like a bunch of different titles to see who's applying to my different ads.   based on the title because just like podcast episodes, it's interesting. Shelby and I went and pulled like the most downloaded ones and it does not matter the content, it matters the title. And so same thing with your ads, like yes, that's going to attract somebody. So put really awesome titles and see like we have tried different ones to pull in consultants and the one that works best is usually like a regional manager or a consultant, like looking for something different. That one tends to pull me my best candidates, but I've tried office manager. I've tried treatment coordinator. I've tried like.   but until you know a bait works in your area, you've got to try them out. So that's why I really love that. Talk to your reps. Reps are connected. Doctors talk to people on the golf course. Like it's shocking how many dentists have come from golf course conversations that I've seen looking in your area. And just like you said, service industry, some of my absolute best office managers are bankers. So they're coming from banking and some of our best schedulers actually came from like tanning salons or hair salons that were super busy. Lots of high-end customer service moving really quickly. ⁓   but those are some of the best places. So I think like, get your fishing poles out there, start looking and then like, don't stop. Don't just like throw the fishing pole out there and hope and pray that the bait stays. Watch it, constantly update it, stay top of mind with people because just because you had a conversation with your team today doesn't mean they remember in a week from now. So making sure it's like top of mind, this is who we're looking for. If you know anybody, you see anybody and it's crazy because all of a sudden.   like little bubbles just show up in your world and people show up. So I think brilliant ideas on that, Kristy. So then part two of that question was what happens? Like, I honestly think it's just patience. So it's okay to just say patience. Like people want immediate results. And so what do we do in that interim when it feels like we're getting no bites, we're doing everything, we're talking to people. Well, A, it's cause your pipeline wasn't built. So.   Just once you hire people, they'll stop doing all these things you were doing to find people. So like, we'll just put that plug in there. But what do you do? What do you tell clients when they just feel like they cannot find anybody? So they're getting desperate. They're getting snootier. Like, sorry, doctors, you do get grumpy when you don't have team members. I do too. So it's not just you. I do too. What do you do to keep their mindset or what can they do to bridge that gap that you've seen work really well for your practices?   Kristy (14:36) Yeah, two things and I had a tie in to the last thing we were talking about one other Avenue that has worked really well for us. Doctors also kind of dig their heels in and resist but make a video. Doctor make a video, right? And if you guys have local Facebook groups that are for dental, post the videos on there. Have the doctor speaking with you know, hey, if you like this, come work with me.   Kiera Dent (14:44) yeah.   my god, yes.   Kristy (15:05) My team, we want you, you know? We've seen it work.   Kiera Dent (15:08) Hmm.   We have seen her and Kristy, great job on that. And doctors like, but I'm not like out there. Like, I don't like to myself out there. I'm like, good, post just that. Like who you are is going to attract the person that you want. And notice this, even Kristy and I on this roof, like we podcasting right now. We work together with the offices. Even right here, we're spurring different ideas, talking to each other. And this is what happens in your team. It's like popcorn. So it's like, what idea could we have here? my gosh, that's going to lead to this idea. wait, what about this?   my gosh, what if we did this like hygienist? I have an office and they literally do CE for hygienist in their area. You could do CE for doctors in your area. And then at the end, you just say like, Hey, we're always looking for hygienist. If you know anyone that like would love to be a part of what we're doing, we'd love to meet them. That office literally gets like three or four hygienist resumes at the end of every one of their CE conferences because people want to be with them. So it's again, like where are these people? How can we attract them? But right here, Kristy and I were like, cool, we got that.   And they're like, wait, this is another idea. wait, what about this? I just realized like once you start brainstorming, more ideas come from you. And I think let's not look like, let's ask better questions. Questions of like, where do these people hang out? Where does my avatar hang out? Where's like another cabbage patch I could go find that maybe we haven't thought of that might be like out of the box thinking. Where is this profile, like personality type, not profiling, but personality type. Where does this person hang out? Where do they like to be?   where can we go for this? That's what I'm gonna start to like think about. That's where the brainstorming happens. And this is where I feel like you are able to win when other people are just posting an Indeed ad and walking away. You're literally got like 10 fishing lines out there. Other ways you can do it that way too. So kudos on the brainstorm session, Kristy. I love it.   Kristy (16:52) Yeah.   Sounds good. And to your point, if they're not finding who they want, I like to redirect them and focus on what can we do right now while we're looking for this person. And like you say, continuously looking. think about the tools you have within your practice. Like, could we use Mr. Thirsty and maybe not have to have the extra set of hands right now or, you know.   I mean, there's just so many different solutions. Is there a hygienist maybe that would be willing to come work as an assistant or, you know, we've got to be creative.   Kiera Dent (17:25) And I think,   yeah, and Kristy, when you said that, like, I think it's important not to say no, right? It's very easy to give that pushback, like, no, I don't want to do this. I understand, and Kristy understands that you want the most perfect person to land in your lap. Well, guess what? You still have to do dentistry, and we still have to get through this until that perfect person shows up. And also, I think, Kristy, like, we can use a Mr. Thirsty. We could use a hygienist. We could have someone flex up front.   Like whatever it is, what that also does is it buys you time so you don't make a desperate hire. And I think that's one of the biggest pieces we're trying to help you see is then you buy yourself some time. I know you and I were talking to an office and you brought up the great idea of virtual assistants. Like virtual assistants, they're not long-term. They can be long-term. They can bridge gaps. They could answer phones. They could do billing for you. Things that you could outsource that maybe then would like alleviate the load. We had an office hand turn. You and I were like, all right, well, why don't we have a virtual assistant do?   all these pieces for you while we're waiting for your front office team member. I thought it was one of the most brilliant, think kudos to us. Like let's just like brush our shoulders off here. But that's like where I think a consultant and a guide can help you see. But I think you also have to realize like you're in a pickle right now. So let's get out of that pickle and make it to where we can be more creative. Any other thoughts you have on that, Kristy?   Kristy (18:47) No, I agree with you. think because even when we're talking virtual assistant, one of one of our teammates had a virtual assistant. Literally, they had no admin team member and that person was sitting on a screen greeting people when they walk in. And when we mentioned that the team's eyes were like, what? I'm not gonna lie. I kind of like mind blown to but think about it. That is still better.   than having to put a sign up and say, hold, because there's nobody here to greet you. At least they have a live person. It might be on a screen, not in flesh, but they're there and acknowledging them and greeting them. So truly getting resourceful, if we will, and like you said, thinking outside the box. And it doesn't have to be a long-term solution. It's an intel solution.   Kiera Dent (19:39) And I love that you said   it's an until solution because when we have that, like it's so brilliant because now I, what I love is this then opens up your, I'd say like treasure box of options that you have for the future. Like, great, I know I could do a VA. Great, I know I could do a billing outsource. Great, I know I could do a Mr. Thirsty. Like it's not optimal, but then also what this does is you're no longer handcuffed and shackled to team members being there because team members will come and go forever. That is the reality of owning a business.   We hope and pray they'll stay with us forever, but guess what? Like that's just not the reality of life. And that's also not the flavor of business either. And so with that, I think it teaches you resourcefulness. It teaches you what things you can do. It's kind of like, I always say, man, if I have to, I know I can scrap down to top ramen and like I can live so cheap because I did it before. And I think this just allows you to have that flexibility and creativity. And I think what I would like people to know, and I know Kristy's on the exact same pages,   Kristy (20:25) you   Kiera Dent (20:35) making sure we use these resourcefulness so we don't accidentally desperate hire. Like truly, it can be so tempting to just hire someone to make the pain go away, but it's choose your heart. Is it harder to like deal with this resourcefulness? like agreed when I heard about that person on the screen, I was like, you know what? But hey, it's 2025, everybody's on virtual. Like it's not that weird for people to have like maybe a little off, but I mean, Kristy and I hang out on virtual all day long. I don't see a single team member 90 % of the days that I work.   Kristy (20:55) Thank you.   Kiera Dent (21:04) that it's not as weird as we might think it is, but I think what it does is it forces the discipline so that way you can truly wait for your ideal hire rather than being desperate, hiring somebody, having to terminate them or they're not the right fit. I think it just allows you almost like a longer rope before you're like at the end of your rope as well. So I think it was brilliant, Kristy, great ideas on that.   Kristy (21:25) ⁓ thank you. ⁓   Kiera Dent (21:27) Of course. So with   that, think that's our that's kind of our wrap for you guys of what do I do? How can we get this? If we can't hire maybe helping you think of outside the box, how can we bring these people in? What do we need to do as far as looking at our practice, looking at what we want to bring into our practice, getting resourceful on where we put our fishing rods. And then how can we like do this, like beginning and ending to make sure that we're really in the right spot for this practice. So, Kristy.   love consulting with you. I love what you do for our clients. I love that you bring so much positive energy. I love that you think outside the box. And I think that that's why you can like, this is why I think you find money in practices because you're like, all right, it's not on this avenue. It's going to be over on this avenue. If it's not on this avenue, it'll be over here. But I think that same resourcefulness goes into how you consult. And I just want to say kudos to you and appreciation for being on the podcast and also serving so many of our clients as well.   Kristy (22:21) It's an honor. Thank you.   Kiera Dent (22:23) Of course. All right. For all of you listening, if you're struggling with hiring or you're struggling with motivation or you're struggling with all the things that business owners deal with, reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com or go click on schedule a call. The call is so fun. We literally show you gaps in your practice, things that you're doing really well and make it to where you can truly sleep better at night. And if we can help you, amazing. We'd love to help you. Otherwise just come like figure out where your blind spots are, but reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Dental A-Team's marketing mastermind Eve joins Tiff on the pod to discuss the top marketing strategies that can be easily implemented in your practice. They touch on social media, offline marketing, retention, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am in the studio air quotes there because you know, we're in two different places I say that all the time, but I am in the studio with someone very very special today and I'm so excited I just I adore this human being more than I think she will ever know I think she thinks she knows how much I adore her but she has no freaking idea   And I'm so excited to bring her here with you guys today. And I always bring my consultants and they are by far and away the A team and they make the Dental A Team who we are. And I'm always just so happy to bring them to you. But today you guys, I have the most amazing human being. I have Eve with us. And some of you may know Eve's name. ⁓ All of you likely see her handiwork every single week in your inboxes, in your email. ⁓   invitations, if you're part of our doctors groups, you are seeing her sprinkles of fairy dust and everything that the Dental A Team puts out, our logos, everything that we do. Eve is our marketing genius behind the scenes and she hates that term, but she really is our marketing genius. I have.   Eve, I'm just so happy to have you here. Like I could sit here and talk about you for the whole podcast and the amazing things that you've been able to do with us and for us. But first and foremost, massive welcome, massive thank you for taking this on. This is not, you love to be behind the scenes, but being in the face of everything is not your favorite space. And I somehow convinced you to do this. And Eve, thank you so much. And how are you today? How excited are you to be here with all of us?   Eve (01:37) I   am equally excited and nervous to be here. This is definitely one of the things that I had to challenge myself to do. you know what? It scares me and it's something new that I've never done before. So ⁓ let's do it.   The Dental A Team (01:52) I'm so excited. for all of our listeners, if you've ever attended one of our monthly webinars, we do free webinars so everybody knows every single month. It's the third Thursday every month. Eve actually, that's her. She is responsible for those. She puts them on. You've probably heard her amazing voice on there and maybe even seen her face a time or two, but that is the handiwork of Eve. And I know most of the content and most of the stuff, the engagement that you're seeing is put on by the consultants, but I want you guys to know   Eve is freaking brilliant. She is a mastermind and she has so many tools in her tool belt. And honestly, she, and I are constantly just in awe. Eve of the, we've told you this before, where we'll create content now, you guys. we, Kiera and I create the content. We're like, yep, let's rock and roll. And we send it over to Eve and I'm like, my God, I didn't even think of that. Like she's thinking of like dental things for us now too, because.   You've just done so much of it with us and you pour your heart and your soul into everything that you do. And I think when it comes to a great marketer, that is a massive piece of what really makes you shine and makes the company that you're working with or for truly shine as well is that you pour your heart and soul in there and you become who you're working with and you become that piece of content and you just embody it and you literally, like, ⁓ it makes me think of like Jim Carrey.   Jim Carrey does really, really well studying everything that he's going to his characters, right? So he does all the studying and he literally becomes them. And I've watched documentaries about him where he's like this different human. And that's what I imagine you doing Eve, when you go in and you do all of our content and all of our slideshows, our decks, all of that. You just become that content and you make everything just shine a little bit brighter. So massive kudos to you. Huge thank you and.   Again, thank you for doing this podcast with me, you guys. This is gonna be huge. Obviously we're doing it about marketing. I get so many questions about marketing and if you know I love marketing, it just lights up my soul, I don't know why. I love changing something a little bit to get a different result and to see what happens and use different words, use different tools, and it really, really lights my soul on fire.   I get asked a lot of marketing questions and something that even just what you talked about right now when we're prepping for this, I'm like, gosh, I actually get asked these questions constantly and I get asked for marketing companies. We have a ton we can recommend. We have time we work really closely with, but Eve, I really, really wanted you to come in today and really help us narrow down some effective marketing strategies that you've seen that you think can translate very easily to dental practices. We are a dental consulting company.   So our marketing might be a little bit like a smidgen different than an actual dental practice, but I think that a lot of it translates and marketing is marketing in my opinion. So there's a million things. And I think there's two that you just talked with me about that I want those to be like, this is the meat of it. But one question I get asked a lot that I wanna pick your brain on and I want just like, put this out there. And first off, before we even get started, everyone know Eve is like,   She told you she is equally as excited as she is nervous. And she is really, really fantastic at making sure that anything that goes out is as accurate as possible. So just know this is coming from ⁓ her marketing brain, The learning, the training, everything that she's got behind her and also opinions. Like these are things that we've...   tested, these are things that we've done, things that she's done, whether it's with our company or not, and opinions that we have on things that could or could not work. So with that said, one of the biggest questions I get asked is social freaking media. do I, dental practices on social media. And there's a whole bunch of different avenues for that and a whole bunch of different genres of dental practices. think I see like cosmetic practices or these smile design practices, obviously, they're gonna get a good   foothold and it's going to be more important for them to be on social media. But something Eve that I've always thought or been told is that for a general dental practice, your social media is really there to help boost SEO and it's really there to like get in front of your patients. It's not necessarily going to be something great to get in front of people who don't know you. And I think of that because I think of like the stretch within the country.   of how many people are randomly coming across social media accounts, what's your opinion on social media and dentistry?   Eve (06:29) ⁓ Well, think first and foremost, think social media is very important. And no, first and foremost, thank you so much for all the kind words. Thank you. Is this episode about me? That's great. Glad I came. Now, I do think that social media is very... And I think that more and more dentists are realizing now that social media is super important, is one of the main pillars of marketing. Because if people don't know that you exist, they're never going to come to your door. ⁓   The Dental A Team (06:36) Of course, of course. Yes.   Eve (06:59) One mistake that I think many ⁓ business owners in general do is they treat social media purely as a sales tool. ⁓ Social media can be that if you play it right, but it's more about awareness. It's more about building that trust with your community. It's about ⁓ showing like how you show up for your community. actually, my dentist, ⁓ I love their social media. They really just, their social media makes me feel like we are best friends.   ⁓ Like even seeing the familiar faces, ⁓ just seeing everything that they do kind of on a day to day or them taking me behind the scenes and stuff. It's really, something that really does build that trust with the audience.   The Dental A Team (07:40) Yeah, what is it for for dental practices? like you said, like sales, they're using it for sales. Are they going to gain new patients from it? What should it be used for?   Eve (07:51) You definitely can get new patients from it, but ⁓ for, if we're talking about acquisition, I would definitely recommend running ads. So your feed is not just basically covered with, I don't know, promo on whitening. And then the next post is ⁓ kids are going back to school, book your checkup and stuff like that. ⁓ Social media is to build that trust with the community, to kind of show who you are to them enough that they   are going to like you and they're going to trust you and they're going to come to you. After all, feel like dentistry is a very, and I don't think people really think about it this way, but it's a very kind of like intimate service really. ⁓ So I think that trust is just very, ⁓ very important.   The Dental A Team (08:36) Thank you. Yeah. And what I'm gathering there is that it should be a reflection of who you are. So who your practice is. And I think that kind of flows into a lot of podcasts that we've done on really knowing who you are, how you want to show up in the world. So what your core values are, what your mission and your vision are. And I feel like then if your social media is speaking to that, it's kind of as just putting yourself on display rather than saying,   please come schedule. hate, I hate, like I always think of like the Easter bunny, right? And the like Easter bunny picture that everybody posts. It's like happy Easter. And it's like everybody posted that or happy St. Patrick's Day and it's the little leprechaun. And it's like, huh, just be different. Like do a picture of your team with little leprechaun hats on and say happy St. Patrick's Day. Like do bunny ears on the doctor and not this like stock photo that everyone's using and then following it up with,   by the way we've got a whitening special for wedding season. Like everybody's doing that. So I love the way you said that.   Eve (09:40) Yeah. And I would challenge anyone that's listening to it to kind of try to be themselves for a minute and try to actually present themselves the way they are. Not what, not in the way that everybody else expects them to be. Like you're saying, it's, don't know, Christmas is coming. Everybody's posting happy Christmas from X, Y, and Z. ⁓ dental try to be different, try to, try to do what you as a person would do because that there is a massive chance that whatever you do or whoever you are will actually.   really make someone relate to you ⁓ even more.   The Dental A Team (10:12) Yeah. And you're trying to attract that patient avatar of the patients that you want, not everyone you're trying to, you're trying to narrow down your niche. So thank you. Perfect. ⁓ massive piece that I wanted to chat about B and I actually just got off a call this morning, ⁓ with a client and she had asked me for ideas on this and, ⁓   really just like boots on the ground marketing is what I like to call it and community outreach. And I love that style of marketing, especially for practices that are in a really community based town. like LA, maybe not like as many things to do, but there's still some, think boots on the ground style marketing you can do, but especially for those rural cities or rural communities within a big city that can do that kind of community outreach. What do you feel, how relevant do you feel?   that is or earlier you called it like offline marketing. How relevant do you feel that is? Because I do feel like a lot of marketing companies even are pushing so much online, so many Google ads, so much SEO and everything is like this online presence. And I do believe in Google ads and I do believe in Google reviews to boost all of that, but there's still gotta be something else that can go in.   Eve (11:05) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (11:28) line with it, but what are you seeing that works really well or experiencing yourself?   Eve (11:33) 100%. And I think, and that's something that I mentioned to you earlier, that I feel like so many dental practices move online so much that there was so much room in offline marketing. There was this whole pool that is basically uncovered. And I brought an example of myself where I really, I do love my dentist and if he's listening, I love you, but I have moved. I have moved. now it means that it's like a 45 minute trip for me to go and visit my dentist.   The Dental A Team (11:55) Yeah.   Eve (12:02) I'm on a lookout for a new dentist. And what I've noticed is ever since I moved, I've been getting flyers from literally everyone with my name on it. So obviously they have access to my name, my address and everything. I've got flyers from the pest control guys, from people that are offering to fix my roof. People that are doing landscaping, driveways, everything else. I have not received a single one from a dentist. And this is someone that I actually genuinely need. So I know my job now is to go on Google.   The Dental A Team (12:31) Yeah.   Eve (12:32) run all those reviews and pick a new dentist ⁓ that I hope that I can trust. But that kind of shows that there is that massive gap, really. Because if you were in my area, so if you're in South Ogden, Utah, look. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (12:48) I have a dentist for you. I didn't know that's where you moved.   I have a dentist for you, but go on, go on.   Eve (12:55) Perfect.   So if you're in this area anyway, just know that there is zero offline ⁓ competition for you. So you can for sure attack this area. ⁓ But seriously though, I feel like he has that everything is moving online so much that there was more room again for offline marketing or even when it comes to like community ⁓ inspired initiatives. ⁓   The Dental A Team (13:16) Yeah.   Eve (13:21) You know, and you can be as creative as creative as you want. I've seen one dental practice around dropping like toothbrushes. think their slogan was smile more or something like that. And they were dropping toothbrushes and they were hanging them in, in a little bags on door handles of the houses. ⁓ so even doing things like that as well, even though obviously it might be a little, you know, it might be time consuming. It might need a lot of planning, but those things do, they might not get you up.   The Dental A Team (13:36) ⁓ smart.   Eve (13:48) They might not get you a new patient right away, but they slowly build up that kind of trust or it slowly shows people that, hey, we are in your community. We're serving your neighbors.   The Dental A Team (13:57) Mm-hmm.   I could see that. Yeah, I think a lot of dental practices pulled back from the flyers and they became, I don't know, think that, I think in the, I know when I was in practice, when we were in, we did thousands, we would do drops of thousands of these.   flyers and they would come back. would get the fly with the patients would bring them in. They would get them. But it takes so many times for those to get in front of someone before they're ready to call. And they would say, you know, I've had this here for six months and it's been hanging on my fridge and I finally decided to call or I was finally due for my cleaning that I think people just got they shied away. They got scared of it and felt that the ROI might not have been there, especially when maybe like the marketing   marketing budget, there's so much of the marketing budget going to Google Ads and going to website revamps and a lot of marketing companies just to host the website. It's a huge chunk of the marketing budget anymore that I think they stopped doing so many of those styles of marketing. But I can think of actually a handful of clients right now that   could probably benefit from that. And especially Eve, like you're saying now in a saturated market in Utah, is a very saturated dental market. If you're not receiving those and you're kind of looking out for them, that is a huge untapped area that those dentists could probably get. Yeah. Yeah. Just waiting.   Eve (15:23) I would be a very easy patient to just tip over. I'm literally, I'm here right now. Just come.   I'm literally just waiting. Yeah. But also what you mentioned, I think is really important when, when you said that, they might get a flyer and then they might get something else. Those are called touch points. And right now it's, it's proven that it takes seven to 12 touch points to actually convert a lead, which is like the patient to be, if you will. So now imagine how many.   The Dental A Team (15:32) Yeah.   Yeah.   Eve (15:52) how many in how many different areas you need to do those touch points to get in front of those people. ⁓ For example, you I'll give I'll give you my example. Let's say I got that flyer a week later when I see the same practice on social media, I'm going to probably pay a little bit more attention. Right. I'm going to go on Google and check their Google reviews, check out their websites, see what they do, see, look at the doctors, see if I think that I will actually gel with any of the doctors. ⁓   The Dental A Team (16:09) Yeah.   Eve (16:21) And so all of that are little touch points that actually lead to me picking up that phone and scheduling my first appointment with them. So it's not, you know, like, obviously sometimes it might happen, but usually it's not just one thing. It's a combination of a lot of, a lot of things. And that's obviously that's, that's work. And that's, you know, that's going to take up a chunk of your ⁓ marketing budget. ⁓ But it's definitely something that, something that works.   The Dental A Team (16:48) Yeah, yeah, I love that you said that I talked to practices about that constantly that it takes seven up to I think you said 12 and I've heard 13 times. And that's I talked to them about that for treatment planning. So if a patient needs treatment, like we're telling them multiple times, or speaking in or around it, we're not saying you need a crown seven times, we're saying like, there's something going on here, because of that same reason. And I tell them   I use the example of social media and you're scrolling on social, you're on Instagram, right? And you're like, ⁓ you like slow down because you're like, that's a cute pair of leggings. Like, and then you're like, gosh, it's an ad. So you scroll faster, right? But then the leggings come up again. And then it's like a different picture of the leggings. It's a different girl wearing the leggings, but it's the same leggings. And then all of sudden you're like so many times over, you're like, this is a sign I'm supposed to have these leggings. And now you're clicking on the boutique and you're like, am I buying these leggings? And next thing you know, the leggings are on their way, right?   You had no inclination, you did not go on social media to find leggings, but the leggings found you. And that's what that marketing is. It's like so many touch points, right? Yes, that's how they get you. And that's kind of, that's also what we're working against, right? Because that $30 pair of leggings that I just bought off Instagram that I have no idea if they're good or not, could have been a copay for a dental appointment too. So if we're not getting in front of our patients and we're not advocating for their dental health more,   Eve (17:45) That's how they get you.   The Dental A Team (18:08) than these legging companies and these boutiques on Instagram or whatever ads you're getting, because it's going to go off your algorithm, they're advocating for you to purchase whatever that thing is. So if you're not advocating for the patient's health and getting out in front of them, you're not really doing your due diligence as a dental practice. The sitting and waiting for patients to find you just isn't, I just don't think it's a thing anymore. I don't think that there's like walk-ins, you know, I don't.   Eve (18:30) 100%.   The Dental A Team (18:33) Some where for sure there could still be walk-ins, I just the sitting and waiting. I don't think is working anymore, you know   Eve (18:39) And also I think it's worth mentioning that you as a dental practice owner, you are competing with so many other practices who are literally pumping their money into their marketing, who are always chasing the next trend, the next thing to do to get in front of your patients really. So there is always that competition. And I know it's never a kind of a relaxing feeling when you know that there's someone out there trying to get even your existing patients.   But that leads us to another point, which is the retention. And as we know, to retain a client or to retain a patient is always, always cheaper than acquiring a new one. So when we talk about marketing, we also need to mention that ⁓ retaining your current patients. So making sure that, you know, making sure that your follow-ups are in check, making sure that you're reaching out, reaching them out with emails, that your reactivation process is   you know, is in place is just so important because that's actually, it's, it's so much easier to retain your existing patient who's already been there, knows you and hopefully trust you. Right.   The Dental A Team (19:46) Yeah, they're already bought it and you've built that relationship. And I think if you're a dental practice listening to this podcast, you are a dental practice who's likely relationship based. But I do think Eve, to your point, it gets so lost in ⁓ the other pieces. We get so focused on treatment or so focused on acquiring new patients. I walk into practices all the time and I have one practice in mind and he's going to listen to this. He's going to know exactly who he is.   And he's constantly asking me, what about marketing? And I'm like, bro, you just, you took over this great practice. You've got like 8,000 patients right now. Like your job right now is to retain the patients that you have. And maybe even, you know, if you're in a practice and you've had this practice for a long time, or you just took over a practice who's been around forever, there are thousands of patients who have not been seen in two plus years.   that know your practice. And so like Eve saying that reactivation space, like hit up those patients that already, they're already near you. If they've moved, they'll tell you. They are already bought into that location and reestablish that relationship because it is the cheapest form of marketing. And again, like Eve said, you already have that relationship started. And so you don't always have to.   pour a ton of money into marketing. And if you are in an area that you do, then do it. Your marketing budget, we usually say to keep marketing, our consultants advise like 3%. I've seen it all the way up to 5 to 8%. But 3 % to 5 % is usually a pretty decent chunk. And that should be of your collection. So that's of your overhead. So 3 % of your collections. Yeah.   Eve (21:25) like is that of your total budget or is that   your... Yeah, okay.   The Dental A Team (21:29) Yep, of your collection. So whatever last month's collections were, whatever your average collections are, we usually recommend 3 % up to 5 % of that poured into marketing. But to that point, I have so many practices that are like new patients, new patients, new patients. And I worked with doctors personally who just, everything was about the new patients. And if we're not remembering the patients that are already coming, we're doing a disservice to every patient that walks through that door. So.   strictly only focusing on those new patients is not going to build that relationship that keeps patients coming. And you're always going to be in the rat race for those new patients. And you don't have to be. One day you're going to be like, we're full. One day it's going to be like, well, I'm actually almost ready to retire. Like I'm good. And we want to, we want to see you get to that point. So I think that was massive Eve, what you said, and that retention and that reactivation is huge, huge.   What do you feel like, ⁓ to kind of wrap us here, I know AI is coming in really, really strong for a lot of practices. Is there anything that you've seen offhand, just off the bat, working well when it comes to AI in the marketing world?   Eve (22:44) ⁓ I think plenty, and especially for dental practices. And I feel like right now there is a, there is, ⁓ an uptick in companies, specifically dental companies helping out with that. And I don't know if I can mention names of the companies or not. So keep it quiet. I think, I think we know which ones we're, we're talking about. There are just so many companies now that are specifically designed for dental practices to help you out with it. Exactly. With the retention, right? there are companies that will.   The Dental A Team (22:59) You can.   Eve (23:14) literally do all the job really for you when they send out automated follow-up emails or follow-up texts, or they'll send out texts that are confirming patients' appointments. There's just so much happening right now. And I get that for a lot of ⁓ dentists and dental practices that might seem very overwhelming or the word AI itself might kind of not make you feel all fluffy and fuzzy inside because it is a little bit scary in the direction that it's   going in. But I think there are a lot of ways beyond what we know like chat GPT and stuff that the AI can do for you. I would say as a general advice, would just say you can always give it a shot. You can always try it. You can always track it. And you can measure your results. Because at the end of the day, if you try something and it doesn't work, you can try it again in a different way, or you can move on to a new thing.   One thing I would say though is just don't be scared of AI because AI for businesses is actually a very powerful tool.   The Dental A Team (24:20) I've even seen practices follow up with new patient calls. They'll keep a list of new patients that have called the practice and maybe not scheduled. They've asked a couple questions and then they'll call and follow up or they'll shoot them and.   in AI message, right? They'll have a system in place where it's like, hey, kind of like, it makes me think of, I use a lot of this protein company, right? This first form and they do fantastic at emails. And I'm always like, what is this one? Like, what's this new product, right? And as soon as I go look at it, a couple minutes later, right? I get that, we saw you looking email, right? And I'm like, yeah, I know. And so it's just getting that, it's the touch points though, right? It's like, hey, don't forget about this. And they'll gear.   a lot of the marketing towards the things that they know I want. And I think it's brilliant and it's AI. There's not a man on the other side that's like, Tiffanie looked at this, let me shoot this email. Like, it's all automated. So in the same voice, the same situation, even when patients are calling and they're just asking questions, it's like shooting an AI message that says, hey, did we answer all of your questions? Like, what questions do you have left? Because a lot of time patients will call and they'll still have more questions, but they might not   And so getting that extra touch point, I've seen them turn unscheduled like calls into a completed new patient. It works. And so in the same vein, doing all of those pieces to retain and to follow up with patients that maybe just didn't, they're not a patient yet. But as I'm speaking that I'm going back to like our original conversation of social media. And I think Eve,   something you do really well with our marketing is that everything is consistent and it's constantly in Dental A Team's voice. And so even down to your confirmation texts and emails that are asking if patients are coming to their appointments, if it's not in your voice of your practice, who you are, it's confusing. And it's not confusing.   Eve (26:20) and it's not finished.   The Dental A Team (26:22) Right? Like it's not like I sit there thinking, is confusing. This is weird. Sometimes I do. Right. But in subconsciously in the back of my brain, it's like a detachment. Every time something's different or something just doesn't fit, it's a detachment to that place. But when they're all succinct and everything flows and they're consistent, I'm more attached. Think about like Lululemon. If Lululemon all of a sudden was like this sterile email that came through, it wasn't like, girlfriend, I found the best set.   set of leggings you need, right? They were just like, look at these leggings. I'd be like, that was weird. Right. And it would detach me from that brand and that company. What do you think about that Eve?   Eve (27:00) 100%. And I am a big, I think I'm like Dental A Team's guard when it comes to branding and that goes for, that goes for everything that goes for your brand colors that goes, that goes for the use of your logo or even the images that you use, the videos that you use as well. So I think all of it. and I know we could probably talk about branding for another two hours or so, but yes, that consistency. And I know we might sound fluffy, but that consistency builds that trust. If, for example, you have a patient that.   The Dental A Team (27:05) You are.   Eve (27:29) goes to your social media and looks at all your posts and then decides to go to your bio and actually click on the website. If that website is different, speaks differently than your social media, there is going to be a little bit of that in trust, right? All of it basically should follow the ⁓ same branding. And the same goes for your voice as well. So at least then people also know what they can expect from you. If you are a dentist and there is a dentist in Salt Lake City and that's a...   pediatric dentist ⁓ and Tiff, you might know who I'm talking about as well. I didn't even know he was our client, but I've been following him on Instagram just because I love his Instagram. But he definitely comes to mind for me as someone, as a dentist or as a practice with a very strong branding. ⁓ I can be scrolling on Instagram. know exactly, even if there is nothing written on it, I know exactly which post is his. ⁓   The Dental A Team (28:02) Mm-hmm.   Eve (28:28) And it's crazy, but this does build that trust that we are talking about. The whole branding really is about building that familiarity. Like, of course we're going to trust things that we find familiar.   The Dental A Team (28:38) Yeah, I totally agree. And I think pedo practices do it, they do it really well. Pedo practices, they can speak their voice really cleanly. I oftentimes have like general practices. I'm like, go look at the pedo practices. Like look at these ones. These are ones I work with. Like look at their messaging and their branding because they really do know how to speak to it. But it's because the specialty practices, ortho, pedo, oral surgery, perio, they have to do so much more marketing because they're not   they're not getting the like, I need a cleaning phone call. Their specialty, so they're getting more referrals or they're getting patients that's like, gosh, my kid needs ortho. So they have to do so much more marketing. think they're more in tune with it. And I think recently in the last 15 years or so, marketing in the general dentistry world has really had to ramp up more than it ever was before. And we're just still learning so much. I think that speaks to like this massive change of   not having the flyers going out. It's like, okay, well, this might not be working, so let's cut it. And I hate that. You said something earlier about tracking. I only cut or change things if I can prove black and white that it is or isn't working. if a patient calls and they're upset because they got too many confirmation texts, like one patient out of 600 is upset and then practices are changing their method. And I'm like, but it worked for 600 other people, this one patient, you know? So I definitely agree with all of that. And I think   I think the key takeaways today are to, one, would say evaluate your area, right, Eve? Like look at what your competition is and what are they doing? I think something you said earlier was like really, really sticking to the boots on the ground, still working and still being one of those touch points. And I actually really love that touch point because it's so much different.   than the online ones. You're just getting blasted with online ones, but all of a sudden you have one that's in person in real life and you're like, oh, this is new. This is different. Exactly.   Eve (30:34) It's so crazy because it used to be the other way around. You get   a stack of flyers like this in your mailbox every single day.   The Dental A Team (30:41) Yes,   I remember being in office and getting calls from just mostly cranky old ladies. And I'm like, one day this is going to be me. I'm going to be this cranky old lady. And they would be so upset that I kept sending these flyers. And I was like, I didn't send them. Like I have a company and I don't know how they got your name, but they're like, take me off your list. You know, but that's not happening anymore because we're not sending them. Like you need those calls. That's how you know it's working. If you've got patients, non-patients, if you've got people calling, complaining that they're getting your flyers, that's how you know it's working guys. They're looking at them and they're calling you.   So due to diligence, figure out in the area, like what's best for you? What's gonna work? I do think I love the community outreach. I love getting in front of patients in that way. And then remember your social media is a brand, you guys. Is this supposed to be speaking who you are? And like Eve said, it should mimic what your website shows as well. So if your website needs some revamping, reach out. We've got some great companies that work on that.   It's a really great tool to have and I think we undervalue and underestimate how much our website actually does for us. It's an insanely helpful tool because people still aren't going to look at them. So,   Eve (31:51) And especially,   I feel if your website hasn't been updated for long, ⁓ make sure that it's mobile friendly. right now, obviously, I don't know the exact figures for dental practices, but I reckon that maybe 80, 90 % of people that look at your website look at it on their mobiles. And I don't know about you, Tiff, but for me, if I go on a website and after five seconds, I'm all lost and nothing makes sense, I'll click that X button very quickly.   The Dental A Team (31:55) Yeah.   ⁓ yeah.   For sure.   so fast. Yeah. Our attention spans just, you got it. You got to catch people literally five seconds. You guys, it's not our. Yup. my God. Tick tock killed us. I know. Yeah. Well, Eve, I think that was fantastic. I super appreciate you doing this podcast with me. I knew I wanted to pick your brain selfishly and ⁓ you're just the best human I could possibly think of to help dental offices really understand how they can.   Eve (32:23) It's right. Tick tock, tick tock. Tension span.   The Dental A Team (32:47) effectively market their practices. So Eve, thank you for today. Thank you for prepping for this. I know you've been stressed for weeks because I asked you weeks ago. So thank you. I think this was fantastic and you just gave so much information to so many people. So thank you for being here.   Eve (33:02) Thank you so much. And yeah, thanks for having me. It wasn't as bad as I thought. You made it easy too, so thank you.   The Dental A Team (33:07) Perfect, then I'll let you know when the next one is. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Good.   You're welcome. You're welcome. I promised you I would do my best. So everyone, hope if you are driving, you re-listen to this and you take down some tips and some tricks. If you weren't driving, I hope you were writing notes. Re-listen to this a few times, you guys. There's a lot of nuggets in there to pick up from Eve.   a lot of really great information. As always, drop us a five star review below. We'd love to know which tips worked best for you or which tips you're most excited for. And I always say this, you guys, if there's something you're doing that we didn't talk about that you think someone else should know, put it in that review because people really do read them. And we are here to just spread as much knowledge as we possibly can to as many people as we can. And as always, you can hit us up at Hello@   Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. If you have any questions, if it's marketing, like just FYI, I tell you all the time that the consultants really do answer most of those, but Eve is in the background of those as well. So if you have a question and you're like, Eve, what do you think? Like we're here for you, okay? She would freaking love that. So Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. You guys can reach us and as always, thank you for being listeners. Thank you for sharing these with other people. This is a really, shareable episode, you guys.   Marketing is hard, it's hard to understand, it's hard to see an ROI, and all the help that we can give each other is what we're here for. So go share this episode and we'll catch you next time. Thanks guys.   Eve (34:35) Thank you.

Kiera talks about the concept “going into the storm,” aka how to approach those difficult conversations with team members, and how this builds trust as a practice.  Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I think is gonna be a really, really, really beneficial conversation. This is something that I've worked with tons of offices on. It's something that I feel is such a good just reminder of the type of practice, the type of leader that we wanna be. So, and it's called going into the storm, how to have hard conversations with your team and actually making them easy. So with that, ⁓ this is like, it's just random. So Buffalo, ⁓   I I'm going straight into a story for you. Why not? Happy dental day. Happy everything for you. But when Buffalo, there's a storm coming. So they watch this, basically like Yellowstone area over like the Rocky Mountains. When a storm comes, they've watched Buffalo behavior. What Buffalo do is they actually, the storm's coming at them, like these big, we're talking like a big, snowy, scary, terrifying storm, blinding. They can't see. I've been in some of these storms. Buffalo actually turn.   face the storm and walk through the storm. Like they literally go into the storm, whereas cows, what they do when the storm's coming, they see it and they actually pivot and they run away from the storm. And what's interesting is the buffalo, when they go and they hit it head on, they're actually able to get through the storm and be able to come out on the other side faster and with less like heartache and burn on them versus the cows that are actually in the storm so much longer because they avoided it.   And then they actually, the storm just like goes with them for much, much longer rather than hitting it head on and taking it on. So when we talk about this in teams and kudos to an awesome doctor up in New York, he's the one who introduced me to this. We talk about it in all of his practices. His practices are thriving. We've taken this to other offices. We do it within our company, but it's where can we go into the storm in our practices? Where are we avoiding conversations where if we would just have them head on, we'd actually be able to move it so much faster and further ahead.   And I think about this a lot of like those storms, if you realize, are actually the things that are the building blocks of gaining greater trust and vulnerability with each other. So we go to Patrick Lincione's five dysfunctions of a team. The bottom layer is trust and vulnerability. Then the next layer is healthy debate. Then the next layer is commitment. Then it's peer to peer accountability. And then it's results in winning. So if we look at all that, we break it down. People who go into the storm that's building trust and vulnerability and it's having a healthy debate.   versus those who avoid it or are avoided. Like it actually just makes it last longer. And I my little sister said, she's like, here, it's like 10 seconds of courage to overcome these things. And when you look at other opportunities and other stories and other scenarios, when people go into the storm, they walk out on the other side and they're like, gosh, I'm so glad I had that conversation. Even though it was a hard conversation, it ends rather than being avoided on it. And so having those...   All it does is it's going to build resentment when we are like the cattle and you're in it so much longer and it's more exhausting for you and it's more draining on you rather than turning it and going into the storm. So in your practice, I have some offices who have literally made like hats, t-shirts, swag, and they say go into the storm. And I think it's a really good reminder. And I'm even tempted to do it in our company. So like, Hey team listening, ⁓ I really think it's an awesome idea to just wear shirts, to make bracelets, to have it on a hat of go into the storm.   So you're reminding yourself that you're always going into the storm. I want to have this ⁓ conversation because true leaders go into the storm. Those who are followers avoid. And I just want you to realize like, who am I and what am I doing and what's my behavior? And so this healthy debate or healthy conversation actually allows for more direct conversation and builds trust and it builds a stronger practice. And it's wild because I had an office, we talked about this and we talked about their quarterly meeting.   And then three months later, I asked them how they're doing in their life. We've been going into the storm so much more. And when I talked to this office manager, she's like, Kiera, it's crazy how many times I need to go into the storm and how many times I was avoiding it in the past. But now that it's on the forefront of my mind, I'm thinking about it more. I'm doing it more. And I'm actually making it to where it's just better experience for me. So the dentistry team, our job is to like make your life easier. Our job is to make you more profitable, less stress, better patient experience. But when we make changes or when we do things in offices,   We've got lots of different behaviors in the practice. So we're going to have lots of different people there, which in that case, we're bound to have conversations that don't match. We're bound to have conflict. We're bound to have people that like, there's just going to be a misalignment, which is going to have the opportunity for frustration, confusion, chaos. And so when we have these conversations, when we teach you and your teams how to do this, your team actually flows. This is how we get flow in a practice. This is how we get ease. And actually, instead of having artificial harmony,   we actually have true harmony in our practice. And this will actually apply to your personal life. ⁓ Me, I have two sisters, so hello, welcome to three. There's always an odd man out or odd woman, if you will. And one of my little sisters, we realized that there was some pretty awesome opportunities for some healthy debate. My family is really solid on people pleasing. We think that that's the right way to go. Seven kids don't make a big mess, like it's fine. And I've noticed the more I coach and the more my company and the more I work with teams,   the less and less tolerant I am to people pleasing and not having conversations when they need to happen. And I remember my little sister and I was for my birthday. ⁓ She's 15 years younger than me. So life lessons, like I've clearly had a lot more life than she has. And ⁓ we went into the storm and my little sister felt like maybe I didn't like her and   We talked about it and I remember telling her, I waited about a week and I said, hey, Leticia, are you open to a conversation? And she said, yeah. I said, let's talk about what happened. And I helped her realize that like me having that kind of a conversation with her, like, let me know how it landed because in no way, or form, do I want to be rude or aggressive or anything like that. Cause I know I can have a bit more bold of personality site if you couldn't guess. I'm sure all of you can guess that. And I told her, said, like,   Me coming to you and having that conversation actually is me wanting to build more trust with you. So that way we can have conversations. You can tell me what you're feeling. I can tell you what I'm feeling and we don't have to sit here wondering and guessing or talking through other people. And I was actually like really, really proud of my little sister who's 23. Actually she just turned 24. But at 24 to learn these life lessons.   and to be open to it and to see that like going into the storm is not a bad thing, but it is uncomfortable because I think a lot of our lives and a lot of society has taught us to avoid to make sure people like us. But the real way for people to like us is to know that they trust us and that they can be real with us. So on that, this is something of like, Hey, if you're avoiding conversations or you're nervous about your leadership, this episode is your permission and your playbook to have these conversations and to truly go into the storm, to hit things head on and to not have the   the problems last for so long. So step one is like, let's get the facts in the right intention. So I'm really big on like, when we're highly charged and we come in and we are berating people or we're being rude, that actually can damage a relationship. So like you can go into the storm, but the way we go into the storm, let's have finessing grace rather than like attack mode. So what are the facts of the situation? What happened? What was said, what was done and what's needed to resolve it. And then, excuse me, I'm really big on like say what needs to be said.   So let's not just like go into it like, all right, facts are that you were a jerk, did this. Those are actually like someone being a jerk is not a fact. A fact is you said X, and Z on this date. This is how it landed. And these are the clear examples and we stay grounded. So this is where also metrics and KPIs are really great. So if your hygiene team is not hitting it, it's like the facts are that we're actually not hitting our three times our pay like we need to. We looked at all the open time in the schedule. So there's a scheduling issue. We also looked at what our   dollar per procedure has been for each hygienist. And we know this hygienist is hitting it, this hygienist is not. We also looked at like what's going on within those and what are the procedure makeups? Do you see how many facts I just brought to the table? So instead of being the hygienist is like, well, you don't give us the time. We can't hit three times. It's like, okay, here's the facts. Here's the data to back it up. Now let's figure out a solution together to make sure that we're able to hit three times our pay. Cause we need to take care of our patients and we need to make sure like this is something other offices can do. So let's make sure we do it. And then what we're going to do   is now that's like, we've got the right intention. And what I say is we spend like two minutes on talking about what the issue is very clearly clear as kind. And then we spend the rest of our conversation resolving it and finding solutions to it. So really the goal is to improve, it's not to shame or to blame or to nitpick that person's like, you did this. Like, no, that never is going to land well. That is one way to go into the storm, but that is not the best way to go into the storm. Like kudos, you actually have the combo.   but it didn't land in a way that somebody felt respected, heard, and that they're able to accomplish it. So the next step is we have that, prepared our facts and our intention. Next step is going to be like to communicate clearly and directly. Like I said, clear is kind. So we can use words like I've noticed or help me understand, or I'd like to understand your perspective on this. And we speak with empathy and firmness. So it's like we address the behavior, not the person. So it's never like, well, Sarah, you're not hitting your three times a pay. It's like, hey,   We've noticed this is happening. These are some of the facts. Help me understand what's going on so we can create a solution together to get to three times our pay. Notice on that, I did not tell them like this is open for negotiation, but I'm also not blaming you and telling you that you're wrong. It's like, hey, this is what's going on. Here are the facts. Help me understand your side. And then let's create a solution together that we both agree to that's going to be able to resolve this once and for all. ⁓ So when doctors and office managers come into it, I had a coach and she told me, always come from curiosity.   So when we're going into these, from curiosity, that's going into the storm in a way that's going to yield a positive result. It's like, hey, help me understand, or like, I'd love to understand more about this, ⁓ or hey, help me see your side on this. I'd really love to understand where you're coming from. So a lot of it's like, help me understand, help me understand. I'd love to know more. ⁓ Help me see your perspective on this. I'd love to understand your side. And truly, we're now listening to understand. We're not listening to respond.   And I hope you heard that you're listening to understand you're not listening to respond. And then from there, like honestly, I had a doctor, I giggle, I had a doctor who had to practice this with me. Like they literally had to sit there and have an uncomfortable conversation with me and they had to send me the video. So was like, how are you going to come into this? How are you going to approach it? How are you going to say like, help me understand this? How are you going to address the issue with facts? Help me understand more, Kiera. I remember the doctor said it to me and.   I watched it I was like, my gosh, we have to this conversation again. Like I swear we just had this and I called the doctor and I said, hey, I got your message. Thank you for it. Like help me understand like what we need to resolve with this conversation. The doctor like, no, we don't resolve anything. You just told me I had to practice. So had to send you another video of this, but we are resolved. like, but notice how you even came into that. Like I'm annoyed. Like, my gosh, I have to freaking have this conversation again.   But my ultimate intention is I want to get this resolved so it doesn't come up and I want to resolve it forever. And I really do want to understand what you're hearing, how this is landing so we can be on the same page. When we communicate, going to the storm for me is we are on the same page, we've made a resolve and we're committed to solving this forever. Notice, trust and vulnerability, then we go into healthy debate, then we go into commitment and then it's peer to peer so we can win. So on this, I'm like, my ultimate resolve is like, what do we need to commit to? What do we need to do to resolve this?   Like what do need to hear? What do I need to understand? So that way you and I are on the exact same page. So then after that, we then are able to have a follow up and accountability. So once we have that, like I just said, like we had the conversation, we have the intention, we had the healthy debate, whatever it is we commit, we commit 100 % and what we're going to follow through on. So we have a culture of follow through accountability. So it's like amazing. This is what we agreed to. This is when we're going to get it done and this is what you need and this is what I need. And this is when we're going to...   touch base and make sure it's good to go again. What I love is when these emails are like, you send this in a recap email form. So both of us, like there's no misunderstanding because what they've actually studied is people's memories are not actually real. We actually don't remember and we fabricate and we change. So like when you have eyewitnesses, actually not great witnesses because everybody's memories change all the time. So when we have black and white of a recap of, this is what we agreed to. This is what we said. These are the dates. Now there's no room for miscommunication.   And also what I like to do is on this follow-up accountability, I like to ask them, like, hey, also, I just want to make sure that what I was trying to communicate is what you heard. ⁓ Help me understand, like, what did you hear and how did this land for you? So you say this with Vanessa, because someone might say, like, Kiera, I heard that you think I'm a terrible hygienist and I'm actually doing an awful job. At that point, it's like, thank you for telling me. ⁓ Once again.   Help me understand what I said that made you feel that way, because that's not my intention at all. And I want to make sure we're on the same page. I appreciate you so much. So then they'll be like, well, when you said that I wasn't doing blah, blah, great. Well, now we can resolve it. We can fix it. Like, thank you. This is what I was trying to say. Is that more clear? Does that work? Are we on the same page? Then we have the follow up, the support. We follow through. We make sure it's going to be resolved forever. Now, this can be really awkward at first.   This is not something that I feel people are naturally born with most of the time. And I think that this is something to practice. So what we've got to do is the three steps for these going into the storm is we prepare with facts. We communicate with clarity. We're like, it's very clear. Like, hey, here's it. We have the facts in our intention. We communicate clear as kind. This is the issue. This is the resolve. Let's work together to find a solution. And then we're having accountability follow-up to make sure that we're on the exact same page with that email recap. And like, perfect. Help me understand. We're coming from curiosity.   This will help you have courageous, strong leader conversations. This will help you go into the storm more. And what's interesting is if you even want to take this podcast to your leadership team and help your whole leadership team hear this, like, we're going to go into the storm more this quarter. We're going to start practicing these conversations. We're going to start asking each other how it lands. What's amazing is within your office, it's like a little breeding group of everybody knows what's going on so I can practice on them. So then when I go to my family,   it's not as awkward and I can start to have it. And what's interesting is you will actually start to have less and less tolerance for artificial harmony and more and more craving to be on the same page, to have this conversation, to make sure we're communicating on the same page that we're actually communicating. And we're not just trying to talk through a window, right? Like at the stoplight, when you see a car over there and you're like, hey, your music's great. And they're like, what? That's how oftentimes communication is versus like, let's roll down the windows. Let's truly communicate. Let's go into the storm. Let's hit these issues head on.   hit the issues, not the person. Let's do it with poise, with finesse and grace. And you can even tell people like, hey, I'm practicing this. I heard it on a podcast. I'm not a hundred percent like great at this, but I'm going to do my best. And I want you to just give me feedback of how it landed for you so I can get better and better and better. This is where it's going to be where you can truly become an incredible leader. And I promise you, if you'll go into the storm, your life will be so much better. Let's get through it. Let's see that these are opportunities for you to grow all these storms, if you will.   are opportunities of your soul to grow, to evolve, and to become the person you were meant to be. So see it as the opportunity, see these as great blessings, see them as worthy opponents, see it as like, my gosh, I get an opportunity to grow and become a better version of myself. Thank you for showing up, thank you for this opportunity, and become the leader that you were meant to be. So if you're avoiding a conversation right now, this is your sign to go into the storm, and I'm sure all of us have it. What is the storm that you need to go into? And honestly, you can DM us, like, difficult conversation guide. We have a whole recipe of how to have a hard conversation.   ⁓ And we're happy to share that with you. So just message us or email us. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com ⁓ This is where I want you guys like the podcast is here for leadership tools. It's for tactical practical pieces. And honestly, maybe send this episode to a colleague to another doctor that maybe, know, doesn't go into the storm as much with their team. Send it to team members, office managers, send it to your office manager and say, Hey, I want to start having these conversations with you. I know I've been avoiding that. I think this is a great framework for us to now start to go into this and giving us permission to play.   to have these conversations together to grow ourselves. And honestly, if you're struggling with that, this is where we coach up leadership teams. We coach doctors how to have these conversations. We coach team members how to have these conversations. We have it in a safe space where you can practice, because you're not going to be perfect at it, but we want perfect practice to get these great results. We want you to practice having going into the storm. We want to push you and say like, hey, this is the storm, let's go into it, and having an accountability buddy that won't let you shy away from it.   So if we can help you out in that, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Tiff and Kristy discuss the ongoing challenges of hiring, including how incentives and mentalities have shifted over the past five years — and what you, as someone hiring, can do about it. Part of the discussion includes the pros and cons of how to pay team members. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back today. I have Ms. Kristy again with me and we are just having a good old time over here recording ⁓ Love and Life and getting our time in together. I think you guys have heard us say it before. This is like, and I know Dana says the same thing, this is some of the only one-on-one time that we get in our lives. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but we are a completely virtual company, meaning we are all at our homes.   We don't have like a workspace that we come to and then if you're a client of ours, you know, we're on calls or in offices quite a bit as consultants or our consulting team. We really just don't get a ton of time together. So these couple of hours that we bust out some podcasts are near and dear to our hearts and I just adore you Kristy and I appreciate you blocking out the time when your schedule always for it and for always just putting so much value into everything that you do.   with your clients, with your podcasting, everything that you do. So Kristy, thank you so much. Thank you for being a part of the Dental A Team. Thank you for being here today. How are you? How are things going over there?   DAT Kristy (01:09) Good, thank you for having me. It's wonderful. I love what I do serving people and it just brings great joy. So happy to be here with you.   The Dental A Team (01:18) Amazing. Good.   Thank you. And I have a question that I haven't asked you yet. How are, how's your family adjusting to the heat to being here and your puppy who's not necessarily a puppy anymore, but he'll always be a puppy. All your dogs, I guess, both your dogs, but how's everybody, how's everybody doing kind of getting settled into Arizona?   DAT Kristy (01:40) Yeah, everybody's loving it. Thank goodness there's pools around so we can get cooled off. the dogs, they're definitely staying indoors right now. It's especially the little Frenchie, you know, that you have to be careful because they will overheat really easy. He's I can tell he's missing his walks right now, but they'll swim.   The Dental A Team (01:46) Thank you.   Yeah.   Yeah, good, good.   I had a black lab that hated water, like couldn't be anywhere near water, which is so not allowed. And summers were rough. He would get hot, but he wanted to be out there, but he was an Arizona born dog, so he was fine. But I was just thinking about earpups this morning, like, gosh, they're not used to not being able to just go outside and chill in the backyard for a couple hours. Well, I'm glad that they swim. I'm glad that they're enjoying that.   DAT Kristy (02:25) So true.   The Dental A Team (02:31) ⁓ and yeah, we're just, we're excited to bring you some information this, this day. We've got, gosh, what four podcasts for recording. So I'm super excited for them all to release and you guys, we always want you to know that these podcasts are for you. So if there's ever anything that you have hopes, wishes, desires, things you want us to talk about things that you want us to dive in deeper on, please just always reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We are always taking suggestions and we're always here to help.   And also if there's anything that we say on these podcasts that we're like, we'll get you that. We really do mean that as well. have clients that write in all the time and say, Tiff said, and I'm like, sometimes my marketing team is like, what were you talking about? I don't know, but we figure it out. Whatever it is that we say that you can have, we want you to have it. We are here to deliver massive amounts of information to the dental community in the best ways possible and that.   comes with a ton of free resources. That's our podcast, that's our sheets, our documents, our website. We have all kinds of stuff everywhere, our ⁓ social media, we're on Instagram and Facebook, like wherever you can find us, you're gonna find a slew of information. So we're here for you and when you're ready for one-on-one consulting and not just getting all the information on your own via the web, please reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We are so excited to serve all of you guys in whatever way fits you the best today. Kristy.   I wanted to chat this podcast today. I've had, well, number one, I've had a lot of hiring in all of my practices. So I actually chatted with a doctor yesterday, a very successful doctor in Colorado, and he was like, Tiff, what the heck? Like, we lost another one. We just filled our hygiene spots and now we're in front office. And like, what is it? What's going on? He's like, just as soon as I feel like I'm making progress, someone leaves. And I said, you know what?   And he's like, it's hard to not take it personally. That's what he said. And I said, you know what? I understand that. And I, and I feel that. And on the level of, you know, being a lead on a team, I don't own this company, but I have a lot of vested interest in this company and its success. And it's hard. And I said, we come from, we come from a time of, of being employees, right? When we were employees and we were working and, and our work ethic.   Not even ethic, I don't even think it's ethic. Just like our tendency to stick around one place longer, is, it was there longer than it is now. So we just, we didn't leave. We stayed where we were. We became part of the family. We allowed work to become a bigger piece of our lives than it does for a lot of people in this day and age, in my opinion. I think that we,   made work our, like we tied our identity to work. And so leaving was a bigger ⁓ undertaking than it is when you're not so tied to what your job is, your title is, or the place is. And it's much easier to say, you know what, I can, I want to grow into something different. I want to be someone different. I want to change. And so they do, they leave more easily. And I think from   our point of view, it makes it really hard because we tied so many emotions to our job and our identity to our job that we're like, gosh, do they not like us? Do they not like where they work? Am I not doing good enough as an employer? But the reality is we've actually created an environment and ⁓ a social standing that people identify with who they are as a human outside of work better.   than we ever have in our lives. So it's like a catch-22, no matter what, there's a pro and a con to everything. And the pro is that they're not so identity attached to their jobs or their titles. The con is that it's easy for them to jump ship and try something new. We're much more apt to dip our toes in and try that new thing. And so I think the hiring has just over the last, realistically five years, has had a lot more turnover and we spent a lot more time hiring.   than we ever have in the past. And I could be making all of that up. That's my opinion. That's not like scientifically proven, but it's just something that I've noticed by studying people and studying myself as well. Like how am I transitioning? How am I changing my identity tools and all of those pieces as I watch the climates change so much. Kristy, what are your thoughts on that? I know we both have a lot of clients. I have experienced a lot of hiring this year. What are you seeing?   DAT Kristy (07:11) 100 % exactly what you said Tiff and it is hard. It's a hard reality. I think ⁓ Back in college. I took sociology not that I really liked it But now I'm like man I wish I would have dug into it more because I think there is something with the new generation and ⁓ Not to go woo-woo, but I think there is something with those personalities. You know what I mean and It's kind of funny and listening to you talk about it because our generation is   always like speaking to work-life balance, work-life balance, and I think the new generation actually has it figured out better.   But we're angry at it. We want it and they're doing it. And I get it. And I also get it because of being in a, in a practice administration role. Like it's hard hiring and training and retraining and hiring. And so I think ⁓ we've got to find a way to maneuver around that easier versus ⁓ taking it so personal and choosing to see it as a good thing. Maybe not necessarily a thing, but yeah.   The Dental A Team (07:50) Mm-hmm. agree.   Yeah, that   was beautifully said.   You're totally right. I love that you said you pointed out the work life balance because I agree and I whenever I hear the words work life balance now I think of that like yeah, I'm like it's like that live laugh love that we had all over our houses like every room had a live laugh love sign somewhere and it's like so outdated and overplayed when I hear the words work life balance. I'm like, my gosh, like stop saying that just have balance. just have balance balance balance. If you continue separating work and life.   and not understanding that it's one, you're one person, you're gonna continue to be out of balance. So just have balance. And I think you're right. think they've, lot of people have found that balance where neither tips the scale and they just understand their boundaries and their priorities a little better than maybe we did when we were their ages. So there's our spiel on that. But one of the...   DAT Kristy (09:10) I was gonna tell you, it's kind   of ironic, I'm spilling the beans and being vulnerable now, but my daughter's in dentistry, you I roped her into it. And so I hear it from her often, mom, it's not my life, like it is yours. And I was like, ⁓ stab me, right? Like, it's so true. So I'm living it.   The Dental A Team (09:32) Yes, it is. Yeah.   Yeah, so   you're seeing it firsthand. You're seeing it with your practices and just watching, but then also within your own home. So I totally get that. And I have a actually happy practice out in Rhode Island near and dear to my heart. The office manager's daughter is their billing rep. And I see the same kind of conversations, the office manager and like stop taking work home, like just do it at work. And then her daughter is like, why are you working at home? Like put it away. And so I do, I see that same dynamic there. And I think, I actually think the ages are   about the same, like you guys are both in the same spaces there. ⁓ So it's interesting, but I think with that conversation, doctors oftentimes and office managers are like, what can we do more of? What can we do better? How can we offer things differently? And the hygiene market is wild still, okay? It's 2025, I don't know when you're listening to this, but I hope if it's years from now, things are better.   Because the hygiene market is still a little wild. It's just still hard to find hygienists So if you're listening to this now like go apply to hygiene school because the demand is high Go get your degree go do your thing and come out a hygienist, but we oftentimes get asked for provider information on pay, right? And so we have a couple of different scenarios a couple different options. I Mean dollar per hour still near and dear to my heart when it comes to employees. I think that it just   I just, for me, it's an ease of life. It's just easier. And so I love dollar per hour, but I do like the stipulation that a provider should be making three to 3.5 times their rate of pay in order to pay for themselves so that the overhead doesn't get out of control. So dollar per hour, three to 3.5 times their rate of pay. You've got to do the digging on what your area.   is hiring at or what they're paying their hygienist or their dental assistants, whomever, because it does change, it does differ by area. More rural is going to be maybe a little less, city life is probably going to be a little more, Indianapolis compared to Phoenix, compared to San Francisco, compared to, I don't know, New Mexico, right? They're all going to be very different rates of pay. So I can always, you know, we can always spew out some numbers to you, but Google is a really fantastic tool and Salary.com gets it right every single   So go check those for sure dollar per hour and then I really wanted to chat a little bit and we talked about this a little bit ahead of time me and Kristy did on paying based off of production or collections and in my opinion I've seen this I've seen this and in my opinion it's kind of the same structure that you would give to an associate so Don't over complicate it a lot of practice owners a lot of office managers like to over complicate it so just don't do that and   pay like you would an associate? What would that look like? What would those stipulations be? What would the percentage of production or collections look like? ⁓ And pay based off of that. There are pros and cons, right, to everything. And I think there are pros and cons to paying off of production or collections. And Kristy, I think I'd love to hear from you on that production-based pay, because I know that you've seen that and worked with some clients that have done that. What are some things that you've seen that work well? Why?   Some clients, like I've had clients recently ask, should I move to a percentage structure rather than a salary or a dollar per hour? What do you see work well within that percentage structure on production or collections? Like you said earlier, I do think collections is a little bit more difficult for providers, especially for hygienists that don't have a lot of say in that, but production-based maybe as well. Kristy, what are your thoughts?   DAT Kristy (13:08) Yeah.   To be honest with you, this is something a little near and dear to my heart. And I think we will probably see ⁓ a little more of it just with, ⁓ I don't want to get in the political things, but we know that there are some states looking at assistance getting into hygiene. so with that being said, we all know that hygienists come out of school and they take their boards and they're all expecting to come in at that same level. Right. And just like associates, we know   they   all do their testing as well, come out with their doctorate and get their license. But we know they likely aren't going to produce at the same level, right? So hygienists are no different. Usually your seasoned hygienist can carry conversations different than, you know, somebody brand new. And their skill set is likely a little bit different, whether they've gone through more CE or not. So to be honest with you, I do   I'm a huge proponent of paid for performance ⁓ Yet I also feel in hygiene ⁓ Paying them a good going rate like you said, you know know what they're in your area and Give them that good going rate but just like you mentioned tiff with associates if somebody's performing and when I say performing I'm not just talking like production numbers or monetary That's just a side effect, but I'm talking like   moving your patients to health, getting them healthy, calling perio perio and having those different, you know, difficult conversations with patients. If they're willing to do that, why wouldn't we compensate them for that?   The Dental A Team (14:52) Yeah, I think that's fantastic. That is a very good point too. And that is something I think that comes up a lot for practices is that perio space. And if I've got one hygienist who's just rocking it out and having those difficult conversations and diagnosing correctly for our patient's health and not just for the production or just for the accolades, but really, really doing due diligence for our patients, how do I repay them? And I think that is a great point that that production-based pay   is.   an effect of that. think that's fantastic. I also see practices that will do dollar per hour and bonuses. So if you go above and beyond that 3.5%, they can get, you know, a one or 2 % or whatever you decide you want your bonus to be of what's above that. So one mistake I do see practices make with this, I'm going to give you a caveat, is that they'll do it the bonus based off of the total. And I typically would do the bonus based off of what was above and beyond the threshold. So we don't total it, we say this was our threshold, anything above   that is what you get the bonus off of. So any bonus programs is that's typically how I'm gonna run it because that's your excess. This is your overhead, this is your excess. So we're only bonusing off of excess and then also a small caveat, I did talk to an office the other day that was, they're making some transitions and they're like, do we change the structure? And I'm looking at it and I'm like, well.   they wanted to lower the threshold. And I said, well, no. Number one, no, never do that. ⁓ Number two.   You also didn't add in my overhead caveat and you're at 66 % I think overhead for the year, but the team's been bonusing. And so we're digging in trying to figure out like what's going on. I have a couple offices going through this right now. This one kind of East Coast stern was like a little topsy turvy upside down. So I think no matter what you do, you've got to make sure that it's going to work the best for your practice for your overhead. So if dollar per hour right now is the best bet and you're able to manage and control your overhead with   that, do that. If you've got a team that you're like, want to, I want to make this more production based and Kristy, like you were saying, like really give that energy to what we're pushing for and kind of pay them back right for the work that they're putting in. You have that flexibility and that level with the percentage on production collections and or bonuses. I love the, if you're asking me either or I would say   in my opinion, production-based over-bonusing. ⁓ It just is easier. Again, I want easier, and it's easier, and it's like tailored for this position, this person. It doesn't have to be across the board for the full practice if we're not to a point that we're ready for that yet. So cons. ⁓   I think there's cons to everything. There's cons to dollar per hour because often times, especially in the ⁓ temperature that we're in right now with the dollar per hour, it is hard to do three to three to point five times their rate of pay. I tell hygienists and I tell doctors all the time, I'll pay you whatever you're asking for. I'll pay you whatever you want. If you can make it work with the numbers. If you can do three to three point five times that rate of pay in production per hour, you've earned it. That's the point is that the overhead has to match.   and for our team members that are listening, I just need you guys to really hear me when I say doctors can't pay you from nothing. So if we're upside down in our overhead, we're not making profit on the company, the business is not profiting.   It's not just for the doctor to profit. It's not just for the doctor to go buy a house or whatever you think is actually happening behind the scenes. It's to ensure that things are paid for. And so if we're upside down in payroll, it's got to come from somewhere else. So then we got to pull it from supplies or from labs or from somewhere. And so the pay always just has to make sense. So if you can make it make sense, I don't care what it looks like. So there's pros and cons to all of it.   So there's the dollar per hour making sure that you're staying in line. There's you know, collections production based and then there's the accelerated which we're not going to spend a ton of time on the accelerated. kind of feel like it's a dying breed in this.   day and age. I love accelerated myself and I loved being hygiene assistant to accelerated hygiene, but that's a really great space too. I do have a hygienist that I know out in like the Chicago area who does accelerated and she's paid on production. She kills it. She is making really pretty numbers over there, but there's pros and cons to everything and it kind of runs the doctor a little ragged, so you just have to have the right system   for that and to make sure that it all just makes sense. And Kristy, you've got a ton of practices too in this same space. What would you have seen like really working or not working within any of this, whether it's associates or hygienists, really just what do you see that works really, really well?   DAT Kristy (20:08) Yeah, honestly, Tiff, I'm gonna say the one that I've seen work the best is a combination, right? ⁓ Again, a good going pay rate and then incentivizing them on.   I'm going add in it's more of a profit share model, right? Because like you said, it has to make sense with the numbers and be profitable. ⁓ And again, I do see a lot of ⁓ accelerated, but I will caution there too. The ones that I've seen work the best is when you give them a very good assistant that can perform. You know what I mean? Don't give them an entry level person that can't carry conversations. And I shouldn't say can't, but is   as developed right and or let them hand pick them and develop them right so that they work in tandem together and I've seen it work very well in both models but you have to have the right personality and desire there.   The Dental A Team (20:57) Yeah.   I think that's a fantastic point and to that point I've seen it work really well. ⁓   with the right assistant as well. And oftentimes what we do is we hire a hygiene assistant who's like the low level training, not quite the doctor's assistant yet. And the reality is it needs to be someone who knows how to run a schedule, how to talk with the patients, how to sell treatment, how to take the x-rays correctly and really give that concierge service because we've got to make up for not having as much time with the hygienist, right? So the hygienist does all of that in your hour appointments, but when you're   shortening them and they're doing accelerated, the hygienist is only in there for 30, 40 minutes, right? You're losing a lot of value there from the hygienist transitioning. So that assistant definitely has to be top level, top notch. And we make that mistake a lot. I've made that mistake in my own office and hiring many, many times. So it's kind of opposite and you really need a skilled assistant to be your hygiene assistant. I agree. That's a great point. Awesome.   DAT Kristy (22:15) And you know   what, Tiff, you mentioned earlier that the margins are getting hard, especially with PPO and they're not reimbursing. You made a good point about the co-diagnosis aspect. Make sure you're factoring that in. Like look at what's coming out, know, track it and see, because that also needs to be factored into the pay scale, right? It may not just be 100 % hygiene services. You almost have to look   The Dental A Team (22:37) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (22:45) at hygiene sometimes as part of your marketing strategy in a way, you know? So.   The Dental A Team (22:48) Yeah, that's a great point. I totally agree.   Yeah, I love it.   Thank you, Kristy. ⁓ I think there's some great ideas in here. You guys know we did not give you the do this answer because it is really case by case. I mean that with every ounce of my being, it is dependent on what's going to work best for your company. If you want help diving into that, figuring out what might be best for you or your company model, we are more than happy to help you on a one-on-one basis. Reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We'll be happy to get on a call with you to dive into your practice statistics.   sticks and needs with you. Again, no, I don't have a do this, do that, but we can help you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and we are so happy to help any of you guys. We are all here for it. We have a team standing by, always ready to hop on a call with you.   Kristy, thank you for your amazing words of wisdom and for your vulnerability. And we have more to record, you guys. We got more coming up for you. And we are just so excited to deliver you so much amazing content this month. Please drop us a five-star review below letting us know how helpful this was. If you have ideas, if you have things that you've done that worked or didn't work, send them in. You can put them within your review. People really do go through and read those. Or Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. You can send them over to us and we'll be happy to   with you or put that information out for others to read as well. So go find us, Instagram, Facebook, all the places, and we'll catch you next time. Thanks guys.

Kiera and Kristy break down a few reasons why your practice might not seem (or might not be, period) to have any money. They touch on how to find your profit point, knowing your debt, staying on top of collections and AR, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I have Kristy with me and I'm super excited because today is one of my favorite things to do as consultants and I call it office autopsy. ⁓ Don't worry offices, this is a mix of a few offices because believe it or not, offices think that they're on individual islands and believe it or not, you're not. ⁓ Multi-practices actually struggle, they actually do the same things that you struggle with. And so we just wanna make sure that we bring, we're not going to ever disclose who this office is.   We will mix a few offices together, but I think for people to see what the office's pain point was and then what as consultants were able to do. Kristy, we have some really fun ones. so Kristy and I decided we wanted to podcast today about some office autopsies of what, hopes to help more offices. So Kristy, welcome to the show today. How are you?   DAT Kristy (00:48) Good, thank you. Pleasure to be here.   The Dental A Team (00:50) Of course. Well, I'm super happy because I think the one that we run into a lot ⁓ is we call it cash flow row or cash flow woes, like whatever you want to talk about. But it's really when an office comes to us and they seem to not be able to figure out what's going on. ⁓ They feel like they're producing. Sometimes they're producing, sometimes they're not. So we'll kind of discuss like how to know if you're producing enough or not. But then they feel like they just like have no cash. And so giving some background.   Like I said, I'm going to blend a couple of practices together, but we have kind of going to do like two simultaneous ones. One practice was producing really, really well, but literally the owner felt like they had no money. We're talking like flat broke, felt like they were completely going to go under, had no money, but yet their production numbers were really good and their P &L looked really good. And we're just like, it showed on the P &L. I think, Kristy, you'll find this too, offices get so frustrated.   I got so frustrated and angry with my CPA when they said, well, Kiera, like according to the numbers, you have money. And I'm like, great, high five, jerk. I have no money in my bank account. Like it's the most infuriating feeling in the world of my CPA tells me I should have money, but there's no money. Flip that too on the other side when a practice isn't quite producing what they need to be producing to pay for their expenses. And they feel like they have no money and they are flat broke, which in reality that practice is flat broke because they need to produce more or they need to cut.   So we're gonna kind of dig on both sides of these with office autopsies of what we see, what we've been able to do. And let's start, Kristy, on the side of what do we do? Like, okay, first step, how do we find like the profit point? Like, how do we figure out what should an office be producing? Because I think that's also infuriating when doctors are like, but I'm just producing. I feel like I'm trying to out-produce my problems. Like, I don't know how to produce more. ⁓   how do you, Kristy, as a consultant, come in and help offices just gain that clarity? Because I think sometimes when we know the North Star and we know what we should be targeting, it actually becomes a lot easier to then build block schedules and then figure out what our overhead should be. But how do you help offices even dig into that? As point one to figure out, let's autopsy both of these practices, I think this is step one to really getting clarity.   DAT Kristy (03:00) Absolutely. I agree with you, Kiera. ⁓ The first step is to understand how much we're paying for things. What is the cost to keep the doors open? You know, we talk about overhead, right? But what is overhead? It's everything that we have to pay within a month. Rent, utilities, staffing, right? The other thing that I want to point out is many doctors don't include themselves in that. And I definitely want to pay them   The Dental A Team (03:16) you   DAT Kristy (03:30) Just like if they were an associate in the practice and so we want to include that in that overhead cost if you will and find that What I like to call profit point so we know where we're what's our? BAM right   The Dental A Team (03:48) bam, that bare ace minimum, like what do we have to   do? It's kind of like in real life. I mean, I think all of us have a bam in real life. You know what your mortgage or your rent is. You know how much it costs you to like do your groceries. You know how much daycare is, you know how much it costs you for like your Amazon spending. And some of those are fixed costs. So fixed are like your mortgage or your rent. You can't really change those. Those are fixed for you. Yes, like I get it. The semantics, we're not CPAs here. We're not like, that's not our world.   The semantics are can you change your rent? Potentially you could go find somewhere else. That is an option you could do. But most of the time those are pretty fixed. Just like our utilities are pretty fixed. You can be like my husband where literally our AC goes off at 6 p.m. at night. He freaking freezes us until 6 o'clock to save on these utilities until 9 o'clock. It drives me wild. I'm like in a hoodie freezing, shivering. And then the AC goes off and I'm like roasting. It's really entertaining because he wants to save the $3.   But genuinely speaking, like you're not really going to be saving on those fixed costs. are some fixed ones. Staffing is usually pretty fixed. However, we could add team members or take team members away. So therefore it's not as fixed. But like you said, Kristy, I think it's figuring out in a practice and agreed, doctors should be paid. Like nobody, think that that actually causes more stress for owners. If you don't even know what your paycheck is or you're just taking draws, because then how do you budget your life on a up and down volatile paycheck?   I think that creates a lot of stress versus like, okay, great. Let's just put you at a hundred grand or let's put you at whatever is a reasonable salary. Talk to your CPA. They'll be able to give you that. ⁓ And that can be agreed with Kristy. I like to pay you as an associate, but if right now the practice can't support that minimum should be a reasonable salary of say a hundred grand. So that way you can at least bank on that of getting that paycheck in your practice. Sometimes you have to adjust that, but generally speaking, if we at least give you some type of certainty and clarity,   that's going to help you then be able to budget your life around that too, in addition to budgeting your practice.   DAT Kristy (05:49) Absolutely. In fact, Kiera, sometimes even with startup doctors, I like them to even keep a spreadsheet of their production as if they were paying them as an associate. And then when they start to get profitable, we can back pay those wages. But definitely they have to take care of themselves first. ⁓ I've even seen where they get a little bit of animosity if not, right? Like, staff's driving these cars and they're getting their nails done and they're doing   The Dental A Team (06:00) Agreed.   Mm-hmm.   DAT Kristy (06:19) and I can't even pay myself. So I think it's very important that we understand what that is and work toward that, number one, if we're not there. And then if we are there, adding additional ⁓ percentage to that, which us as consultants can help guide that depending on your goals. If it's paying down debt, paying you as an owner doctor.   ⁓ And you know, we follow the EOS system, so adding those buckets for taxes and those sort of things that come up and we can be prepared for.   The Dental A Team (06:55) Yeah, no, I think it's brilliant, Kristy. And when you said that, I agree. You don't want to not be paid in your practice, because that gets, A, it's stressful, and B, it's annoying, and C, you've got all this debt on you. ⁓ But I also think when we're looking at our practices, there are pieces, so when doctors are like, I'm not getting paid, I just want to remind that sometimes we're being paid through things running through our practices. And so we've got to be careful, because that is,   Like if you didn't have your practice, you'd be paying for that out of pocket. And so that is technically part of your salary, doctors. And I don't want to be the like balloon pop girl over here. I do want to be realistic because a lot of times doctors are like, I'm not making money. And I'm like, but you forgot that these things are running through your practice. So you are being paid for those or those things are no longer coming to you, which is totally fine and legal. Talk to your CPA. Like we want you to do that. There's nothing wrong with it.   But when we're looking and we're like stomping our foot saying we're not being paid, sometimes I even have to remind myself of like, yes, but Kiera, if you didn't have the business, all those costs would be coming out of your W2 paycheck, not your business right off. So agreed with Kristy, when we're looking at this, step one is let's find that BAM, let's find that profit point, let's find out what you have to produce. And then from there, what we need to find out is also in addition to that, how much is our debt?   Because a practice should not have to be covering your debt, but you as a human needs to be covering your debt. So if your student loans, your practice loans, things like that, the practice isn't necessarily a poor performing practice. You just have all this excess of like, my gosh, I have to pay this off, which that's real life for you. And I think that's the difference of a CPA's bookkeeping for you versus your real life living through it. And I can tell you from personal experience, like this is very hard. Sometimes practice loans do go through your   your practice profitability. Again, this is pending on your CPA and how they recommend you do it. But most of the time your student loans and different things like that don't run through the practice. So, but you as a human need to have enough money to be able to pay for all those things. So I think it's finding out the practices, BAM, like Kristy said, finding out your personal BAM, because that might be different. And then from there, let's tack on 10 to 20 % beyond that. So let's say you know you've got to produce 50,000. Well, awesome. 10 % of that would be 55, adding   20 % excuse me, so 10 % of that is going to be an additional $5,000. To do 20 % of that's going to be an extra $10,000. So if I know I've got to do 50, I've either got to produce 55 or 60. Now that becomes much easier and I know beyond that I'm going to have 10 to 20 % leftover of the practice after everything's spent. Our ideal is to get it to where your 50,000 is 50 % of your practice and there's 50 % quote unquote profit beyond that. Now again,   that profit is a little bit funny because if we're doing a 50 % overhead and 50 % profit, doctor salaries usually are not included in that. If doctor salaries are included in that, then usually it's a 20 % profit at the end of that. So I know those two numbers feel a little like disjointed. They've been very disjointed for me. So if you're doing true overhead, we want it at 50%, 30 % doctor pay, 20 % profit. If you want to combine it all together, then it would be 80 % quote unquote overhead, 20 % profit. Now that 20 % profit though,   does technically pay for debt services. So watch that. You might need to scale down our 50 % down a little bit more or 80 % to then be able to offset that. So hopefully that wasn't too confusing for everybody. This is why we're consultants. This is why we help you. But I think when you understand like either need a 50 or an 80 % ultimate goals, we're trying to get 20 % cashflow at the end of the month. think for me, that's like the easiest thing. Like, okay, if I'm producing a hundred grand a month,   I want 20 % of that, so that's 20 grand. So like I'm trying to do easy numbers for all of you. I want 20 grand after everything's paid to still be remaining. Now, one other kicker as a business owner is that 20 % is also taxed. So don't forget that that gets taxed. So if you're at a 30 % tax bracket, well, you gotta take 30 % of 20 grand and then the rest of that you can spend. And this is why I think owners get so frustrated, because it's like, oh my gosh.   Like just tell me how much money I can have. And when I talked to a CPA and Kristy, I think you come across this, like our whole lives up until owning businesses, we've been paid at the W-2. So everything we got paid, we were able to use. Well, now as business owners, everything we're paid, we don't get to use. That's not the way the game works. ⁓ And it's due to write-offs and different pieces like that. So I think just knowing the rules of the game, I remember being so fresh with my CPA and I said, I like you're playing Monopoly with me. Like just tell me the dang rules.   So, and like, don't tell me like, no, you can't pass go, but you can pass go if you do X, Y, Z, but then like, no. So it's really, you've got to have a profitable practice of overhead. That's what we as consultants are really obsessed with. You also as an owner need to be responsible of how you spend. That's not to say you can't spend, but you do need to spend responsibly and you do need to set aside your taxes. And I think when you have all those pieces set up, then you can have guilt free spending because you're paying yourself.   Plus, you know what your true profit is. You've saved for taxes, you've saved for a rainy day, like Kristy was saying. We can put buckets into place to pay down more debt. You can put buckets in place for emergencies in your practice. You can put buckets in place for ⁓ vacations. I have a doctor I was just talking to on Alaska cruise and I was like, how's that bucket working out for you? And he's like, I love it, Kiera, you set it up for me. And I know how much I can spend on vacations. I know how much of my paycheck goes into that portion. He also used to spend an absurd amount on CE. So we set a true budget of how much CE money he could use.   But that's kind of where you then as owners aren't just trying to waffle through this and actually can figure out those profit points. And I do think, Kristy, like as much as we've belabored this so much at the beginning of this podcast, I feel this foundational piece is what makes owners crazy because they don't know the rules of the game. So they start spending all the money. Then you get this huge tax bill. Then you feel mad. Then you feel like you have no money when it's like, no, you did have money. just we accidentally spent it. So now we got to make up for it later because we didn't put these rules of the game into play.   Kristy, you might have a simpler way to do that. What are your thoughts around that?   DAT Kristy (12:49) No, I agree with you 100%. Otherwise, what I find is, you know, business owners, doctors, they just come up with this arbitrary number that they want to hit. But again, just because we're producing something doesn't mean we're profitable. And so they go together, but we have to understand the difference.   The Dental A Team (13:12) I agree. And I love that you said that because production feeds the ego and profit feeds the family. And so it does not matter what you're producing. And I agree with Kristy. It's like, I want to produce a hundred grand. I want to produce 200 grand. Well, high five. Let's help you do that. But on the flip side, let's make sure your expenses are there. And there's another practice I'm thinking of right now where they're like, we have no money. And I'm like, all right, if we have no money, truly it's let's do the checklist. Number one. Like, do you see me even scratch my head? I'm like, if you're not watching the video,   Just know when I hear people say, don't have money. I'm like, all right, it's either a production issue or a spending issue. It's one of the two. So just know those are the only two levers for when you're saying, I don't have money. It's either actually there's a third. There's technically a third. And that is a collection issue too, because we're either not producing enough. And if we are producing enough, we might not be collecting enough. And if we're doing both of those two things, then it's a spending issue. So let's break it down to this office autopsy. Kristy, let's go for a practice that is producing enough.   they don't have money, how did you fix or how did you find out that this practice had a collections issue?   DAT Kristy (14:14) Yeah, well number one we would look at.   How much was their net production and how much are they currently collecting? My minimum benchmark is always to be at 98 % or higher. Obviously, if we can get reservation fees to pre-collect on things, we may see that up a little bit higher. But if they're not at that 98%, what can we do to get them there? What's getting in the way? Is it patient? Is it insurance? Are we not submitting clean claims and getting them back in a timely fashion?   The Dental A Team (14:26) Agreed.   DAT Kristy (14:47) ⁓ But definitely that would be the first place to look.   The Dental A Team (14:51) Yeah. And so Kristy just said the benchmark. If you're not at 98 % collections, then there's a problem. Second piece is look at your AR and if you have more than one month's worth of production in your AR, we also know it's a collection problem. So when we diagnose on this practice, I remember we talked to a doctor and they're like, Kiera, I have no money. Kristy, I have no money. And I remember we're like, so actually you do have money. Believe it or not, the money is there. It's just sitting in uncollected amounts. So Kristy, you even went with another office and like they didn't have money and you just straight up called.   You like went with the office manager and you guys just picked up the phone and started calling on balances to get the money. And I really want doctors to know, and Kristy, I think this is the infuriating part as a consultant where I'm like, no, like you're producing well, you just have to collect the money that you're producing and don't like, don't even feel bad about it. So what do you do for teams that don't want to collect, that have these big ARs? Like what are a few simple steps? Like if that's my practice, I'm-   Hi, Kristy. I'm the doctor today. My team, this does not want to collect money and I feel like I can't pay any bills. What do you do in that scenario as a consultant, Kristy?   DAT Kristy (15:53) Yeah, well, I think we have to dig deeper into their own, like the team members own biases and what's getting in the way and get them comfortable to realize that we're not doing good by our practice and or patients if we're not collecting those balances. So, you know, really seeing what's the roadblock and let's work through it to overcome it because people deserve the care. Patients deserve to be healthy and   And part of that is also paying for the treatment, right? So just digging deeper, figure out what's getting in the way and helping them to overcome, create some verbiage for them to feel confident in being able to collect.   The Dental A Team (16:39) Yeah. And Kristy, I think you do an amazing job as a consultant. think this is where I love being consultants is like, you will actually help them sometimes call on accounts and help them see how easy it is. And ⁓ I also think when we're looking at AR, let's get our best bang for our buck. like, let's sort it to biggest balances and let's call on those first. Like, let's figure out different pieces. And like you said, there might be a myriad of reasons why your team members don't want to collect. don't think typically it's due to the fact that they don't want to collect. I think they're just scared. There's fear.   They're afraid of a patient being mad. They're afraid of not being able to explain the balance on the account. They might not understand why insurance is denying claims. Billing is a whole black hole, just so doctors understand, like there are a lot of nuances there. But I think on that side, if you are producing, like I remember this practice, they are producing like 150 to 200. And I was like, what do mean you don't have money? And we looked at the P &L and we're like, no, according to your P &L, you have money here. And we just realized it was a lack of collection process.   We implemented that Kristy, you helped this practice. They implement, they started collecting and now the doctor's like, wow, like two months later, I feel like I'm like happy as a clown because they literally have money now, but the money was there all along. And that's really like, I think a myth to dispel on this office autopsy is a lot of times the money is actually there. We're just not collecting. We don't have the correct processes in play to do correct insurance verification, to have better estimates, to collect in practice, to then have better ways that we are posting payments.   We don't have a process for how we're calling patients and insurance. And if you don't have that whole process dialed in, that can actually get really daunting for a practice. But Kristy, let's flip sides to the other dark side of this coin where they might not be producing enough. So like we said, it's either a production process, a collection process or a spending process. What do we do on the dark side where they're not producing enough? Like that's scary to me. So what do you do on that? I think there's like two zones here.   DAT Kristy (18:33) Yeah, absolutely. Well.   Number one, once we figure out that benchmark, typically, Kiera, we go and look at how much are they diagnosing, right? If we're looking to hit 100,000, we typically need to be diagnosing minimum three times that number ⁓ if we want to hit it, right? So where are we with diagnostics? And then where are we in case acceptance? how, if we are diagnosing that much, how much are we   actually getting patients to say yes to that treatment if you will.   The Dental A Team (19:09) Mm-hmm. And I think, Kristy, great point on that because it's twofold on this dark side of the coin of if we're not producing, are we diagnosing enough? And if we're diagnosing enough, are we closing enough? And those are two different people actually in this scenario. So doctors, have to diagnose. And if you're a doctor who's scared of diagnosing a couple tools, it's OK. I always tell doctors, it's your moral obligation to diagnose. As a patient, if you were to go in and there was someone who saw   Let's say you did a scan, I've had multiple MRI scans on my brain. Do you know how mad I would be at a doctor if they chose, because like they don't know if I can afford it, if I don't wanna hear the bad news or like whatever it is, they choose not to tell me what's on my brain or a broken bone or if I've got something in my blood work, I would be livid. And yet doctors, you're diagnosing, you're taking x-rays and if you're not telling these patients what's going on, ⁓ that's your moral obligation to do that. So if you're nervous about it, that's okay, I'm not here to tell you.   there's anything wrong with it. I just want to remind you that this is your moral obligation as a healthcare provider. So there's Pearl or Overjet of an AI solution that might be a solution for you ⁓ or just diagnosing one more thing than you normally would. If you're used to like watching, ⁓ that's okay. Maybe like just watch 75 % of it, but diagnose one of those things that you would normally watch and just notice patients don't get mad. They don't get angry. ⁓ Remember when you do get that frustration, it's just due to their expectations not being met.   So if you can even help them co-diagnose with you. So having your hygienist call out their perio numbers and let the patient know before they do it, like, hey, we're looking for the health of your gums, anything above a four, that's something that we need to watch if there's bleeding. And I'm gonna show you, so listen with me, you're gonna hear, ⁓ and then you'll be able to hear. Well, now that patient's listening actively with you of, wow, I heard like seven fours, or I heard like a six in there, now you don't have to try and teach them and say like, you've got perio.   They actually heard it and they co-diagnosed with you. You can show them x-rays of here's a healthy tooth. This is what a healthy tooth should look like. Now look at this tooth and what do you see? You guys, if there's decay in there, even the untrained eye usually can see that pretty big chunk of decay taken out of there or use intraoral photos to where that patient's co-diagnosing with you to gain the trust. And that actually makes it easier for you doctors, because then you're not teaching them. Or if you're like really nervous about it.   AI teaches them. Like it literally just puts the puts it up on there and you don't even have to hardly do anything other than just presenting it to them and educating them. So something simple there. And then if your team's not closing cases, amazing simple things like an NDT our handoff. next visit date, time, recare that can help tremendously. ⁓ having your team members track their treatment plans, having a consultant help them. Like we literally help listen to treatment plans, guide and give coaching on different ways that they can do it. So there's two ways if you're not diagnosing or producing enough.   that we can easily do that. And the next one would be a block schedule. Kristy, any other thoughts on that? Because I'm sure you've got pieces working with so many team members too.   DAT Kristy (22:06) Yeah, listening to you talk about the case acceptance, it's just hitting me that sometimes I think our fear is in telling them, but really if we take a step back and just include them in the process and figure out what are their long-term goals for their mouth and being able to speak to them in a relational way that...   The Dental A Team (22:23) Thank   DAT Kristy (22:29) really is flipping it to what is their goals and getting them what they want. I think that takes the pressure off of us telling the patient, right? And so, ⁓ truly, I think when we master this, it's a beautiful thing and you get patients to stick for very long time because they feel heard, right? And they still are in control of their care. So.   The Dental A Team (22:53) Totally, I agree with you, Kristy, and I love that you talked about like, they're part of the solution with you. And I agree, like, I can't as a treatment coordinator want this more than they do. It really has to be something that they're a part of. ⁓ And also just helping your team see, similar to doctors, when we're watching so many things, team members can accidentally be saying one or two words that's guiding a patient the wrong direction. We might be highlighting insurance more than we're highlighting total treatment. We might be putting emphasis on like your max on insurance or   Like we could just start with one thing because we're afraid of presenting total dollar amounts. All of those things are normal. That's like very normal. Your team's not struggling, team members listening. You're not doing anything wrong. Just highlighting that there are different ways that you can present it. And I call it like the sequence. So think about when you're back in high school and you had your locker combination. If your combination code was 321, you could put in the number 213 and your lock wouldn't open. You could also do 123 and it wouldn't open. You could also do 32...   three and it won't open. You can have the exact same numbers and just do them in the wrong combination and it won't open versus if we have the right pieces in the right combination, we actually get more case acceptance. So just realizing like what are my tools that I'm using? Am I putting them in the right sequence? Am I using the tools like insurance is a tool? It's a coupon. So let's maximize that, but it's not going to guide my treatment. Let's maximize getting full case acceptance. Let's maximize like Kristy said, knowing their ultimate goals and tying my treatment back to those ultimate goals.   just using the tools in the right sequence can also help with that case acceptance. Now, if you are a practice that's not diagnosing enough, I think that this becomes like a little bit of an ego check and I'm sorry to be the ego check day today, but it might be something where if we're not diagnosing enough and we are collecting and we're not producing enough, it might be time for us to look to see about cutting costs. And this is something where I don't love to have this conversation. However, bottom line is the practice has to thrive.   Otherwise we all will fail. And doctors like you won't be able to help your team. You won't be able to help patients. And ultimately your livelihood is on the line too. Nobody is happy in this scenario. So when an office is like, don't have money, great. We've looked to see, you diagnosing? We've looked to see, are we collecting? We've looked to see our case acceptance. Like let's check all the boxes. Flip side is what are we spending money on? Immediately I'm gonna go to anything that you no longer need in the practice. So I know we might have been in the glory days.   doing all these ITero scans. Well, guess what? Glory days are gone. We're no longer there. And I hate to be Debbie Downer, but the reality is we need to sell that. We need to get out of that contract. Anything we are not using in the practice, we need to cut those debts off of us. And this is just a yucky moment. And I'm sorry, but you've got to do it. And as a business owner, this is your job as a CEO is to watch the profitability of the business. Like you have to, and you have to make those hard cuts. And I will tell you, you do it one time. You're a lot more cautious on things you'll purchase in the future.   So we start cutting costs of things that are not paying for themselves. So if we've got extra equipment in the practice, if we've got other things that we can sell. Also, team members, we might have bulked. I've done this as a CEO, so I'm just gonna tell you, like, it was a really, really, really bad day when I realized I over-bulked anticipating something to happen in the practice, and I actually had to scale back and cut. That does not feel good, and it's something that we want to avoid. However, if we have ultimate, like, more team members than are necessary, or we could outsource to things,   I'm not here to say, determinate team members. Like we said, like we went through all the different scenarios, everything we possibly could do. But the reality is you may have bulked too much in a practice and you need to scale back and cut. And that's just a zone where you walk the walk of shame and you commit you're never going to do it again. But ultimately you have to get yourself to a profitable zone. You've got to look at your own spending. A doctor was like really struggling on spending and they had multiple credit cards. Consolidate those credit cards down to where you only have one. We pay it off every single time.   We look to see what other things we like work out deals with the lab or different people. ⁓ But you've got to be realistic. You might have to get a line of credit to get yourself out of it. You might have to take equity out of your home or your practice. Those are things I hate doing, but I also feel sometimes the pain of discipline is better than the pain of regret. And I would rather go through the pain of discipline and learning to like cut my costs and watch my costs and not hire. Like I might extra hire.   a hygienist. I might extra hire a treatment coordinator. Those are two players on my team that will actually generate revenue for me. And not to say assistants don't because assistants can, but I could get by with a Mr. Thurshy. Now, dentists, I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for that. The reality is you can do that for a short amount of time. And I just want to highlight like it's inconvenient, but it's also inconvenient not to have money to pay your bills. So like choose our heart on this. But this is a zone where like I heard a doctor and they were struggling and they   They spent like 10 grand on something unnecessary. And I'm like, that's a spending issue. That's a you issue. That's not a practice issue. And it's not a diagnosis issue. If you cannot produce what you have for your costs, it's like the person has to accept the fact that they bought too big of a house. Like you've got to scale down. You got to size down. And as much as that's an ego blow, that's also smart business ownership. So Kristy, that's my like soapbox. So doctors, like we said, it's first, let's make sure we're producing. Like, let's figure out our amount. have to, then we're going to check our production. Then we're going to check our collections.   Then we're going to check our diagnosis. We're going to check our case acceptance. We're going to check our block scheduling. Then we're going to go into any unnecessary costs that are on our PNL. ⁓ Look to see, there anything we could do to reduce costs? And then it's going to be, we've got to cut. And like, you've got to make that decision before you go under. ⁓ You owe that to your patients. You owe that to yourself and you owe that to your team. And it's a sad, crummy day, but it's part of business. Kristy, what are your thoughts?   DAT Kristy (28:27) Yeah, I think you nailed it. The only area we didn't uncover was you usually do have some unscheduled treatment that you may be able to tap into. And I would definitely explore that resource. But you nailed it, Kiera. I mean, you hit all of the boxes for sure.   The Dental A Team (28:46) So those are kind of like looking at a practice that says, I don't have cash. These are some of the ways to diagnose that we do within practices. And notice the very last thing that we went to was cutting. That's not our mission. That's not our process. And we're never going to tell you to cut somebody. That's going to be ultimately your decision. We're just going to remind you that as a CEO, that's part of your job. And I remember going through COVID, had a coach and she said, Kiera, you've got to have a list. You've got to have a list in your mind of like when things get tight, if they get there.   What are you going to do to make sure your business thrives and survives? And that has stuck with me when I realized like, that's why I'm paid a CEO salary. That's why I'm paid to make these hard decisions. That's why I ⁓ signed up to be a business owner. Like that's the hard side of success. Success has two parts of that coin too. There's the light side and the amazing side. And then there's the dark side that a lot of people don't talk about. So if you're looking at your practice and you're saying, I don't have cash, go through the checklist, Kristy and I just gave you. ⁓   And sometimes it does help to have a buddy in it with you, a consultant, somebody who's in it with you. Like Kristy, I think about the night that you picked up the phone with that office manager and you guys started calling, you called on accounts with them. I think sometimes not feeling alone in the process. think somebody pushing your team, because you're like, I don't know how to say this to my team. ⁓ Someone who can help guide them, someone who can help look at your diagnosis and help you diagnose maybe one more thing, ⁓ really can be an asset. And I call Kristy our money bloodhound.   If I have a practice on cashflow row, I'm like, all right, Kristy, I don't what you're gonna do, but girl, go to work and go start looking. And I think having an outside set of eyes, it's not sitting in there floundering with you, but can have a cool, calm, collected head, sometimes can be the most beneficial. So if you're struggling, reach out, we're here to help you. And it comes with no judgment. Kristy, don't think I've ever once heard you judge a single practice. You come with love, you come with open arms, and you come with solutions quickly.   to make sure they get there. So Kristy, any last thoughts you have for these practices who might be struggling, who are hearing this office autopsy being like, my gosh, that's been me, or my gosh, I feel like I'm headed that way. Any other thoughts you might have for them?   DAT Kristy (30:43) ⁓ Just again that you're not in it alone and having us to help ⁓ guide mentor and just make sure you have you know daily weekly monthly Systems in place and balance, you know a checklist balance. We got ya we can help   The Dental A Team (31:00) We do. do. Well, Kristy,   thanks for being on the office autopsy with me. Thanks for just loving our clients so much and helping them. I think that client who two years after you started helping say to us, I like have never been this free or like, my gosh, like this is what ownership should feel like. I think those are the wins that we live for as consultants of hearing you thrive, hearing your successes, hearing you have your dream life and not being so stressed, ⁓ even in possible situations that are stressful. So Kristy, thanks for being that consultant with us.   DAT Kristy (31:30) It's a pleasure. Thanks.   The Dental A Team (31:32) Of course, for all of you listening, don't be on cashflow row. Don't be struggling about these things. If you are part of any of the scenario, if you're like, my gosh, any of those things resonated, reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Go to our website, click on TheDentalATeam.com book a call. Like truly it's a no judgment, just clarity, just momentum. Even if we can't help you, we've got resources. Even if you're not quite the right fit, that's okay. Like we will be there to support you. ⁓ but I think it takes courage to book the call. It takes courage to admit you need help. but there's so much freedom.   to know that you're not alone, that you're not having to do this alone and that there's somebody who truly can help you get out of the scenario and that's been there, done that and done it successfully many times. So reach out and as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.

Kiera walks listeners through the science of giving raises without breaking the bank or falling into the feel-good trap. She gives three steps to implement around the topic of raises: Know your numbers Raises are earned; they're not automatic Communicate with clarity and boundaries Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am excited to talk about something of, can you give out a raise and can you actually afford it? Like, how do even know there's got to be like some better model than just like a hope, a wish, a prayer? Like how often do I do this? And I thought it just be an awesome podcast to connect with you, to share some valuable tips and to really just empower you to make these decisions confidently, competently, and with ease. So welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. I'm Kiera. I love dentistry. I love helping you have a better life.   a better quality of life, more happiness in your life, more ease, more joy, more flow, truly doing life and business on purpose. We're here about the yes model. So you can say more yes to more things in your life. So that's about you as a human being, making sure that you are fulfilled, that you are flourishing. stands for earnings and profitability and S is for systems and team development. Truly, truly, truly growing you, evolving you, making sure that you have all these pieces in place so that when you're able to live life on purpose, have your business on purpose and truly just   magnify all of this. So today, raises aren't just something that are feel good move. Like this isn't something of like, ⁓ hey, like I feel good. Let's just give you a raise or I do it out of desperation. They're honestly a financial decision that truly can impact your bottom line. It can impact your practice. can, and like with hygienists coming through and dental assistants and the economy, it's like, how do we do this? And so I wanted you guys to just see kind of like three steps to know, can I give these raises out? How do I do this confidently? And what's kind of the flow?   without risking cash flow. So this is something that we're about. love doing this. Races don't, when they're done right, they increase retention, they boost morale and they elevate their culture. Like that's really what it's about. They're super helpful and they have to be timed and strategic as well. So it's not something of like, let's just willy nilly this, which I used to do. used to say, I don't have a set plan. Like it's just whenever now I'm like, wow, let's actually have a plan for this. Let's go through this. And I want to break this down into three simple steps for you.   So first steps before we ever give out the raises are we need to know our numbers. So payroll should be 30% of your collection. So if you're collecting $100,000 payroll, and that includes all fringe benefits, our 401k, everything, should be 30% or less of your total collections. Now that's across the board, it does not matter geographically. Some specialties are a little bit higher, a little bit lower, but the goal is we want it around 30%, or in some offices, they're around 27%. So again, I'm here for like great cases, great...   We want to take care of our team members, but we want to know how that's going to be there. So that's what we're looking for. And we want to make sure that we're profitable. So our goal is to have a 50% overhead of that 30% is payroll. So team members, are you hearing? The bulk of our monthly costs should be paying you. That's what it is. After that, our 50 % overhead, 30% doctor pay, 20% profit. That's what we're aiming for. That's what we strive for. That's what we try to get our offices to. So this way, we're not just giving raises haphazardly because   There's practices out there that like, let me just give them a raise, but their collections are not there. They don't have the money to do it. They backslide, their profitability is not there. And the reality is we've got to know where we're at right now on payroll. So the only ways to have that is we either decrease costs. So like maybe we can cut labor expenses that we don't need, or we need to increase our production or our collections.   So it's really our levers that we have to deal with in this scenario. So when you look at it, before we go in like, oh, we need to get everybody raises, you've got to run the numbers to see where are we at now and where would we be? So I love to have, when I'm running numbers with offices, I love to have a conservative. It's like, hey, this is my bare bones. This is what I can have running my practice. Then I have my like middle tier, like this is where we basically are at right now. And then I love to have on the higher end, what do I have if I'm giving raises out and hiring new people? What does that look on the high end?   because then I can look at my total costs and I can see how much do I need to actually add in? What do we need to produce to be able to afford this of a practice? And I look at these three areas on my spreadsheet constantly. I call it my monthly costs. I have my conservative, my middle of the road and my advanced. This way it helps me see. Now, after that, we're going to have our raises based on performance and value. So we don't want, so this is step number two, raises are earned, they're not automatic. I understand that.   There are things with inflation, there are different pieces, but the reality is, long as what I do is I look around every year, we have it set up to make sure that what we're paying out for payroll is in the higher end of what is within our area. So you can actually go look on Indeed, you can look on Glassdoor, you can look on other areas to see what is the average pay for dental assistants in our area? What's the average pay for hygienists in our area? What's the average pay for billers, office managers, schedulers, treatment coordinators?   And our goal and our practices is to be in the top percent of those. We're not maybe going to be the highest, but we are going to be hopefully in the top 90 % of that. So that way you know, are we in line? Are we not in line? What do we need to do? And then what we're going to do from there is we're actually going to build out job descriptions. So we have an entire thing of dental assistants and all the pieces where it's tiers. So like a basic assistant. So let's say our range for assistants is 18 to $25. Well, at the 18, here's the range of what the assistant needs to do.   At the 20, this is what the assistant needs to do. At the 22, this is what they need to do. And at the 25, that's a lead assistant. So it scales it up so you're able to see like, okay, if I want a raise, this is how I'm going to grow in the company to then know what I need to do to be able to get a higher pay. I think this is so valuable for offices and it's also valuable for team members because now team members can look to say, if I want a raise, this is what I need to take on. This is what I need to learn. It's not just like, well, I've been here for two years. Give me my raise.   it's no take on more responsibilities because we are going to pay you but it's based on the experience that you bring to the practice as well. So with that, these are going to be performance based raises. And it doesn't mean that like just because someone hit that 22 that I have to give it to them right now. What it can mean is like annually you can look at it, see where your assistants and your team are at front office every position and see who qualifies for raises and who doesn't. Now when I'm running my projections and I'm looking at my costs,   A lot of times I will run my assistance on the high end or if I know they're like on my high end of those monthly costs, I'm going to look to see, all right, what do I have today? Now, if they went up one bracket or two brackets and I wanted to pay them this amount because they're doing it, what does that impact my overhead and what do we need to do? Because hopefully as people are expanding on those tiers, they're actually able to take on more, they're able to produce more, they're able to do more within the practice to make the practice more profitable or to grow.   So that way it's linked. So it's the tier raises are based on performance and value, making sure they're adding more value to the practice. And this way we can have it. And we have all these broken out for every single position. We call them tiers in it. And it's really beautiful because now for me, I know the high end of my assistants will be this amount. The high end of my hygienists will be this amount. And I'm not sitting here vacillating on these decisions. And then every year we just go through and assess and adjust as needed. But we run the numbers to make sure it makes sense. And then we do an end of year potential review of all of our people.   to see who gets raises and I can then put that into my projections for the next year when I'm building out our block schedule, building out the projections on the practice. All of that can make it really, really ⁓ special and also accurate to know what are we going to do and what do we need to hit in order to keep our overhead and our metrics in line. Hopefully that made sense because I feel like it's really like one, know your numbers, two, have your raises tied to performance and value, but based in the projections that you need to have within the practice.   And then after that, step three is to communicate raises with clarity and boundaries. So raises do impact your morale. Like, so you've got to make sure communication is key and you don't want it to be where we're giving one raise to an assistant, but then we don't give it to someone else. And then people talk and they get really angry. We also don't want to raise up all of our hygienists just because someone got a raise when they're not qualifying for it. So I like to have reviews with our teams. I like to review where they're at, where their compensation is at, what they're doing.   This is all where team leads can also put it into play to see how is this team member doing? How are they going? What's the next level? And then being transparent in what's needed to move from tier to tier. So having those one-on-ones, showing people, hey, what are your goals? And I like to find out team members when I'm having my one-on-ones, what's their personal goal? What are their life goals? And how can they move up to the next level? Now, if you're newer to business ownership, you might not know how you can do these raises. So that's really where I love my conservative.   my middle and my high end, so then I can look to see what do I need to produce? What do we need to collect to be able to make sure that we can actually afford this? So when we have offices, I have a lot of offices, like don't make decisions about this on emotional decisions. This is not a zone where we want to like, my gosh, well, Sarah came and talked to me and she's going to quit unless I give her a raise. Well, what that does is it sets a standard across the board for all the rest of your team members to see that. And they're watching, your team's watching to see what are you going to do? And I would rather,   like have a hard conversation and let them know like, I'd love to give you a raise. The reality is we know the process, we know the tiers. I know that there was another opportunity that came for you. I'd love to keep you. I'd love to find a solution. I also need to be fair with the rest of our team and I can't adjust policy just for one team member. So this way you can have like truly structured review time. You can not have off the cuff, like someone comes in like, I want a raise. And I'm well, what am I supposed to do? The team now knows how they can get raises and everything's very transparent.   very clear. And this way it's very clear for all team members. It's clear for you. It's clear is kind. So ⁓ practices, we have this for dental offices, I'll be honest in dental team. This is something Britt and I have been working through. We have a lot of positions in our company that we have never, ever, ever worked with. So we're very naive of like, okay, well, how much should this person get and how like, what should we have them do to qualify for raises? But for you, you're really lucky.   We've worked in the dental office. We know all the tiers. We know what they should be adding in. So you don't need to be like I am in our company where I'm like, how do I give these raises? What should people be getting? What does it qualify? We literally have it broken down for you, easy for you. You can adjust it. And then we just check in your area of what you should be doing for your raises in different areas to make sure you're paying in that top 90 % of your area. So hopefully that helps you with like know your numbers, tie your raises to values and have it tiered and then have set times where we actually review it and communicate with clarity.   I will not be doing raises throughout the entire year. We have it, we assess it, we know when we're going to roll out our raises. We talk to team members, we let them know, so it's very clear, it's very transparent, it's very open with them. And this way, you guys don't have to have struggles. And I will tell you, offices that do this honestly use their numbers, their alignment and their structure for raises. It's not based on emotion, it's not based on willy-nilly. They literally can walk in confident, like no, yes, yes, no. Team knows.   And that just makes it a lot easier. Then team members aren't like me where I was always like, okay, so it's my one year. Are they going to give me a raise? Are they not going to give me? I don't really know. It was always awkward. And unless we went and asked the doctor, we didn't get a raise and I hated it. So don't make it that way. Like make this where it's something easy for your team, easy for you. You make it something where everybody wins. Everybody knows it makes it easier for your office managers. They're not in question. They can hold the line for you. Everybody wins through this. So this is truly where we want you guys to look at your   Like action items are look at your raise process and see do you actually have a process and what can you do to make this where it's clear, confident? For me, I review all numbers in September and October and I build my budget for the next year. That's when all raises go through. I do it really much like corporate, so I know who's getting raises, who's not. We have a lot that are production based within our company, so the more they produce, the better off they're going to be. I don't wanna have to worry about those, but I still need to assess and just make sure are our bases accurate, are the pieces there?   Britt and I worked through this for a good solid chunk of time where we're reviewing it, we're looking at it, we're making sure it fits within our numbers of what we need, and then we know what we're able to do. So review it, see if you have it, and if you need help, email us, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. These are tricky numbers, these are tricky pieces, these are like, how do I know? The tiers are amazing, I'm happy to help you with that. So email in Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Truly, this is where you can elevate in your leadership. This is where you can be more clear.   This is where you have hopefully a little bit more clarity of how do I give raises? How do I know if I can afford it? Giving you the numbers as your guide, giving you the tiers, giving you the parameters within your area, and then having set times where you look at it, you project it out, having your monthly costs. So again, we're looking at multiple different lenses to see yes or no. So we're not emotional, but we're truly directed.   This is something I love. I love giving owners ⁓ clarity. I love being a fairy godmother for you where we literally can answer all these questions. You can call us. We'll pick up the phone. We'll help you out. This is what it's like to be part of our consulting. If we can help you reach out, this is what we love to do. And if you're ready to reward and retain your team the right way, reach out. Let's help you out. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Kiera is joined by Zaneta Hamlin, owner and founder of Cusp Dental Boutique. Zaneta, who built her practice from the ground up, shares with Kiera her journey, reflecting on what got her to this point and what she would've changed and focused more on if she were to start over again. Plus, Zaneta talks about how she's turned even the smallest items and exchanges into branding opportunities for her practice. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I am so giddy. I have one of my favorite humans in the entire world. Like that is not an exaggeration. She's got a million dollar smile. She's one of the funniest people I've ever met. She makes me laugh all the time. She really does. Like Zaneta when you smile, is the world just makes like it's just a happier place. Zaneta Hamlin, one of my favorite doctors. This woman can brand like nobody's business. Surprise fact, I even have her all of her branding sitting here. I have her stickers.   I love the business card. That was my favorite thing that you added in for me was a business card for me. But Zaneta Hamlin, one of our clients, one of my faves, welcome to the podcast today. How's your day today?   Zaneta Hamlin (00:39) Great, how are you? I'm happy to be here in the chat.   Kiera Dent (00:43) I'm so happy to have you. My day has been amazing. It's been podcast day and by far my favorite podcast is you today. So I'm really, really excited because I have wanted this podcast to come out for so long. So Zaneta I don't want to like do you a disservice. I just said a few things as to why I wanted you to come on the podcast. Like I said, being a part of our community, I just watch you and something I've noticed about you since literally the day one is you dress incredibly well and you're always branded. Like you're a walking   machine of branding every event I've seen you at you have Cusp Dental I know where you are I know your colors you have everything branded you think so intentionally but you're just an amazing human so Zaneta kind of tell us and honestly I want to go with you and do ⁓ dentistry in other countries that's something that you and I are gonna do outside of that so to fill our listeners in a little bit Zaneta kind of walk them through who is Zaneta Hamlin how did you get to be into Cusp Dental just kind of give us a little background on who you are the dentistry you do   Zaneta Hamlin (01:29) Absolutely.   Kiera Dent (01:40) Whatever you feel like sharing, this is Zaneta's time. And I want everybody to get to know you because you're just an amazing human. So walk us through, how did you get from where you were to where you are today?   Zaneta Hamlin (01:46) Bye.   So am   a second generation dentist. ⁓ I started off as an associate. I went to my dad's alma mater, went to Howard University College of Dentistry around this area in the Virginia Beach Hampton Roads area. I would say Howard is the real HU, so that's going to probably offend some people great. Yes, yes.   Kiera Dent (02:01) Amazing.   That's okay. She's here for it. There's no shame. Zenita, this is your podcast. You get to say whatever you want   today. No filtered.   Zaneta Hamlin (02:19) yeah. So second gen dentist, ⁓ I started off as an associate. So I associated for about nine years, ⁓ until I, ⁓ birthed the idea for Cusp Dental Boutique. It was initially going to be an acquisition. That was the plan I was with, ⁓ coaching prior, but it was more, it was geared more towards, ⁓ acquisitions and   That didn't work out for me. ⁓ just, everything just didn't work out. And the type of practice that I was looking to create ⁓ just didn't fit in the other practices. So ⁓ my husband actually found the space that we are in ⁓ and we just built it from scratch. It was a shell. ⁓ And then we have Cusp Dental Boutique. Now, ⁓ yeah, I do like to brand. So.   Kiera Dent (03:12) That's amazing.   Zaneta Hamlin (03:17) you   Kiera Dent (03:17) Please do, I want you   to, because I also hope people hear, like I said, I brought you on for a reason, Zaneta. This is where I want you to brag. I want you to share about who you are, because I think so often we don't, and so many times dentists feel they're doing it all alone. So trying to bring different dentists, different perspectives. So brag, Zaneta, I'm gonna brag about you too. So this is your show, brag as you should.   Zaneta Hamlin (03:38) I do love my practice. I love how we do things differently. There's a lot of technology. mean, lately I've had a few temps in my office. And so just having the temps has shown me how much my office does that others don't. And so, the expectations are bit higher with what they should do. ⁓ But everyone comes in and like, my gosh, this doesn't feel like a dental office. doesn't smell like a dental office.   ⁓ even the swag they get is different. Now, yeah, I'll give the Cusp Dental Boutique chapstick or things like that, but the koozies, the ⁓ wine tumblers, because you can have wine. ⁓ I think one of the things that you might be referring to is ⁓ my luggage ⁓ cover.   Kiera Dent (04:18) Why not? Why not?   Yes. Yes.   Zaneta Hamlin (04:30) I   do have that because look, your bags, when you check a bag, even if you are rolling, like it's carry on, people see it as you're dragging it wherever. So it's advertising, you know, they might be in a different state. You might come visit Virginia Beach. You what? I was on a flight to Detroit and I saw, you know, this Cusp Dental Boutique. I want to see where that is. Maybe they have an emergency. Top of mind.   Kiera Dent (04:37) Mm-hmm.   don't   disagree with you. This is why I brought you on the podcast because the way you think about branding and advertising, like I remember meeting you first at this conference and like you're repping it. Like you've got your Cusp Dental Boutique and it makes me so happy because that's also, think why you do so well in your practice. Like you love what you've built. You can see the love and the passion and the pieces. Yeah. The luggage. just wrote it down. Dental A Team needs to freaking put those on because we travel everywhere. Think of how many dentists are traveling to conferences and we are not branding. So   Zaneta Hamlin (05:22) All the time, yes.   Kiera Dent (05:27) Dental A Team, if you're listening, which most of them do, ⁓ surprise, maybe it'll be your holiday present. Shelbi, we need to get these. So, you know, there we go. Yeah, it's brilliant.   Zaneta Hamlin (05:33) There we go.   They are great.   Nobody's gonna rep your brand better than you. So if you aren't proud of it, you know, so you gotta rep it. And yeah, I put it on anything. We went, ⁓ our family went on a Disney cruise, our first ever Disney cruise. And I just randomly saw, cause ⁓ a sorority sister of mine told me we need those ⁓ clips for your beach chair to put your towel on so it doesn't fly away.   Kiera Dent (05:45) Mm-hmm. I love it.   ⁓   right. Of course. Of course you can.   Zaneta Hamlin (06:03) Well, I happen to find there are stretchy versions, like ⁓ elastic versions, and you can customize them. So of course, mine, one side says   Cusp Dental Boutique, the other side says Cusp Untethered. So either way, you're getting something. And it went on. So on the Disney Cruise, you could see four chairs. Cusp Dental Boutique, Cusp Untethered. You know.   Kiera Dent (06:19) Something.   Amazing.   It's incredible. So, okay. So I think Zaneta, something that you do so well is you built this practice. And I mean, even, I think people seeing the clips of this online, I mean, you doesn't even look like you're sitting in a dental practice. Like you're in this very different vibe, different feel. So walk me through how has it been being an owner? And then I want to go through like what have been the struggles, what have been the good things? Like you have this amazing space, people you've got raving fans.   Like you have built this boutique dental practice, which I think is so great to stand out when I think dentistry has been a little bit tricky. And I think you're doing a great job of that. And then we're going to pivot to like some of your favorite brand. I mean, she's already listed her luggage covers. can like literally Zaneta. feel like if there's something she can put a logo on, she will like, it is like, Oh, I could put this here. I could have a bracelet. I mean, your jacket, I guarantee you there's a Cusp Dental pin. I guarantee. Yep.   Zaneta Hamlin (07:15) Really.   yeah,   I mean the back of my jean jacket says untethered on it.   Kiera Dent (07:26) It's all there. She's constantly, it's constant. Like Zaneta, I think you are one of the few people that thinks in their branding so much that it is a part of you. It's what you do. It's who you are. It's not like I'm Zaneta and here's work and here's Zaneta. It's I am these pieces. So walk me through, you started this scratch start. How's it been going?   Zaneta Hamlin (07:27) The symbol is right there.   you   Kiera Dent (07:50) The wins, the stresses, the struggles, like where are you at on the business ownership path?   Zaneta Hamlin (07:56) I mean, there have been ups and downs. I will be very honest and frank about that. I've never been a business owner. So this is my first kick at it. ⁓ But I'm very frank with my team, like, hey, guys, I'm learning too. And I rely on them to also give me their feedback. Now, I always take it into consideration. It doesn't always mean like, hey, we're going to do what you recommended this time around. But I do like to listen to them and see what they think, because they have great ideas. But you won't know unless you actually listen to them.   It's been up and down. Like when people opt to leave the practice to go somewhere for whatever reason, ⁓ I've taken it personally in the past. Now, ⁓ my gosh, I mean, hopefully Dana has seen how much I've grown in that department.   Kiera Dent (08:38) I was,   I would agree. Dana's been coaching you for quite a while and Zenita, I will even say not being in the day to day with you all the time, you have grown exponentially. It used to be this, I remember being in the Dr. Masterminds, different places. It was just this like complete stress. And I feel like you have definitely grown as a business owner, as a leader, and I'm really proud of you. And you seem happier, but you still haven't lost your flair of like loving your practice. Like it didn't jade you even though it stressed you out. And agree, Dana, Dana will for sure be watching this and she will be so proud of you.   She already is, but you have definitely grown in the time that we have known you. And I'm really proud of you because I don't think everybody does grow. Some people just stay stagnant, but you have wanted to grow. You've wanted to evolve. You listen to what people say. You've made friends in our community. You and Christie have become BFFs. Christie Moore, she's been on the podcast too. Super excited to hang out in person, but you do a good job of executing and implementing Zenita. You're very humble. You're very coachable. And you're also just a ton of fun. Like you keep the Zenita piece of you while also growing and evolving too.   Zaneta Hamlin (09:38) Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's there's no way you can't change stuff if you don't accept it. Because if it was working the way you were doing it, then why are you coaching? So no, it's it's been up and down. I've learned to delegate. I wasn't doing that before. And I'm still learning to ⁓ give deadlines because sometimes I will suggest that something needs to be done and not say when I need it done by and in my mind, that means you've done it already.   Kiera Dent (09:45) Right.   Zaneta Hamlin (10:04) ⁓ so working on that, but I am doing better with letting others, ⁓ do things for me and that I don't have to do all of it. And I have a great team that understands that I will do it all if not, if they don't step in and they will be like, no, no, no, I got it. You go do something else or maybe go eat. about that? so, ⁓ I think it's who you surround yourself with that. ⁓   Kiera Dent (10:18) Mm-hmm.   Yeah. Yeah. Good.   Zaneta Hamlin (10:33) helps and like you mentioned like Christie, for example, I was talking to another doctor when I went to a master class a couple of weeks ago for the AGD and he was telling me like, hey, when you are looking to move your practice into different levels, like moving up, like for example, me, you know, trying to add an associate and grow, he was like, talk to people who have done it or people who ⁓   Kiera Dent (10:54) Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (11:02) have been in that seat before, or coaches that can help you. And I was like, well, definitely my coach can help me with that. And to like, you know, talking to somebody like Kristy, who's been there, done that, probably even read a book about it, you know. So ⁓ it's who you surround yourself with too, that can help you.   Kiera Dent (11:20) Yeah, no, I think you've done an amazing job and it's just fun. It's fun to watch you evolve as a leader. It's fun to watch you. I mean, I remember some of our first emails were I'm staying here so late. Everything's on my plate. I don't know how to do this to now hearing you of I delegate and I built this culture of a team that knows who I am. They give it had to change yourself as Anita. That's something I love about you is I don't feel you. There's been a huge change of Anita. I think there's been like Zenita 2.0 is Anita 3.0.   where you just keep like, keep the core of who you are, but you evolve as your business evolves and like letting the team know, yes, this is who I am and this is what I'm expecting. And I'm very honest and very frank. I think it's really helped you tremendously. And like, let's give some snaps. You are bringing in an associate. You are evolving your practice. You are growing into these things. And so if you were talking to somebody, say in your shoes, they just found this space, they found the shell. They're super excited. There's Anita, who you were at the beginning.   Zenita today, what would you maybe tell that practice owner of some things of like, hey, as the wiser version of me, this is what I would maybe do or I would execute on XYZ or I would do this again of something that I did. What would you say are some of those tips you would give maybe a Zenita coming in doing a similar path?   Zaneta Hamlin (12:36) probably would have learned to delegate earlier. I think, yeah. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (12:40) I agree.   Yeah, I remember   some long emails and some hard nights on NotDelegate and a lot of hours at the practice unnecessarily.   Zaneta Hamlin (12:48) Yeah   I was quick focusing it. Don't do quick,   you can, but why? know, like, I can't believe I did that and how much time I put, but it's interesting though, like some, the things that I have delegated, I'm still busy. I still have to do things. it's like, now I'm like, how did I have time to do that? Like, no wonder why I was stressed. No wonder why I wasn't sleeping, you know, like, so I would have definitely, ⁓   Kiera Dent (12:57) I agree. I agree.   Yes.   Zaneta Hamlin (13:20) delegated sooner. I would have gotten an aura ring earlier. That's something she knows talking to her about. I would have gotten that earlier. ⁓ But I also would have trusted my intuition more a earlier. I mean, I did, but not at the level in which I do now. Like, for example, if I extend an offer or like,   Kiera Dent (13:24) Right? ⁓ It works great. Yes, agreed. Okay.   Zaneta Hamlin (13:49) you know, I make a decision, because I like to make decisions pretty quickly. Like it's this and we're going with it, right? I don't go back and like ponder it like, oh, did I really make this mistake? Like, was this a mistake? Should I have done this? Should I have done that? I've had those thoughts before, but then I quickly am like, no, no, no, it's, this is the way we should go if an offer was made and it wasn't accepted.   Kiera Dent (13:53) Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (14:17) It's because that wasn't for me and it probably would have been a headache. You know, I've gone down that route with like negotiations and stuff like that. And I thought to myself, hey, had that actually worked, it would have been a disaster. So I'm glad it didn't. So definitely ⁓ intuition, like leaning into that and just going with the flow.   Kiera Dent (14:35) Yeah.   Mm hmm. No, and I do. I do think that there's so many times that we feel like there's all these other experts, which I do agree like great job. Kudos to you. You you jumped into consulting and you hired coaches and you talk to mentors and talking about Sheena and Christie like you use your doctor community around you and you work with other mentors. But I do believe that there's an internal knowing that I think we often lose by thinking I've never done this before. So how am I supposed to know? But I do think that there's a core knowing that   I really love that you brought that up, that people really do need to trust themselves. They need to execute on that more. ⁓ So many people are like, well, someone told me I shouldn't do this. And I'm like, but you know, like you know what you need to do and you're gonna, you'll figure it out and it will work. So, okay, I love your story and I love what you've done. And I'm so happy that you're sharing with other people. And now I wanna pivot to, let's talk about your branding. Talk me through, you said everything is branding opportunities. Every single possible thing that you do.   Zaneta Hamlin (15:18) It doesn't feel right.   Kiera Dent (15:36) Like has this always been a part of you? Did it just come with buying the practice? And then I want you to walk through some of the specifics that you do of branding intentionally, maybe even like who you use or where you get these things. Like, I don't think people realize like marketing is a lot easier than they think it is. You did a scratch start. So you have had to figure out how to market yourself with no money. So kind of walk us through like, how have you done this? How has the marketing been for you? How has it been finding more new patients like?   Zaneta Hamlin (15:54) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (16:02) I don't know, whatever you want to take on this branding, because honestly, you are one of my queens of branding that I've met as a dentist. You do it so well. So walk me through just whatever, however you want to take this branding, marketing side of the business.   Zaneta Hamlin (16:15) No judgment. Okay. Ready? Okay. One of the cheapest things you can get and y'all don't, well, let's just go through it. So ⁓ pens. Okay. So I would go to Pens.com. They always run promos and stuff like that. Get some pens, get your favorite pen. ⁓ they send you, they'll send you something. See exactly. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (16:17) No judgment. I'm ready.   No judgment, we already put it there.   You do.   I have it. It's literally right there.   Zaneta Hamlin (16:42) What I, how I started was, mean, of course, Studio 88 did my logo, my colors and all that stuff. That was a process to get to what it is now, right? Because there were different versions of it, right? And then I started putting it on pens. So here's what I would do. would, when I go to a restaurant, family, friends, myself, whatever, you know, they give you a pen, a Bic pen or some whatever pen.   Kiera Dent (17:08) Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (17:10) I will sign with my pen and I will leave that pen.   Kiera Dent (17:13) You're so clever. Okay, keep going.   I want to hear all these ideas. I'm writing them down by the way. They're brilliant.   Zaneta Hamlin (17:20) So   I always have a bajillion pens on me in my purse or in my pocket. wear scrubs, so I have them in my pockets and stuff. Like even where, like my car, where I take my car to get it serviced or I'll change whatever. They've got my pens floating around too. The wine shop that I go to with, that I have membership at, they've got my pens. They always ask me, what color is coming out next? You know, like, cause I do different colors based on different seasons, as long as it's within brand.   Kiera Dent (17:45) Smart.   Zaneta Hamlin (17:48) So I can tell when that pen was from because we've only been orange orders. And black was the last order we had. We have a teal one now. That was a mistake, but still I have 500 of them. So we're gonna work through that. Yeah. And then I also did a partnership with a restaurant that's not too far from my office, half a mile away. They're out by the water. They gave me gift cards that I can give to new patients.   Kiera Dent (17:54) That's incredible.   So we're giving them out. Yeah.   Zaneta Hamlin (18:17) I gave them a boatload of pens. So when they are having people sign their checks or whatever, you know, they finished their eating and all that stuff, they've got a Cusp Dental Boutique pen that people usually jack, they steal those. And so they've got 200 to sort through, whatever. So that's how I really started getting the brand out. I would wear what I had, if know, if I had t-shirts or something, I would wear those. Now I have sweatshirts and stuff too.   Kiera Dent (18:24) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm   Zaneta Hamlin (18:48) But it was just really wherever I can show folks. When I go with my kids to their games or their school or whatever, I might have something. And people ask, ⁓ are you the one that owns? Yeah, hi, you should come to this. You know, just really, so it could be anything. mean, again, pen is a simple and easy thing to do to carry, not a huge investment.   Kiera Dent (19:03) Yeah.   Zaneta Hamlin (19:16) you know, do that. And then when Stanley does promotions and they customize them, you do that too. Yep. Yeah. And koozies are cheap. ⁓ I use ⁓ Citi Paper. They are in Alabama. A friend of mine, another business owner, she's a pediatric dentist. Quinn, sent them or referred them to me and ⁓   Kiera Dent (19:23) On brand, on color. Excellent.   Zaneta Hamlin (19:44) They do all of my koozies, whether it's the regular size koozie or the tall ones, which we did one season for a beach, because we're right by the water. ⁓ And then even like our goodie bags, we don't do the traditional goodie bags at the office. They're cotton, because also check out the environment. I have to come up with something for my patients who bring theirs back to reuse them. Like, hey, maybe if you bring your bag back, so we can just refill it with your supplies if you need it.   Kiera Dent (20:02) Yeah.   Cute.   Zaneta Hamlin (20:14) ⁓ But things like that have been great and people love it because it's different. Now I use mine for like when I travel for makeup, like my makeup brushes. It's, you know, I've had patients that will use it for their sunglasses. We have Cusp sunglasses, which patients use when they're sitting in the chair anyway to protect their eyes and 90 % of the time they want to walk out with it anyway. So again, take it. has my logo.   Kiera Dent (20:25) Mm-hmm.   Take   it, please.   Zaneta Hamlin (20:44) Yeah,   take it. Yeah, by all means. So yeah, and sunglasses can be pretty cheap too.   Kiera Dent (20:47) ⁓   Mm-hmm. So what do you feel? Okay pens koozies sunglasses shirts sweatshirts reusable bags What do you feel are if I'm like on a budget? Pens obviously what else you feel has been I mean and also I'm hearing you you know your population You're by the beach. So you're thinking in beach like they're gonna want drinks. They don't want sand on those So koozies are gonna be great. Keep them cold. They're there   Zaneta Hamlin (21:02) Mm-hmm. Yes.   Kiera Dent (21:14) the towel thing at the beginning of the podcast. Well, yeah, that makes sense because you're at the beach. People need those are going to use those are going to see them. ⁓ I like what things would you say if I'm on a budget are going to be the best bang for my buck? I love the Stanleys. I didn't even think about like you're watching promotions on every single thing that your patients would use like sunglasses, clever. Again, you're a beach community. So what has been your best ROI?   Zaneta Hamlin (21:33) Yeah.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (21:39) because branding is like awareness, but then there's also like, I need patients to come back with that. So what do you feel has been your best ROI that you could say these patients came from this if I could only choose like one or two of these items?   Zaneta Hamlin (21:53) If we, my team probably would have to help me with this, but if it's based on what people have asked for, I would say it's chapstick.   Kiera Dent (22:04) Interesting.   Zaneta Hamlin (22:05) Yeah, because you don't have to be at the beach to use chapstick like chaps you should keep these puppies moist like drink your water and Moisturize your lips ⁓ SPF all the things the chapstick folks have asked for like hey Do you guys still do the chapsticks because I think and I don't know I know there are different types, but the one we do is like the big daddy one I have one in my ⁓ pocket somewhere, but ⁓   Kiera Dent (22:14) Yeah.   You   Zaneta Hamlin (22:34) Um, people really like that. You know, someone once someone said to me, Oh yeah, a friend of mine was using it and I just liked how it went on. And, you know, she said she got at her dental appointment. I was like, Oh yeah. Okay. I'm glad you came because would you like one today after your appointment? can give you one.   Kiera Dent (22:52) because we've got   some and you can share them with all your friends.   Zaneta Hamlin (22:56) Yeah, so I think that has been great.   And then the koozies are the second ones because people ask for that again. You could be anywhere. I mean, my neighbors use the koozies when we're out in the neighborhood, you know, hanging out with the kids and stuff like that. So yeah. ⁓ look at that.   Kiera Dent (23:16) Mm-hmm.   Look at that. She has it. I'm telling you, this woman walks in her logo. I would not be shocked if you told me you had pajamas in it.   Zaneta Hamlin (23:28) That's it.   That's a good idea.   Kiera Dent (23:32) There you   go. Pajamas. know our team has been asking me for workout clothes, like tank tops. Um, and then also they want the branded shoes of Dental A Team shoes. So that way they're like, we do a different one every single year. Cause that way, like your team is always wearing stuff also. So like if it's stuff that they do, yes. Um, you can do that. We also found out you can make a custom Nikes. Uh, you can make other customs that.   Zaneta Hamlin (23:47) Yeah Chuck says it converse   Can you put lingo on   it?   Kiera Dent (24:01) So those are things, again, I haven't done it yet, but write down the, get your notebook. ⁓ But honestly, I think Zaneta, some of these things, even post podcast, if you can send me and we'll include it in the show notes, some of the suppliers that you use and some of the ideas that you have. like we've listed off, she's got the Stanleys that she brands, there's the ChapStick. But if you looked and if you saw on the video and if you miss it, it's not the cheap ChapStick. Like this is not a cheap ChapStick. There's some dental offices that give.   Zaneta Hamlin (24:29) They have...   Kiera Dent (24:30) Gross chapstick.   Zaneta Hamlin (24:31) yeah, the minis. I know!   Kiera Dent (24:33) The minis or the ones that just like get in your mouth and they taste disgusting or they like don't actually moisturize. They almost like dry it out worse. So you're like putting it on. ⁓ You know what I'm talking about. Excellent. Do you hear this? She's coming to our doctor in-person mastermind, which is in September and we're super excited about it. It's a doctor in leadership one and Zaneta is already thinking I'm bringing it for everybody. And that's not because these dentists.   Zaneta Hamlin (24:40) Yeah.   Yes. you're getting one. I think I'm bringing some for everybody when I come to the meeting.   and you get a chance to.   Kiera Dent (25:00) These dentists are not her client. We don't even live by her, but yet all of us are going to be wearing it. She never knows where one of us is going to be. I'm going to be on the airplane sitting there flying out to the East coast. Someone's going to see it. They're going to look it up cause they're going to love her logo. And lo and behold, they'll be like, ⁓ I saw some girl putting this chapstick on, on a plane. You never know where people are going to be. And that's very easy. I thought your restaurant idea was so clever and like pens. I did not even think about signing with your own and just leaving it there constantly.   the luggage, our team's getting luggage carriers. Like that's going to be part of their standard onboarding. Cause we fly all the time and dentists are on planes all the time. So Zenita.   Zaneta Hamlin (25:32) Thank you.   Dentists,   their assistants, their office managers, their spouses, somebody, it's fun. And I saw this cute lady walking by with this and took a picture of it and sent it to their spouse or whoever, best friend. Have you been in this company? Or why aren't you doing that?   Kiera Dent (25:43) Mm-hmm.   Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It's a very, it's   so clever, Zenita. I think, okay, so what's your most random favorite thing that maybe wasn't the best ROI, but you just loved it. It was one of your favorite like things that you created that's been branded. I mean, you got a jean jacket that's unbranded. You've got your shirt, which is a super darling shirt. Like what have you loved that was like, yeah. And then you also said you got sweatshirts.   Zaneta Hamlin (26:16) Thank you, you really sound interesting.   Kiera Dent (26:20) What else do you have? Like, what was your favorite?   Zaneta Hamlin (26:23) well, I really like our, wine, ⁓ tumblers. I have a Yeti that has, ⁓ Cusp Dental Boutique on it, but we have tumblers or two versions again, depending on which one you break out. know when you got it because we only rotate certain things and we've, we've done some promos where like our Cusp Circle folks get, which we have to get better about it. But when people do our in office, ⁓   membership, yep, they get those things. So like the t-shirt, I'm not going to just give to like our regular PPO patient. Like it's going to be, you know, our membership folks that get those, like the nicer branded items. But I really like the ⁓ koozies or not koozies, the tumblers. ⁓ I use it often enough. ⁓   Kiera Dent (27:01) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   often enough, all the favorite things and you can have it as   a business write-off because you want them. They're branded. You pull them out for parties. You can put them on social media. Obviously, it's a complete business write-off. I agree. Yeah.   Zaneta Hamlin (27:24) Excellent. Yeah. I had   my previous coach, she would put when she would go to the beach or wherever she would go, she would take pictures with her wine tumbler in different places. I did like a, I think it's in my ⁓ Cusp merch on my Instagram, where it just shows people with Cusp Dental Boutique things in different places. ⁓ And sometimes I'll still do that. Like I'll set it somewhere or whatever.   Kiera Dent (27:40) Ha ha ha!   Zaneta Hamlin (27:54) I've had patients who will send me pictures of themselves out in the wild with random Cusp Dental Boutique things. yeah, but the wine tumbler has been great because no one else has that. no dental offices, you know, like it's something you wouldn't think of for a dental office. So yeah.   Kiera Dent (28:09) Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Totally. Well, and as you're   saying, I hope people picked up on, I wrote down some notes that I think you maybe don't even realize you're doing, but you don't call it a membership plan. It's called Cusp Dental Boutique Circle. So it's your, and as soon as you said it, I was like, that's her membership plan. But notice the way you say it, Zaneta, is you want your people to be part of your group. It's a community, it's a group, it's not, and like they're getting the special stuff. They're getting something that's different than everybody else. So you're setting it apart for people that are a part of your inner circle.   Zaneta Hamlin (28:27) Yes.   Kiera Dent (28:46) Then it said Cusp merch and I was like, probably gonna start selling your merch like honestly, but right now it's just on social media, which then helps patients realize they go, they tag you, you're gonna be putting it on there. People will see it. ⁓ You also are very clever. You said two versions and I was like, that's so smart because then people are going to want things at different times. They're gonna see other people getting it, which then creates retention of people wanting to come back because they saw the merchandise. They saw different things.   Zaneta Hamlin (28:51) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (29:15) but also you strategically know like when were, when did I see them? Where were these pieces based on what they're, they're having? So it's a very like thought out process that I don't even think people, I don't even know if you realize like the depths of the pieces you're doing that are just very fun. And it seems like you just have a ton of fun doing it too.   Zaneta Hamlin (29:22) there.   I do. mean, it's, I don't know. It's, I, now I will say if you are wearing your brand, you can't be outside acting crazy. So you can be fun.   Kiera Dent (29:41) I would agree. I was going to say, do you ever get sick of like having people be   like, hi, who are you? Like, I'm like, no, sometimes I want to go incognito on a plane. Like I don't want anybody to know me. So.   Zaneta Hamlin (29:48) Yes, right. I   do have those times. Like tomorrow, I'm supposed to be going to Cape Charles with my husband. It's our wedding anniversary. I have gone back and forth because we're going to be visiting an artillery. I'm like, do I go? Because I will wear my Cusp baseball cap. I have it in three colors. My team, some of my team members have them.   Kiera Dent (30:01) No.   Thank   Zaneta Hamlin (30:15) I think one   of our videos, were wearing it for like, it's our like new patient welcome video we have for wearing the hats. But my husband wears his often. But I've thought, do I go to this place wearing my Cusp Dental Boutique hat? Because it has the symbol in the front ⁓ and the name of the practice in the back. ⁓ Or do I go incognito? Nobody should know who I am. But the Eastern Shore,   Kiera Dent (30:42) Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (30:43) is close enough and we do have patients that have come from there. So just from talking to you, I'm thinking that I'm probably going.   Kiera Dent (30:50) at least have   like, there'll be a little Cusp Dental Boutique cameo if not the full show. So yeah, of course she's taking pens.   Zaneta Hamlin (30:55) I'm also taking pens. So I'm going to be leaving them at the   distillery strategically and the restaurant. ⁓   Kiera Dent (31:02) The pen, the pen.   And I will say, Zaneta, I mean, you shipped this to me at Summit, because this is where it came from. We were at Summit and I was like, I need a notebook. And you messaged in the chat, I saw it come through, Zaneta said, I'm sending you a notebook. And lo and behold, this shows up in like the super cute notebook. I still have it. It's got a beautiful, I mean, it's a real nice pen, Zaneta. She did, that's something else I'm noticing with you. You're not scrimping. Like this is a very heavyweight pen. It's a nice feel pen.   Zaneta Hamlin (31:14) It did.   Kiera Dent (31:32) which also is on brand with a Cusp Dental Boutique office. You're not going for this like hot, like you're not going for the burn and churn, which is fine. If you were, it'd be a different type of pen. Your stickers are very high end stickers. Your business card is high end. It's on brand. There's the untethered. There's the Cusp Dental Boutique. Like just, I mean, you guys, I still have these. They're very nice. They're cute. They are not, I feel like I'm selling Cusp Dental Boutique. Like I feel like we're on an infomercial. Like here, here we are.   Zaneta Hamlin (31:59) Please keep going.   Kiera Dent (32:02) But I think something like this pen is compared to some of these crummy ones, like, you know, Pens.com, they do send you some really junky ones. They also send you some really nice ones. But I've been in offices writing with pens, like from the Pens.com, like they ship them to me. I'll have a rose gold one. I'll have a white one. And in offices, the dental assistant's like, I love your pen. And I'm like, well, you can have it. Here you go. Like take it, write it, share it with everybody. But I do think there's something to be said. You do nice things.   Zaneta Hamlin (32:10) Thank you. Yeah.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (32:31) rather than doing just cheap things to slap a brand, but your brand is higher end. Your brand is a nicer brand. So you're making sure it's very intentional with your brand.   Zaneta Hamlin (32:42) think when you are going to brand your items, and I get it, it depends on which season you're in in your practice, right? But when you are going to put your name on something, you want it to represent you well. And so yes, the things that I have done are probably, you know, I will always say they're top tier. But some of these things you can also get when they go on sale. Like they'll send me stuff like, it's now 85 cents.   Kiera Dent (32:48) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (33:11) you know, to get this pen or 50 cents for that pen. I'm like, oh shoot, get it, get it now. We're gonna get this color. This is gonna be this season or 2024. This is the color, you know. So it's just, and it's something I think it's probably my mother, cause she's always like, like if I'm gonna go out with her, like sometimes I wanna just dress down and wear sweatpants, right? She's like, where are you going? You're not following me like that. You know, and so it's like, okay, all right, I get it. Like I gotta represent you and myself well.   Kiera Dent (33:20) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   You   Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (33:41) So yeah, for things you're gonna put your logo on, you do wanna make sure it's something that people are gonna want, that it looks good and it represents you. So if you can't, maybe hold out till you can get the one that you really want. Because if it's crappy and you don't even like it and you're not gonna use it, why get it? Save your money, invest it in something else. Get AI.   Kiera Dent (33:55) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   Get AI.   was a mastermind conversation we had this week. There is a podcast inspo'd by Zaneta. I will not say exactly which one. She knows, you guys can all guess on the podcast coming out. I recorded it right before this one, but Zaneta, I think it was just so fun. I really wanted to hear just about the different ideas. So anything you have of like, like you said, Pens.com or where you get your koozies or any of those. Cause I think that's also the hard part of there. So much out there, like who are the good brands? So even if you can send some of those that you like.   Zaneta Hamlin (34:06) You   Kiera Dent (34:30) I'd be happy to share those along. But I think if nothing else, I hope listeners today start thinking of differently of how can you brand your stuff? How can you do simple things? Where are your patients hanging out all the time that are the ideal patients you want? Not just patients, because we don't want all patients. We want your ideal patient. So like you said, they're going to be at the distillery. So you're going to a certain place. Like I picked up on that. You're not like I'm handing these out at, we won't say certain names.   Zaneta Hamlin (34:32) Yeah.   you   Kiera Dent (34:56) but I know you would not be dropping pens at certain places. You will be dropping them up. They don't go to all locations. They go to intentional locations where you know, it's like you said, there's a restaurant on the water. Well, I can already tell what type of a clientele is at that one based on where this restaurant is. So without Zaneta even telling you who her ICP is or ideal customer profile or avatar of patient, she's intentionally putting all of her brand in the places she wants people to be at her ideal patient base.   Zaneta Hamlin (35:10) You   Kiera Dent (35:25) to grow and Zaneta, mean, without even sharing any of your numbers, the fact that you've taken a scratch, start shell of a practice, built it with your own branding, your own pieces to now you're going to be bringing on an associate. think people can attest that some of the things you're doing clearly have been working really, really well. So thank you for sharing. I got excited. I I wrote a ton of notes over here and I hope other people did. And these are the type of conversations that come out at the mastermind.   Zaneta is talking about all of her problems, but then she's branding her Cuspware everywhere and all of us want it. So it goes like, you know, it's a good, it's a good thing. And honestly, Sheena needs to talk to you. She needs help on her branding. So and Sheena shout out to you. Just like, you know, you need like these are the things.   Zaneta Hamlin (35:57) Ha ha!   I would love to, but I do think   though, just, I probably picked this up from Studio 88, just because you're a dental practice, a dental office, you do not have to do everything dental. Like my logo doesn't have a tooth anywhere, right? It can, and that's great, but it doesn't have to. So just because it's a dental practice, like my logo or the things that I brand aren't specific to dental things. So my recommendation is,   Kiera Dent (36:20) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (36:33) Put your logo on something that you like and you would use outside of work. That is the best way to market your practice is on things that you would even want to use. It doesn't have to be like things you would expect from a dental office. You know what I mean? Like, hence the rumblers and yeah, the wine stuff.   Kiera Dent (36:52) right? The wine. Yep, yep. It's   stuff that you like, but also what I think is important is we often attract the people that are like us and as patients. And so Zaneta is doing things that make her happy, that make her want to do it, that are going to attract people that are very similar to her. Not everyone's going to love this pen. There will be some of you that will be like, that's too thick, that's too fat. Like I don't like how that one writes. And you would prefer another style of pen.   but people that like this high end vibe feel where it's this gel. mean, I already know Tiffany would love this pen and in the other colors. I also love that you do different colors. It's so clever, like so many fun things and you just have fun, but you do it. I'm really proud of you on an overhead budget. Good job. Like when it's on sale, when these things like, not just buying the Stanleys, you're literally being an intentional business owner too, which I think shows that you can do branding and marketing on like within an overhead budget.   and still have a ton of fun and make beautiful, high quality things. I mean, your logo just stands out even in this video. It's strong. It's, it's Anita. It's beautiful. And it just definitely represents who you are as a person too.   Zaneta Hamlin (38:00) And the final thing I'll mention about that is not every, like right now I'm the only one with the Stanley, but I will say my, if I make more of these, cause I wanted to try it out. I wanted to see how it would do. And my team members were like, I love that. You there are certain things that only squad members have. So like, right. So you want to get it. Like there's certain jackets or sweatshirts that we have.   Kiera Dent (38:14) Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (38:28) You only get that if you're on my team. So ⁓ there are certain things you and like this t-shirt patients don't get this, you know, and it has our ⁓ humble hearts, skilled hands at the back. If they're wearing it out, they're like, well, where'd you get that shirt? Even if a patient from Cusp Circle wants a shirt, theirs is a little bit different, right? So again, strategically, you know, no, how'd you that? Cause only team members have that or whatever. So.   Kiera Dent (38:41) I love it.   Mm-hmm.   ⁓ Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (38:56) If it's a little bit more expensive, yeah, maybe do that for your team during the holidays or their anniversary ⁓ or their birthday or something like that ⁓ that you're not just giving to anybody else.   Kiera Dent (39:05) Mm-hmm.   It's really clever. So for birthdays and anniversaries, do you have swag or gifts? I'm guessing it's all Cusp Dental Boutique. So tell us kind of about that. I mean, I didn't mean to go down this path, but I'm just very curious.   Zaneta Hamlin (39:20) So, not always, so give me some credit there, not always. our first, so for my office, the first anniversary, you get a Marc Jacobs tope.   Kiera Dent (39:24) Yeah, yeah. Okay.   I love it. I love it. No, there is no judgments   they needed. These are the things that make offices stand out. I love it.   Zaneta Hamlin (39:37) It's the mini though. So they get,   it's the maybe, I guess it's the small. So ⁓ far I've given four of those out. But anyway, you get that in whatever color. I order them, get them in bulk during the holidays. So I have them hidden somewhere in my office. So whenever someone's anniversary is, I can get in, I know what color they want, I can ask, and then they get that for their first anniversary. Second anniversary, what I've done is, ⁓   Kiera Dent (39:51) Mm-hmm.   Zaneta Hamlin (40:06) I have, we did like the, I think it's like the Turkish towels, because again, beach, and then ⁓ city paper put my logo on it. It's in like leather or something like that on the side. ⁓ So they have that, and you know, the Turkish towels have like, it's like tied at the bottom or whatever, like the things hanging off of it. So we did that in a wine. So the wine shop that I go to, they custom made a, they, brought the towel.   Kiera Dent (40:11) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   No.   Zaneta Hamlin (40:35) They put that in there with, so my team members that have gotten to their second year anniversary, they fill out a questionnaire from the wine shop that tells, ask them specifically what kind of wines they like. We put that in the box with other goodies from the wine shop. So it might be like truffle almonds or whatever that will pair well and little things based on what they like. And then that goes with it. And so that was year two.   ⁓ I'm still thinking what's gonna happen for those that make it to year three, ⁓ but it's always gonna be something different. They'll get at least something that has Cusp on it. It's just the first anniversary has the Marc Jacobs tote. And that started from like a joke that we had in the office, because people would walk around with these Marc Jacobs. And my admin at the time, Rachel, she was great before she moved. She had, and it's on social media somewhere where,   Kiera Dent (41:05) Mm-hmm.   Yeah, I love it.   Yeah   Zaneta Hamlin (41:32) She wrote on a brown paper bag, the tote, and she would walk around the office with it. And I was like, I get the hint. I get it. So that's when I bought it and I just made it a rule. Our first anniversary, that's what you get. So it's the same.   Kiera Dent (41:36) Mm-hmm.   You   It's amazing. And I love that you   think about like buying it on sale, there's different things. And then it's part of the Cusp. I love that it's called the Cusp squad. And you've got the Cusp Dental sort of like Boutique circle. So it's like you've got different names also for your groups that people want to be, which is so amazing. I have a friend and she does this in her dermatology and I didn't think about it. But she has it so exclusive that people like fly in from other places to go to her dermatology and be like, how did you get into joyful?   And she's just done a great job of branding it, of making things special, of making it to where this is only for, and I mean, I wrote so many notes because this is not my specialty. That's why I wanted you on the podcast, Anita, because I think hearing what other people do really can help us out. And like you are literally thinking in branding all day, every day, what can I do? But also doing it in such a beautiful aesthetic way as well that people want it. I mean, who doesn't want to Mark Jacobs bag that, yeah, I'm okay with it saying Cusp on it. Like I'll take that, right? ⁓   It's a beautiful thing that people do want, which is amazing. I love it. Well, Zaneta, I adore you. Any last thoughts you have, anything on branding or business ownership or anything that you feel leaving our listeners today would put a nice pretty bow on this for you today, because I've loved it. I've enjoyed all the tactical pieces, so many different fun things, like something so far from what I normally talk about that just makes me excited and psyched ready to do this. So any last things you want to add, any advice, any pieces?   to put a on our podcast today.   Zaneta Hamlin (43:19) Just make it fun, get stuff that you would use, doesn't have to be dental related. mean, ⁓ yeah, you can check in with your team too. They might have some great ideas that you can use, but yeah, just have fun with it and be obnoxious as you want to with it. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (43:40) I love it.   Amazing. Well, Zaneta, thank you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing. And I think this is just something really special about our dentist community of like people like you and Christie and Sheena and like, Jamin and all Kevin like so many cool amazing doctors that we get to hang out together. I didn't know how that community was going to shake. had visions of it becoming what it's been where you pop on your hair is always wrapped up because you're coming from patients on your computer hanging out.   Zaneta Hamlin (44:07) Yes.   Kiera Dent (44:09) And then all of a sudden I see the like eyes flash to the screen like what? And I'm supposed to do what? You guys want the what? But just like a fun community and having doctors like yourself that just bring special different ways. I think it's just amazing. So thank you for being on the Dental A Team's family. Thank you for being a part of our crew. It's just like, and thank you for sharing on the podcast today. I really appreciate you.   Zaneta Hamlin (44:30) Thank you for having me. Like, yeah, I'm glad Brandy got us to this point because, I'll definitely, I won't disappoint next month. I'll have some new ideas for you because my pin is going to be on, so you'll see that too, on my blazer.   Kiera Dent (44:41) I know you won't. Zaneta, I guarantee you. I can't wait.   I cannot wait. Yeah, you walk around with this pin. I'm telling you Zaneta dresses herself to the hilt with her brand and it's amazing. I love it every time and I never know what you're going to show up in and it's always different. You're always thinking but I also love that you highlighted because some people can go crazy and not be smart strategic business owners and you're able to do both and that's really what I wanted to highlight. So   Thank you and thank everyone. ⁓ And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

2026 might still seem like a ways off, but now is the time to start chipping away at preparation. Tiff and Kristy walk practices through what to do to be ready for a fresh start come January 1. They talk about lag and lead measures, what to put on your calendar now, fee schedules, and a ton more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am back at you today, Miss Tiffanie, Spiffy Tiffy. No one's called me that in a while. I have not recorded with Kiera in a hot minute. That's how I know I have not recorded with Kiera, because I haven't been called Spiffy Tiffy in a minute. ⁓ We're here today. I have Miss Kristy with me today. She has just done a slew of recordings with me. We blocked out two hours today, and we said, you know what? We're just going to bust out a bunch, and we are doing it. Summertime gets a little wild.   and it gets hard to schedule these suckers in there. So Kristy, thank you for being here with me today. Thank you for scheduling this in your schedule and making sure that we could get this done. How are you?   DAT Kristy (00:39) It's always fun spending time with you. We don't get to do this all the time.   The Dental A Team (00:44) I agree. We really don't. And I started doing ⁓ for you specifically because I'm like, gosh, we really don't. I still get like so much time with Trish, Monica is in, you know, we're doing so much onboarding. ⁓ And so I was like, no, we need, I need Kristy, like just touch base, check in one on one time. Like I need that outside of our monthly one on one. So I agree. And I'm excited to be here today. I think we both have animals at home and it's funny. We like   go a certain amount of time and then they've hit their limits. And I don't know, I've got a cat that's running around just screaming right now. I don't think you guys can hear it, I hope. But I think what happens is she's just like, okay, I'm tired of hearing your voice. Even when I'm on coaching calls, like maybe my inflection is different or I don't know. There's something about podcasting that she hits her limit at about an hour in, hour and a half. She's like, I'm done. I'm either podcasting with you or you're being forced to turn it off.   Yeah, anyways, animals are wild. ⁓ They are. my gosh, they are like kids. They're exhausting. Yeah, they are like, because I think they're worse than kids. You know, when I was little, they used to say, I don't know if people still say this or not, but they used to say, when you think you're ready for kids, get a dog. And I used to be like, that's easy, right? And I'm like, actually, I find that my animals are way more work than my son is. they just require so much of me at   DAT Kristy (01:43) I like kids.   The Dental A Team (02:10) their own discretion. Like it's just, it's when they want it. And I have, I have two cats and a dog and the dog is much chiller, but even puppies, I'm like, puppies are hard. Puppies are not like a newborn. I does not, in my opinion, the same apples to apples, but maybe that's why they say that because you get exhausted by the puppy and you're like, I can't, I can't do this right now. So who knows, but we're not here to talk about dogs or cats. We are here.   We're here today because we are rounding out the year you guys. August is always like such a weird time ⁓ for me because it's like the beginning and the end. It's the beginning, like we're not even too fall yet for Arizona. It feels like fall. We don't really get a fall so we start in August. ⁓ But it feels like we're coming up on the end, but we just started. We get to August so quickly and so.   With that, a lot of times we can kind of forget to prep for the upcoming year until it gets to the last minute because we're like, gosh, it's so early, Tiff. Like, Kristy, we've still got so much of our goal left. We're still working on these things. How am I supposed to think past that? But we really truly do have to prepare in a lot of different ways to ensure that we're ready when January hits. I don't know about you, Kristy, but I know in my practice, I think the   before I was office manager, my office manager and my doctor probably sat down and like did some goals, right? They knew what they were doing. But we didn't know until the end of January when we had our team meeting what those new year's goals were. And that was really hard because I'm like, well, shoot, we're already behind because like, what are we doing here? We had no idea that we had increased our goals because we're still working off of old goals. And I think that that likely happens more often than not.   Because we want a fresh start. We want our January kickoff and it's like if we're not doing January kickoff on January 2nd It's not a kickoff anymore. I guess now we're playing catch-up So a lot of practices really need to start doing this in December November even but December really talking about what next year is going to look like with your teams ⁓ Kristy do you feel that that kind of we talked about this a lot today? Like what was it like back went back in the day when we were in office But did you feel like you kind of ran that same?   trajectory that same calendar year advice.   DAT Kristy (04:31) Yeah, 100%. I think ⁓ in dentistry, we get so focused on lag measures. And I don't know that we ever intentionally focused. It's just the way it's always been. And so you and I talked about this before. We just do it because that's how somebody else did it. And we think it's the way to do it. But I think, again, when you know better, you do better. And we always need to look at the lag measures. looking at lead measures and starting literally now,   The Dental A Team (04:38) Yeah.   Bye.   DAT Kristy (05:01) is a great practice and and to be honest the ones that I see hitting goals for my teams ⁓ we look at them early and we set the tone early. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (05:11) Yeah, yeah,   it does a great point. You hit the nail on the head. We really do focus so much on lag measures, which are a lot of my lag measures will feed into our lead measures. So totally. But I do think that dentistry as a whole misses the mark on lead measures. Even like I had a client the other day that said, Oh, I died, because he died. She's   DAT Kristy (05:35) you   The Dental A Team (05:36) She said, yeah, my CPA, I'm just not too sure about them. They said that not to get too crazy about it, but that I would get my PNLs by the 28th every month. And I about fell out of my chair, because I was like, what the heck? That is a two-month lag measure at this point, because by the time we're reviewing them, we're into two months later from those statistics, those overhead stats. And how are we supposed to make adjustments and change? So you're telling me,   that we are gonna have potentially two bad months because we didn't know it was a bad month until we're at the third month. And I was just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If that's the case, if that's their standard, it doesn't fit our standards. This is not going to work. We have to have better, quicker lag measures so that we can change the lead measures. And I think what you just said plays right into that. Because to them, that CPA, it was like totally natural and normal. It was like, yeah, fine, we'll get them to you.   You can see them, but they're not using them to tell you how to change your business. Some CPAs are, work one-on-one with a couple of different CPAs for my clients and with my clients that are doing that. They're fantastic, they're giving them information and advice every month based off of what they're seeing. That's massive. It's very uncommon also. CPAs at the end of the year would be like, well, this year you overspent in this category, so drop this.   ⁓ for the love, could I not have seen that earlier and made adjustments so that I didn't overspend for an entire year and then could have changed this entire P &L? That's what we do. We look at the P &L with you and we dive into it. And like I said, I do have a couple of CPAs that dive into that with me with clients or sometimes I'll have questions and I'm like, hey, I'll shoot over an email and like, what is this? What are you seeing? And they'll give me the answer. And I'm like, fantastic. Thank you. Those are   freaking phenomenal. Those are clients that I can really dive into numbers and be like, let's change this. Let's turn the dial on this. Because at the end of the year when they're like, next year you can't. I don't want to ever tell you that. Next year you can't. No, next year you can because we adjusted things on the lead measures, meaning what's to come because we were able to see your lag measures. So Kristy, that was brilliant. That was a massive tangent, but that was brilliant.   And I think it really flows into all of those because if you're year to date at August and you don't know those numbers, you haven't looked at them with someone with a CPA, a coach, a consultant, get on that. Do that because what's gonna happen is November, your CPA is gonna be like, let me tell you all the things you shouldn't have done this year. I don't want that to happen. Get on it today. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com if you want advice, if you need help, if you want to one-on-one coach with us, we can help you dive through it.   We are here for it. We have had plenty of clients that have seen incredible profit year over year because of the consulting that they've received, because of the directions that we've been able to push them that they weren't able to see. Again, focusing on the the log measures to push the lead measures. Now, other things, I really wanted this to be like a let's prep for the next year, which I don't know when you're listening to this, but right now it's August, 2025. So we are prepping for...   2026, which is crazy to me. I told, actually I told Kira this morning, my son, started senior year today as I took his little picture and I'm just like, my gosh, and he graduates, you know, 2026. And I'm like, I knew this day would come, but it always felt so far. Like this is, I think when I was a kid, I thought we'd be flying around in cars by now, which I think we're actually really close, which is crazy. But.   To me, like 2026 felt so far away when I was a kid, I thought we're gonna be the Jetsons by then. So again, I think we're actually really close. But it's crazy to think we're prepping for 2026. You guys, we gotta round out 2025 and really be able to project into 2026. And there's some simple things, you guys, we have checklists for this too. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We can pop you over some checklists, but there are some really simple things. Kristy, like.   I want you to go through, like you were talking earlier on another podcast we recorded about really scheduling some things out. So what are some things that can be done next year that should be in the schedule? And then we'll kind of dive into the goals and stuff that they're going to have to do before we get to the 2026.   DAT Kristy (10:11) Well again, we're all about projecting forward right because you touched on not saying no and part of saying no Maybe adding things so we can say yes, right? So looking at the schedule putting in your HIPAA your OSHA any training CPR, right? ⁓ Is there CE we're planning on let's research it. Let's figure out how much it's gonna cost Are we taking team not taking team? What's the what's the average?   cost because all of that can be factored into our lead measures right and and what is what do we have to make in order to have that happen is it a year for raises have we done fee valuations for the upcoming year a lot of offices don't look at that yearly and I encourage my offices to because here's the thing especially if you're a high PPO you never get to go to the insurance companies and say   hey, I haven't raised my fees in five years, so now I'm gonna make this big jump. They don't let you. So doing those incremental jumps every year, ⁓ another area where people fail to ⁓ evaluate is if you're selling products. Have you looked at the invoices to see what you're paying? And nowadays, that's a big thing, right? Adding in the tariffs and different things that are affecting what we're paying for. Have you adjusted it? Because a lot of my practices charge just what they're paying for it, and then   The Dental A Team (11:15) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (11:40) we look at it and go, my gosh, we're in the hole because we've never adjusted the fees. ⁓ getting your new fee schedules, right? If there's any negotiations that need to happen, I would add that to the list too.   The Dental A Team (11:45) Yeah.   Yeah, and now is the time to do that to start negotiating it so that you can have it for that new year. That was massive because that hits both making sure it's scheduled out to update your fees, but then also right now sending in the request for increased fees to be updated. So that was a twofer right there in my opinion. So good job. Yeah. I also remember earlier you said the PCI compliance. So making sure all of those PCI OSHA HIPAA   all of those training CPR, everybody's up to date and checking all of those. Like when was the last time anyone, that any one individual did those pieces and are there people that need them updated? I know there's a lot of, gosh, specialty practices that will offer for GP practices, the CPR training. We used to do that through the orthodontist we worked hand in hand with. He would just, I mean, it was a referral, a referral mechanism for them, right? It's marketing for them, but they would hire the CPR trainer and then they would invite   dental offices to come get the CPR training for their team. So it's free for us and that orthodontist paid for it. So check with those things as well, but making sure those things are scheduled out. And that's something doctors that your office manager should have that kind of a yearly checklist to make sure that they're going through those. Another thing that you kind of touched on there was like maintenance of different. ⁓   everything right you've got all of your everything needs maintenance so what does your practice look like what are your compressors looking like do they need to be maintenance your ultrasonics like really just diving in and every year it should be that fresh start and looking at what are we going to do now Kristy you mentioned which i love because it goes hand in hand with that too of really budgeting that so budgeting your ce's i had a practice this year they're like help me   our cash flow, what is going on? When we delve into it, there were a ton of ⁓ auxiliary necessary purchases and updates that were made to the practice, to the ⁓ exterior of the practice. So these things were necessary, but they were unplanned for that.   I think you can look at and probably project towards the end of the year to really build out a budget and a percentage and a bucket within your 2026 goals because you guys, it's really easy. If you know it's going to be X amount of money, divide it out over the 12 months and say, great, how am I going to make that up in production and collections to get that money so it's not costing you? It's coming out of the profit for that year, which is what happened with this other practice. We just thought there'd be more profit, but that profit then   went towards, you know, the renovations, excuse me, that needed to be done, but we could have built it in a little bit better had we known they were coming.   So that leads into our goals and really looking at what would a 7 to 10 % increase. Those are the numbers I typically go with increasing from this year 7 to 10 % next year, 7 % for inflation you guys, 10 % because why not be profitable on top of inflation? So you can do 7 % and kind of call it status quo. 10 % is gonna be that growth space that you hopefully and probably are desiring. And really when you look at it 10 % over the course of the year,   is really a drop in the bucket. Kristy, have you found that same thing where that 10 % is like a couple hundred thousand over the course of the year split up over the month is realistically not that much? Kristy, do you see that same thing?   DAT Kristy (15:27) 100 % TIF, I think the problem we get into is we wait till the last minute and then we're trying to crunch it in that short amount of time. But when we look forward and we have the whole year, guys, it can be as simple as one more crown a week, you know, or one more crown a month, depending on where you're lying. and when we break it down like that for teams, it makes it so digestible and and it helps fire us up when we make it that simple. Nine times out of 10.   The Dental A Team (15:41) Yep.   DAT Kristy (15:57) I see them even going further because it's like wow it was so easy right and it never I mean Think about it in our field and we all know this to be true I don't none of my doctors are immune from this but November and December are crazy months. Why do we do it to ourselves? Let's start now   The Dental A Team (16:11) Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I agree. And that makes me think of   a practice I went into one time, and we did their goals. And I said, Okay, well, in order to finish the year where we want to, we need to ⁓ increase your daily goal by $2,000 across for hygiene to doctors, right? $2,000. They were like, you're crazy. And I'm like, No, I'm not.   This is how much it is per provider. And they were like, Tiff, we love you. We love your training. And we think you're crazy. going to put it on there. We're going to try our hardest. And we're going let you know. The next day, they went above and beyond that $11,000 goal by almost $2,000. The next day, they hit the goal consistently. After setting that goal, they hit it.   and they were like, Tiff, I was getting texts from the team members for days. Like, I can't believe we're doing this. We didn't think it was possible, but actually it was right there, because it was all within the scheduling, right? How are we scheduling things? What are we prioritizing? How are we looking at the structure of our schedule and still serving our patients? So I totally agree. The increase is easy.   as long as it's broken down in a digestible amount. The full yearly amount, you're like, all right, guys, we did 1 million, we're gonna do 1.2 this year. And they're like, my gosh, like, when is it enough? But if you're like, 1.2 is X amount per month, X amount per day.   They're like, okay, we can hit that. We can figure that out. And you're like 30 % from hygiene, 70 % from doctor or 25 % from hygiene, 75 % from doctor. Like figure out the numbers and then figure out daily goals for everyone so that it is digestible, because that's much easier to work with.   ⁓ Another thing to be really, really prepped for is, ⁓ what did we say? We said, updating the paperwork, you said, Kristy. So making sure we know what next year needs to look like. We just did a podcast on OSHA and HIPAA compliance, so making sure you're scheduling that out, but then also making sure that your HIPAA paperwork is updated, is gonna be massive, your health history.   If you are taking CEs, does that need to be updated on your health history? Do you need to ask sleep apnea questions or Botox questions or implant questions? Like, do you need to update that at the beginning of the year and making sure you have all of your patients' data? Kristy, I know you talked about too, you have some clients that just don't have everyone's emails. This day and age, most of our communication is going out by emails. I know most of my clients are sending statements by text and email. There's really not a lot of paper. So making sure   updating those as well. And then Kristy, I don't want to glaze over those you guys, practice software updates too, but I kind of do because I kind of want to talk a little bit very quickly though.   As we're adding goals, Kristy, I you do this a lot. You help practices project what their profitability point is, which is also like your BAM, your bare ace minimum, right? Same thing, different words. How do you also help them project? Do they have enough people? So as they grow their goal, they need to potentially increase staffing and making sure they have the right seat. How do you help them see that when you're helping clients build out those goals?   DAT Kristy (19:36) Yeah.   think that's an important piece of it. Running some reports in your software is going to be helpful. Look at your active patient base. Has it grown? If it's not growing, why not? Are we missing working re-care? And again, lag and lead, guys. I have a lot of practices where maybe capacity, they're booked out, and so they don't work re-care, and those people are falling through the cracks. I would challenge you, even though you are booked out, to still work that re-care.   because every day we wait, they're getting pushed out that much further, right? And it's nothing that we have to shy away from, but again, it's like, man, our hygienist are in high demand. Let's get you scheduled, right? And bring that information. You guys need to look at that. our next new patient openings, when can we schedule for perio maintenance? When can we schedule for root scaling? We need to look at our procedure counts and add in maybe extra blocks.   The Dental A Team (20:40) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   I totally agree and making sure at the same time then that we have enough team to accommodate those patients that act as patient based how many patients can one hygienist see in a year? How many hygienists do you have compared to your doctor time? How many assistants do you have compared to the columns of treatment that you're working with? And then one piece I think gets missed, Kristy, in that conversation too is front office team. So like how many back office team members do you have in comparison to your front office team?   I usually like to use an easy ratio of like the number of dental assistants it takes. I should have front office as well to kind of duplicate that to make it super simple. But you're right, pulling those simple reports from the system to ensure we're doing everything we can to get those patients in. But what is that active patient count? Because that's gonna tell a really big story on how much growth we can sustain on the size and the capacity that we have now and the team that we have. So, beautiful. Thank you, Kristy. ⁓   you guys this wraps up a ton for 2026. hope you're feverishly taking notes if you are not driving. If you are driving, re-listen. But as always, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We can shoot you over some really easy end of the year, beginning of the year prep checklists ⁓ for office managers, doctors, whomever. And just make sure you guys that you're pre-scheduling things. And I would even pre-schedule this time of year, next year, start prepping for this stuff. Put it in your calendars as an office manager. I had everything in my calendar this time of the year. I was starting to   for the following years, so 2026 goals, but I was also...   ⁓ requesting fee increases. I was sending out end of year letters, right? Like get your treatment done because what happens is we tend to wait till October and that's why November, December is crazy. If you send them now, you can fill September, which we also call September. Start reaching out to those people now and get September filled, October filled and don't make your life too hectic November and December. You can even those out. So you guys go do these things. They're not hard. They're actually really easy and they can be really fun.   Hello@TheDentalATeam.com we can send you over this information and you guys, have so many consultants on our team, Kristy, Trish, Monica, Dana, they are here helping clients every single day to work through these things and so much more. We would love the opportunity to chat one on one with you to see what we can do to help you as well. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com, you guys, we'll catch you next time. Thanks so much.

Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! The Dental A-Team is seeing a lot of burnout across practices we visit, so Kiera's here to offer tips about delegating. Just because you can do a bunch of tasks doesn't mean you should. Kiera provides DAT insight on the best/easiest way to delegate, how to fill the time you've delegated out, and what the delegator and delegatee should absolutely not do. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:05) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you.   Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A-Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast.   Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and you guys I hope today is a great day for you. I am car casting today I am headed down to see my parents for a little bit today and Decided you guys know me when I drive between that Nevada, California state line I love to podcast if you have not heard about the time I was headed to my little sister's graduation and I was Car casting with a microphone. They have an agriculture check   point and go take a listen to that one. If you don't know which one that is, email us Hello@TheDentalATeam.com guys. just want to say a massive, massive, massive thank you to all of you who have been stepping up, taken on our review challenge and honestly leaving us reviews. I've seen you guys posting on our Google reviews to help deadly team. Get the word out. You've also been posting on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. I have been seeing those and I just want to say thank you. Shout out today. I saw Annie.   had posted and gave us a massive five star review and Annie, thank you. There's so many of you that have been listening in. Brooke Birdie saw your review as well on iTunes. And I just want to say guys, number one, it feeds my ego. So thank you. I am a words of affirmation girl. So that definitely is the best way to give back to me and make me feel like a million bucks. That's number one. So if you really want to make my day, please leave us a review and just tell us how great we are. I would love that. And number two,   Thank you guys for helping us help more practices. We have actually been seeing an upward trend on our podcast downloads. That is kudos to you guys. ⁓ Massive, massive, massive boosts on our downloads. And I just want to say thank you to all of you for doing that, because this is helping us help more practices. You know, when I started working at the dental college, the dean asked me why I wanted to take on this position. And I said, you know, I want to find a way to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. That's honestly why we   I did my job at the college and then that's also why I decided to ⁓ take on and work with the consulting company. And then that's why we started the podcast. So you guys, the only way for us to reach every dentist in the world is by you guys helping spread this. I think that that's the way we'll be able to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So guys, keep hitting those downloads, keep leaving us review, keep sharing these.   When I see you guys on social media platforms where you're sharing our podcasts with people, it's been so helpful. So thank you guys for taking that on. So today's topic is how to delegate. I know I've chatted about this a few other times, but it's just been coming up more and more. And I know a lot of offices are struggling. I'm seeing more and more burnout amongst team members and owners. And so I thought that this would be a very applicable topic for you guys today. So basically number one, when it comes to delegating,   We've got to look to see what is the reason for delegating? Are we trying to find more time for ourselves so that way we can be more balanced? Are we trying to grow team members into another position? Or are we just trying to ensure that all team members are being utilized throughout the day? Maybe you have another reason you want to delegate, but oftentimes I find that the number one reason we don't delegate is because we're concerned about losing our place in our job.   and the value that we're bringing to the practice. When in actuality, I think it's let's get people into their zone of geniuses so we can work more effectively and consistently together. So for me, I think one of the best and easiest ways to delegate is for everybody just to do a brain dump on the tasks that they're doing day in and day out. Now the reason I like a brain dump rather than a time journaling is because oftentimes those things that we put on a brain dump are going to be the things that we can actually think about.   that are for for for front of our mind. So those things tend to be the ones that are consuming the most of our time. There might be other things on there that we don't think about, so you can always add back to this list. But what I really love to do is I love to brain dump all the information and then after I brain dump, I go back through, you guys know if you don't know, my favorite color is pink, and I go back through with a pink highlighter and I literally look at all the tasks that only Kiera can do. A lot of times the tasks that I'm doing are not things that only I can do.   Or if they are only things I can do, I might need to train. So for example, I used to be the only person who could podcast on our team. So we decided, Hey, the consultants actually have a lot of great information that they could be sharing. And it doesn't necessarily have to just be Kiera. So we decided to start training the consultants to see could the consultants ever podcast if something were to ever happen to me. And the answer is yes, I trained them about the microphones. I taught them how to podcast. taught them how to do cadences, but I realized.   That was something that only Kyra could do before, but you guys, I am looking to try and have a baby. We've been talking about this forever, but guys, don't worry. I'm a walking bag of, I feel, lethal hormones right now. We are starting the process of IVF and ⁓ if you haven't done it, that's great. Congratulations. If you have gone through it, please send me help because I literally feel like a lethal bag of walking hormones and don't even know how to control myself right now. It's like one minute I'll be fine. The next minute I'm bawling my eyes out. And I heard even after you have babies,   this doesn't go away. I don't, I don't quite know what to do. But the bottom line is our team had to be able to start delegating things to our other team members that they could do just as well, if not better than me. But that also came up with, I had to realize I needed to start training. So delegating, we've got to look at like, what's our ultimate goal. So for me, my ultimate goal was I wanted to ensure that Dental A Team could continue to grow, bless people's lives, positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And for me,   to also be able to be a mom. So in order for those two things to happen, I had to start delegating and utilizing it. I realized I don't delegate that much. I like to swoop in and save the day because I think I can do it faster and better. Well, the answer is yes, I theoretically can, but that doesn't mean I should. Okay, I'm going to say that again. Well, yes, I theoretically can do everything potentially faster and better. That doesn't mean I should because what that does is that actually means that I'm a one man team.   rather than a multiple person team. So I want to have all of the people on my team working super well. And I want to ensure that they're all able to do the task. And it's not just me. So I would say that you guys are going to be able to start looking for your why of why you want to delegate. So once you have figured out your why as to why you want to delegate and the plan,   Then we go through, like I said, and you highlight all the tasks that are actually tasks that only you can do. Like I said, some of those tasks that only you could do, maybe if you trained, you could actually get those tasks passed off your plate. But I really like you guys to ensure that you know exactly why you want these tasks to be completed, why you want to delegate. I think having a strong why helps you realize that that's what you're actually going to do rather than it just being a wish that you're hoping one day will come true.   Like I said, I'm not a great delegator and I realized that because I like to swoop in, save the day, make everything better and theoretically I can do it better, faster. However, I can't ever grow the company. I can only grow as big as I can grow. So realizing that sometimes delegation also will be an avenue for growth for your practice is one of the best pieces of advice I could ever give any of you. So realizing that when you delegate, you allow other people to blossom and shine, you allow yourself to blossom and shine and grow to a larger scale.   Now I will say some people I watch them delegate and then they get lazy. They will pass all their tasks to other people. They'll grow everybody else, but then they forget to grow themselves. So when you delegate off of your tasks, say if you're an office manager and you get a front office lead and then you get a clinical lead, well, sometimes you as an office manager, no longer know what you should do. This is where you start diving deep in the areas. Maybe you don't know. Let's talk about the business aspect. What are the financials of your practice? What about overhead? Do you know how to adjust that?   You're going to start thinking like a business owner. Also go to your dentist and figure out what's on their plate. Have them brain dump and look to see what tasks you can take off immediately and what tasks you need to learn and grow into. So making sure as you delegate, you don't get lazy. You don't pass too many things there. Also before you delegate, I want to make sure that you've built an admin time into your schedule. So doctor time, you can have that as CEO time. You can have it as admin time. You can have it as golden time. I don't care what the heck you call this time, but it's set block time every single week in your schedule.   Oftentimes the practices all notice that they'll want to hire somebody else before they put in this admin time. I chatting with a front office team. Typically we like to have one front office team member per doctor, unless it's a solo doctor, then I for sure want two front office people just so we avoid any temptation of embezzlement or fraud or anything of that nature. So what happens is a lot of times people feel like they need to get more people upfront, but they don't realize you can delegate tasks that would actually make the patient experience better. For example,   chairside treatment plans on an iPad, taking fluoride payments in the hygiene operatories that make it so much faster and easier for every single person in the practice. What about tasks like insurance verification? That might take a long time and it might actually be cheaper to outsource that. So looking at that, but also before we even consider that, I want to see, you actually doing ⁓ that admin time every single week?   And if you're not, that might be a critical place to start before we even start delegating. Because a lot of times, a lot of those projects that we want to delegate, if we just had one or two hours in a week where it was dedicated, not interrupted time, we could actually crank a lot of those things out and be super hyper productive. So for me, I have a business focused time. I have a three hour block every Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. My team knows, do not even think about scheduling something there. Don't do it. It's not good for you or for the business.   So that is my blocked golden time and I work on big project items. So for me specifically, I work on, I'm looking to bring in a different position in our company and I'm mapping that out, talking to mentors, figuring it out, writing job descriptions for it. Other things like I'm not going to use that time to podcast. As much as I love to podcast, I have that built into my schedule in another place. I'm not going to use that time to answer my emails. Instead, I'm going to use that time to work on high level.   most productive projects. For some dentists, that's where you might be designing cases. So getting all that ortho completed or designing those cosmetic cases that you know you need to get completed. That's where we're going to be able to have a much more successful and productive schedule if you actually block that time. For office managers, this time might be where you actually go through your one-on-one employee check-ins. It also might be where you work on maybe sign development or looking at all the KPIs.   and figuring out what KPIs need to be adjusted, doing a deep dive on the numbers. For billers, this is the time where you call on those collection calls. You work on your AR, that's the deeper projects, the ones that have to have a ton of time dedicated to solving them and figuring them out to get them paid. That's where we utilize this time. For our scheduling team, this is the time when you call all those unscheduled re-care calls. Same thing for treatment coordinators. We call those unscheduled treatment lists.   Just think of every person did this. ⁓ I forgot the clinical team. Let me give the clinical teams some ideas. Don't want to let you guys feel left out. So for our clinical team, we might want to give them some block time to maybe get those crowns or those ortho cases done. This might be the time that our team actually orders for the practice. It could be the time ⁓ for a lead hygienist. This might be the time that you create like the perio protocols or review the numbers on your hygiene, on your hygienist and see.   How is their fluoride ratio? How are their perio numbers? This is the time when you'll deep dive in there. It's not the time we dedicate for sharpening scalars. This is the time where we literally are maximizing and doing those high level projects that will move the practice forward. Hey, Dental A Team listeners. You guys have heard the early bird gets the worm, right? What does that even mean? Well, it means that the early bird is the person who maximizes on benefits.   optimizes their practice and they take advantage of great deals. So guys, right now, this week, last chance to save on Dental A Team's virtual team summit. It's all about optimization and execution with an emphasis on full team. And then Saturday is all about leadership. So guys, don't miss out. You know, you're going to come. So you might as well pop on over to TheDentalATeam.com snag those early bird tickets, because once they're gone, they're gone and you'll be paying more for the same event. So head on over to TheDentalATeam.com.   Snag your early bird virtual summit for April 22nd and 23rd, and I'll see you there. So again, before we ever delegate, I want you to make sure you have that time built in. After that, I want you to figure out why you want to delegate. What's the bigger purpose as to why you want to delegate these tasks. Then what we do is we come up with a game plan of, fantastic. This is what we are going to delegate. This is how we're going to delegate. This is why we're going to delegate.   then we actually have to delegate. Okay? So we have to delegate guys. That's part of the game. That's what we have to do. Now people get really nervous to delegate because why? We don't want to what? Dump on somebody else and make their life stressful. Well guess what? They might already be doing half of what you're doing and if it just was their project, you might make their life a lot less stressful. Let's just pivot that a little bit. Also, we might be able to do things like, ⁓ we might be able to find efficiencies.   I will tell you if I give Shelby a project that I've been working on for quite a while, Shelby is way more efficient and organized and structured than I am. And so she usually can come up with a better way of doing it than I can. That's going to create ease and efficiency for our entire team. So when we go to delegate, we can check in with people, ask how much time and say, hey, here's the list of items. First and foremost, you can have a team meeting and be like, here are all the items up for grabs. Who wants to own this section? Now.   I say to team members who are being delegated to one of the number one ways for you to lose confidence in your practice, the person who's delegating to you is by not following through. If you say, yeah, I'll take that on, but then you never actually do it, I do not want to delegate to you again. I lost trust. So when people do this, I'm going to say you've got to own it with integrity. So if I say, yes, I'm going to take this on, I don't care how I've got to remember it. I don't care how I need to figure it out.   my job because I committed, I'm going to own this process. I'm going to own the fact that I need to do this because I committed to it and I own my word. It's not accountability. You don't your office manager following up like, okay, Kara, I know you said you take on ordering. Did you get it done? The answer is yes, the office manager should still do that. But me as a person who took this on, I need to have an attitude of ownership in my practice where I don't need somebody to come follow up with me.   check in because I know when I say I'm going to do something, I will fall through a hundred percent. So team members, leaders, everybody listening, check yourself. Are you a person who actually owns your word, takes ownership of the things that you commit to doing with your job, with your personal life, all those areas. Do you actually take ownership of it? Do you take ownership of your health? Do you take ownership of your happiness? Do you take ownership of your financial wellbeing? Do you take ownership of the schedule if you're a scheduler?   Do take ownership of making sure every doctor hits goal every single freaking day if you're a treatment coordinator? Do you take ownership as an office manager that you will continually hit a minimum of a 10 % growth rate every single year and make sure that your team is super happy and content? As a doctor, do you take ownership that you are going to produce and increase your clinical skills so you can be the best provider that there ever was? As a hygienist, do you own that you should be producing 3.3 times   or 3.5 times your pay or 3.0, I don't care guys, choose your number and stick with it. There's a million of them. Minimum three, maximum 3.5 and less your fee for service. Then I for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure want you to be producing at least 4.5 times your pay. Okay? Do you take ownership that it's your job, not the scheduler's job to ensure you're hitting your production every single day, that you're mixing your schedule, that you're maximizing, that you're getting a 98 % reappointment percentage?   Assistance, do you own the fact that you should not be getting up in a procedure to go get something because you didn't set up your operatory? Do you own your job? Do you own that you should be looking for same day treatment you can add on because you look at their treatment plans. You don't just robotically do what's on the schedule. You actually proactively look for things and own that as your job. Okay, so if you're not there, let's start there. That way when people come to you to delegate to you, you know that you can count on yourself to.   own whatever is coming to you to delegate. So then once we delegate, we pass it off. We have to make sure we've got clear expectations of when we want people to follow back up with us. So for example, I passed a task to Shelby. I wanted to find out a report on our consultants. That was something guys that was on my to-do list for about nine months. Yes, nine months and I did not complete it. So I decided this is something that is not just a Cura only task.   Shelby is probably much faster and could probably get this done faster for me. So what do I do? I pass it to Shelby. I asked her, Hey, this is what I need done. What do you need help with me? I gave her all the resources and tools so she could actually execute on it very well. And then I asked her, okay, what will you need from me? ⁓ she told me, and then we said, what date could you get this completed by? Shelby had to methodically think about, Hmm, this is going to take me a while. I have a lot of tasks on me. I think Kiera, I could get this done by the end of Q1.   does that work for you? So that means March 31st. And I said, totally no problem. We put it in, we have a task organizer. We utilize a CRM. So it's kind of like your guys's Dentrix open dental. And it's where all of our clients are housed. Plus it's where all of our tasks are housed. So we have it there. Shelby and I put the deadline on there. And then when she gets it done, she checks it off. If you guys don't have a task manager or things that these projects, I would suggest you get one. For practices, I've seen the software Asana or Trello.   or Google Docs all work really, really well when we're assigning out a bunch of projects and needing to have deadlines on them. So those would be the ones. Some offices love Basecamp, other offices love monday.com. For me, Asana is probably your easiest, fastest one to set into place. Or a simple task manager, ⁓ Google Docs is honestly going to be your easiest one. And then just make sure you review it every week and check it off. We noticed with our team, we were delegating. Our team was taking ownership of it.   However, we didn't have a consistent follow-up process. And I would say that's the next piece of delegation that oftentimes fails in a practice is we don't follow back up. So for us, we just said it as Friday morning at our morning huddle. We pull up the task sheet and we pull up our Asana board. And we go through every single task that should be done and everything headed up for the next week to make sure our team stays responsible and they don't forget. And we have a consistent follow-up process. So that way it's not sitting here thinking, well, I'm sure Shelby will do it.   We actually have a set process in our company where we follow up every single week. That was because we realized we were passing out tasks. Our team was doing a great job. But then we all kind of would get sidetracked and forget what we had committed to doing. And we need to have a place where we could have everybody aligned. So those are some of the key pitfalls that I see with delegation. Those are some of the solutions that I've seen work well. But at the end of the day, we can sit here, we can talk about it, we can create solutions, all these different things.   But what really is the number one piece is actually doing it and then following up. Those are the two most paramount pieces with delegation. I will say having a strong why is going to make you delegate faster and more consistently than just talking about it until I decided, Hey, I'm getting pregnant. Hopefully fingers crossed. I didn't really see the need to delegate. Yes, I did for my own mental sanity, but until I had that why.   And other times when I've opened up a second practice, instantly I've got a strong why that I need to delegate these tasks so that way all the information can come back to me as a regional manager and I'm not having to micromanage or check in all the time with my team. Guys, there is a different between micromanaging and checking in. Checking in, keeping track of all the projects is not micromanaging, period. Micromanaging is where it comes sit over your shoulder and tell you how to do your job. That's micromanaging.   but checking in with you to ensure that you're actually doing your projects, that's just called running a business. That's called running a team. That's making sure all the team is growing in the same direction and the team knows the set expectations. So guys, try delegation. I see it happening. You can make your team work so much more effectively and efficiently. So I suggest, one, get a list of all the things that could be delegated. Two, let's pass it out to the team and ask people who can own it. Three, let's make sure we have a set time of where we can actually follow up as an office.   and ensure all projects and tasks are being completed and done. And four, create a culture of ownership where when we say we'll take something on, we own it, we don't drop the ball. I want to sing this song to you guys like, we own it. You can go look it up. I didn't do it justice and I'm not going to sing karaoke for you guys. However, get your team to own it, delegate, rise everybody up, make sure that you guys don't have a set process for it and realize how much more effectively your team can operate when all of us are working together.   growing the company in the way that's best for the company to grow. All right, guys, as always, so much love to you. Thank you for being a Dental A Team listener. I super appreciate it, guys. So thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.   that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.  

Kristy and Tiff discuss the new treatments they're seeing practices adopt these days and how to successfully start the process (if you want to). They touch on the best ways to gauge interest, training and implementation tips to start off, how to track results, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so happy to be back here with you. We are recording today from the comfort of our own homes with the ACs blasting. I am about to bust out my fan. is on the charger right now. I don't know if you know this or not, but Kristy and I come to you from the sweltering desert of Phoenix, Arizona. And I have to say, I'm crazy. My boyfriend is like, it is hot. We're getting out of here. We're moving to Prescott. And one day I'm sure we will, but.   I love where I live and every time I go travel to an office and I'm gone for like a week, I'll see two, three offices at a time. I come back in and just coming into Tempe on that plane over in the mountains, you can see the Buttes, you can see South Mountain, you can see the city and just like the buzz of it all makes me so incredibly happy every single time. I love where I live. I cannot at this point in my life imagine living anywhere else. So when I say that out loud,   People think I'm crazy. And I'm like, listen, it's beautiful here. My best friend, bless her heart, she's like, Tiff, it's brown. It's all desert. And I'm like, it's not. Do you see these colors, like the saguaros and the pink flowers that bloom and the yellows? And like, I don't know, Kristy, am I crazy? Or what are your thoughts? You came back to Arizona. So obviously, there's something to be told about that.   DAT Kristy (01:25) It's too funny that you say that because it's so true. I'm you know when I moved to Idaho everybody's like Arizona it's a desert and I'm like but there's desert here. I have to agree the Arizona desert is much prettier. ⁓ Southwestern Idaho is very deserty and we're talking brown. There's where the brown is but Arizona desert is very beautiful. Even this time of year like come on Palo Verde's aren't brown they're green.   The Dental A Team (01:35) Yeah.   Yeah.   Bye.   Right? Literally   in their name, right? Palo Verde. My boyfriend always says, yeah, Arizona is like so inventive, the green stick. And I'm like, well, it's green. It is green, okay? That's our state tree and it's green. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I just think it's beautiful. And there's nothing like a desert rain. I know that sounds so cliche. Everyone says it, everyone hears it, but I swear to you, the smell in the desert after a good rain or even a light sprinkling is magical.   There is something about it that just changes the composition of your body and you become a much happier individual. just, can't be, you can't be angry in the desert rain. So.   DAT Kristy (02:33) agree with you Tiff   and if you and I can figure out a way to bottle that stuff I've always said we'd be millionaires.   The Dental A Team (02:39) Yeah, well, you know,   I just, my friend just told me this a couple months ago. There's actually a bush out there. I need to just take a picture of it and figure out what it is. We were hiking one day. There's a bush out there that you, when you pick the leaf and you like put it between your fingers, it smells like the desert rain. I'll find it. Yeah, I'll find it and take a picture. I don't know what the bush is, but I'll find it and take a picture and Google it so that we can, we could bottle it. My point there. Yeah. I actually had a friend in town.   DAT Kristy (03:02) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (03:06) Um, he lives in North Carolina and he was visiting and he was like, I'm taking some of this home so that other people can smell it. Cause it is incredible. And I'm like, yep, that's what Arizona desert rain smells like. So anyways, everybody who wants to come visit, we are here for it. We aren't taking any new visitors like to stay. I'm just kidding. You can move here. It's just, it's just getting crowded, you know, but visitors are welcome. Come.   share in the heat. I know most people come in the month of February for the Waste Management Open and you just let us know when we're here and Kristy and I will pop over and say a little hello to you. So Kristy, getting on to business, I love talking about Arizona and I would do it forever, ⁓ but we're kind of rounding out the year right now. We're heading into quarter four. This is the time of year I'm like, well,   we can still make massive movements, we can still make massive changes and hit those goals, but really we need to start thinking about what are we doing ⁓ after these goals are hit. So lot of people don't think about the next year, which is 2026 until December, but I'd like to start talking about it here in August. So one of those pieces, Kristy, I really wanted to chat today about offices that we've seen implement new treatment. And I know right now, ⁓ fillers, Botox, I've seen   a ton of practices doing like facial aesthetics and the lasers and I don't even know what they're called the ones and like all of these amazing things and takes me back to when I was ⁓ working in office gosh when I first started I was like 19 and my doctor's like where are those paraffin wax things can we get those and I was like you're crazy we are not a spa like we're not doing paraffin wax for our patients I have enough to do   chair side, have enough to clean up, we're not doing this, right? But he really wanted it and so we did at least, we did warm towels. So it's like, I can handle warm towels, it's all you got. But now, there is really like this spa aesthetic feel to a lot of dental practices. And I know there's plenty of us out there that are like, no, not doing that. I am a dig my heels in kind of girl. So I dig my heels in until the very end. But I'm kind of getting on board with it. I kind of like it. And it's adding a different sense and a different value.   And honestly, I love marketing and it's adding a different marketing avenue because it's a different demographic of people who can come for the aesthetic side and see, I love these people. Let me switch my dental as well. They may not, that's okay. They may love their dentist. But if you can come to one place and get multiple things, that's kind of cool. So, Kristy, I just wanted to chat a little bit about some of the things that we've seen. We've worked, you guys, just so you know, we worked with a ton of practices on adding aesthetics.   Botox fillers, ⁓ implants, just like simple single tooth implants, multi-tooth implants, all on fours. Gosh, what else? Orthodontics, making sure that the marketing is there, making sure that the treatment coordinating aspect is there, making sure that case acceptance is working, the schedule is working, the block scheduling. We have helped implement this in so many practices. So as we're talking today, just know we're speaking from that implementation experience and what we've seen really work for practices.   from our experience working one-on-one with doctors. If you're someone who's looking to implement new products or new services in your practice and you're not really sure on the how-to, please reach out. We would love to help you on a one-on-one basis. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Again, we have a ton of experience in this. have five experienced consultants ready to work one-on-one with you. ⁓ Kristy, Monica, and Trish are...   freaking incredible you guys. I have just seen them move mountains for clients in very short amount of time. if you are ready to take that step, let us know. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. But Kristy, I know you've had a lot of clients. You've actually had, you've had some fun clients that I can think of off the top of my head that are kind of fresh and new and starting out. And I know one in particular I can think.   probably is this like go-getter wants to add everything, wants to take all the CE, wants to implement everything and wants to just run with it. And then you've got some others that are like, I'm going to like take my time. I'm going to buy it my time. I'm to take the CE. Maybe in a couple of years, we'll be able to implement it. Like there's like such drastic differences there, but what kind of ⁓ procedures have you seen implemented recently? And what do you feel like your clients are doing really well?   to implement them within their practice with your support.   DAT Kristy (07:45) Well.   like you, the med spa thing has really taken off in dentistry. So adding in the Botox, the laser ⁓ and sleep, even for little kiddos, the tongue ties has been an area of exploration. with that being said, Tiff, think first and foremost, yes, you're right. I have one client that's kind of a go getter and and honestly him bringing the energy has worked really well for him because his excitement is   driving it, right? But one thing that I would say in the very beginning, if you're exploring this and you aren't that go getter, energetic, I'm going to do this attitude and you're kind of thinking about it, start to take a pulse with your patients. know, explore, hey, if we offered this service, is this something you'd be interested in? See if people are interested in it because you may be leaving room on the table, right?   And maybe you'll find out they're not interested and it will drive you in a different direction But with that being said, like I said take a pulse of your own patients, but I also doctors recommend that you ⁓ Get your admin team ⁓ Keeping a list of things that patients are calling in and asking for and they have to say no we don't do that because that's an area of opportunity that perhaps if you have a hundred people calling and asking   The Dental A Team (09:10) That's a great idea.   Yeah.   That's a great idea. I have never in my life thought of that. That's beautiful. I love that you said to ask the patients themselves as well. If I started offering this, is this something you'd be interested in? And that one's kind of an easy one when it comes to like Botox and things like that, because you can tell when someone has utilized that procedure before. So I've even had doctors say, where are you going for your Botox? Like, do you like where you go? Are you happy there? What are they doing well that keeps you coming back? even as far   is   to ask what they're paying because it really helps them to figure out.   how they can generate that within their own practice based on a scale of like, know, chatting with a couple of different patients, because you really can tell fillers as well. And all of that stuff, you guys, to be redone at some point. So I think that's a great idea. apnea is huge. I think the kiddo stuff is massive. I have a couple of doctors, couple of doctors, but then also I have a GP doctor that does a ton within the lip tie, the sleep apnea, all of those pieces for the toddlers and children.   She's so passionate about it that her team is behind her as well on it. So I think that's a really good point. And I think, Kristy, something you touched on was that passion and how excited that specific doctor we're thinking of is about everything he does, everything he does he's excited for. And so I just feel like walking into his practice, you're just amped up. Like the energy's got to be so high. But for...   everyone no matter what anytime you go take a CE, anytime you have an idea, anytime you're like I want to implement this and you go get trained on it, I think the biggest missing piece that I've always seen myself as a consultant and then myself even as a dental assistant or for an office is that information lapse between you taking the course and coming back with the information and that ⁓   I get from a business standpoint and a doctor's standpoint, it's hard to take your team to the CE with you. And sometimes it's not even offered to bring your team. So I get that, but that's where training comes into play. And I think that's where having someone on your side, a coach and a consultant, someone who's working hand in hand with the team who really can help create protocols, who can help with the verbiage because you're over there implementing. And I don't know, Kristy, if you've ever experienced this, I remember my doctor, he would get so deflated.   because he'd go do this thing, he'd be rammed up sleep. He wanted to sleep so badly and I hope to this day that he's doing it, but it was so difficult and we didn't get the training, we didn't get the courses, he was training us which was great, but it was like also we are doing everything we were doing before you took this course. So the space for me to learn how to add this, for me to take the time out of my day,   to implement this just isn't always there. And so the space to do the training is sometimes lacking if you can't take your team with you. So I know I've got a practice that I've helped a ton with sleep just in general at their practice because they needed the protocols put in place, but they didn't have the time to even sit down and type them. So it was like,   We're going to do this together real quick. Our tips got these ideas. We've got templates that we utilize with our clients that we're like, hey, these are my ideas. And we go back and forth. And we figure out what's working, what's not working. And Kristy, I know you've done that too. What have you seen work really well with practices for that training and implementation?   DAT Kristy (12:57) It's kind of funny because the ways you're talking I'm thinking of a client right now that literally just went she did take her team to Vegas for clear liner course and Thank goodness. were blessed to go right because you're you're right getting the whole team behind them and the energy coming back in is huge the energy really does propel the momentum as you're Trying to ramp up and to your point not everybody can take the whole team So so I get that yet if you can get one or two chances   to go and help you wonderful. If not, would definitely recommend coming back and having the conversation and have doctors speak to their why. You know, why do they want to implement this? What is their vision for it? And then create benchmarks. Like how will we implement this and what can we do? So if we want to do more clear aligners, what is   The Dental A Team (13:37) Yeah.   video.   DAT Kristy (13:56) something we can do every day to help that outcome, right? Is it add one more scan to a patient? You know, get those commitments from team and buy in and then have fun with it. We're always talking about the sprinkles and adding the fun. So find a way to gamify it. And if I do this action every day, it's going to create a better chance of my outcome, right?   The Dental A Team (14:00) Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Yeah,   yeah, and to that point, you're then tracking your results, right? Which is something that we have all of our practices tracking their results consistently for that reason, because we want to see the things that you're doing every day. Are they creating the result that you wanted? Are we moving closer to the goal that you were set after? Or are we moving further away from it? Because then we can see what we want to tweak or change or what needs to be added. And then again, to your point as well, what's one thing that we can add?   A lot of times we come in with all of the things and it's like, that's too much and we can't process it all. So if you do that, like one thing, so for sleep apnea or Botox or any of those spaces or though it's like, what's one thing you would change aesthetically if you had the opportunity? Like what's one question? You can start asking every patient that walks through your door. Do you find yourself waking up a lot at night? Do you find yourself, know, do your partner say that you're snoring?   Do you have a hard time falling asleep? Do you have a hard time waking up? What are the key factors? What's one question, two questions you add onto it? How can we layer this and stack to get things done? And like you said, maybe we're taking one more scan today than we took yesterday. We're gamifying it, we're tracking the results, and we're making sure that it's fitting. And that's something that I think as consultants, we've been able to really help teams get excited about.   and really be able to help them break it down because for doctors, for our visionaries, it's sometimes difficult for a visionary to see the path. They see the end result. They see what it is that they're after. They see the dream and the finality. We have to take it layers backwards and say, how do we get there?   The visionaries have a hard time figuring out how we're going to get there. And when they're the only ones who are trying to figure that out or there's no one on the team that's like, okay, I got it. I will figure it out from here. That's where the consultants come into play or training office managers to see that space to say, okay, what are the steps it's going to take to get there? And how do we incrementally layer and add onto those steps to ensure that we do? So, Kristy, I think you're hitting some massive spaces there.   with the tracking the results, the just one thing and making sure that we are training the team as we can. I also think don't wait too long.   If you've gone to a course and you've learned something, you need to start practicing it because you learned it. And then if you're waiting a year to implement it, you're going to need to go back for a refresher course because you haven't been doing it. And I've seen that happen. I don't know if you have. I've seen that happen, especially with like Botox, where they go get the training, but they're just like dragging their feet, probably out of fear and actually implementing it. And then they're like, well, shoot, I need to go get a refresher course because I haven't done it since I did it at   my training. Have you seen that too, Kristy?   DAT Kristy (17:27) Absolutely.   I love that you mentioned that because I think one realm where we're really good at this if you think about it is ⁓ Milling same-day crowns because they force you to find patients, right? They're like, okay have your patients lined up because we're gonna do it in those other realms We don't necessarily do that. So a component that I think we miss a lot is we plan the CE we schedule it we go the course But we didn't block out time to meet with team coming back, right?   The Dental A Team (17:36) Yeah. ⁓   Yeah.   DAT Kristy (17:57) So make sure that time dedicate the time to make sure it happens and Hey, let's line up the patients. Let's get them in the chair and start because you're right Otherwise, we just get back into routine and it's gone to the wayside and you know See is wonderful and it's all knowledge. But unless we're interpreting it into something It's just money spent right? Yeah   The Dental A Team (18:22) Agreed. Yeah, agreed.   And it makes me think of two of ⁓   Like you said, they tell you to have patients ready for the crowns, but same thing for implants, right? Same thing for Botox, same thing for any of those, but implants especially. I always tell doctors, before you go to the course, I say take inventory, look at how many outgoing referrals you had to oral surgeons. How much revenue did you feed oral surgeons in your area of that thing that you're going for? Because they have had practices in areas of their city   that it was like it didn't make sense financially to implement the thing because they weren't getting it in their doors, right? They were a younger demographic, they were college demographic, and they really just weren't getting a lot of need for the implants or for whatever it was that they were looking at. And so they actually decided, you know what, like that was just, there's so much that we see that we're supposed to do. ⁓   like all on four, all on X. Like there's so many GP dentists that are like, well, I just felt like I heard that that was what was going to change my life forever. And I'm like, yes, in a lot of ways, it's really hard. So don't do things just because it's what you're supposed to do. And it's like the next best up and coming thing. Cause I have seen doctors who have taken inventory and they're like, actually, like I was going to do it because I thought I needed to, but I don't think my patient demographic shows me that I need to. I may actually focus   in on this and they switched their CE focus completely because they saw the need wasn't there and for me that's massive because now you're you are getting an ROI on what you're doing. Now for a lot of dentists they want to learn the thing because they want to know it and that's totally cool. don't I don't I have no ifs, ands, or buts about it but just make sure you know what you're getting into and then like Kristy just said I love that idea of making sure you've got people lined up to get the service.   once you come back. And it's an easy conversation. It's not, I'm going to go get trained on implants. And so when I come back, I'd love for you to be one of the first people I place an implant on. That's uncomfortable, right? But it's just like, hey, I don't have the tools for this right this second. ⁓ You can go to an oral surgeon if you want it sooner, but I am going to be equipped with those tools here in the next six months. I'd be happy to revisit this with you at your next re-care or call you as soon as I get the stuff in.   Same statement, different words. so vulnerability on one hand. If it's family, like shoot, I've had plenty of doctors that's like, hey, I'm testing this on you and you're getting it for free. Or I'm testing it on you and you're gonna pay for the lab fee, like fine.   whatever, but patients maybe be a little bit more tactful with. But Kristy, I think those were some great points. Those are all wonderful things that I've seen you help doctors implement. I've seen Dana, Kristy, or Trish. I've seen all of you guys. Monica, know she's done it too. We've all implemented on some level some of these systems and protocols with practices for things that feel really hard when you're in it. The great part about consultants,   I'm not attached to it, you guys. Kristy's not attached to it. We're attached to you seeing results and we're going to bird's eye view it and see where the missteps are happening, where the gaps are that can be filled to create a different result because Kristy's not emotionally attached to it. So they do really, really well. Kristy, Trish, Monica, Dana, all of them do really well at being able to see those gaps and see how you as a team can fill them and then train you guys on how to fill them. Our job is not to do   it for you because then I'm not teaching you anything, right? Kristy is not, she becomes your regional manager and that's not what we signed up for. But what her job is to do is to show you the path, train you how to do it, watch those benefits, you reap those benefits at the end. So we're excited to help you guys. Kristy, I know you're excited. You love implementing and Kristy loves nothing more than finding the money, finding the money, finding the production and helping you implement structures that really work to make a difference in your practice.   Kristy, thank you for your words of wisdom today. Those were fantastic. think my biggest nugget today is the idea of duh.   have people lined up and ready to go for whatever it is prior to you ever going and getting the course. And I think as I say that, Kristy, there's a lot of protocols and a lot of training that can be done prior to the CE to get your team ready too. Because otherwise the team's just upside down trying to figure it out. But those protocols and things can be put into place before you actually get trained to place and plan. So Kristy, thank you for being here with me today. ⁓   Everyone, I hope you took some solid nuggets from this and you can see how beneficial this can be. Drop us a five star review below. We'd love to help you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We can't wait to hear from you guys. Thanks.  

Derick Van Ness of Big Life Financial returns to the podcast to discuss with Kiera the new realities of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill — and how dentists can capitalize on the impacts. They discuss bonus depreciation, research and development credits, and more. Further, there's an opportunity for DAT listeners at biglifefinancial.com/DAT, where you can learn if you're overpaying on your taxes and what new opportunities exist. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I'm excited to welcome back a popular guest. He and I have chatted multiple times. We've gone around and around on different topics of how to help dentists build more wealth. So Derick, ⁓ with Big Life Financial, we talked about our research and development credits. Today we're going to be talking about this big, beautiful tax bill, how it's going to impact dentists, how it's going to impact building wealth. I do think it also impacts team members. So Derick, welcome back to the show. How are you today?   Derick Van Ness (00:29) I'm great, Kiera. I really appreciate you bringing me on the show again. It's always fun to talk.   Kiera Dent (00:34) Of course, we all know that I love wealth strategies. love ⁓ it takes time like you and I were talking about pre show. ⁓ I think it's something to educate ourselves on and to be around really smart people and to constantly be looking at different things like I know hot in the real estate world right now and with buying businesses and buying practices, the big beautiful tax bill is actually great for the bonus depreciation coming in. So just like educating ourselves and that's what I wanted today to be.   not getting high into politics. These are bills that are into place ⁓ and how to take advantage of them, how to maximize them. Derick, you work with a ton of dentists. So Derick, for those who don't know, you kind of give a little bit background on how you and I even got connected, how you got into dentistry, ⁓ how does Big Life Financial play into this. We have a lot of mutual clients together. So just kind of give people a background on who you are and how you got to the dental space.   Derick Van Ness (01:26) Absolutely, you know, I started out back in like 2010 2009 2010 helping small business owners with taxes and financial strategy I was working for another firm at the time and I had been a house flipper and if for those of you who remember 2008 wasn't so good if you're a house flipper, right and When that whole thing fell apart kind of fell in my head I took a lot of the skills that I had and a friend of mine hired me to help   Kiera Dent (01:46) It is not.   Derick Van Ness (01:55) small business owners with taxes and financial and business strategy. ⁓ Working with them, I had a chance to work with about 1,500 business owners over seven years. And then eventually went out and started doing my own thing because there were some different things that I wanted to do that they didn't offer. ⁓ essentially, in that time, I worked with a lot of dentists and a lot of doctors. ⁓ And so I kind of stayed in that arena, which led me to ⁓ meeting you, Kiera.   through Mark over at DSI and all the stuff that I'd done with him and then found you guys and just love what you guys do with helping people to build their teams. Cause I'm such a huge advocate of how important that is to have the right team to run your practice, right? Especially if you're going to have multiple practices, it just can't be about you. And so it was just kind of a natural fit. And like you said, you, you definitely love financial strategies. So.   We got into it, we talked about a bunch of different things, had a chance to work together. Like you said, have shared a lot of clients along the way, but it just seems like dentists have a lot of the problems that we solve, which is they pay a of taxes, they make good money, and most of them didn't get an MBA in college to understand how business and finances work. They've had to learn along the way. And so we see ourselves as part of that process of helping dentists become.   better business owners, better entrepreneurs, and honestly create freedom in their life instead of just having a business that runs them, because it's easy to have that happen in dentistry. So that's sort of how we got connected. I don't know, over the last, since whatever 2008, 2009 was, last 15 plus years, I've probably worked with somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 business owners. I would say a good chunk of those have been dentists. So that's how we ended up together.   Kiera Dent (03:48) Yeah.   I love the journey. love hearing what you've done. I also agree on like building wealth. And I think going through dental school, working at the dental college, dentists are coming out with, you know, upwards of 500, 600, 700, $800,000 in debt somewhere up towards that upper million. Midwestern was a very expensive school. looking at that and then watching offices and I remember the first dentist that I worked with and we were partners. We, called her 2.5 because we were 2.5 million debt.   Derick Van Ness (04:03) Cheers.   Kiera Dent (04:18) was like, you better straighten that spine 2.5. Like we need that spine for a long time. But it was something where I realized like, that's a substantial amount of debt. One to walk out of school with two you buy a practice on top of that and then you want to try and like even remotely live your own personal life. It just felt like the odds are possibly stacked not in a dentist favor. I've had several dentists where this is the case where they're multimillion in debt, trying to get these practices off the ground. And so really coming up with   Derick Van Ness (04:43) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (04:47) like yes, long-term, if they make it, awesome. Hopefully it will pay off for them. But what are maybe some strategies and tips that they can do now? I think like so many of us look at real estate and wish that we would have gotten in at the 2008 because now you're selling them out or even in 2020. And so it's like, what can people do now, even if they didn't maximize or we didn't buy practices back in the day when they were so cheap, they were pennies on the dollar. What things can we do now to maximize? I was even talking to this girl the other day.   And she's like, yeah, my baby was born on New Year's Eve. And I was like, wow, talk about a great tax write-off. And she's like, I didn't even know that that was a tax write-off. I didn't even know the benefits of things. And so I feel like just so many little pieces that could make us smarter business owners to, I'm here, I love living in the United States. I love paying taxes for the country that we get to live in. I love the opportunity that we have to be business owners. With that said, I also think it's smart for us to be very wise stewards over our money to figure out different strategies.   And no, it's not sexy. No, it's not fun. A lot of it is just like save, like invest, do the things you're supposed to do. And it's going to be part of what is it? Like the eighth wonder of the world of compound interest. Like there are other pieces, but Derick, like, let's talk about this big, beautiful tax bill. How does this work? How does this impact business owners? What are some of the benefits we can take care of? Now we're talking in 2025, things will change and shift as the landscape shifts, but knowing that's in place, what are some of the things dentists owners can do now?   to maximize that coming out.   Derick Van Ness (06:18) Yeah, you bring up a good point, Kiera. You know, it's not that this stuff happens overnight, but it is, it's systemic, right? You're doing it day in and day out. And tax is one of those things, whether you like it or not, you have to file them every year. And I'm not going to lie to you, that's part of what I like about being in the tax world is people have to do it every year. It's a pretty good business model that way, right?   Kiera Dent (06:30) Right.   I   was gonna say you've got the reoccurring opportunities because it has to happen every year just like dentists have profis every six months. I mean it's a great built-in business. mean kudos to you. I don't enjoy it but it is a necessary evil to be done.   Derick Van Ness (06:52) I totally get that. If you would have told me you're going to work in taxes even 15 years ago when I first got into it, I would have said absolutely not not interested. But what I can tell you is every dollar you make in taxes is the same as a new dollar you make in your business. Right. But you don't have to have employees and risk and additional insurance and additional equipment and all this other stuff. So it really is pure profit when you can reduce your taxes. So   even a small amount of tax strategy can go a very long way in increasing what you get in the bottom line, right? And if you could just take a lot of dentists across the country, they're in the 40 % tax bracket, maybe a little higher or lower depending on your state, but somewhere in that range, if you could even lower that by 10%, that's keeping an additional 10 % of your income. That's a lot of extra money for people to be able to save and put to work without having to go do more risk and...   buy a bigger building and do a build out and deal with more personalities in the office because all of those things are variables, right? So I see it as a pure profit machine if you get it right. And so I've chosen to think it that way because I spend so much time in it, but it really does come down to just keeping a lot more of the money you make. And it's a very potent way to do it because honestly, with 10 to 15 hours a year, so think of that as like one hour a month.   you can really add a lot to the bottom line of what you get to keep. In some cases, we can cut taxes almost in half for high, high income earners. So it's a pretty big deal.   Kiera Dent (08:25) Well, and as you said that I think it's a big deal for today because yes to have that back to you is great. But like we talked about compounding, compounding until you've experienced compounding seems like not real. Just like I think when like you have bought your first house and it's like, how am I ever supposed to do this and make money on it until you bought your first practice? A lot of those things I think feel ⁓ arbitrary, they feel false. And then once you get into the compounding world and you're like, my gosh, like   we're making money without having to do anything. It's like, yeah, I could save on my taxes in a legal, ethical way, have more money at the end of the year that I could then put towards this, like you said, make it work for me. Well, now that it's just duplicating, it's multiplying, it's replicating, those things to me are things I get excited about. Those are things that I look for, because I don't think there's a lot of money.   I call it the money making machine. What things can we put into your money making machine to where it's working for you day in, day out without you having to do any extra work? I think all of us check yes, let's say yes to that. So Derick, let's talk about how we can create more of these money making machines, putting our money to work for us rather than constantly trying to chase the money dream to where at the end of our careers and even during our careers, we're living the lives that we wanted to get to when we first started out into these careers.   Derick Van Ness (09:29) Yep.   Yeah. And I can tell you guys this, if you only walk away with one thing, it's the idea if you want to build wealth, you need to create systematic savings, right? Systematize putting money aside, whether that's actually savings account or investing or however, but just getting money out of the spending cycle and into the building cycle. And it's like watching your child, right? Like in the beginning, kids grow and it's like day to day, you don't see it, but year to year,   it starts to make a bigger and bigger and bigger difference. And then, you know, when they're teenagers, you're just like, what's happening, right? So it's the same kind of thing with your money. In the beginning, if you're just watching a day to day, you don't really see the growth. You have to trust the process, right? But the biggest thing you can do is put that on autopilot, because if you have to automatically go into your bank account every month and move money over or every year, move money over, it's much harder. And like writing,   Kiera Dent (10:28) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (10:42) 25, 50, 100, $200,000 checks feels hard. Setting aside 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, $10,000 a month, and then you cut that in half per pay period, and all of a sudden it gets a lot easier. It's like, oh yeah, $1,000 a pay period, not that big a deal. Much easier than writing a $25,000 check, right? Or two or $3,000 per pay period. It really does add up. And that's where the tax piece comes in is, in many cases, it's like found money. I try to teach our clients to...   Kiera Dent (10:46) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (11:11) save like you're going to pay full blast on taxes. And then when we do the tax strategy, all this money is left over. And so it feels like extra money, and then you can put it to work, right? And that's where you do get to play with some bigger chunks. ⁓ But really, it's that habit of automating, setting money aside. If you can just only take one thing from this, it's that. And taxes can create a huge amount of that for you along the way. So let's talk about the tax bill, right?   Kiera Dent (11:24) Mm-hmm.   Yeah,   let's talk about it. And I just want to highlight on that, Derick, of I was talking to a CPA the other day on the podcast and he talked about how like there's a different psychology of business owners. ⁓ We go from getting a W-2 paycheck that we're used to being able to spend all of it because taxes have already been taken out to them becoming business owners and not having taxes automatically taken from that and needing to be super disciplined on saving. And so I agree with you. And when I realized like,   I got so annoyed when I'm like, great, so now I never get a refund check ever again in taxes. I was like, no, actually it's actually so much better now than it ever was. Because if I just set it aside, I'm like, taxes are pretty simple. I guess there's some nuances to them, but it's pretty much like whatever tax bracket you are, take your profit at the end of the month, set that aside. And lo and behold, if you do the tax planning strategy, like you said, usually I'm ending up with a pretty good substantial chunk at the end of the year that I count as my like quote unquote, like   the refund check or whatever. It's been so long since I've gotten one that I don't even know what it is. But it's awesome because then you have this huge lump of money because you've been saving it. You weren't expecting it. All your expenses in your life is taken care of to where now, like you said, it is really fun. Is that an investment? Is that buying something that I've always wanted to get? Is that real estate money? Because the amount of cash, if you are strategic in how you do it, is exponentially substantial.   It is truly life-changing. So I'm excited, Derick. Let's talk about the tax bill, but I will second you and ditto you and just say, yes, there's discipline to it, but that discipline equals so much freedom on the other side that just try it. Trust us on this. Save, learn to save on it and ⁓ be blown away at how much you're able to have at the end of the year if you do it really well.   Derick Van Ness (13:25) Yeah, I 100 % agree and I love your approach, Kiera. That's exactly what we try to teach with people. So let's talk about the tax bill, right? There's a ton of stuff that's in there that we're not going to touch on because like the child tax credit go up $200 a year. Yes. Is that going to move the needle for you as a business owner? Not really, right? Is there a little bit for senior tax relief in there where there's $6,000 of income that they don't pay taxes on? Yes. Does that really matter for you? Probably not, right? So we're going to...   Kiera Dent (13:33) Okay, let's talk.   Derick Van Ness (13:55) we're going to talk a little bit about a couple of key things that can really move the needle. One of them you alluded to, Kiera, that I think is really important is the idea of bonus depreciation, right? People who don't know what bonus depreciation is, it's when you buy certain types of equipment or real estate, you can take all the depreciation in the first year, right? And that can be ⁓ a huge chunk, especially when you combine it with something like cost segregation. For those of you who don't know what cost segregation is, the two really   Kiera Dent (14:04) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (14:24) work well together. So I think it's worth taking just a sec, even though it's not new, it really enhances this strategy. ⁓ Cost segregation is when you have a piece of real estate, you bring in an engineer, and there are companies that do this, right? So you don't have to know all this stuff. ⁓ But they come in, they reclassify as much of your building as they can as equipment. And so what you get to do is depreciate a portion of the building, the stuff that's equipment much more rapidly. So a lot of times five, seven or 15 years.   versus either 27 or 39 and a half years. So you get a lot more depreciation on the front end. It's not like you get more overall, but money today is worth a whole lot more than money 20 or 30 years from now. You can invest it and use it to grow your business, et cetera. But then when you add bonus depreciation to that, you can get a lot more of it in the first year. what this really means is if you're   Kiera Dent (15:06) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (15:21) buying the right kind of equipment or you're buying a building or you're doing big improvements, you can get a lot more depreciation and that depreciation can save you in taxes, right? And this is one that I feel like most CPAs kind of get bonus depreciation, but a lot of them don't bring in the cost segregation piece. So if you own a piece of real estate, especially if you bought it in the last few years and you haven't done a cost segregation study, this is something that you would have to know about because someone has to physically come to your building. If you haven't done one,   Kiera Dent (15:39) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (15:51) should talk to your CPA about it or talk to someone about it. I'm sure Kiera knows people, we know people, there are plenty of people out there who do it. But that's something worth looking at, especially if your building's worth, I would say, $250,000, $300,000, and you've had it less than five years and you haven't done this, yeah, it's totally worth looking at. It could be a real nice windfall. So that's a big one. It had been in place, then it started phasing out from 100 % to 80 % to 60%.   Kiera Dent (16:04) I   Derick Van Ness (16:20) but now we're back at 100%. So this is a big one, especially if you own your building or you're buying a lot of equipment. ⁓ Another really big one is the SALT tax. Now, people hear SALT tax and they're like, what? They're thinking of like the SPICE, right? SALT stands for state and local tax. And really to simplify this, and there's kind of a workaround in almost every state where you can do it as a pass-through setup. And essentially what that means is,   Kiera Dent (16:27) Mm-hmm.   Bye.   Derick Van Ness (16:49) If you pay all your state taxes before the end of the year, those state taxes become a write off for your federal taxes. Now this was in place up to $10,000. So if you were in a 40 % tax bracket, it could have saved you $4,000. Now it's up to 40,000, four zero, $40,000. So if you're making a lot of money or you're in a high tax state, you can pay those state taxes before the end of the year and it creates a federal tax write off.   And so like if you were in a, you know, paying in a 32 % tax bracket and you paid $40,000, it's going to save you, you know, between 12 and $13,000 in taxes that year, which is pretty significant for found money. All it has to be done is you have to pay those taxes and then your, your CPA or your tax pro has to claim that. Right. So that's another big one that got raised and you probably heard a lot about it in the news because   People were trying to get it raised higher and some people thought it should be lower. It really does favor business owners. It's not something a person who doesn't have a business can do. And that was part of the controversy, right? ⁓ But at the end of the day, it's law. So you should be taking full advantage of that.   Kiera Dent (18:03) I feel like that definitely impacts like the high state tax ⁓ states like California, New York, like some of those bigger ones, definitely because I live in Nevada, it's a no state income tax state. So if I understand correctly, Derick, and this is where I love bringing smart people on, the salt tax doesn't apply to me per se in Nevada, because we don't have state income tax. Is that correct? But in those higher ones, it definitely helps you out tremendously by being able to take those those credits and apply them.   Derick Van Ness (18:32) That is correct, yeah. And like another really high one is Oregon. They have quite high state tax, whereas Washington has none. So yeah, that doesn't apply to everybody. But if you're in a state that has even medium, like I'm in Utah, income tax there is right around 5 % for the state. It's still significant, right? You can still do up to the same amount. You'll just get there slower than if you're in California.   Kiera Dent (18:36) Mm-hmm.   I agree.   Right.   Derick Van Ness (19:00) Once again, just one of those things like you talked about, know, having kids or, you know, having the ADA like disability access to your building or a lot of these other things that like there are a bunch of little things, but they really do add up doing the Augusta rule. I'm sure you guys have talked about a million times and paying your kids properly. And we have a whole strategy of actually how to help people use tax strategy to pay for their kids college, which is a pretty cool one using some of that.   Kiera Dent (19:15) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (19:29) But those aren't part of the tax bill, so we won't dig into that today. ⁓   Kiera Dent (19:32) But they   are smart things to know because as you're listing it off, I think when someone's making, let's say your practice is doing a million, let's it's doing 2 million, 5 million, let's say you're at a 50 % overhead, let's just do 5 million, that's 2.5 mil. Not all of that's going to come to you as profit, but let's use like, it also could be coming to you as profit, even if it's in the form of distributions and different pieces. I'm like,   Derick Van Ness (19:42) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (19:55) on that 2.5, if that's your taxable income, now let's just do, let's say you're in the highest, like that would put you in the highest tax bracket. So we're at a 37%. Like that's almost a million dollars worth of tax money right there on 2.5. So I understand that say 12 grand doesn't seem like that much, but I'm like, but 12 grand is still going to chip down this tax bill. And then you do another 20 grand here, then you do another 15 grand here.   All of that does exponentially chip down and like the bonus appreciation. That's why I think Derick, you're talking like the $200 on a million of taxes, not really going to move the needle, but 12 grand, 15 grand. It's the stacking and being able to keep that money. You have to pay this tax no matter what. And why not like benefit and minimize and reduce it and keep that money. then even worst case scenario, you even go invest it or you put it somewhere like a high yield savings account, but still making 4 % for you.   that you wouldn't have been making so that money's working for you. I think it's a no brainer ⁓ no matter what tax bracket you're in just to see. But like I also think this is where I don't like to get lazy on my taxes like, is it really worth doing the Augustus roll? Yes, it is. Because like you said, every dollar saved today, if I could even take that 600 or that 2000 or that 12 grand, put it in right now, like go back to college. How many of us wish we would have invested at that point in time? 20 bucks when we were in college.   Derick Van Ness (21:02) You   Kiera Dent (21:19) into the stock market and what that would be worth today, I think that there's just value in being strategic and smart and this is how you build wealth. It's not sexy, but if you do it consistently, you will exponentially become wealthier much faster than otherwise. I think it's the fastest way to get to wealth long term because you've got a runway in front of you.   Derick Van Ness (21:38) Well, I'm going to throw something out here, Kiera, because I get to see behind the scenes, right? I work with a lot of successful dentists and dentists have a really good income. Dentists generally are not great at creating wealth. I'll just be totally honest with you. A lot of them, they make enough money that they, ⁓ they can spend and they have a good life and they're able to put some money away, but proportional to their income, a lot of them are not great savers because of exactly what you talked about. A lot of them make all this money, but they got to pay off a lot of debt.   Kiera Dent (21:42) Mm-hmm.   I would agree.   Derick Van Ness (22:08) right, student loans and a business loan. Well, that's a lot of cash flow, especially in the first five years going out of lot of people's pockets. So a lot of times I'll see a dentist and they're making, let's say they're taking home $500,000, which is very common. ⁓ But you look at their investments and everything and they've got 300 grand saved. And they've been at it for 10 years and you're like, what happened? it's they paid off student loans, they paid off business debt.   Kiera Dent (22:27) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (22:33) They've had to invest in equipment along the way. They've had to remodel their office. They bought a house. You know, and they have some nice things. But now when you start going back and saying, hey, we can do this, this, and this, and now you get to save an extra, let's go really, really low, an extra $20,000 a year. Okay. I did some math the other day for our newsletter, $20,000 a year. If that's what someone saved and they just put that money to work at 7%. Over 30 years, they'd have $2.1 million roughly.   Right? So it's like, it's not, it doesn't appear to be a huge thing, but over time it really does add up. And to be quite honest, someone who makes $500,000, I can think of a bunch of ways that are outside of the new tax bill, things we've been doing for years that can really save them a whole lot more than that. And so for a lot of people, like if somebody is making two and a half million dollars, there's actually some advanced strategies that can really move the needle in a big, big way. But these small things like paying your state tax by the end of the year,   It takes you five minutes and you saved 13 grand. Okay, that's a big deal. Doing, making sure you're paying yourself properly so that you don't end up paying self-employment tax unnecessarily on more of your income than you. Okay, that's another seven, 10, 15, 20 grand. ⁓ Paying your kids, Augusta rule, bonus depreciation. Okay, now all of sudden we took a bill that was maybe 120,000 of taxes for someone who makes 500 grand and now they're paying 50.   Kiera Dent (23:34) Hmm.   Derick Van Ness (24:00) So they kept 70,000. Like that's a big deal. You put that together and using the math I just did there, that's about $5 million over 30 years, right? So it's significant and I bring up the two and a half million thing, because I don't see a lot of dentists. I have a few clients that make that kind of money, but most of the dentists, especially people who own one or two practices, they're making between on the lower end, maybe 300, 350, on the higher end, maybe 800, 900,000.   Kiera Dent (24:00) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   I agree.   Derick Van Ness (24:29) You know, so suddenly an extra 50, 70, 80, $100,000 a year is a lot of money. It makes a really big difference.   Kiera Dent (24:37) I agree.   I even think though, on no matter where your bracket is, I think like, well, one, I just hope I don't know, Derick, I need to surround myself with people like this. I hope that no matter what income I make, I don't ever like pish posh 70 grand. Like I just hope I hope I never I mean, I hope that I'm a freaking billionaire at one point in my life, like that'd be incredible. And like the amount of good that we'll be able to do in this world, like even today. But I'm like, I hope that I stay   humble and grateful enough that I would never say like 20 grand or 50 grand is not worth my time to do ⁓ in a small effort. ⁓ And so I think that that's just a zone of like, let's remember the humility as well of like, yes, these things are tax savings, but they're also going to exponentially grow you, you, your practice, your family, like your contribution, your good that you're able to do in this world. So even if you're not using it for yourself, think of the good that you can give back to this community in this world. So I think   And then I'm also like, yeah, and if you're at 300, 70 grand is a lot. If you're at 900, 70 grand should still be a lot. If you're at 2.5 million, 70 grand should still be a lot for you to where I think like, I also feel it's a skill of staying sharp rather than getting lazy and sloppy as we evolve. I know I've done it. Like I used to be way more scrappy when I first started the company and I'm like, yeah, well, do we really have to do all this? And it's like, but I think this...   sharper we can keep ourselves and the more disciplined we can to be expert saviors. Like I talked to Ryan Isaac of Dentist Advisors often and he and I talk about like the biggest thing is like being a great saver, like building your wealth, but then also not losing your wealth by doing dumb things or not being disciplined and watching what you've built. Like it's kind of two sides of the coin and being able to get there at the end of the day, I think is what we're all striving for. So I think it's brilliant and I hope that nobody says pish posh to us.   Derick Van Ness (26:12) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (26:34) 70 grand if we could save you that much in taxes.   Derick Van Ness (26:37) I sure hope not, right? And if you do, it's because you've got a better use of your time than that. But quite frankly, most of this stuff, especially taxes, the cool thing is we've had a few tax rewrites in the last, you know, 10 years or so. But typically we don't have a lot of tax rewrites. So once you know the rules, it doesn't change that much year to year. A few little things change here or there, but for the most part, if you can take the time.   get yourself the right team or learn the rules yourself. mean, I think even people who know how to do this themselves, having a good tax pro on your team can be worth a lot because things do come up. ⁓ But honestly, most of it, once you know it, doesn't take a lot of time, right? We're talking a couple hours a year. And if you know what you're doing, a lot of this you kind of do along the way or it's already set up, like setting the money aside for taxes that's already set up, paying before the end of the year. That's just the thing you do one time, you write one check or make one payment online and   Kiera Dent (27:17) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (27:32) and you're done, right? And a lot of these things are easy. ⁓ Another one that's a really big one that came up with the tax bill that I'm very excited about is they brought back the research and development credits. And this is another thing that for a dentist, it'll probably take you two hours of time ⁓ to do it, like an hour to work with someone to do the projects, which is basically an interview of what have you done, what's the research so that the tax team can look at that.   Kiera Dent (27:43) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (28:00) And then just getting your tax returns over because not only do these credits come back, but you can retroactively, we've got one year to do this retroactively. You can go back and claim the credits for 2022, 2023 and 2024. And so that gives us three years where you can amend and go back and get that money. And I mean, for a typical dentist, I see on the low end, there are a lot of them. If you're investing in equipment, trying new stuff, which   Kiera Dent (28:15) Wow.   Derick Van Ness (28:29) most dentists to compete have to be doing today. If you're doing, you know, still doing mercury fillings from the seventies, then maybe that's not you. But most people who are listening to your podcast are...   Kiera Dent (28:32) Mm-hmm.   I was going to say you, most of the podcast   community should be in that realm.   Derick Van Ness (28:44) Yeah, I'm kind of joking, but typically, I mean, it's between $10,000 and $20,000 a year. if you have a big practice, I mean, we've had clients that have gotten multiple six figures back because they did some major overhauls and a bunch of stuff. But let's call it $15,000 to $20,000 a year for a lot of dentists. It takes 45 minutes to do it, the interview, and then a little bit of time to review that, make sure it's good.   So let's call it two, maybe three hours of total time to get that money back, right? And you can do this every year when we amend. You have to amend them and they go back to the IRS. And the IRS is taking about a year to get checks out. They're a little buried ever since COVID. They got behind and they just never caught back up. But once you get on top of that for 2025 and beyond, like you can just do it proactively. You just don't pay the taxes. You don't have to wait for a refund.   And so it's another one of those things where you spend an hour or two a year and you get 10, 15, 20, $30,000 a year that you just get to keep. Right. And so this one to me is a huge one for dentistry because the rate at which the industry is changing, right. Uh, went from, from cone beams to milling people, milling their own crowns. Now it's 3d printing pretty soon. It's going to be, you know, a lot of these things you see at the shows with the robots doing things and all kinds of different things that   Kiera Dent (29:50) Awesome.   Totally.   Derick Van Ness (30:12) Dentistry is a very progressive industry, right? A lot of AI coming in with answering phones and scheduling people and answering questions and all of that kind of stuff. You may as well get credits for it. You're doing the work, you're buying the equipment, you're figuring this stuff out. So if you're doing anything where you're upgrading, trying new technology, looking to get better, faster, more efficient, you're probably accruing the credits. ⁓ And it's just something you don't want to miss out on. R &D credits are... ⁓   not as well known as they could be because it's very much a specialty thing and it's relatively new to the tax code. It only became permanent in 2015. It's been around since the 80s but it changed a bunch and became permanent then. And the reason we didn't do it through 2022 through 2024 was there was a change in the 2017 tax code and you know they gave tax breaks.   Kiera Dent (30:43) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (31:07) to corporations, they had to make it up somewhere. And this was the place where they said, if people claim R &D, they also don't get to write off all the expenses without going into all the detail. It just wasn't worth doing. Now we can go back and recover that. Congress didn't think it was even going to become a law. I think they thought they were going to amend it. And then COVID happened. And they sort of forgot about it. So it became a law in 22. Anyway, this is all fixing it. So to me, this is a huge one. It's an easy win for a lot of a.   Kiera Dent (31:18) Yeah.   Derick Van Ness (31:36) a lot of dentists to be able to go out and just get a bunch of money back in taxes you've already paid for stuff you've already done. And it's pretty minimal effort. ⁓ There are lot of different people out there who do it. We do a free estimate for people so they can kind of see what's on the table. But yeah, it's pretty straightforward. To me, that's probably the one specific to dentistry that's going to apply to almost everybody listening almost every year. And so   I kind of saved it toward the end here because I think it's the big win. know, the others, the bonus depreciation can be bigger, but you're probably not buying a business or massive amounts of equipment every year. But if you are, then that's going to be a huge one too.   Kiera Dent (32:20) Yeah. No, Derick, I love that. And I did some math because you talked about like one hour approximately per month to do these things. And I just I did some really, really conservative numbers. So I was like, if we were doing 20 grand of how much we get for tax savings of like actual dollars to you. And that was in 15 hours a year. That's 1333. So about 1400 per hour. And so thinking about a dentist who's producing 1400 per hour.   That's actually, that's a pretty high production. You're producing about $11,000 a day as a dentist at that rate. Then I was thinking like, okay, the R &D is 10 grand, 20 grand in two hours. That's now producing $10,000 an hour. I was like, that dentist would be producing $80,000 a day. Just to put in comparison of your dollar per hour on production, you apply that to your tax savings. I think that it's to me,   Not all dentists are even producing $1,300 an hour. Even very, very skilled dentists, like 500 to 1,000 is actually pretty great. That's what we try to target for doctors to do. 8,000 a day is a pretty good amount. So when I just did the quick math and I'm like, a lot of dentists are not working five days a week. A lot of you are working four days a week. So if you just added this as part of your CEO time, one hour per month to dedicate to this.   What's the ROI of that time? think it's very well worthwhile. And I will agree with you, Derick. We've had you on the podcast before. That's why I had you come back on, because I am seeing multiple clients get these R &D credits coming through that I just think it's a worthwhile thing. Again, I feel like it's Geico. That's what I feel like right now. Like one hour or like one quick call could save you 10 to 20 grand. I think that that to me, again, let's be sharp. Let's be savvy. Let's make sure we take advantage of these opportunities because again,   Derick Van Ness (34:00) you   Kiera Dent (34:13) Like you've said, the compound of that 10 or $20,000 that you get over the course of the next 20 to 30 years while you're doing dentistry, even if it's five years, even if it's 10 years, ⁓ that to me is so worth your time. I feel like that's the best use of your time you can possibly do as a CEO, as a business owner. So Derick, that's why I want to do back on because I think everybody should connect with you. Everybody should talk to their CPAs about this.   I know you guys do the R &D credits. I also know that you guys do accounting. So if people are looking to connect with you, Derick, like what's the easiest way? Like I'm fired up listening to this podcast. I'm committed to my one hour a month. It's like one and a half guys. So you're gonna have to be a little bit more, but I'm committed to that. Where do I start? How do I get going to make sure that I can maximize this big, beautiful tax bill and also the R &D credits for my practice.   Derick Van Ness (35:03) It's a great question. So we actually set up a page just for Dental A Team listeners, right? So it's just, my company's called Big Life Financial. And we do that, it's not big money financial. Our goal is to help you get money out of the way so you can live the life you're here to live as a human, right? And really spend the family time and make the contributions and express yourself as you want to. But it's BigLifeFinancial.com/DAT. So if you go there, it's a research and development credits   opt in right for the page because I think that's the biggest win. But we will also do, if you would like, a full three year tax review for people. Anybody who wants to see, have I been overpaying? There's a million things we didn't touch on today because they're not part of the new tax bill. There are things that have been around for a long time. ⁓ But we can help you to get a good idea of have you been overpaying and what are the opportunities out there? ⁓ And so that's a great way to start. And then from there, if it seems like you want to   Kiera Dent (35:46) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (36:03) find out more, you have questions or things come up, but that's a good starting point, right? It's like a diagnostic that gives us a good place to start from. So BigLifeFinancial.com/DAT will set up a free call. It should only take maybe 15, 20 minutes at first just to answer any question. That's great.   Kiera Dent (36:19) 15 or more could save you.   It really fills up, it's true. It's true. Daria, I do have a question though, because people get creeped out by taxes. How often do doing this and looking back at past taxes alert audits within the IRS? Because people creep out about this.   Derick Van Ness (36:37) So doing it,   so the R &D credits, especially this because they literally passed a law and said, yes, you can go back and do it. So there's going to be a ton of people doing it. So I don't think it's going to be any type of audit unless you really weren't doing research, right? But that's what the interview is for, is to help us to identify it. And our team will essentially tell you what does and doesn't qualify. But there's no risk to it, especially because they're saying, hey, yeah, you can go back and do this. You could.   I mean, you could have claimed it before, but nobody did. So it's not going to stand out. also, even in the past, when we've done this for people prior to that law change, I think out of 16,000 filings, there's been like maybe 12 or 15 audits. It's lower. It's even lower than a typical audit range. And I don't know how that's even really possible, but it's just been very low. It's not something the IRS is really worried about. It's not huge amounts of money.   Kiera Dent (37:10) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (37:35) You know, some of these other strategies care that you're aware of. people are getting 50, 100,000, $200,000 tax breaks and those are much more highly scrutinized. You really doing this work, which dentists do, uh, and based on your industry, I don't think they're really going to bat an eye. It doesn't mean there's a zero chance, but it's very, very low. Just like if you had a piece of equipment, forgot to depreciate it. Now you went back and amended to do that. It's that straightforward. It's a permanent part of the tax code. It's not gray area stuff.   Kiera Dent (37:42) Right.   which is super helpful. And that's just where I wanted to clarify because I know people get kind of weird of like, yeah, I want to save on my taxes, but I'd rather not get audited. And so I think this is a world where you can be both. You can save on taxes legally, just like the Augustus rule. Like that is something very common. People do it if you don't know about it, talk to your CP about it, ⁓ your kids having real jobs. So I feel like it's something where, like you said, it's not talked about as much, but that does not mean that it is not as commonplace or that you shouldn't bonus appreciation on real estate, on big equipment.   Derick Van Ness (38:10) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (38:36) These are things that I also feel this is the time like a political landscape for you as a business owner to take advantage of tax benefits. The person who's in the White House currently, whatever you choose to believe or not believe is very pro businesses in a lot of ways. And so I'm like, if you're ever going to try it based on who's in office, ⁓ I think now is a great time ⁓ with how many things are coming forward for businesses and being more business. ⁓ I would just say   business friendly, I think is where the political landscape is currently. Again, not to go down a political path, just to be looking at like, if I'm hedging my bets, now is probably a really good time where odds of audits are probably a little bit lower than maybe at other times of the political landscape. So just things to think about. Derick, I love these podcasts. I love building wealth. So guys go to BigLifeFinancial.com/DAT, so Dental A Team. So it's just DAT our initials.   Derick Van Ness (39:15) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (39:32) And Derick will take great care of you. Derick, any last thoughts as we wrap up today? I appreciate you so much being on here.   Derick Van Ness (39:38) No, just think, you know, dentists work really, really hard and I feel like a lot of them don't get the fruits of their labor because there's a lot of these little things that they haven't been taught. And I think all the little things do add up. So, you know, this is one of those things that if you choose to just take it on, figure it out in a year or two, you'll be way ahead of the game and you get to benefit from that basically forever. Right? lot of this stuff, once you figure it out one time, you can just ride.   80%, 90 % on autopilot. So if you've been afraid of it, would say it's climb over that hill, whether it's with us or someone else, it is really worth it. You guys work too hard, take too many risks, deal with too much headache to not get the full amount of the money that you really deserve to keep. So yeah.   Kiera Dent (40:23) I agree.   That's why Derick gets to be on the podcast because we're very aligned. I've always said I want dentists to be insanely wealthy, insanely. I see what you go through in school. mean, 2.5 million debt ⁓ to even get the opportunity to practice. ⁓ That's really where I was on a very strong mission to help dentists just like Derick to be as successful as you want to be. And there's little strategies like what we talked about that are big strategies. So take advantage, get over the hump.   Chat with Derick or your financial advisor or your CPA. But these things, I think, need to be part of your every single year conversations. They need to be talked about multiple times. You need to be asking what's been changing in the tax bill, keeping yourself a part of it. Very simple moves, big gains this year. Derick, as always, thanks for being a part of it. I really appreciate you. And for all of you listening, thank you for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

High-performing practices don't happen by accident, and in this episode, Kiera shares the steps that the most successful practices put in place to get there.  Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope today is just an incredible day for you. I hope you guys are ready to be on the podcast, whether you're driving, listening to us as a team meeting, going to work, going for a run, going on a hike, driving in the car, whatever it is. I hope today is just an incredible day and I hope you remember dentistry really is the greatest place for us to be. I'm so excited to podcast. I'm your host Kiera Dett and truly I'm excited to help you make dentistry more fun, to make your day more fun.   because we have done over a thousand episodes. So if there's ever anything you're struggling with in your practice, be sure to head on over to TheDentalATeam.com click on our podcast tab and make sure that you download whatever podcast it is. Like you can type in case acceptance or overhead or PNL or staffing or hiring or hygiene. And every single episode we have ever done in the archive of the thousands, literally of episodes we have done, they're there for you.   And I just want to say thanks. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for being part of our Dental A Team podcast family. If this podcast is serving you, if it's helped you, if this made you laugh, if it made your practice better, be sure to leave us a review and share this in groups. Honestly, our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and get this podcast into the hands of every single dental office out there. So share and hey, let's have a great day today because I wanted to go through three systems that every productive practice has in place. And honestly, a lot of practices don't have them.   This is something where like these high-performing practices, they don't just happen by accident. They run on systems and most practices are missing these top three. Like truly I've walked into hundreds and thousands of offices and I'm shocked that they don't have these three simple easy ones in place for them. ⁓ These right systems are going to help drive consistency, reduce your stress, increase your profitability and they're very, very easy for practices to implement. Now, just because something's easy doesn't mean that practices...   actually do it. So I want you to be part of the elite. You're part of Dental A Team. Why not tell you the best of the best of the best? I mean, why not? Like you're here, you're listening. Let's make your time effort energies worth it. I'm on board. Are you on board? Cause I think it'd be great. guys Dental A Team was truly created for you. We are obsessed with building smart, scalable practices and systems to help you have the life that you want to live. We want to make teams and practices happier. We want to make patient experience happier. And this is something where we don't want you working harder.   One of our top core values in the Dental A Team is ease. We want everything to be easy. As team members ourselves, we don't want to put hard things into place for teams. We don't want doctors to be working late nights and not spending time with their families. We want you to be profitable, happy, successful with ease. So the first system that I found that we've talked about many times, and I'll just go to a high level today because there are deeper podcasts on it, but to kind of break this down into the three simple, sexy systems that are not so sexy, but they really truly will help you drive.   profit, efficiency, happiness. And the number one, da-da-da-da, I hope you're ready for it, is block scheduling. Like yes, block scheduling, it's crazy. ⁓ Literate people reach out to us just to help them with block scheduling. And I am shocked because block scheduling is something where you literally can put it together in such high value ease. ⁓ I'm obsessed, we do have a block schedule template that we work with our practices. And it's one of those things where we keep making it like,   more and more and more and more and more because we realize there's easier things to do on it. But just as a quick sample, I really, really, really love helping offices make this so fun. Like, let's make it easy for you. Let's make this exciting for you. So I'm actually going to do a share screen. So if you guys are watching, amazing, hey, welcome, I'm super happy. And if you're not, that's okay. What we're going to do is I'll walk you through it as well. So if you're listening, driving the car,   but I will also try to share this with you. So on here, what I've done is we have actually created these boxes for you to fill in, okay? So we fill in all the green boxes and on the left-hand side, what I have is basically all of your procedures in the practice, what they are, how much time it's going to take you and how much it's going to cost you on average. Now we want time, if crown prep and buildup, how much time is that going to take you? Well, fantastic, it's gonna be an hour and a half. Awesome, put that in.   How much is the cost approximately? Don't go for your highest fee and don't go for your lowest fee. We wanna go right in that like sweet spot, middle spot. And then what about what providers? Cause some providers do procedures and others don't. So put that in there. We also wanna look for our new patients, our SRPs, how many perio maintenance as we have active patients over the last 18 months and 12 months to make sure we have enough blocks for that. We wanna go through our current hygiene spaces and our weekly availability.   I want to look back at last year and see how many pro fees we did, how many SRPs, how many periomaintenances would be needed based on that. And then any specialty procedures we've got, then we look at how many hygiene hours we're going to need for new patients, how many SRPs, how many hour pro fees, how many periomaintenances, and then our goals if we want any of those specialties. So that's like master sheet number one. Then we move into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. This is awesome. You actually start to look, you know, every single week I need X number of new patient spots, X number of SRP spots.   X number of procedures. And what I love to do is at the top of this ⁓ Excel spreadsheet that I'll show you, I actually put dollar amounts for how much each hygiene group be producing, how much our assistant only columns are, and how much our doctor columns are. So when we look at that, it will actually give us a total production based on how much that procedure should cost us. Now, of course I could have an endo here, but I also could have a couple crowns there. So it's just a dollar amount approximately what I'm trying to do. And then what was really amazing is we'll get to a grand total page.   tab that will tell us what does our weekly total equal. Then we do a monthly total based on four weeks, it's gonna break it down. So in this practice example, their weekly total is about 94,000. That means their monthly total is about 379, giving them an annual total of 4.5. What's wild on this is this is a real practice. These are real offices doing this. And what's insane is this practices are usually doing like three or four million and we're able to then add 500,000 or like 300,000 or an extra million.   just through great block scheduling. It's wild. It truly is something where they get out on time, they have less stress. We guide patients to the appointments. And this is where I obsess about showing all of you how to do block scheduling. It is literally a super easy, sexy, simple system that takes a little bit of planning, a little bit of prep work, but then you execute on it. And if you don't have one in place, this is something where you have got to get it in place. You've got to guide your patients where you want them to go. And like I said, this is one of the top three systems that   the productive practices are using, whereas the not so productive practices are not using it. People are like, it's too hard, Kara. Well, if it's too hard, reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We literally work with offices. We put these into place. We bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars. So when people are curious about consulting ROI, I'm like, listen, I can easily go into your schedule. We can add hundreds of thousands of dollars with no extra effort on your part, just utilizing your schedule better. It's kind of like people when it's like, gosh, like that person can just get so much done in their day.   Well, it's the same thing with your schedule at your office. You can get so much more done in a day when you're just more effective, more efficient with your scheduling. So this is the framework that protects production in your practice. So audit your schedule, get block schedules in place. And if you are struggling with or heard this a million times, reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com, book a complimentary practice assessment. We'll show you blind spots. We'll give you free tips.   We will literally help you whether you work with us or not. So there's really no cost to you, no effort other than you swallowing your you know and booking the call and saying like, hey, I've tried, I need help. And even if you can do it, what's your time worth to you? Doctors, you're producing five, six, $700 an hour. Well, think about it. If you can outsource that to a consultant, hashtag the Dental A Team, think of the ROI of your time. And I actually think it's a better use of your time to go produce.   and let us help your team put this into place. All right, system number two is my favorite thing, excellent handoffs. Excellent handoffs that are going to boost and increase your case acceptance. And we call that our sexy NDTR handoff. This is wild. I tell offices about it. They hear it on the podcast and they still don't use it. And I'm like, why? This is our 50 % to 100 % case acceptance. It literally does not need to be hard. It's how you're able to add same day treatment. It's how you're able to have better scheduling. It's how you're able to perfect your handoff.   from every single team member and that's to literally at the end of every exam, every appointment, tell them next visit, date to return, time needed for that appointment and is there re-care scheduled? NDTR, it's the magic formula. It literally boosts your case acceptance. It is not hard, it is simple to do. The only thing that's annoying about it is you have to remember to say it at the end of your procedure. But we've even made that easier and we throw it on your route slips. We put it on your computer, we put it in your exam notes. So you should not be forgetting and every team member should be prompting you for it.   I promise you, if you will just put this one system into place, you will see massive growth all the time when people are interviewing us to see if they want to work with us and we're interviewing them to see if they'd be a great client. I literally am never afraid when people are like, Kiera, can you cover your ROI? Like what's the ROI? And I'm like, well, on average we have it, started it out. Most of our practices within their first three months are seeing a 30 % increase in production just across the board. Okay. So now there's some that are 10%. There's some that are 50%.   all across, like on average of hundreds of offices, they're seeing a boost of 30%. Well, let's just say you are a million dollar practice today. That's an extra $300,000. We are not even like, are barely, you're like a 10X of what you're paying us versus what you're getting. And that to me is something that's so insanely valuable is you need to make sure that you're adding your consultant in who can add these results for you. And we do it through non-sexy ways. Like, hey, let me give you an awesome handoff to say at the end of the procedure that's going to   and eliminate the excuses a patient's going to bring to you, but it's going to help teep all of your treatment. It's going to make your handoffs perfect. It's going to make it to where patients want to say yes to you. I've literally watched them leave the operatory and they don't get operatory like hallway amnesia. They literally like our little robots and they walk right up front and they're like, hey, Dr. Smith wants to see me back for that crown in two weeks for an hour and I need to get my cleaning scheduled. And they just smile. And you're like, where did you come from? And why did not all of my patients do this?   is because you don't have this in and it's something that's so easy to do and yet most practices don't do it. So I would recommend every one of you, doctors, add it in. I want you to look at that exam room when you walk into it, every hygiene room, every time you walk through the door, you are just going to say it every single time and you will be shocked at how great your case acceptance goes, but not even just your case exceptions, your patient's happiness. They're not confused. Where do start? Why is dentistry so confusing? Why do I not want to do this? You've literally given them the roadmap.   eliminated half of their excuses that they're going to go up and have objections. Treatment coordinator like, here teach me how to get over objections. I'm like, hey, just have a better exam. And 50 % of those objections are already gone. They're not confused. They don't have amnesia. They know exactly where to go. And then we ask them, what questions do you have for me? I want you to be rock solid moving forward. You told them we're moving forward. It's not a question of are we doing dentistry or not. It's, hey, we're doing dentistry. Next step is going to be, you can talk about how you want to finance it. But what questions do you have for me? I want you rock solid moving forward.   This is how the elite practices do it. You guys wanna know? I've been in hundreds of offices and I'm here to show these are the three sexy systems that your practice needs to have in place. All right, get it done, get that in place. And if you're struggling, this is something we teach to teams. We get the whole team on board, because sometimes you listening, trying to get your team bought in, sometimes that's hard. So fly in an expert, we'll come and train your team. There we go. That was a little bit of a tongue twister. We will train your team to do this.   to have great case acceptance. And this is how we're able to add in one practice, we added $25,000 in one day just by doing this. All right, system number three, this is going to sound so silly, but a morning huddle that's truly a huddle that drives performance and alignment. Like literally this is what we do in office. We cut our morning huddle and I'm like, rock on, you cut out your secret treasure trove. Like this is something that can take five minutes, 10 minutes, and our job is to look for what did we do great yesterday?   what's on our docket today and are we going to win the day? I do not need to hear about every patient. do not need to hear about Mrs. Jones has high blood pressure. Fantastic, that's something hygienists you need to know. The whole team does not need to know it. We need to look at the scoreboard just like football players, basketball players, baseball players, whatever it is. We look at our scoreboard, AKA how we did yesterday, where we are on track for our month and we say is today schedule two goal? And if not, what are we going to do to truly win our day? Now I understand that numbers can sometimes not feel like patient care.   I want to reverse that mindset for you. And I want you to know that when we hit our numbers, that is our benchmark, our measuring stick to show that we served our patients at the highest level. And we did not let little gaps fall into place like missing fluoride opportunities, missing x-ray opportunities, missing same day treatment opportunities, missing diagnosis opportunities. These little simple things are what we're trying not to do. So that's why we set our goal. We have our block schedule. We know the treatment we want to do.   We know the hygiene patients that we need to be seeing. We know the open schedule time that we need to make sure that we've eliminated. And when we morning huddle it out, we can literally strategize how we're going to win our day. So we have more consistent days, more consistent treatment, more consistent patient care, more consistent happy teams. This is where we look for bottlenecks. Where are we going to get jammed up? Could we move a patient by 15 minutes today and make our schedule a lot easier? What does hygiene mean? Hygiene, are you scheduled to goal? And if not, what are you going to do to make sure that you get your patient base scheduled to goal?   It's wild when every player on the team takes ownership of their position over their column, over their goals that we've all committed to, to ensure that we're not missing any patient care. Now you might not get to your exact goal on hygiene side, but I promise you, if we're looking for every single thing those patients should be getting, you will always hit goal. I promise you, we don't set goals to make it to where it's like impossible or you have to do extra dentistry. We set them so we don't miss little things. And I think like, if you just have it that way where we remember, we do it, we chart prep.   Every person's chart prepping the night before, they're looking for their opportunities and we come to Morning Huddle to strategize how we're going to win. We can identify VIP patients to ask them for reviews and referrals. We can do challenges within our team of who's gonna get the most reviews in a day. There's so many little things that Morning Huddle can do and it's also a combination where we connect, we have a game plan and then we go and execute and go to work. So this is really something where it's like, let's use metrics in our Morning Huddle. Let's figure out how we're going to truly strategize and win.   and let's look for same day opportunities that we could use to, it's crazy, it's wild when you will use morning huddles like this of the strategy, the huddle to win the game, you will be insanely shocked at how much is there that you might be missing here and there. So these are the three non-sexy systems that every single productive practice has in place and they're incredibly good at it. And that is our block scheduling, our NDTR handoffs and our morning huddles that are setting us up to win.   This is something that will significantly improve your productivity and team alignment. Like they get everybody on the same page. We're rowing in the same boat. People are like, Carrie, I got to put all these systems in place. And I'm like, no, you don't. You just need to put the systems in place that are going to help you win. And that means winning on the number side for sure, but winning on team alignment, happier patients, getting out on time, more time with your family. Let's put those systems into place. Let's not be spending a lot of time wasted time on things that don't truly move the needle forward.   why we put systems into place. This is why we're obsessed with it. Because the reality is one small change. Any of these changes is going to radically improve your life. It's going to improve your practice and it's going to improve your happiness. So why not do it? And if you are struggling with this, you're like, gosh, Kara, I hear your podcast. I listened to you. I've heard you tell me this a hundred times. Book the call. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Book the call. Let's stop living in mayhem. Let's stop living in madness. Let's have expert consultants literally look at your practice, look at your numbers and put these things into place.   We had a doctor, I'll just pull this up, literally texted us their first month and said, I have never been as confident as I am working with the Dental A Team. I've worked with a lot of other consulting companies and in just one month, I already feel less stressed, more at ease and excited to come back to my practice. I was curious if I needed to sell my practice and now I'm confident that I can live here, be happy and enjoy dentistry again. It's in one month. So if that's you, if you feel like that, you're like, gosh, I just need this, book the call. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.   Make sure you're on our newsletter list. Make sure you're getting our tips. But more importantly, make sure you're getting the life and the practice that you deserve. Guys, we get one practice, we get one life, we get one opportunity. Let's make it the best we possibly can. For all of you listening, I'm so grateful for you. I know these things can be yours. I know you can put these systems into place and I encourage you to do it. It's your time. Execute. I put up on my mirror a long, long time ago. I said, don't just dream, do. This is the time for you to put the things into place that you know will move your practice forward.   Refine if you're already doing it and reach out. It's time. Let's do this. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Kiera shares a personal experience of reaching an incredible milestone but feeling depleted — and how she changed what being fulfilled meant. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and I feel like today's podcast is going to be, I don't know, we're about to find out how it lands. So I hope it lands incredible. It's a space of a little bit of vulnerability for me. And ⁓ it's going to be something where I'm probably going to read it more than I just riffed podcasts. I was asked by our marketing team to write some of my stories, some of the founder's stories, some of the pieces of my life journey. And as I wrote it, the first one, ⁓   the bulk of our team members said, Kiera, you should actually make that into a podcast. And I have thought about it and I decided, you know, I think I'm going to do it, but I don't know that I can rift it. Every single podcast I've ever done has been a nice rift for you. It's all knowledge, it's experience. I want to make it engaging. So I'm super curious how me reading one is going to land versus me telling you. And I might add some few embellishments because let's be real, I didn't write all the pieces of the story. And so I hope that it inspires you. ⁓   It's called the empty millionaire. And I feel like it's hopefully very relevant for a lot of you and maybe just walking you through the journey because as I've talked to a lot of different people about the millionaire journey, so many of us want to hit a million dollars. And so that's why I titled this one the empty millionaire. And so we'll see. Like I said, I have no clue how this is going to land. It's my first one. feel like very   really vulnerable. If you're even like watching this, my team's probably going to clip this part. Like my shoulders are hunched, like my arms are, my hands are in my pocket. Like my hands are a little sweaty. I hate when this happens. Like I don't really get sweaty hands thankfully, but like they're, they're a little more clammy than usual. ⁓ but I think it's because it's my story. It's my life. And, ⁓ I think on Dental A Team, one of the biggest things I've really always committed to is that no matter what I share on the podcast, you should always be able to peel back the curtain of Dental A Team and see exactly what we're doing, exactly who we are.   never wanted to make up stories because I feel like then you're trying to chase a false reality. And so this is my story, the empty millionaire. So hopefully you love it. And if not, then I'll never read a story again. So give us some feedback and we'll hear if you loved it, send it an email. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. If you didn't also send it an email. Don't worry. Our team fills that so you can be honest. They feel that they tell me so you won't hurt my heart. You won't break my feelings. But at end of the day, this podcast is for you more than it is for me. But thank you for allowing me to have a space to share. So   The Empty Millionaire by Cara Depp. So I had always envisioned what it would be like to hit $1 million. You live on the yacht or the beach house or the incredible mansion overlooking the ocean while drinking the fanciest drinks with your head back laughing and truly living life with zero stress. Happiness exploding on every level and feeling like you're on top of the world. This, in my opinion, was living. This, in my opinion, was the mountain that I was destined to climb and hit. This was my future. I literally imagined I could see myself like, ha ha ha, like sitting back there laughing like,   what you see, driving these fancy cars, looking at these exotic views, that's the million dollar ⁓ mission that I was destined to climb. And then I hit a million dollars in my bank account. I remember the day, it was in September, and where was I at? I was sitting in my apartment on my futon alone, like literally alone. My husband and I were talking about this story last night, and he's like, Kiera, tell me more about it. And I was like, Jace, you were actually at your niece's wedding.   There was a mariachi band, so when I tried to call and tell you, like, here, I can't hear you. There's this huge band playing in the background. Can I call you later? I had just finished an event with my team. My whole team had flown out. I was exhausted. I remember sitting on this futon. I saw our blinds swaying. And I was like, I hit it. I hit it. And I'm in an apartment, sitting on a futon alone, completely and utterly alone. My family wasn't there. I wasn't laughing. I felt empty.   I felt spent. I felt overwhelmed. I felt the weight of what I had created crushing the air out of me. Like I was so exhausted. I literally remember sitting there on my futon. Like I said, like I was laying on my futon. The reason the futon was there is because we'd had people come visit and our house was like so small that we had to like move our futon around to have it there. So I wasn't even sitting on our couch. I was sitting on this futon and I remember just laying down and I thought, hmm, I truly did not think that this is what this moment would feel like. I didn't think I'd be sitting here feeling like it took every ounce of energy to smile.   to show up for work, I was depleted, exhausted, overwhelmed, crushed, and empty. And the best word I think I have to describe was just hollow. Like I just felt hollow. And I'm like, yeah, I climbed this freaking huge mountain. Like I did it. Where was the yacht? Where was the laughter? Where was exploding happiness? Where was my fancy drink where I was sitting there overlooking the ocean, like laughing and being so just in pure euphoric bliss? And this was the moment I realized one million wasn't the destination.   Instead, it was all those feelings of exploding happiness and joy and carefree and totally living, like living, not just living, but living that I was chasing. ⁓ and I had been grinding away at an empty hollow dollar amount that was met with unhappiness, met with like sadness, met with loneliness. And it was this number and I'd been grinding away at it. And then I had this freaking lightning bolt moment. So it probably was such a blessing that I was sitting there. My husband's off to a wedding. Like, I was like, gosh, like I couldn't even go and be there because I'm grinding for this number.   But that wasn't actually true. These were just rules that I was pretending to tell myself that weren't true. And I had this lightning bolt moment. I call these lightning bolt moments because I feel like they hit you in an instant, they rock your soul, and they change the trajectory of your life. And I said, living is having your family and friends, relationships, being fulfilled, laughing so hard that your sides hurt, or whatever your variation of being utterly fulfilled and happy looks like. That's the million dollar life. And so a few things that I wanted you to consider as I wrote this out is,   What does your million dollar life look like? Create it, imagine it, really feel it. What does it look like? For me, it was sitting on this ocean balcony laughing so hard. ⁓ But what are the emotions that you really wanna feel? And if I look back and we listen back to what I said about the, it's being carefree, it's having a ton of fun, it's laughing so hard, it's being with family and friends, it's traveling the world, that to me, those are the emotions. I wanna feel free, I wanna feel fun, I wanna feel fulfilled.   I want to feel loved. I want to feel care, kindness, like expansion. Those are all the feelings that I wanted. And then the question is, what are you already doing that is your million dollar life today? Like, what is it? Even if you've hit a million and now this is your two million or your five million dollar life, like what are you already doing today that's a million dollar? Are you laughing? Are you happy? Are you having a good time? Like, I want you to see how much closer to this reality you are than you thought you were.   ⁓ And then my question is how can you create more of the million dollar life emotions today? So looking at my life I'm like, okay, if it's me sitting on this yacht, like I don't even know where I get this stuff. This is rifting. This is not reading anymore, just so you know. But I'm like, where do I even get these thoughts? Like, is it from the movies? But I'm like, no, what it is is it's fun. Like fun is one of my number one core values. I want to just have fun. And so I'm like, how can I create more fun in my life? How can I create more love and laughter? How can I create more deeper connection?   How can I create more travel and experiences of experiencing the world? And I'm like, wow, well, an easy way to experience is to like just experience around me in my own community. Like I have like Tahoe literally 20, 30 minutes away from my house. Why don't I go experience that and enjoy it? I have a lake just like not far away that I could go boating all the time on. That's something like instead of a yacht, like it's not quite the yacht. Cause honestly I don't want to yacht it. I just want to be on a boat on water. So how can I get more boat and water time in my life?   Well, great, we go to Hawaii all the time. It's so fun. We go surfing over there. Like that's what I was wanting to do. What if I, what can I do for more fun? Every single week there is fun put in my calendar. So when I talk about like what we do in our masterminds with our consulting, I tell people like figure out your life categories that are super important for you to feel fulfilled and like a balanced human, not equal, but balanced. Like where you're just, you feel an equilibrium, I think is a better way to put that.   And for me, fun is a huge portion of it. So every single week I make sure there is something freaking fun. It's written in pink in my journal because I know it's going to be like the fun and the highlight of my life. Those are the million dollar emotions that we're truly seeking when we're looking after that $1 million mark. Yes, there's financial gain to it, but the reality is like, I don't like to sit on a futon by myself. I don't like to be alone. I don't like to feel depleted. I don't like to feel exhausted. I don't care like the number of money.   I want to feel happy. I want to fulfill, be fulfilled. And what's wild is those emotions, the more you feel the emotions of that million dollar life, it actually is the momentum to create the million dollar life. You don't create the million dollar life through grinding it. Like clearly you can, but when you reach that summit, you reach that peak, it's actually not freaking fun. You actually want to feel those emotions and those emotions will fuel you because that's your soul. That's what you're looking for. That's the intention. Those are the moments that you're actually seeking. It's not that top summit peak.   So then my last question on this for you to consider is what are you going to do when you become a millionaire? And I want you to create the fire and excitement today and make the reality for you today. So like, what are you going to do for me? I'm like, I wish I would have done that. I was like, I just wanted it. Like I wanted to see it so hard. And then I got it. I'm like, sweet, my husband's gone. I didn't even attend the wedding. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm sitting on my freaking futon, which by the way, I still have the futon and I still love this futon. It was just like, I think it's so funny that like of all the places, of all the things.   That's where I was the day I did it. And I closed my phone and I'm like, huh. So it's like, why do you want to become a millionaire? I had never thought it was like for me, honestly, if I look back, was because I wanted to prove to people that I was worth it. That was it. That was literally why. Like when I look back at it, it's because someone told me once that I would never be anything more than a insert F word dental assistant. So they told me that I would be and it set me on this path to prove, to prove my worth.   to prove who I was. So for you, what is it for you? Is it, why do you wanna be a millionaire? Like truly, don't lie to me. I just told you my honest, ⁓ it was to prove myself. It was to prove my worth. And I realized, screw that. The person who said that's not even in my life anymore and yet I'm like chasing this summit versus like, why do I wanna, what do I wanna do with that? Well, gosh, Dental A Team's live to give is one of the greatest.   blessings in my life and it helps me see how I can give back for the beautiful life I have. Creating a space at work for all of my incredible teammates, like to give them their dream lives. my gosh, like that is so fulfilling for me to have that, to be able to ⁓ give my family like things that they never experienced and opportunities like, wow, like that's so much more like screw the yacht. Like let's be doing that. Like let me create experiences that just create magic moments for other people in my life that are going to just be so special for them.   To be able to do that, like that's the fire and excitement for me, but what is it for you? And I want you to start creating this million dollar life now. Million dollar lives are not something you stumble into when your bank account finally hits that million. Instead of being like so many millionaires, commit to truly living and loving that million dollar life today. There's no need to scale the million dollar mountain and hit the summit and feel unfulfilled, hollow and empty when you reach the top. Like truly that is so sad. And Tony Robbins has an incredible quote where it says, success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And I had it.   literally had it. And I feel like there's no need for that. Instead, you can feel the emotions that you're seeking today. And all those emotions will fill you, fuel you to reach that million dollar summit and hit that summit and have it where instead of being like Kiera sitting on the futon where my family's like nowhere around and I'm just like, wow, this is it. You actually can have the insane happiness, fulfillment, growth, whatever those emotions are. You can hit that and you can commit to that. That like when you pop the confetti, when you celebrate, you are doing   the million dollar life because you've already been living it. Now it's just like another milestone that you've achieved in your life. I want you to have like truly cheers to that million dollar life today. Start living, like living this today. Why wait? Why hold off on this happiness and all these emotions? Like why not just live it today? So I want you to commit to being happy, fulfilled and the joyous millionaire today. And just so you know, this is like truly very vulnerable of me. I'm on a mission.   to create a hundred happy fulfilled millionaires in the next decade of my life. I've really been thinking of what do I want in the next decade? What do want my 40 decade to be? And it hit me that I'm like, I used to say I wanted to help create a hundred millionaires, but I actually had a friend and she's like, here, I actually don't want the million dollar life that you've talked about so many times. Like you're stressed out on your mind all the time. You like never have time to work out. You're exhausted. She's like, I actually don't want that. And I was like, yeah, me neither. She's like,   but I want to be the happy fulfilled millionaire. And so I decided I'm on a mission to create a hundred happy fulfilled millionaires in the next decade of my life. And I'd honestly love for you to be one of them. like join us and like truly, if you want to be a part of this, join me, join us, join our company. Dentistry is our platform. Life is my passion. And truly I want you to start feeling all the happiness today on your journey to the million dollar summit ⁓ together. Like why not do it together? Why not have somebody who celebrates you? I'm like, what the heck? Like I sat there.   by myself. What? Like, no, there should be people that are celebrating, they're rocking it, that are like celebrating all these pieces. And so for you, if that sounds fun for you, you wanna be a part of it, join us. I'd to have you be a part of it because there's no reason for you to reach that. And even if a million dollars is not your goal, maybe it's 200,000, maybe it's 500,000, whatever your goal is, whatever that summit is, again, why do you want it?   Let's create it. Let's figure out those emotions that you're chasing. Let's create more of that. Let's give you that fuel and that fire to create more of that in your life because life is our gift. Like truly I think about, get this one life to live. And when I think about when I'm 90 or 100 or 150, what do I hope the feelings and emotions are that I feel? And I want to start creating that because to me, that's living. The million dollar mark is not living. The life and the person you become is living. So let's create that. Join us if you want, like I said.   Tell me if you loved this, tell me if you didn't. But this is my story. This is where I was. This is what I felt. And this is what I decided, forget that. I want to help people become happy, fulfilled millionaires in the next decade of my life because I believe that it can be so fulfilling because I know the person who does that is going to give back to this world, is going to have great impact, is going to serve their community, serve their patients, serve their team. Like now I'm on a mission. Like how can I help all my team members become this? How can I help the people that are around me become this?   Like let's give it because there's no limit at the top. Like it's not a summit, a peak where only like 10 people can be there. No, this thing is a freaking next level euphoria that we can create and we can change this world. There's no limit to the amount of money in this world. There's no limit to the growth and the goodness that we can create. And I want people who want to give back to create, to build this incredible world together ⁓ because that's where fulfillment is. That's where life is. So join us. And as always, I hope you think about this. I hope you reflect on it.   Team members, dentists aligned. ⁓ Let's figure out how we can have those million dollar lives. There was a survivor, I'm a big fan of survivor, and there was a guy on there, I think his name was Keith, and he always said, he had like a tattoo on his booty, like I'm not even joking, and it said, livin', L-I-V-I-N. And I've thought about that so much, and what am I doing today to be livin'? Like this is livin', and looking at all the magic moments in my life right now that are my million dollar livin' life.   Again, million dollar I think is a societal piece. The reality is we want the rich, fulfilled, happy, living life today, no matter what our bank account is, no matter what our financial state is, because that is going to create more of that. I'm not here to say that striving for the million dollars is not a great goal, ⁓ but it's something where I really want you to see why do you want it. So when you reach that summit, AKA the euphoria space, that you are so fulfilled, that you are so happy.   that you are vibrant rather than hollow, bleak and unsatisfied. There's no point to grind your life away. We get one life, it's our gift, it's our special opportunity. So let's make it the most magical version of you. Join us, I'd love to help you. It's truly a huge passion of mine and something so special to be able to share, share everything I learned, share all the pieces. So that way, instead of your story of being the empty millionaire, your story is the fulfilled, the vibrant, the exuberant, the...   Like, whatever it is, the victorious, the so happy, whatever it is, millionaire is you. And as always, thanks for listening. And I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Tiff and Kristy take a look at patient privacy and the regulatory compliance associated with that privacy, including HIPAA and OSHA. They touch on their own experiences with compliance, how to better educate your practice, what not to do, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:  The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I have Kristy on crew with me. We have a slew of podcasts we're recording and just some really, really exciting information. We're gonna make it as exciting as we can, at least, that we wanna get out to you. We are more than halfway through the year, which is pretty massive. And so we're gonna be talking about...   a ton about how to end the year, things and pieces to look forward to, things you should be doing now to wrap up for the end of the year, and realistically things to look forward to for the upcoming year, which at this point of recording is 2026. So no matter what year you're listening to us, a lot of this should still be incredibly valuable. Kristy, I am so excited you're here with me today. Thank you so much for clearing your schedule, being here.   being open to this and just always coming with some really invaluable information for our listeners. How are you today, Kristy?   DAT Kristy (01:00) It's a good summer day and a good day to be with you as well. So happy to do it.   The Dental A Team (01:04) Thank you,   thank you. And for those of you who may not know, Kristy, Kristy lived in Arizona a long time ago. she originally, like her formative years were here, but then she left Arizona for quite a little while and she's recently relocated back to the desert. And she decided to come right at the beginning of summer, which I used to tell people like,   don't move here in the summer, like come in different months. But then I started realizing, I'm like, well, if you move here in the summer, you get the worst of the worst. And then the rest of the year is like icing on top of the cake. So Kristy, I actually think you did it in the right direction. And I keep telling you, I think you brought some awesome weather with you this year because we have not broken record heat this year for like the first time ever.   Honestly, we keep breaking records every year and I'm like, these are records we don't need to break. And this year, I think the record has been that it's been so nice. Like it truly, truly has been really light summer. So Kristy, thanks for bringing your weather with you and giving us a little reprieve here in Arizona. So I told you we're going to make these as fun as we possibly can. You guys, we always aim for that fun is actually one of our core values. So it's something we work really, really hard for.   I say that today because I really wanted to talk to you guys about some regulatory compliances, which just even in those words sounds like womp womp, right? Like we're just, how do you make that exciting? Well, with the Dental A Team, Dental A Team can make anything exciting. We can have fun with whatever we want in everything. We truly believe that if we're not having fun, why are we even doing it? So it doesn't mean that things aren't hard, things aren't difficult, that you won't have to push through hard things. It just means that there should be fun on the other side.   and it shouldn't be, you know, tears of pain the whole way through. So here we are, regulatory compliance. You guys know that this is actually really important in the dental industry. You guys have all heard of OSHA. So we'll dive into a little bit on the OSHA, but you guys have also heard of HIPAA. And I have to say, and Kristy, you can tell me what your thoughts are as well, I have to say that when I was in practice, like physically working in an office, we never talked about HIPAA.   We talked about OSHA constantly, like OSHA is going to come in and you've got to have everything six inches from the ceiling and off these certain walls. And you've got to have so many fire extinguishers and the fire escape plans and like all of these, you know, barriers and masks and gloves and don't wear gloves outside the door. All of these pieces for OSHA safety compliance, but   I never heard about HIPAA. I knew as a front office team member that patients had to sign the HIPAA forms and that they had to update them every so often, but I didn't actually know what it was. And when patients would ask me like, oh, what am I signing? I'm like, ah, it just says we're not going to give away your information. Right. And I'm like, I don't know if that's what it says or not, but like, that's what I heard someone say. And so I'm just repeating it. Right. So Kristy, I don't know if you had a different experience in office, but I really truly felt like until   I had to train people on it until I had to be like, no, you have to do HIPAA in the office. And until as a company, we had to start taking our own HIPAA courses every year. I had no idea exactly what it meant for a dental office. And Kristy, you may have had a different experience, but tell me what was your experience when it came to HIPAA in your dental practices that you've worked in?   DAT Kristy (04:36) Yeah, my experience   was actually you made me laugh. It was very similar to yours. I think it was what around 2013 that those forms came out and it was pretty funny because when it first started even patients were funny about it. Like I remember this big long form and you'd hand it to patients and say the same thing. ⁓ it just means we're not going to sell your information or give it to anybody and patients would start reading it and they're crossing things out. And then I'm asking my doctor like how   The Dental A Team (04:50) Yeah.   Yeah.   DAT Kristy (05:06) can they just rewrite it?" And he's like, it doesn't matter. It is what it is. It's just a form. And yeah, so really I started the same place you did. And then later years, ⁓ we ended up doing more formal training on HIPAA. But yeah, started in the same place.   The Dental A Team (05:23) Yeah, I remember   those sheets. They were like longer than it was. It was like a car contract.   where was like you had to fold it a certain way, like they were longer than the rest of the sheets and my patients did the same thing. They're like, well, I don't really agree with this. Like, and they just cross it off and then initial it. And I'm like, all right, like whatever, I just need to scan it into your document center. Like that's all I've got here, right? And if it's like in the paper folder, I had to like fold it so that it would fit. yeah, it was around 2013 and it was like so odd. And then every year they had updates to it. And I was like, I don't know what any of this means, except I did know at the bottom.   them it said, if we were to release your information, who would you want it released to? So my point of that is it's   2025 right now, I don't know what year you're gonna listen to this. 2013 we started this and it took many years for any of us to really learn and understand what it meant, let alone our patience even know and understand what it means. But it is incredibly invaluable and I'm not here to teach you HIPAA by all means, that is never my gig ⁓ or OSHA, but I do know that there are plenty of courses and even just like online forums or...   whatever that will go through it. There are two sides to it and they're incredibly important, especially for business owners. So doctors and owners out there, my doctor too, I was like, what is this? Just like Kristy, what you said, can they do this? He's like, I don't know. Just like, it's just a new form that they told us we need to do. So just do it. And I'm like, okay. He had no idea what it meant either. He just knew it was really important. So.   Doctors go get versed in it. We actually have to take a compliance course every year. All of us do for HIPAA compliance on the medical side, but then also on the business side. And that comes down, it boils down to really privacy, right? And what that looks like. And it actually will take you through what it looks like as far as electronic privacy, verbal privacy, ⁓ patient charts, like how long do you have to keep things? Where should they be kept? Like certain   certain things that honestly and truly your front office is looking up all the time. I don't know how many times I asked like wait a second how long do we have to keep these x-rays for? Wait how long do we have to keep these boxes of files for? Like we're going digital which crazily enough there's still plenty plenty of practices out there that are not digital. ⁓   I know some near and to my heart that are not digital. So like, I remember, but it's just these, these file boxes that you get from Staples and you put them together and we're putting the files in there and we're marking the year that we put them in there so that we could wait the right amount of time. But still in the back of my head, I'm like, is this even right? Like, am I waiting enough time? We would put the date that we boxed it and then the date that it could be destroyed, like, you know, destroy date.   But still I was like...   ⁓ this is still kind of scary. Like, am I doing this right? So my suggestion is to always make sure that you take those courses and that you're well versed in it, especially as a business owner. And I'm saying this after you're three of having to take the HIPAA course online for business compliance for our company, because it's really hard, you guys. I'm not gonna lie. When I go through it, it's like, Karen, I have this game that we play on who's going to get the better score. And to truth be told, like, it's like a barely   passing score and we're like how did how am I still not getting this we read through the stuff we tell we watch the videos and we get to the end and we're like what the heck I still didn't understand it so go take those courses it's just online it's super easy I'm sure we can throw you over a link if you want it so HIPAA I actually wanted to spend some time instilling in you the importance because I think the only thing we hear in dentistry is OSHA and we know so much of the OSHA stuff   But with that said, you also need to focus in on the OSHA. And Kristy, I don't know if you guys had this one too. I had that big red OSHA book that always went in the same spot up above the dental assistance computer so that we always knew where it was. We had the OSHA one, we had the MSDS sheets, and it was like, you did not mess with these books. They were always updated, the, you know, needle stick protocol. But still, you'd go in there and you're like somebody, somebody stuck themselves and you're just like,   frazzle and you're like I don't know what to do even though we've got this OSHA book that tells us what to do it was still a lot so Kristy how did how did you guys do HIPAA and OSHA within your practices like how did you make sure that we you guys had everything that you needed and then how do you train offices to do that now?   DAT Kristy (10:06) Yeah, that's   It's a good thing that you're touching on it because it's one of those things that I think even offices tend to not do because it's so complex. I will say ⁓ we just made it part of our yearly routine. And this is perfect timing because we're coming to the end of the year. And as we're future planning for next year, even setting our goals for the practice and all of that, looking at the calendar and making sure those days are marked out, just like you would your CPI.   The Dental A Team (10:14) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (10:37) are, you know, make sure your OSHA is booked every year in your ⁓ HIPAA training because they are serious, right? And they're one of those things, especially like OSHA, it could shut you down if you weren't compliant. So it is very necessary, but I would say do it as part of your yearly planning and just make sure it's booked on your schedule every year.   The Dental A Team (11:02) I totally agree with you. And I think one piece with that is to make sure you guys understand it too. I know that for us, in my practice, we always stressed about the OSHA because we were like, if they ever come in. And that's like one space of it, right? For sure, you want to be compliant. You want to have the right spaces. If they were to come in, you want to have everything you were supposed to have for sure. But on the flip side of that, like the reason that they do that isn't because they want to come in and like give you a bad grade or get you   in trouble, right? They do it because they actually want you utilizing the information. They want you knowing it and they want it to be helpful in keeping your business safe. And so   not only making sure that you're compliant for the passing grade, but that you're compliant in the fact that you understand it and you're able to use it because it really is truly beneficial for your practice. And there are actually some really valuable pieces in there, just like CPR. Like we have to take CPR to be compliant, but the day that you have to use it is the day you're like, thank God that they made me do that. Right. Like, gosh, this could have been really bad. Right. The day that my son   bless his freaking four-year-old heart at the time, decided to put gummy worms in his frozen yogurt and they turn into rocks and he's choking on it in the middle of the frozen yogurt store and I, thank God, knew what to do to...   pull it out of his mouth and make sure he doesn't have to resuscitate him, all of these pieces, right? We undervalue things because we think we have to do it because someone's telling us to. And if we don't, we're gonna get a bad grade or we're gonna get a slap on the wrist or whatever. Yes and. Like, Kristy, I love when you say yes and. This is a yes and situation. Yes, get the good letter grade, don't get a slap on the wrist, don't get a fine and.   save lives with this information too. HIPAA, you're not going to save a life, but guess what? It's better to be super safe because, I mean, honestly, cybersecurity is wild. And I have had many practices while consulting that have been hacked. And I don't know if you all remember a couple of years ago now, was it last year maybe? Yeah, all of the insurances got hacked and we were without insurance payments for three or four months. We couldn't even submit claims. Like it was wild.   these things do happen and if you're not HIPAA compliant, if you don't know what it means, things aren't stored correctly, you just you have a lot of patients that could be in a lot of trouble. So not only are you going to get in trouble from a business standpoint with you know the regulatory compliance people,   but you're putting your patient's information and your own information at risk. You've got payroll documents on there. You've got your team's information on there. There's a lot of very sensitive information that's stored on there. So OSHA is incredibly valuable. Know it, train on it. I know we used to do quarterly training for OSHA. We'd add it into our monthly team meeting. We'd do a two hour monthly team meeting and at least 30 minutes of that once a quarter would be OSHA training. And so it would be training on a   certain subject from the OSHA book. They literally give it all to you ⁓ and then what I would do now is actually add in some of that HIPAA training with it like quarterly, monthly, however you guys want to do it and yearly, especially making sure that we're all reviewing it, that we're all up to date, that we all understand it and we understand any changes because they change them at the drop of a dime and Kristy, I don't know if you've ever received a letter from OSHA saying, hey, these are the updates but I have not.   I've never seen anything that was just like, guess what? We've updated and changed. So you guys have to go out and look for that information on your own.   Kristy, how did you handle, I know in my practice we had two people. We had one that was responsible for OSHA and then one that was responsible for HIPAA, which at that point, you know, just made sure that we did the sheets. Now we know there's much more involved to it, but how did you handle that in your practice as far as someone like the accountability piece to it? And I never wanted the accountability myself, my doctor.   He's a very busy man. Personally, professionally very busy. I ran his schedule ragged. He was constantly on the move. There's no way on this earth.   that he was ever going to be able to hold anything accountable, especially Osher or HIPAA. So I never made him the owner of that. And then as the office manager, I tried to stay out of that lane as well because I didn't want it to get mixed up in other pieces. But Kristy, how did you handle it in your practice and how do you see practices now handling that kind of responsibility and accountability piece?   DAT Kristy (15:46) Yeah. ⁓   Honestly going back to what you said, it's it's having a champion, right? It doesn't mean that they're the only one responsible but somebody that is the point person that ⁓ Is checking on those things and reporting back? You know how it kind of makes me think of when you go into a restroom at a chain store one of those and they have those Checklists about they check the bathroom at a certain time using something like that to know   The Dental A Team (16:15) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (16:18) ⁓ Because even your fire drills guys we're supposed to have fire drills and make sure team right on Boarding did we teach them where the I wash station is did we show them our? Meetup area if something happens, so It's important and like I said have that point person that can report back   The Dental A Team (16:22) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (16:38) Potentially in one of your team meetings just check on it. Just make sure it's like we do our checklist and chart audits ⁓ I was gonna circle back to you too because I won't name names But we all heard of the corporate entity that also got hacked, right? It's maybe been a couple years now, but you know Think of that they they're a big nationwide chain lots of money, right? And so even if they it happened to them like us as little   The Dental A Team (16:40) Yeah.   Yeah.   DAT Kristy (17:08) guys that don't have that kind of money to spend, we have to be very diligent. I would also do like chart audit type thing. Maybe not necessarily chart, but listen, listen to your admin people. Are they breaching HIPAA in conversations? You know, are they checking IDs? Are we even getting photo IDs from patients?   The Dental A Team (17:18) Yeah.   No, most places   are not getting photo IDs.   DAT Kristy (17:34) Yeah.   And a lot of people, you know, they look, well, we want to know who's coming in. So we want to get your photo. No, don't share your secrets. But on the same token, like it is part of compliance. And if, if you guys have ever heard of red flag rule, if you're accepting insurance, you have a due diligence to make sure that that person is who they say they are. And I have experienced where somebody came in portraying they're somebody else. So ⁓ they're little things, but they can be.   big things and just like that corporate entity it was flashed all over the news and so it's also about saving our reputation those things are hard to come back from.   The Dental A Team (18:16) I totally agree. That's a really great point. And I don't think I know many practices, maybe a handful, that really truly understand the value of the ID portion of it. And I do hear that too, like, we want to know who's coming in. Yeah, but your ID is not going to... A lot of practices will use it for both, and I think that's great. But my picture on my ID, you're never going to know that it's me, right? But at least you took it. It's got my information. It's got my statistics, my demographics that match up   within my insurance card because that does happen constantly.   constantly patients or practices are reporting that they've had patients that come in with the insurance, but it's not actually the person who's on the insurance card. happens a lot. And as you're taking payments as well, like, you know, I'm, I'm surprised we don't get asked more often for our credit cards, but when, or for our ID with our credit cards, but when I do, I'm always like thrown off. But then at the same time, I'm like, actually, thank you for caring enough about my safety, right? My electronic safety that someone's not using my credit card. Who's not actually them. Cause that has happened.   I have had those charges pop up that my credit card is like someone's at Circle K trying to use $5 and they're just like testing it, right? So I do appreciate that and I value it and I think our patients would too. But it is a piece of the record keeping that you're supposed to have if you are going to accept insurance from those patients. So it is a massive piece. that was a great, great point, Kristy. Biggest takeaway today, you guys, two biggest takeaways. Go figure out what HIPAA is if you don't know what it is, medical and   and business like standing business HIPAA, go figure both of those things out. Make sure that you're OSHA compliant, that you've got your book, you've got your sheets, you've got everything that you're supposed to have and that you're training on both of those because those make them compliant as well. And then make sure you've got point people to ensure that these trainings are happening to ensure that we're up to date with everything we're supposed to have. So super easy, you guys, you just you got to dig in and do the work. And I challenge you guys to go take that HIPAA test. It's hard.   Even after taking the course that leads up to it, it is not easy. and I both have struggled with that sucker. So I challenge you to go take that ding test and tell me you know anything about HIPAA. HIPAA? OSHA? K?   Just be compliant, you guys, and figure out an easy way. Like Kristy said, schedule it every year. Schedule it out. You've got your Ops manual update, so do your Ops manual update, your OSHA update, your HIPAA updates, and then make sure that you've got a point person probably for each of those, and they should be three separate people in my opinion if you've got the capacity within your staffing to do it. Kristy, thank you so much for your nuggets and for letting me probe questions over to you about your past as well. You have always, always amazing points.   So thank you for being here with us. Is there anything else you can think of that I missed in that wrap up that they should be doing?   DAT Kristy (21:09) No, I think you hit it all. The only thing we didn't touch on was make sure you're doing PCI compliance because you mentioned credit cards and taking them. There's still a ton of practices that I go in and they're writing down cards. Guys, get rehearsed. You could be putting yourself into ⁓ some situations by doing that. So that would be the only other one that I would add in the mix.   The Dental A Team (21:15) there.   That's a that's actually a really good point. And I've had a couple of practices text me some office managers and be like, what does this mean this PCI like people don't know what that means. And they don't know what that is. So make sure your office managers do know what that is. It goes right along with HIPAA. And those two go hand in hand. So just make sure, again, that you're not running the team that's like, I don't know, we're just supposed to sign this that they actually know what they're for. Because with a reason behind it, things get done. So that was massive, Kristy, thank you for remembering the PCI compliance. Alright, guys, go do   the things they're not really that hard except for that HIPAA test and I do challenge you to go take it because I just want to hear from you on how fun it was. But go do the things if you ever need anything you guys know where to find us Hello@TheDentalATeam.com we are here to help you I know that we do the HIPAA test every year you guys know especially if you're my clients I don't actually know   the link for that, we can get it for you. So Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We can send you the information for the company that we utilize within our team and our company. Just let us know. And as always, drop a five star review. We'd love to hear what you thought about this. And if you have any regulatory information or things that you'd like to share, put it in that review because people really do read through those and they'll catch it as well. Thanks so much, guys. We'll catch you next time.  

Kiera takes listeners behind the scenes of Dental A-Team, sharing what exactly happens in Doctor Mastermind conversations. This includes unfiltered Kiera and consultants sharing top-level expertise, elite doctors sharing secrets of the trade, wealth diversification conversations, and so much more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and I hope today's just a great day. I really do hope that you're thriving and not just surviving right now. I hope that you're fulfilled and you're not just living there, going along and really disliking your life because I believe we get one life. So let's make it the most fun that we possibly can. You guys today, I wanna take you behind the scenes of Dental A Team. Like let's take you behind the curtain and just kinda let you see what goes on behind the scenes.   There's some really awesome things that Dental A Team is doing and I feel like it's really fun to just know like, okay, what does consulting look like behind the scenes? What things do you have in place? And I wanted you to see like what happens behind the scenes. We have Dr. Masterminds, ⁓ what happens in there, what happens with your team meetings? What does it look like? And so if you've ever been curious of what's behind the scenes in consulting, well, welcome. I wanted to take you behind the scenes. So just so you know, Dental A Team was created to help doctors and practice owners ⁓ not just survive, but thrive.   to help teams not just survive but thrive, to be able to say yes to more things in your life by being focused on what you as a person want to achieve, improving your leadership, improving your life and like truly your personal life, making sure your business is working for you and not the other way around. We also do it on profitability, making sure you're profitable, that the cash flow is there, that it's predictable, that you understand where your numbers are at and then having systems and team development. We call that the yes model so you can say yes to more in your life. So you, earnings, system and team development. And that's really what our.   the whole thing about consulting is. So what we do is we literally take you and we have an introductory call and we look to see what your practice is like, where your gaps are, and basically build a game plan with you of what is this gonna look like over the next 12 months together. And we decide, hey, where are you at? you a practice where we're gonna fly into your practice? Is this a practice where we're going to just do virtual calls with you? What's going to be the best option? And I will say our most popular and what most people want is someone to fly to the practice. ⁓ And so behind the scenes, what happens from there is once we decide what...   what type of consulting is going to be best for you and your practice. From there, then you get paired with a consultant. You're like, how do you know the consultants? I'm like, well, my background needs to be marriage and family therapy. Like literally, I'm really good at reading people and 90 % of the time we get a perfect match. And what we're looking for is your practice needs the consultant skills and what they've done because all of our consultants have a clinical and front office experience and they've all had to grow multiple practices. So some come from DSO.   All of them have had to come from private practice. They literally have been there, done that, done it successfully. And we're looking for personality types. Are you going to jive? Some consultants are very high energy and some are a little more lower energy, more calm. ⁓ What's going to pair well with your team? What's going to be like, I remember there was one office and they said, Kiera, my team. There I was like, wow, Kiera comes in with a lot of energy. We get.   along better with no BS Brit, which is true. Brit doesn't come in looking like she's a hummingbird on Monster. She walks in a calm, cool, collected. She's chill. Some offices need a hummingbird on Monster. Others need a Brit who's more calm, cool, collected. So we're looking at experience, personality fit, and then also what's going to truly drive and get the results you're looking for. So that's really how we match you with your consultant. Then after that, your consultant, you and them, get on calls. We get on calls every other week.   So we're really working with you to make sure that there's accountability, but it's not too often and you're not depending on us, but you have time to actually make some headway in between those. So it's set calls. So you always know perfect. I've got my set calls. They're also really good accountability check-ins. So I have a personal trainer and we used to do only virtual and I had a call with her all the time and I actually did better on my workouts than I do when I see her in person because I knew we had a set call and I had to show up with my results because she was going to ask me about them. And that's actually why we have these set calls.   So you always follow through on the accountability because we're really big on making sure that what we commit to, what we put into place, we're truly driving results forward. You do not need to be perfect. We just need to make sure that we're getting the results we want. We're tracking our numbers. We're looking at the P &Ls. We're looking at your KPIs. We're looking at your team. And we're also talking about the issues and the growth of where you want to go in your practice. So we've got those two calls. And then in between those two calls, you literally get to texts, calls, emails, whatever you need. At any time you have a consultant in your pocket, any moment. So whatever comes up, because business does not happen on set cadences.   at the most random times. So you always have a consultant at your fingertips. And then I think the part that I really wanted to show you behind the scenes is every single month we have a doctor mastermind. It's the first Tuesday of the month and we call it think tank Tuesday. And this is where I ⁓ tell all of our doctors, this is where you're basically hanging out in Kiera's living room, virtually. Right? Like I want you to just like let your hair down. I don't care if you're making dinner. I don't care if your kids are there. I want you as a human. I don't care if you're driving home. I don't care if you're at the swim meet. We have doctors.   all over the place because this is your real life. And I want you to just pretend like we're hanging out in a living room, let your hair down. There are no team members allowed at these think tanks because I want doctors to fill a safe space where they can talk about it they can talk about with other doctors of what's going on. What do they suggest? On here we have guest speakers that come in. We also, a lot of times this is my mastermind. This is my billion dollar club group where I just want to hang out and I want to talk about things that aren't talked about all the time.   So for example, last month we went through and we did one on a P &L deep dive. And these are things that I do not share on the podcast. These are things that are not shared publicly. These are things that I reserved specifically. So it's the 10 % that's reserved for only our Dr. Mastermind. And I'm really digging deep with them and I'm showing them things that we specifically do in our company. So things that I'm not going to necessarily publicly announce on the podcast. I share a lot of our life here, but we actually went through an entire P &L deep dive and we showed them exactly what we do in our company and how we do it how you can get your office managers there.   and how you're able to look for the profitability, how we set up projections, how we're able to grow and scale, how we're able to get right people, right seats. We did another one with org charts and we broke it down. We brought in ⁓ Prosperity and Brian Harris talking about embezzlement, things that we will never share publicly, but specifically for our doctors. We bring in different guest speakers. ⁓ bring in, we have them like work on different business models. I did one where we worked on a lemonade stand to show them how they can in crisis mode on their business, pivot, shift and adjust.   We often will do like an issues list of what's going on, what are the hot topics people are dealing with, and then let's collectively work on it. So we have a doctor who's going through some interesting things with legal within their practice and using the whole team. We have another practice that's struggling with their finances and using collectively the whole team will sometimes hot seat our offices and let them work together. So really it's, I would say it's my most high level material that ever comes forward. And I think when you see behind   behind the curtain of what's happening in the Stockroom Master Room. Like I said, you get to attend, parts of it are recorded, but then I always do what's called the after party. The after party is where I feel like it's ⁓ Kiera unfiltered. ⁓ There are no cameras going, there's nothing being recorded, there's no AI bots allowed to be in there. It is literally Kiera unfiltered. And we will talk about where we think the world's going, what we think we need to be prepared for, what we think about political pieces.   These are things that honestly I will not publicly ever speak about and I only reserve them for our doctor mastermind. And the rules of it are there is no recording. And if I ever find out that people are recording, they will be immediately dismissed because we need a space in this world as business owners and as colleagues and as entrepreneurs to be able to speak freely, to be able to speak safely, to be able to share what's on our hearts, to be able to talk about team members without our team members being there. Team members don't worry, it's not in a negative way. It's truly like, hey, I'm struggling.   I don't know what to do with this and I need help. Because what I found is in business ownership, it can be so lonely. can be so just ⁓ sad, if you will. It can be like, gosh, I feel like I just need help. And so what we wanted is to create this space. Like I said, you're hanging out in my living room. We're having these ⁓ dinner conversations, if you will, of whatever's on your mind. And it's just, it's really fun. And I feel like it's, people have told me that they absolutely love being a part of Think Tank, because it's a space where people come and they,   They just, I feel like it's something where they just are able to be themselves. It's the first time you're not expected to be a doctor. You're not expected to be the one who knows everything. You're not expected to do X, Y, or Z. None of those things are an expectation. You're able to just show up and be. You're able to show up and feel safe. You're able to show up and just hang out. And so a lot of the pieces that we've been doing are, we also have like doctors. We have some of our elite doctors share secrets that they do in their practice. So.   people on how they do branding, other people on DSO conversations. We literally had a very ⁓ controversial think tank where we brought in and we talked to pros and cons of DSOs and should I sell to DSOs and what do people think and what are people navigating because it's so hard. It's hard to find out ⁓ like, what are we going to do and how are we going to do this? And like, what are the different pieces and what should I do and how do I navigate through this of people that truly are like-minded?   that are just like you. And so other things that we have are like wealth diversification. We're talking a lot about wealth and where we're going to go with wealth and how we're going to be able to do these things and multi practices. Should we do it or should we not do it? Should we, ⁓ how do we create one through 10 year plans? ⁓ Team conversations. Tiffany does an amazing job of talking leadership and hard conversations and ⁓ strategies like billing strategies again that we're not sharing on the podcast. And so really just showing you like behind the scenes we bring in.   We had a really awesome guest come in and talk to us about how to use resources and tools to hire better and get right people right seats. Talking about like, we have some authors that come and speak to us. We have some clinical dentistry. We have offices talk about how they're able to scale and grow and real talk. Like, what are we really afraid of? Like, what's really going on in our world? Let's talk about identity loss. Like, what happens when you stop having your practice? Like, what are you going to do there? And   just different zones, different areas. ⁓ Doctors who are really smart, we had a doctor come and chat with us about associate onboarding and how they're able to get their associates producing over a hundred grand like six to eight months into practice, like to hiring them. Like that's a huge feat that most aren't able to do. And this is straight out of school. And so sharing those tips, sharing those resources, ⁓ I think is one of the most valuable pieces of our consulting because... ⁓   business owner. attend Tony Robbins. I'm in Tony Robbins elite coaching where I literally have been to his house. There's about 40, 50 of us that go and I put myself in those circles to be able to bring back information to our group of things that like I'm working with multi-million billionaires across the board, rubbing shoulders with them, asking them of things, getting resources, figuring out like what are their VA companies that they're using for virtual assistants? How are they growing? How are they scaling? There's people in medical, there's people in real estate learning from   Ray Dalio speaking to us on wealth diversification, talking to really brilliant people to find out to make sure that I am living my best, highest self to then also bring back to our doctors. Our teams are bringing back things that they're hearing from offices to be able to bring their best pieces to help them create org charts and clarity and whatever it is, those are the pieces that we're bringing into our think tank. And like I said, being an owner.   Seeing this, I wanted people to truly figure out how can I do this? Like, can I, how can we create this? How can we build this? How can we sustain this? And so having that as a space every single month for our doctors. And some months I think we have better topics than others, but always the after party is a place where I feel like people really truly come to unite, to help each other, to grow. And I think it's just a really special place. So we have our, your specific practice consulting, then we have where we'll fly to your practice. And in that day and a half, had a   really awesome testimonial from a client. said, Kiera, Tiff, Britt, Dental A Team, what you guys are able to accomplish in a day and a half visit is what it usually takes me six to 12 months to accomplish. And I feel like that is something of just huge appreciation and gratitude because our consultants really do drive value. This is not an office that I consult, it's another consultant on our team. And I feel like just knowing that that's the value of us coming into your practice, like that's the ROI that I can't explain to you until you've experienced it. It is.   getting your whole team aligned, it's getting things in place, it's fixing little things that you didn't even know were a problem that we see in other offices that we can come execute and implement for you. And really getting your whole team aligned in such a fun, easy way. So we're working on doctor, we're working on leadership, we're working on case acceptance, we're working on getting team alignment, we're listening to hygiene exams, we're looking at your numbers and metrics. ⁓ And then what we're really doing is every single month we're assessing you as a person, your earnings and profitability and the systems and team development. What do we need to do based on those numbers?   And then in addition to that, we have one other fun thing behind the scenes curtain of our consulting where we actually come in person for these in-person doctor and office manager or leadership masterminds. And they are so special. These are really like being in a very intimate setting. So we cap it right now. It's around 50 people that we bring in and we we do life and business on purpose. And so we teach you how to do like the last time we taught people how to life map and how to look at their entire life, because we were like, how do I have time to do it all?   And it's like, let's actually teach you how to do it in a very strategic way. We did leadership hard conversations and how to make hard conversations easy. And we actually practiced with each other. So we actually lined up office managers and doctors from other offices and had them actually ask the questions and role play with someone who's not your person to give them feedback on how they could actually land these conversations better with their teammates and to have both doctor and office manager they're learning.   We did almost like speed dating where we had people go with other offices and ask their questions and give value. So it's always a give and receive within our community. We hot seated offices, so like your biggest pressing issues and had a group of people help you out on it. We had everybody like list off all the issues that they're dealing with in the practice and made this giant list of issues and actually started collectively as a group, solving it, sharing resources. And it was probably one of my favorite pieces of the entire event where we all worked together to solve.   We did a deep dive on the P &L and chart of accounts and teaching people how to look at them and saving for taxes and saving for their buckets and creating the fun in life and helping team members understand this as well. And just doing it in a really positive life on purpose, business on purpose. Like we had people tell us that those in-person masterminds were worth their entire year of consulting by the value that they got, the energy that they got, the... And then we do it a day and a half. Like we have five people in Thursday night, if they want to hang out, they do not need to.   We're there all day Friday and it's half day Saturday so you can fly home. We try to make it really awesome, really easy, really intentional, ⁓ but where it's high value. And then everybody hangs out Friday night together. We wanted it to be a networking opportunity and something really awesome that we did that I don't think a lot of other people do is we built it to where we had people's strengths. And so if I'm struggling with ⁓ office management leadership, we've literally listed off the office managers or the doctors that were there. And if they were really good at it.   who you should go talk to and made it really easy for people to network, to connect, to share ideas. We had AI innovation. Just again, things that are not shared publicly because I wanted, there's a zone where I want to give as much value to this world. There's also a zone of there's 10 % that I will never speak publicly about. It's a space where I want to hold it back for our clients, not because I don't want to share it, but because.   It's stuff of, it's maybe a little highly charged, ⁓ sharing opinions and doing it in a safe way where you know that you're not judged and that people want to hear the ideas and it's safe and it's a space for us to have deeper conversations, more in depth, working on your practice for you and really ensuring that we're driving your results. And so that hopefully is just like a sneak peek behind the curtain. And what does consulting look like? What do we do in these doctor masterminds? What do we do on these calls?   Like I said, it's always looking at your numbers. It's always looking at your systems, looking at you and your vision in your life and making sure we're getting the results for you. And like I said, collectively across the board, we're always giving at least a 30 % increase in production. Now again, some are higher, some are lower. You've got to show up to the table too. We are incredible at what we do, but it's a two-way street. You've got to be ready for it. It's just like, can't expect my gym trainer to get me six pack abs when I'm eating candy every single meal and I'm not working out. That's impossible. She gave me the plan. She gave me the map. She did everything she was supposed to.   I also have to show up. And so it's two way. But I think having someone there, having somebody who checks in on you, somebody who's not going to let you fail, somebody who's so committed to you and your results and your team on your side, it's a cheerleader behind the scenes. It's one of the greatest gifts I think we could ever give any business owner and team. And that's something I think that's just really special that sets the only team apart is we do this specifically for you.   and your team. We're not just expecting you to take everything back and go implement with your team. So we hear you in our doctor masterminds, we hear you in our visits and we get the whole team bought in as well. have implementation days to help your team get bought into it. That way it's not all on your shoulders, doctors. It's not all on your shoulders. And so I thought it would just be fun today of like what really happens in these mastermind calls, what really happens in these in-person events, what really happens when you fly to our practices. And what I will tell you is as a business owner, I believe in RO.   And so our team knows, we always say Dental A Team equals results. And our team has passion for excellence and results focused to make sure that you're getting the results you want, to make sure that we are delivering at the highest value. And I will tell you, it is magic to watch offices change. is magic to watch people get their lives back. It's magic to watch people get excited and reinvigorated over dentistry when they lost that passion and that sparkle of something that they loved so much. So that just inspires you. If you're like, gosh, I really am curious if I'd be a good fit.   Like I said, I'm really sticky on making sure that we have this great community of humans. Consultants are joining us from other consulting companies and like, Carrie, I don't know what you do. You bring in the best people. And I'm like, well, great. That makes me so happy. And it really is that I want people that are like-minded. I want people that are excited. I want people that want to give and to receive. I want people who are committed to themselves. I want people who want to live life on purpose, who want to do business on purpose, who, even though they don't know all the answers, they're not afraid to ask the questions. ⁓   that are willing to help their fellow neighbor to show up and to talk about things that aren't necessarily publicly talked about and to share opinions in a safe space and to hold space for one another with no judgment, but true like care and curiosity. I want people who know that there's a higher, a next level and they want to go for it. I want people who are curious about the future. I want people who ⁓ challenge and inspire. I want people and   As I say this list, you might be sitting there judging yourself unfairly and saying like, well, I'm not that person. And what I will say is, ⁓ you actually are that person. Because if you don't think you are, you probably are. And if you are that person that's like, yeah, this is me, this is what I want to do, you are also that person too. I found that 90 % of the people that we talked to are incredible fits. The only people who aren't great fits are those who are so egotistical and arrogant and rude to their teams that I'm like, thank you, but no, thank you, you're just not a great fit.   because I believe that I want people who are invested in their teams. I people who love dentistry, even if they don't love dentistry, but they love business. I want people that want to get to that next level. I want people that are hungry. I want people that love life and know that there's a better way and a higher way of living life. I want people who want to expand on their leadership and be their best leaders to show for their team and their families and themselves.   Those are the people. So that's your DNA. like, well, I just talked about, sounds fun and exciting. I'd love to chat with you. I truly would. I love meeting people. I love people on the podcast. And I love just giving you a space to feel safe, to feel seen, to feel heard, to feel like there's answers and solutions, to feel a lift in life, to feel like there's hope, to give you that silver lining and joy again. So if that fills and resonates with you, I'd love to have you join us. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Just know that we are committed to you, that we love you.   I think all of our consultants would say that they absolutely love their clients as humans and they're so proud of the work that they're doing. And I think it's just a very positive space. It's a very collaborative space and it's a very results focused space. ⁓ And so join us. I'd love to have you reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.  

Tiff and Dana discuss how dental practices are being innovative in 2025, including A.I., apps, and other technologies that will streamline the busy work and help teams focus on being human. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. Dana and I are back here today. We are really excited. We just did actually a really fun podcast. think that was probably, I think Dana, I don't know. I think that was one of my favorite podcasts we probably ever recorded. I love that stuff. So Dana, thanks for being here. How are you today?   Dana (00:22) doing good excited to get you know I always I know I say this a lot but I truly am just excited to have some time.   The Dental A Team (00:29) Thank you. Thank you. I know I   actually I still have it on my mind. I need to put it in my click up click up organizer. You guys shout out to that. I need to get the soft skills training on there. So I was thinking about that a lot. So you make you make my day Dana. Thank you. I appreciate that. ⁓ You guys virtual teams are weird and they were like   It's just weird. But I think the weirdest part to me or the oddest part is how sincerely close I feel to everyone. Like Dana, I feel like we're best friends and we never get time together. Like the last time we had time together, truly the last time we had time together, I guess, was when we did the December, we did the shopping for the kids in December, the give back. Prior to that was like,   Disneyland last, that was two years ago, right? Two years ago, I think he's time flies, time freaking flies. So, but I feel like we were just together last weekend. Like it's weird. It's a weird thing that has come really far. So on that note, anyone who's considering a virtual team member, it can work really well. I mean, we've got Josh who's in the Philippines and I feel like I know that man. Like we've hung out together.   Dana (01:45) Thank   The Dental A Team (01:47) That's so weird. He's in the Philippines you guys it's nighttime when he's working for us And I'm like groggy just starting my day And he's already lived an entire day and his family sleeping like wild and I feel like I know   Dana (02:01) We know things about his baby girl. We know things about his wife, his band. And it's like he's not even in the country on the same time zone. It's just virtually over the computer. It's crazy. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (02:12) Yeah,   it is really crazy. It's insane to me how far things have come. I think it's really cool. think 2020, we're going to call it 2020, not the other word we could call it, did a lot for us in a lot of ways. There is a lot of bad, I will never just credit that, but I think it forced innovation. 2020 forced human innovation.   I think it was things that were already like in the works in the background or whatever, but it just pushed it to the forefront. And the innovation that has come in the last five years has been insane to me and the amount and what we've been able to handle and what we've been able to consume as humans is wild to me and working remotely and working on a virtual team is definitely something that came out of that. I remember, I remember Karen and I when everything first started happening.   We were like, shoot, okay, it is time to innovate or die, quite literally, innovate or die as a company, because things are drastically changing. Dana, we were in offices constantly, constantly. And then all of a sudden we were like, guess what? You're not allowed to leave the state. Actually, you can't even leave your house. Like don't breathe on anyone. Don't look at anyone. Like it was wild. And that was when,   Dana (03:22) Yes.   The Dental A Team (03:30) Kiera and I got on a call and we were like, what the heck? How do we continue to help offices? And that was when we switched and started doing so much virtual. And it really spun, like it worked really well. We had so many offices that during shutdown, we're doing a ton of training with us. We were building operations manuals and really prepping for reopening. But it also brought a space of like, holy cow, Tiff and Kiera cannot do this alone. Like it brought on so much.   And I think it just like speaks to the spiral of innovation that we've had in the last five years in our company and just in the country as a whole in the world realistically. But Dana, I'm so excited. You came not too far after our 2020 whirlwind of guess what? We're going to do everything by video now. And I was like, ⁓ crikey, here we go. This is going to be fun.   And you came on board with us. So thank you for being here. You have changed the game for us. And I know changed the game for so many of your clients. ⁓ And Dana continues to help us innovate constantly. It is something that she is really, really good at. is brilliant and just constantly thinking of another way, like, and then the, the, and then theory, like, yes, you can do that, but then also you could do this. I'm like, dang it. Thank you. So Dana, thank you for being here. ⁓   I don't know if you guys know this or not, a lot of our topics, we choose our topics, a lot of them, or we decide like, what are we gonna talk about today or what practice do we wanna highlight or chat about? then there are topics that are given to us that I can't really say that I don't have a lot of control on that because they're given to me at the beginning of the year, well, the end of the year for the beginning of the year.   And I go through them and I'm like, yes, these are fantastic topics. These are going to be great newsletters. Doctors are going to find a ton of value in this. And then as discussed about 15 minutes ago with Dana, I need to layer on top of that. This is the and then and say, how are we going to make a podcast about this? Because we have, we have run into that today. ⁓ but I'm really actually excited. We did our research, we did our due diligence and we've chatted about this a few times and   Speaking of innovations, there's been so many innovations everywhere that have helped dentistry just really take a new foothold in the scene of medical. And I think that you guys can all agree with that. Dentistry is one of the top survivors of 2020. And we're really thriving in this world. It's just never, never going away. So tons of innovations. We've talked about the tech. We talk about the tech a lot. actually did one, um, Dana, I did a podcast.   not too long ago with Christy about really getting dental assistants involved in the tech and the innovations there. And that was fun. And this one kind of, guess, is dental assistants too, but we really wanted to highlight some infection control innovations and not just like look at, oh, this is so cool. And, know, I don't know, when I started in 2003, we were doing this and now we're doing this. Like, I don't want to just dive into those, but I really want to talk about some things that are up and coming on the scene.   But with that said Dana thinking of my past and aging aging us both here. You're welcome Do you remember? Do you remember go walking into the room? No masks sometimes I had gloves like it was like whatever and dirty tray in one spot and just like spraying everything Everywhere to where you could barely breathe in that room. I remember I remember gosh   This must have been like 2006, 2007. I don't remember what happened, but something changed, right? With infection control. Do you remember stocking up on the Lysol cans? And like your whole office was like a cloud of Lysol. You couldn't even breathe. And now I'm, you know, curious to see what my lungs are gonna look like in the future and what Lysol really does to your lungs. But like, it's just so fun to look at.   Dana (07:30) Yep.   The Dental A Team (07:42) These are the things we used to do. I used to walk into an operatory with what was it called? What is it? It starts with a B. It's a Birex. I can see the bottle, the clear bottle with the green writing, yellow, you know, squirt, and just like squirting every surface I could possibly see. And then aerosoling with Lysol, walking away, coming back.   Dana (07:43) Hmm.   Pyrex, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   This is... Yep. Everything. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (08:11) wiping it down with calvicide wipes, spraying it again, and then walking away and then walking in with a patient and being like, oh, let me dry that. And I'm drying the chair because there's still byracks on the chair or Lysol in the air and the patient's coughing. Dana, do you remember those days? I hope some of us do.   Dana (08:15) Yeah.   I do and   honestly too because I grew up like I was a child in a dental office a lot and I actually even remember when like gloves were optional.   The Dental A Team (08:35) That's right.   Yeah, I was like, I know what you're   gonna say. I know what you're gonna say. Yeah.   Dana (08:45) Yep, yeah, we're even gloves.   We're just kind of like an option for something.   The Dental A Team (08:50) Yeah. Do you remember   when they would say, well, this is more to protect me than it is to protect you. So that's why I don't wear them. I remember that too. I'm like,   Dana (08:56) Yeah. ⁓   I wash my hands. we're gonna like, I just think about it now all the time. I'm like, ⁓ my like, the places we have come.   The Dental A Team (09:05) ⁓ what we did.   places we   have come, the things we have done not knowing. hope there are so many of you out there laughing. I know that there are a lot of you out there that are like, what are they even talking about? Because you may not have even been born yet. So welcome to Jenna String. We're glad you're here. Just be happier. Be happier coming out of the scene now. ⁓ Anyways, some of the things that I have   Well, we looked up some things today, Dana, and some of the things that one thing I was really excited about something that you mentioned when we were chatting earlier. I want you to kind of talk about what you think, how you think ⁓ practices could really utilize this was one there's like up and coming on the scene. I don't think that there's anything really out there yet that's solid, but up and coming on the scene like automated ⁓ knowing automatically if a sterilizer needs to be ran or what.   write the sterilization pieces. So that's, that's looking really cool, the AI side of automating those types of things to keep a good schedule. But Dana, one thing that was on there that we were looking at was really like tracking those things and making it so that it is digitized. And I think that's massive, because these checklists that we create with practices, right, I have so many dentists that are like, well, cool, we've got like an end to day sheet, but like, what about their monthly? What about their weekly? What about the stereo?   strips. And as a dental assistant, I never remember to do those dang things. And when I did, I never looked at them, right? And I'm like, just having shine, take it, take it away. Tell me if it's good or not. Like, but these automated tools, I think will be super helpful. So Dana, what do you think? How do you think that innovation is really going to benefit practices? And how can they implement something like that right away, that they could truly automate some of these things?   Dana (10:53) Yeah, and I think it's really just doing some research and finding things that are definitely our companies out there who that have started and even in the AI platform where they're just automatically tracking your sterilization. They're automatically making sure that all of your sterilization batches that come out are.   are good and it's logging it for you with dates and paths and fail and, and all those pieces, which I think is just really, really super cool. I know that oftentimes when I get new offices, you know, they're like, well, how do I get my OSHA pieces in place? And how do I and having things like this that are just automated that like, what, what a cool tool and what cool things that I think we're seeing coming for dentistry in that area.   The Dental A Team (11:34) Yeah. Where do you feel like practices could ⁓ ramp up what they're doing now to automate it? Like, I feel like I'm thinking we use ClickUp for everything, which I mean, we have spent, I'm not going to lie. We spent a couple of years getting really good at ClickUp and we have a whole team working on it behind us, but something like that even, right? Where it's like sending these automated email reminders or there's apps out there.   Dana (11:45) Mm-hmm.   No.   The Dental A Team (12:01) with the Remind apps. I know the schools use a Remind app even, but there's like those ⁓ family calendar apps that text you when things are coming up. Like how can we be innovative without waiting for AI to get better or waiting for, you know, Elon Musk or someone to think of something incredibly crazy that no one's ever thought of, but how can we be innovative with the tools that we already have?   that maybe we're seeing people are just aren't really doing these things and they easily could.   Dana (12:31) Yeah,   and think some of it comes down to like that saying, know, know thyself and be free, right? Well, if you're somebody that needs automated reminders, find a way to do it. There's boomerang on your email that you can, you can simply just email yourself and say, sterilization test strip, right? And then you boomerang it to yourself every 10 days or every number of days that it's required for you in your area. And so I think just like finding ways things that are hard don't   typically have to be hard. You just have to find a way to make it easier. And there are so many.   things out there, software, resources, and oftentimes too, like they're even cost effective or there's no cost, right, for some of these too. And so I think it is finding the pieces that are hard for you to keep track of, and then find something, whether it is a management tool or whether it is just a reminder system or whether it is one of these AI ⁓ pieces that are coming or are here. I think it really just is looking and figuring out how you can pivot.   and how you can use the technology that is around you because man, just, the things that are at our fingertips to make things easy and to help with the things that we kind of like just hit our heads on the wall against every single day, they're here and even more is coming and it's really cool.   The Dental A Team (13:54) I couldn't agree more. I have so many systems set up. I tell my practices constantly. Like I my memory, I my memory has never been super fantastic. I remember the things I want to remember, I suppose. Right. But I have so many like I have it down to like, in my calendar, it'll say like, don't forget to leave for your hair appointment. Last Friday, like you've got to drive, right? You got so many pop ups and reminders, then I'll set. I'll just set simple alarms with a label on my phone sometimes that   we'll make sure that I remember to do that off the wall thing. I think you're right, Dana, that we, I think we tend to overcomplicate things. And we try, we try to tell ourselves that we don't, we're not smart enough, or we don't know the thing, or that's not my space, right? I'm not a tech person. I'm not a techie person, but I can tell you, there are plenty of techie people out there that have created systems that I can use.   as a template to create it to be and work however I need it to work for me so that no, they saw me true. You're 100 % spot on with that. I know that I need these reminders. And so I look for the tools that will help me do that. I think making sure doctors, practice owners, leaders, making sure you guys remember you don't have to be the ones that think of this for everyone else. had...   a call yesterday, Dana, with a group of managers that are near and dear to my heart. I've been working with these ladies for years, gosh, like, I think since 2018. And I love them. They're so fantastic. But one of the questions yesterday was like, what do I do when they just keep forgetting to do the thing I asked them to do? And I'm like, well, one, right, Dana, make sure that you've got a date set. And like you said, like a reporting back system, you said that earlier on a different podcast. But also, Dana, don't   You believe I know you teach this to like, I don't need to be the one that creates the system for you to make sure you get it done. If I take that autonomy and that creativity from you, you're likely going to forget, right? Yeah.   Dana (15:55) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree with   you. And I think team members know themselves.   Hands down better than you do as leaders or or we do as your coach and so sometimes I'm like just sit down and ask them like what can we put into place? What do you think will help you? What do you think we can do to support or what system do you think that we can build in? That's because not everybody is a checklist person Sometimes people need reminders on their phones. Sometimes people need reminders on the schedule. Sometimes people need Something that comes to them via email whatever it is, but oftentimes team members because they know themselves better than   anyone can come up with something that will actually truly work versus the 30 things we throw at them trying to solve it.   The Dental A Team (16:37) I totally agree with you. Totally agree with you. And that's, that's been helpful in my life for me to be able to have that autonomy and, be empowered to create what's going to work for me. And one of the biggest spaces there is, and then this comes to like the infection control things too, like what's the result we're after. If we know the result we're after, we are, we are very smart beings. We are insanely intellectual. If we know the result we're after,   likely we can come up with a plan to get us there. We just, we have to be given that space and the availability to be able to do that. So I think it's huge. think, gosh, Dana, like this little, I mean, we both have these notes up here that we're like, gosh, there are some really cool things coming down the pipeline. Like they sound awesome. Automated waterline disinfection system. Like, holy cow, that's so cool. If you have this, please write it and tell us more about it. Like,   I know there's so many things that have come out of the last five years and just watching these startup companies or companies that are just starting to do this new thing, watching them do this and jump onto the scene has just been really, really cool. I think do some research, you guys. There's some cool things in here that we don't know enough about to.   go on tangents with, but it is really amazing. And staying on top of that, staying in the forums, I know we've got our doctor forum that's constantly asking questions around things like this and constantly innovating and thinking of new things, but realistically, bottom line, make sure that it's getting done. Make sure that you know what the standards are that you're supposed to keep when it comes to infection control. Those standards, those are your goals. Give them to your team. Your team's really smart. And guess what? Most of us.   Right? Have teams that are way younger than us today. Shelby, shout out to Shelby. Shelby taught these old dogs a trick. That's not a new trick. It's a trick that we forgot about because we didn't have a reminder system for it. But Shelby, Shelby innovates like crazy. She is a solution master. She is a problem solver. And I think it's just that generation's way of   being they were raised with the internet, they were raised with these tools at their disposal and they know how to use them. We were not raised with these tools at our disposal. They came onto the scene while we were growing up and we learned to use them as they they were learning us, you know, and trust these team members to figure some of this stuff out and automate things for you. Simplify, create the systems that are going to work like let them work with these these things. I've seen   not only Shelby, but I've seen so many practices thrive because these young minds are thinking of some incredible, incredible things. And Dana, I'm sure you're saying the same things in your practices.   Dana (19:37) yeah, yeah, and you know, team members sometimes come with great ideas, they come with great resources, sometimes team members, you know, go do research and find something that will solve an issue that's happening and it is really...   need to see from an outside perspective, just how many changes are here, how many changes are coming and the pieces that technology bring. And you're right, younger team members tend to embrace them, ⁓ and find them.   The Dental A Team (20:07) Yeah, I agree. I agree. I call them, you know, the smarter, they're smarter. Those kids running around just thinking of everything and like, dang it, you know, I need that. But we all have our own things that we do really well and I make reminders really well. So that's what I'm gonna be super proud of today. So you guys, I told you, we have some really fun ones. Today was actually really fun. Innovations in infection control, like,   you guys innovate or die yourselves. Where is it? Maybe an infection control, maybe in anywhere else that's honestly driving you a little bit bad. Maybe we're forgetting the stereo strips. Maybe we're forgetting to the lines. Maybe we're forgetting to change the traps and our compressors are getting overworked. Like all of those spaces. What is it? Maybe we're forgetting to wipe things down or whatever it is. Where can we build in some automation? Because today's innovation is reminding you   that there's an automation for everything. So what is it that's driving your nets? What is it that's not getting done so your result isn't getting met? And then what can we create? What system can we create and put in a place that's going to get us there? Dana, thank you so much for taking this wild journey with me today. We've had some really fun podcasts. has been really enjoyable. I would not want to have done this with anyone else. So thank you, Dana, for spending your afternoon with me.   Dana (21:31) Yep, always fun.   The Dental A Team (21:33) Always an adventure with Tiff. All right, guys. Thank you listeners for being here. Whether you are a current Dental A Team client, a future client, or someone who is just here to listen, we love all of you guys. You are near and dear to our heart. We hope that you enjoy every podcast, but we hope you took some nuggets away from today. Please, as always, leave us a five-star review. Let us know what you thought.   And if you have some innovations, write into us. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. If there are things that other people need to know about, put it in your review as well. People really do read them. And also look for our doctor forums on Facebook or on Instagram. And then if you are a client, make sure that you're in our client only space as well so that you can help everyone innovate in their practices too. And that's a wrap. Thanks guys. We'll catch you next time.

Growing your practice can be incredibly exciting, but incredibly intimidating. Kiera tells listeners how they can scale with confidence by giving specific questions to ask yourself. These include: Are your systems running smoothly? Are your teams aligned and accountable? Do you have a clear data back-growth plan? And more! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I'm super jazzed because I feel like this is such a great question that so many offices ask me of like, okay, Kiera, how do I know that my practice is ready for the next level? How do know I'm ready to add in more team members? How do I know I'm ready to add an associate? How do know if I'm ready to add another location? And I feel like so many of these things sit in our brains and we're always wondering like, how do you know? It's like, how do you know when you're ready for the next baby?   but instead of like babies, which like really, how do you really know? There are certain things to know or how do you know if you're ready to get married? Well, there are certain things actually. So let's take some of that guesswork out, make this a little bit more fun and have a great time on today's podcast. I'm excited and I hope you're excited. The Dental A Team was built for doctors. It's built for team members. That's why it's called Dental A Team. It's consulting for dentists and teams. I hate as a business owner where people just teach me and I have go try and take it back to my team.   but I love being taught, I love being focused and I love having high level and then I love having implementable things for my team, but from someone who's been there, done that and done that successfully. So that's what we've created. We have a space for doctors and CEOs and entrepreneurs to come and get together like-minded where we're talking high level. This is where I come into play. We have fun, we have business freaking tactics. We call it Think Tank Tuesday and we literally get all together and have a great time. And then we have our in-person mastermind where we're doing the same thing as business and life on purpose.   And then we have our consultants, including myself, our consultants then work with your team. We're going to be teaching your team members how to make your vision a reality, how to scale, how to have the conversations. I say we're like little fairy godmothers for your team members, where we literally are hanging out with them to help them know the resources and the easiest path to get the results they're looking for. That's what we're obsessed about. That's what we do for offices. And I hope that we're a part of your office. And if not, I hope we're apart really, really soon. All right, you guys, let's dig into how do we scale with confidence?   Because growth is super freaking exciting. Like, oh my gosh, we're growing. But back to me, when I first started, we were 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months in my first location. We bought our second location and you better believe it was fire. And fire is exciting, but it burns hot. And it got hotter and hotter and hotter. And it was because I didn't have a plan. We just were like, sweet, we're at this amount. So let's buy our second location. And it became mayhem and it became crazy. And so it's one of those things of like fires can be beautiful and we can sit there and roast s'mores.   But fires can also be very, very volatile. They can destroy, they can burn fast and they can burn hot. And so this is a zone where if we have a plan, we're going to do really well. If not, we get burnout, we get turnover, we get stalled progress. We actually get sloppy. We actually could fall into really scary things. Like for us, it was full blown burnout. I was on burnout or my owner was on burnout. We were working from 2 a.m. till 10 p.m. every single day. ⁓ Our marriages were falling apart. Like everything was bad. Everything. It was not good.   and we would show up to work just to feel like we were like barely, like nose barely above water, but you better believe there's water getting into that. And so this is something where I really wanted to come on today of how do you know and how can we scale with strategy? How can we scale and know that we're ready for the next level? Because if I would have known this, I would not have bought my second practice. I would have optimized my first practice. I would have put a few more things into place and then bought the second location. But you know, I was young, dumb, I was reckless. We were just like.   We can do this. did the first one, but the first one wasn't like barely hanging on. We had two pending lawsuits on us. Like there were wild things going on, but yet shoot. I think that sometimes it's good to have a little bit of naive, ⁓ but I think it's more important to have a good plan and a good process. So this is the goal. It's not about adding ops and team members. It's truly about making sure our foundation's awesome, making sure that we know what we're doing, making sure we've got a good plan and then executing it. And that does not mean it needs to take a long time. You can scale very quickly, just making sure you have a few key places.   And I like to tell people our goal is to get flagship practice number one solid. We stamp it out and then we just stamp it out, map it out. We have a few nuances that we change based on location and demographics, but generally speaking, it's about the same thing. ⁓ $1 million, one practices versus multi millions, multi practices, multi ops, two very different models of business. So on that, this is what we love to do today. This episode is really for owners and offices asking the question of what's next, but scaling smart.   not fast and also looking at like the DSO landscape of where we headed. Do I DSO? Do I grow? I have a practice and what they were thinking about doing is they're thinking of selling out to a DSO. And I said, cool, but like, what's your plan? I'm like, I still want to keep doing dentistry. And I said, all right, let's look at the numbers. And what was wild is a DSO is going to pay this practice 5 million. And right now you might be like, dude, that's so much. Like I'd sell in a second, like one more bad day and like give me the DSO's number. calling them.   But we looked at and I said, all right, let's expand out a couple more ops, which you've already been thinking about doing. And realistically in the next one to two years, like that's what the DSO is going to do. They're going to come in, they're going to expand this out. So either you can sell to them and live here and do it with them, or you can do it before that. And literally we did that. And this practice in two years is making 5 million net profit. And I think about that because it seems so tempting to sell to the DSO and how it's like, but you're giving up all of this. And if we just had a quick plan.   This doctor now is working about two days a week. They have associate doctors in place. They have this beautiful building and they're looking for the next expansion piece. Beyond Happy, this is their plan. And they're literally making more than they would have with the DSO. And so just be careful, because I think sometimes DSOs can seem so sexy and alluring when we're having bad days. You better believe it. There have been days when I'm like, someone walks by and offers me a buck for Dental A Team. They get it, right? We all have those days as business owners. That's not a joke. It's real life. But I think this is where we can like,   not make reactive decisions, but actually figure out how we wanna scale. And what I will always say is when we scale and what's next, I want you to always ask the question of what do I want in my life and what do I want my life to look like? Because we can scale. You can have 10 practices and say, only wanna work one day a week. That's totally allowed. It's just a different strategy. Or you can say, wanna be a clinician. I love doing the dentistry. Again, different strategy. I was on an on-call yesterday with a potential client and they were like, Garrett, we need systems. We need to have help with our finances.   our financials and we also need help training our team. And I was like, rock on, that's right up our alley. And at the very end of the call, I said, Hey, is there anything else you feel like I should, I need to know? they're like, well, yeah, we're considering selling in a year. And I was like, wow, that changes the entire plan of what I would do because I would not be building all the systems if we're planning to sell in a year. I'm going to be cranking your EBITDA. We're going to be working on case acceptance, adding production to this practice to make sure we're getting top dollar for the sale while also making it easy and enjoyable to live there at the same time. So one of those things of   where you want to go and what your North Star is, radically changes your question of what's next. It's what's next based on what you want to do. So when we look at this, I really want you to think about and look at these pieces of what's next. And again, some of these things might change depending upon what your next is. If we're selling to a DSO, it looks very different than if we're building a legacy practice. So just know a lot of these pieces might be dependent upon where you want to go.   So number one, I think this is a great thing. If you want to grow, you want to add another practice, you want to add more ops, you want to add more team members, you want to grow to the next level financially, is make sure your systems are truly running without you. So you don't need to be there in every single decision. Doctor, you don't have to be answering, signing off on what are we ordering? We don't want to be signing off on payroll. We literally have built this delegation ladder. We have team leads in place. The systems are running where the team can execute daily. We have end of day checklists. We're not having to look over every single thing.   We have checklists of what people need to be doing. It's very clean. People are in the right seats. They know what they're doing. We have clear operations manual built out for scheduling, billing, case acceptance, hygiene, all these different areas of our practice. It's clear. We have it mapped. We have documented systems that are followed by all. So not just documented, but truly followed by all. ⁓ And honestly, it's something where doctors, would recommend, a fun thing. You're welcome. I'm giving you a vacation. You leave for two weeks.   I want you to leave the practice for two weeks. And when you're gone, I want you to see that practice thrive while you were gone. Did it barely survive? Was the team able to make decisions without you? What systems fell apart and let's fix that. This is something where doctors are always a little nervous to take time off for production. Yes. But I say it is absolutely essential and crucial doctors that you take time, you leave the practice so you can actually find out what's breaking down. Same thing with office managers and leads. We need them to leave. We need you out. And what's wild is when offices, I see them. So for example, I have a doctor.   They usually take about two to three weeks up in the summer. They usually take two to three weeks off in the early spring. And it's awesome. And what happens is on those months, production doesn't The practice doesn't fall apart. The office manager is able to execute the way the doctor would execute. Team culture runs the exact same, whether the doctor's there or not. And that to me is a sign of your systems are not dependent upon you. So if you want to do a stress test, rock on. Prep your team. don't just like spring it on them. That doesn't usually go well.   but stress test and go for two weeks and see what happens to your practice. And then also look to see when you go around and you're doing your CEO time, let's rate every single department in our practice on a one to 10 of how are they doing? Could they run this without you? Do they know what they need to do? Are we hitting the KPIs that we need to hit? And if not, do we need to put some systems into place that can run independent of you? So that would really be a good stress test of go on vacation and also rate your departments and see where maybe our system is lacking. Now.   I will also put a word of caution because a lot of times doctors, are very meticulous. That's why you're dentists. That's why you're working on that little box on the MO and you do so well with your very, very, very, very fine skills because that's what you do day in and day out. A lot of offices are actually ready to scale with their systems. Being systematized where it runs without you does not mean perfect. And I really want you to hear me loud and clear. It is not about being perfect. It's about being scalable and that this can run without you and that you're really able to move things forward. So.   A lot of people get stuck and they don't grow because like, don't have every system in place. No, we're talking that like the bulk of your KPIs are able to be hit. The bulk of our systems are able to follow. The culture doesn't dip when you're gone. Production doesn't dip when you're gone. ⁓ But you might be more ready than you think you are. So be careful. There's a second side to it. Make sure that we're good on that rather than just being like, ⁓ my systems will never be perfect. Cause honestly, systems will never be done. Your practice will never, ever, ever, ever, ever be done. But that doesn't mean it's not time to scale. So that's your system's text. Number two.   Teams aligned and super accountable. So this is different than the top one because it's about systems running. But when the teams align, this is us hitting our KPIs. So we have leads in place. They own their area. They own their numbers. They hit their metrics consistently. We literally have a weekly leadership meeting. Even if that's just your whole team, we're hitting our metrics. We're reviewing our wins and we're all staying accountable to it. So this is what we're looking for is team high level accountability. If we say we're going to do it, we follow through. If we say we're going to get this KPI, we do it. If we say we set this goal, we hit this goal.   And honestly, a big piece of that is we're not having a ton of turnover. So that's helping me know that your practice is stable. Your team is stable. We're hitting these KPIs. So if you're not tracking your data, you're not tracking your numbers, you have no clue. I would strongly advise not growing and adding more ops because all it does is it just makes the chaos even bigger. Trust me, I did it. I had no numbers. I had no KPIs. I had no accountability. I had no team members reporting up. And then all of sudden my problems doubled because now I had a second location and none of this was in place. I will tell you, it is a train wreck. You can get through it.   but it is not fun and I almost didn't get through it. So for this is just make sure that we have our leads, make sure that they're reporting. And I have a practice who started doing this and they were around like 3 million ish and they grew to 5 million, but just been putting their numbers in every single week, their leadership teams looking at their numbers, they're making adjustments every quarter. We're setting goals for them and we follow and that's just happening in one year. So exponential growth can happen and be careful because you can actually squeeze more juice out of your lemon.   in your current practice by even following these steps. So this can be growth internally. It's kind of like a house, right? Like we can go buy a new house or we can just make our house even more awesome. There was an office that I knew and they literally were like, we can go buy another house, but why don't we just invest the money here? And they've made their house this incredible oasis, made it even better. They have even more fun. That's something that you can do in your practice too. So don't, don't worry. It doesn't mean have to sell. doesn't mean you have to scale. It doesn't mean you have to have multi-practices. It doesn't mean you have to expand.   It means you could even do this within your practice, looking at these pieces will exponentially help you grow to the next level with ease. Number three that you're ready for is you have a clear data back growth plan. So we're looking at this and we're making sure that like, our KPIs are tracking and that we are profitable and we have the right patient flow to be able to grow. We have the right team members. We have a pipeline in place to bring on another doctor. We have a pipeline in place to have more hygienists coming in. Like we are not going to get stuck in that area.   We have an office manager or regional manager that has the bandwidth to be able to go. Our billing team is very consistent. Our collections sit at 98%. ⁓ And then what we have from here is we're going to have a scaling growth plan. So when I work with offices, we had a doctor reach out. They were at a four ops practice and they're going to an eight, they thought, and we pushed them to a 10. I asked them, are you so glad we went to a 10? And they said, Kiera, the answer is yes. I thought you were crazy. And I was like, nope, you will never regret having more ops. But they started with us. So we're talking four ops to 10 ops. And what we did before is we literally started with this practice.   about 12 months before they expand and we started putting together the plan of, all right, we're gonna start saving money. This is how much it's gonna cost. This is how many team members we're going to need. So let's start building the pipeline for it. We're going to need a doctor at this point in time. So you're gonna need to start working on that. We're gonna be meeting with the contractors. We're going to be expanding this out. And honestly, this doctor is so happy because they have the cash. So when they built it out, they weren't cashflow stressed. They had a new patient plan to grow. They had a plan for a new doctor. We had associate onboarding documents in place for them. We had a hygiene pipeline.   We had the new patient plan. We had the doctor's plan of what procedures this doctor was going to do. And literally this doctor was like, well, another building just came up. Do you think that I'm ready for it? They had just opened the 10 ops. And I said, well, the answer is I actually think you are pretty well ready for it because we had the KPIs. We were tracking the pieces. We had a plan and we did this for almost 12 months. There's another office that was bringing in a partner. And for 12 months, we figured out how much is their true pay of true compensation.   We worked through all those different pieces for them. So that way when the partner bought in, it wasn't this chaos for them. And I think this data-backed growth plan of knowing what the reality is of how much your expenses will be, having things in place, having your reserves, your financial reserves, that's going to make it to where you are not stressed out of your mind when you take this on. Because cashflow, resources, not having enough money.   That's going to cause chaos. That's going to cause frustration. This is going to cause like, oh my gosh, I don't think I can do this. Then on top of it, you have systems. Then on top of that, you have team members that aren't accountable. And you're like, oh my gosh, I now have like 25 team members and it's so stressful. And like, I wish I never would have bought the second practice or I wish I never would have expanded. And I'm like, it's not that you wish you would never would have expanded. You wish you would have just done it differently. That's what it is. You wish you would have just done it differently. You wish you would have had a plan in place. You wish you would have had the cashflow for it.   Because it does take, like when we expand out, I told this doctor, said, I want you to plan three to six months of reserve of cash of covering all these expenses. So we're building up, building up, building up. They were very profitable at the beginning, like very profitable on this for-off practice. They just were expanding it they were too stuck. Like they had no more space. Same thing with my other practice. They were eight and they went to 15 ops. They were just stuck. But if you don't plan for these pieces, I said, I want you to have three to six months worth of cashflow.   when you go into whether we're getting that as a loan or working capital or you're building this up over the next couple of months while we build this out, these doctors are so secure. And then what we do is once we expand it, know that we know the metrics that we need to hit to be able to pay for all these expenses that we just put into place, still give a great patient experience, still give great case acceptance, still give great exams, still give great hygiene, so we're not sitting here stressed out of our minds, we're having to do all these pieces.   because my gosh, we just bought this so now like sell as much as we possibly can because I'm stressed out of my mind. It takes all that stress out for these doctors and it really makes it to where they reverse engineer and we figure out staffing, space, systems, finances, protocols, when do we do this, how do we build this out? And it's wild because when you have someone who can coach and guide you through that, it's insane how much better prepared you are. Also with these doctors.   We squoze the juice out before they expand it. So how can we maximize and optimize? I another doctor who had four ops. Like, here there's no space. I'm building this building across the street. It was a beautiful building. And I'm like, but you actually have space for one more op in this practice. And they're like, what? Why didn't you come four months earlier? And I was like, well, hi. So we added another op, even in the time they were building the practice, we spent the money on it. And it's crazy because that one op produced about $400,000 $500,000 in just one year in that one extra op.   We were then able to take that money and obviously apply it to the next building and they were able to maximize that space that they were in. So looking at that reverse engineering is really going to give you clarity. And so when we look at these three strong signs of you're ready to grow with strong systems in place, team accountability, and then a clear plan forward that you're planning for, you're preparing for, you're executing on, and this is going to truly help you have confidence. Confidence comes from being prepared. Confidence comes not from being perfect.   Confidence comes from, know where I'm headed, we've got these pieces. And I tell every single doctor we work with, I'm like, listen, we're gonna do our absolute best to plan and repair. We're gonna do our absolute best to get the numbers in place. There will be things we forget every single time, because we're not perfect. But the antidote to fear is action. The antidote to fear is having a plan. The antidote to knowing if you're ready to go is to be prepared in these areas. And so I really think when you look at this, like, don't have to guess if I should go.   Don't guess and be like, Kara, where it's like, we've got the first one, let's just add on a second one. You're welcome to, it's just a thrill of a lifetime that I think adds more burnout, more stress, more chaos than necessary. And I'm like, you can have the same growth, you can have the same scalability, just with more strategy, more fun and more predictability. So if you're interested in about it, don't guess, like just DM us. We have ideas to how to scale, we have different pieces you can DM us scale, you can say like, hey, I'm thinking about this, how do I know? We'll get on a complimentary practice assessment with you.   give you like complimentary advice, truly, we're gonna help you build a plan and see how we can fit, how we can help you. But really, if you're thinking about it before you sell to a DSO, even this practice I was talking to, I was like, listen, there's other options because we work with hundreds of practices, we see different scenarios, this is why we get our doctors together, is because the more we learn and the more we educate each other, the better decisions you're able to make. Do not be paralyzed by fear and not make a decision, because what's worse than making a wrong decision is not making a decision. So make the decision.   Execute and truly let us be your guide get a guide guide through it. It makes it so much easier You're able to scale faster not be stressed out and really this is what we excel at This is what we're great at so reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com comm click on our link on TheDentalATeam.com podcast Make sure you're following along for more tips and tricks because our goal is to make your life less stressful More fun and more predictable and as always thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast  

Kiera and Tiff discuss chipping away at your goals and problems in small pieces, and how this can stack habits in a way that's not completely overwhelming. This can be applied to your personal life or your practice life! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it's a special day. Spiffy, Tiffy and I are back together on the podcast. You know Tiff, you love Tiff, you hear her with or without me, but today's a special day. You get both of us, one podcast. Tiff, how you doing today?   The Dental A Team (00:15) No, I'm so good. I just love when we podcast together, first of all, and I love that we really well. We roll with the punches well, and this morning has proven that. And this whole week has been a pivot and roll with the punches, and I'm excited for everyone to hear all of the wonderful words we have to say today.   Kiera Dent (00:25) you   Me too. And it is fun because it's funny when Tiffanie started the company, I feel like we talked to each other all the time. And this morning I was getting ready at 530 a.m. because I was like, sweet, I got a lot of podcasts. We're going to start at 6 a.m. today. It's going to be a great day. And I'm like, you know, I used to call Tiff during this time and we just like chat and talk shop. And now it's like, hey, let's catch up on the podcast. OK, it's like, how's life? How you doing over there? Even though we work together all the time, but.   The Dental A Team (00:58) Yeah   Kiera Dent (01:04) I think that that just shows the growth that we've been able to have. And it's interesting, something I will say is as you grow and evolve, make sure that you still stay connected to your key players. think Tiff and I have to now be very intentional. Like we call each other or we'll FaceTime each other or like I'll just randomly FaceTime Tiff while I'm driving with Jason, just so we stay as friends in a relationship because work I think can sometimes accidentally, we're so busy ships in the night, even though we're in the same company. So Tiff, good time to reconnect on the podcast. Hi.   The Dental A Team (01:17) Thank   Good   Kiera Dent (01:33) It's been a hot minute, great to see you. I think I haven't seen you all   The Dental A Team (01:35) to see you.   Kiera Dent (01:36) week, so it's great to see you.   The Dental A Team (01:37) That is so true,   we haven't, not since our leadership meeting on Monday.   Kiera Dent (01:41) and we had like one client call together, which I'm like, hey, it's real fun to be with you here. I'm like, see you later. ⁓ But no, it's truly so fun. And today, and I wanted to just, I think we're seeing it, it's actually one thing that I will say Tiff and I are doing really well that we haven't done is we actually are coaching mutual clients together. We only have a couple and it's been really fun. think Tiff, I feel like it's like our shake and bake, like stocked into Malo, like Tiff to Kiera, like let's just have a good time on it because it's not often other than events that we get to do this. But I think in,   The Dental A Team (01:44) yeah, straight.   Thank you.   Kiera Dent (02:11) coaching clients more together. I think you and I are starting to see this like really awesome pattern that you brought up of a topic of like this 1%. And I know you're obsessed in it and working out, which thank you because every day I think about you and I'm like, yeah, Kieran, just go move your body 1 % more today, like just 1 % today. And so I think in life, but let's also take it to practices and billing. Tiff kind of riffed us on the topic I did and we're just gonna riff for you guys today. Kieran, Tiff, stocked into Malone. If you don't know the jazz, well, you missed out, but.   The Dental A Team (02:25) Thank you.   Kiera Dent (02:38) Basically we're the glory days. That's what this is. It's a glory. It's a dream team back together doing our shake and bake, rattle and roll, talking all things dentistry. So Tiff, take it away.   The Dental A Team (02:48) Yeah, I actually, I think we all know the 1 % rule and we know the compound effect and we know like, we know arbitrarily that these things and these ideas are something we're supposed to do and that they work. And last year, I found myself in this space where I was like, trying to octopus arms a lot of different things in my life that I wanted improvement on. And I had like three, four or five, whatever it was things that I'm like, okay, I'll do a little bit here, I'll do a little bit here, I'll do a little bit here. And it's kind of like,   I was just talking to Erin the other day about like paying down debt, right? So like you're paying down debt and you're like, okay, I'll put a little extra on this card, a little extra on this card, a little extra on this card. And that little bit of extra actually isn't making any progress because the percentages, right? The interest on it is actually eating it alive. And you just get to the spot where you're like, my God, I'm not making any progress in anything. And I'm spreading myself so thin, I'm exhausted. And I found myself there with debt and, but with these areas of my life that I was like, I just want to   feel 50%, 100 % better in these areas. And I was giving a little bit to all these spaces and Aaron and I had a conversation. I was just like, I'm so exhausted. Something's got to give, something's got to change. And he's like, let's pick one. And so I was thinking, and then we did.   Kiera Dent (04:03) I think about your   plate overfilling. From the day I met you, had this image of like, you know how people say like their plate's really full? Tiff's like, no, my plate's full and I have like food. I don't know why it is, but it's like cauliflower, broccoli, carrots is what I've envisioned for you. Just sitting on the side of her plate. So it's like there, then she's got like her sweet potato and it's like on the place map, but it's off the plate. And I think that that's like a really good visual of who Tiff's been since I've met you and how I think.   All of us live our life. This isn't just a Tiffanie, but like whether it's the octopus arms or the plate over like literally, if it's been like cauliflower broccoli, like I just see like a big like hunk of broccoli on the side of your plate. I don't come with it all.   The Dental A Team (04:35) Yeah.   Yes, and I actually   had somebody in my life, I had a friend years ago, gosh, this was like, I remember the stop sign we were sitting at and I remember being like crying, like, gosh dang it, one more thing and I'm like, I can do it, it's fine, because I'm the person that's like, yeah, I can totally do it, I know I can do it, but what cost is it at is not something I always think of and he looked at me he said,   You are like the person at Thanksgiving, that you're just so excited to have some of everything, that you have your plate and you filled it with everything. So you've got your turkey, your mashed potatoes and gravy, and your roll and your sweet potatoes. And then you sat down and you're like, oh, shoot, I forgot. Like this plate, he's like, it's a mounds of food because it's Thanksgiving, right? Which is fair. We all do that at Thanksgiving. He goes, but then you forgot.   about like the pie and somebody else put other rolls out. And so then you like started shoving it under your plate. And he's like, that's your one, you just took a piece of apple pie when you already had pumpkin pie. And you said yes to this, which means you said no to the pumpkin pie because you can't eat both. And I was like, holy cow, I love Thanksgiving, that works. Like I get it. And so yes, that was me. And so again, I don't know how long ago was that? Seven, eight years later, nine years.   Kiera Dent (05:53) No. Five, six, seven, years later.   The Dental A Team (05:56) Like,   Holly, are you kidding me? It came up again. And then somebody else just said it in different terms. And he said, you know, like, if you could do 1 % better every single day in one area, that's your compound effect. If you do 1 % better in five areas, but you only had 1 % to give, you're trying to give 5%, you're going to go backwards in areas. Like, you can't, it just doesn't work. The math isn't there. He does math. Math is his jam. So he's like, the math doesn't, it's not math-ing.   So if you choose one area that is going to bring the most like happiness and joy out of all the other areas that you could easily give 1 % improvement, it's gonna snowball. And what happened, what I found, right, is that that 1 % in my health and my fitness, which is what I chose to focus on, did snowball. And so all of a sudden the habit stacking that I had going on in my health and fitness snowballed.   into those other areas that I was trying to octopus arms into. So I saw slight improvements in those other areas and I was like, okay, everyone, they're both right. It's fine. Thank you. But I started thinking about it today. It popped up today for me actually really strong. I don't remember this morning why it popped up, but it did. And so then when, know, Kara, you and I got on here and like, my gosh, like this is what practices do. This is what owners, business owners do this constantly.   Right? We go into something and we're like, gosh, I've got to be best at marketing. I've got to make money and have great profitability. I've got to be a great leader and I have to have an awesome team and I've got to train people to be leaders. And then we're octopus arms and like Thanksgiving plates say yes to everything, which in turn makes us say no to something else. And so I thought the most you've got octopus arms, you've got your plate. Like what's the most important thing you've got your, you've got your dinner plate overflowing and you look at it and you're like,   I'm probably not gonna eat all of this, right? I would love to be able to eat all of this and not like get the calories from it and not like feel like I'm gonna throw up. Like I want it all, but if I have to go by what's most important and start there, I'm gonna start with the protein and the vegetables. So when you look at your business, right? The protein and the vegetables are going to help my health. It's going to promote.   my muscle build, it's going to like positively impact the goals that I'm working for. If I start with the pumpkin pie, which is where I want to start because I want room for the pumpkin pie, it's a negative. I want it, right? I want the sugar, but like, I know that I feel like crap after eating the sugar. So if I am a business owner and I'm focusing solely on, I don't know, new patients, I only want new patients, but I haven't focused on making sure my team knows how to collect. I'm over here crying to my consultant that   Kiera Dent (08:21) Me Me too.   The Dental A Team (08:43) I don't have any money in the bank and I can't afford my consultant, but my, even my new patients, I've got 62 new patients who also aren't scheduling treatment. Right? So that's like the pumpkin pie. Whereas the protein is making sure we're making sure we're like focusing on the money. Right. And not to the point that we lose the patient experience. That's not my point. My point is what, how can we be 1 % better in our collections? Like, what are we missing? And I had a   revelation finally with a practice this week and I love her to death and I'm just like, yay, we got there because I'm like something's not happening. Something that should be happening is not happening because your insurance AR is beautiful. But over here, we still have almost $200,000 in AR. ⁓ How is it possible when your insurance AR is showing up as like $44,000? Right. And so like getting there, getting there, getting there. But the 1 % is what's something that we can do today to collect   part of what we're missing, right? What's one phone call, one extra phone call we can make? What's one person coming in the door that has a past due balance that we can collect today? Like how can we take that theory of that 1 % better that is so easy to implement when it comes to health, fitness and nutrition? We get it. Our brains are like, yeah, that makes total sense. Eat the protein before the sugar. I get it. I don't want to, but I can do that. But we have such a hard time implementing that in like   the other structures of our lives because it's just not, it doesn't feel as clean and as clear. And I think, Kiera, it doesn't feel as fun, right? Like eating the pumpkin pie is more fun. Marketing is way more fun than billing. ⁓ Hands down, I don't want to do billing. I want to do marketing.   Kiera Dent (10:18) Yeah. Exactly what I was thinking.   What are you saying? was like, the reason we don't go for the turkey is because turkey is freaking dry and pumpkin pie is sweet and fun, which is why people don't like to look at their numbers because numbers are like protein and it's not as fun. And I'm sitting here like shoveling down this nasty turkey that I know is like super lean, no fat in it. And I'm able to get my protein in. And yet when you talked about a tip of like, I think those business owners, this is where you cut out the noise and the elite business owners are able to cut out the noise, not go over the sexy and go for the things that are actually going to build the foundation.   And when you can figure that out, because like Tiff, you and I, it makes me wild when clients come through and they're like, I can't afford this. And I'm like, what do you mean you can't afford this? You have like 300,000 sitting in AR, like bada bing, bada boom, it's right there. And if we just collect before they leave, ⁓ my gosh, a revelation, you actually get paid for the work you did. And we're not like, hey Tiff, you want to pay me like six months later? Like, no, I did the work, let's get this paid. Why are we living in the 1900s? Like we don't have tabs, get rid of it.   The Dental A Team (11:02) you   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (11:23) but it's something so interesting that you're like, we're right. Like I want to do new patients. Like there's so much more fun and also it's a flex. Like when you go to a conference, like, here's my production, here's my new patient number. And I'm like, cool, here's my profit. Like it's not as fun and it's awkward. And you're like, cause also I don't want to tell people my profit. Cause I don't like, is that good? Is that bad? I don't know. So it's this weird zone of it's not safe to share publicly. It's a weird thing to talk about, but at the end of the day, it's the number one thing you're stressing about all day long. And so I think like you said, Tiff,   The Dental A Team (11:36) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (11:53) When you were talking, also thought like every team member could have their 1 % better. So doctors, if you want octopus arms, amazing. You can actually have it through your team members. Like right now, Tiff actually has her one thing in her department that she's focused on. has her one thing in her department she's focused on. Shelby has her one thing. Like they have other things, but it's like, if we can't get anything, these are the top three things that have to get done. And honestly, we went after profitability and like hiring consultants were like, all right, these are the two things. And it's wild when we focus on it, we laser focused.   The Dental A Team (11:57) Okay.   Kiera Dent (12:23) We cut the pumpkin pie, and it was for us, we didn't cut marketing. We were like, all right, this is going to move the needle forward. It's crazy how much more calm life feels. It's crazy how less stressed you feel. And then you're able to move things forward even faster. So I think it's a, and you said it doesn't have to be hard. Like this morning, I honestly thought about your tips, so kudos. This is probably why we were hanging out. Like I need a 1 % better.   The Dental A Team (12:27) Yeah.   So.   Kiera Dent (12:47) I was getting ready for the podcast and I'm like, it's gonna be all day long I'm podcasting today. I'm probably not gonna work out. And I was like, I thought about you in the back of my head and I was like, I could do five minutes   of stretching right now. That would make me feel way better going on to this podcast. It shows me that I honor my body. That's my 1 % for today. And yet my body already has felt better today. And I was in a better mindset on a, it was eight minutes that I did like yoga, stretching, making sure I took care of my body. Did some like quick like lifts for my shoulder.   It was very simple, it took no time at all. And it's the same thing of like your biller could collect on the patients. Like every patient who comes in, if we just collected those balances, you would feel like you're the richest person in the world. If we just called the high balances, just those people alone, that's probably like 50 % of what you need to collect right there. And that's very easy, but it's not sexy. And I think Tim, like, what is the psychology behind, like it's easy, but it's not fun, so we don't do it. Like eating protein dry turkey is such a great example of this.   The Dental A Team (13:26) Okay.   Kiera Dent (13:44) Because it's like, it's needed, it's necessary, and it's super great for you. But I'd rather do the pumpkin pie. Like, how do you discipline that? Or is it just a trained behavior? Like, I think about my sign in the kitchen of discipline equals freedom. I think about this all the time.   The Dental A Team (13:45) Yeah.   I'm   It's true. I think I want to think you have to get no matter what you have to get to the point that you've hit like rock bottom, right? Like it has to hurt badly enough for people to change something for beings to change something like a dog's not going to change its routine until it hurts badly enough going the same direction. Right. So I think no matter what, it has to hurt badly enough. So you have to get into that spot. But psychology behind it, like there's so much that it gets stacked up behind the   the things that we do every single day. And I know I had a conversation with my sister. If my practice is now, always call her out on stuff. But she said to me, she's yeah, she's my Craig. She said to me one day, this is like two weeks ago. Yeah, she doesn't listen. Craig might. So hello, Craig. We love you. We've talked about you for many years and you are a staple of our company. ⁓ But she said to me,   Kiera Dent (14:35) She's your Craig.   Okay.   Bye.   The Dental A Team (14:51) one, it was so simple. was like, there was this yogurt in the fridge that she had gotten. I'm like, Hey, don't forget you had this yogurt in the fridge. She goes, Oh my gosh, I couldn't remember if that was yours or it was mine. And I was like, heck no, girl, did you know you can get the same yogurt in this brand? And it's like, instead of 120 calories, it's 60 calories. Cause I'm like, I'm watching my freaking calories because I've seen that change, right? I've seen that difference. And she was like, Oh my gosh, whatever. Right. She gets tired of hearing me say it. I'm like, well, stop talking about food with me. Right. But then we get like,   ice cream and I chose actually like I chose this amazing dairy free. so good. I create that right. It's like whipped cream right coconut whipped cream and you freeze it and you put fruit in it. I need a sprinkle delivery system is what I call it. That's my sprinkle delivery system. It's literally frozen whipped cream and I pour sprinkles on top of it right. Well my sister tells me I don't want to have to say no to something if I want something I want to be able to have it.   And so she gets the loaded ice cream, which I don't care. I have no care in the world on what you eat, but that statement, I was like, oh my God, that's the statement. That's the thing that keeps us in the space that we're in because we've convinced ourselves that saying no to the pumpkin pie and yes to the Turkey hurts. That it's like, no, I should be able to do whatever I want. Cause that's the societal thought process that we live in. I should be able, and I'm like, okay.   But saying yes to that has changed something else. So I'm saying no to my fitness, to my health, my fitness, my mental stability, because sugar changes how I think, right? I know this. I know sugar. I know TV. I know social media. I feel different. My thought process is different after these things, right? So if I say, want to have that, I don't want to have to say no, I am saying yes to the sugar.   So I'm saying yes to the distraction in my business while saying no to the thing that's gonna push me forward and make me a better human for myself. Because if I say no to the protein, but yes to the sugar, my brain works differently and that makes me more angry inside than not having the pumpkin pie.   Kiera Dent (17:03) Totally. And as you said that, Tim, thought about like people always like dentists are interesting. And I know you hear this. I hear this. All of our consultants here. People want to know like what sets apart the elite practices, like what makes it. And I'm like, it's literally this discipline. It is what Tiff just talked about where you realize that saying yes to the protein and lifting weights is better for you, better for the company, better for long-term sustainability rather than the shiny or urgent issue that's hitting you right now.   It is so fun to talk about marketing. It is so fun to sit here and dream of all these great ideas. But the reality is if I'm not making money, then why on earth am I doing this? And you can justify it all day long, but well, because we need marketing because this will help us make more money. But I'm like, if there's gaping holes in your bucket right now, have the discipline. And I think that that's where...   The Dental A Team (17:29) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (17:49) I think I've been watching a lot of things and they say like some of the most successful people in the entire world are the ones who wake up early and workout consistently every day, no matter what rain or shine. does not matter. It's not always a guaranteed same amount of workout, but it's the discipline and the habit that they've created that they know when they say like we do what's most important for our body. We do what's most important for our business. Their body's not revolting like, but I want the sugar. It's like, no, when we say go, we go and you're training. This is why I think cold plunging people like that. They like these other things. It's like you're training your body that would you command and when you command your brain.   The Dental A Team (18:12) you.   Kiera Dent (18:19) you are actually going to execute on this. And I think if you could even take it in food or you could take it in small areas, what you're doing in your personal life is actually training who you're going to be as a business owner. so helping you see, and like, is me, mean, Tiff, shoot, I was the cake pop girl. Like the one was last time you saw me eat a cake pop. Like this is not something that we even do anymore because we're like, absolutely not. I know we're going to feel terrible. That's not fueling our body that needs to then be able to be sustaining.   The Dental A Team (18:28) 100%.   Same.   Kiera Dent (18:45) And I think it's like that maturity as well of business ownership and discipline. But I'm like, you don't have to wait through all the years. You can realize today, what's my 1 % in the true problem area of my business. we do in our mastermind, Tiff and I actually put together this survey that we have our clients do every single quarter in our in-person mastermind. And we asked the question, if your business could talk today, what would you say is the number one problem in your business? Whatever that is.   The Dental A Team (18:51) Mm hmm.   Kiera Dent (19:11) go fix that and be 1 % better. And I think Tiff, that's such a good question we ask. We ask about your relationships too, but I'm like, if you looked at that, that's the one area. And if that's truly your biggest pain point, which most offices it is, most people come to us for cashflow. Yes, it's cashflow, it's overhead, it's systems, it's leadership, but I'm like, usually the pain is on cash. I'm I'm freaking broke, but you waited until you were broke, broke, broke before you reached out for help. So if you're like teetering this, reach out now. If you're really there, it's okay, it still help you out.   The Dental A Team (19:31) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (19:41) But I think it's just a matter of like train yourself this discipline, ask yourself that question and then go to work and stay so laser focused. Because I think if you can train yourself to stay laser focused, ⁓ I asked a coach, she's working with billionaires and I said, what's the number one thing that sets apart the really high end achievers versus the others? And she said, it's focus. They have insane ability to focus on the problem that needs to happen and they don't get sucked up in the wash. And I thought that was so powerful and I think everyone can be that way. So those are kind of my wrap up thoughts of the 1%.   The Dental A Team (20:00) enough.   Kiera Dent (20:10) Collect like, and it's not hard. It's like collect one balance more. It's diagnosed one more thing that you'd normally put a watch on. It's we call one balance today that's a high end balance and we just do that versus like, oh, I got to do the whole list. No, you just do one. Cause the small chips will add up to the big thing. And it's the snowball effect. Dave Ramsey talks about with debt. You literally put all of it onto your hardest debt. Now you put all that money there. You snowball that you pay that one off. Then you take that amount, put it on the next one, snowball that make that. And this is the same thing in your business. It's habit stack.   The Dental A Team (20:38) And the hands.   Kiera Dent (20:40) But   I think more than that, it's teaching you to be a CEO rather than to be a flighty employee. Like my two cents.   The Dental A Team (20:47) I totally agree. And I think that 1 % is so perfect because what you just said, it compounds, right? It snowballs. So if you can have your billing department or whomever, your office manager, whoever it is, stop being so distracted by the easy things, right? I always say make your life easy by doing the hard things. Just because it's easy.   Kiera Dent (21:08) rewind that back. She just   said, make your life easy by doing the hard things. Like, I hope you heard that. You make your life easy by doing these hard things. Go off. That was Brill.   The Dental A Team (21:16) Yeah, doesn't   mean, thank you, it doesn't mean there are no hard things. It doesn't mean you don't have to do hard things to have an easy life. Like I live a fairly easy life in my opinion, but holy cow, have I done and do I do really hard things, but I don't shy away from it. And I get asked a lot, like, how did you get through that? Like I have gone through some crazy life traumatic items and people are like, how did you get through that? And like, I don't know, I just did. I just didn't ignore it. And I just...   pushed through and got to the next layer, that next level. And if you do that same thing, it starts to compound. You stack those pieces. So if you make one hard call today, one balance that you're like, shoot, this person's gonna be mad, get it out of the way. Because guess what? They're only going to be more mad if you wait three months and you're like, hey, six months ago.   Kiera Dent (21:58) You   The Dental A Team (22:07) you were here and like you didn't pay or we got your frequency wrong and you owe $500 on a crown that we thought insurance was gonna pay. They're gonna be like, I was six months ago, why are you just now calling me? So do it today and get it out of the way. And guess what? If they're upset, like have a conversation with them, it's fine. So then you flex that muscle, right? Like my boyfriend hates doing legs. Well, he sucks at legs cause he doesn't do it. So it's like, just do it. So it's easier. I hate working out chest.   just do it so that I can be stronger later. So yeah, it sucks making those calls, but it's not that hard. I sat in an office one day, I'm gonna tell this story, because I think it's just funny. I sat in an office one day and I hear, meh, meh, meh, this person won't pay. She says she has no money. She doesn't answer our calls. It's been here for two years. And I was like, girl, give me the phone. And I called and left a voicemail and I said, hey.   Kiera Dent (22:52) I'm   The Dental A Team (23:01) I really need to talk to you because your balance is about to be out of my hands and I do not want it to get to that next step. Please call me back like today. I really, really want to help you take care of this. Guess who called within 10 minutes. They have been calling quote unquote. I don't know if they called or not. I don't know. Right. Forever. They've sent statements. This woman has no money and won't pay. Guess who started making $50 monthly payments to keep that account from going to collections. I don't know where it was going to go. I usually just blame it on the next step.   guess who started paying and the doctor was like, Lord, three more calls, three more. I collected, sitting in that office, I was there to consult them and I collected on four large past due balances for that practice in 30 minutes. It's not hard. We just make it uncomfortable and you just have to get through it.   Kiera Dent (23:49) Mm-hmm.   Tiff, so much brilliant. And I think this is why we love consulting. We're able to help your offices see the frog they need to eat, see which one, because you can be like messy in the noise. And this is why having outside people, Tiff, like Erin and your other friend who point out like, hey, your plate's freaking full. Stop like shoving food underneath it. having octopus arms. Sometimes you need to see where you're overextending and overflowing to be able to make those changes. And so if we can help, like obviously Tiff and I love to do this, reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. But today go look to see what's my number one.   The Dental A Team (24:10) You   Kiera Dent (24:25) problem. Not the one that I want to work on but the actual problem. How can I get like 1 % better in this? Commit for the next three months and then let us know how that goes. A lot of us need accountability buddies which is where we're really great. It's always better with a buddy. It's better when I know Tiff's working out, I'm working out, we're able to like I got back on the Peloton Tiff because I got you back on the Peloton. Like we're both back on it. But this is where sometimes it's better with a buddy. It's more fun. So reach out if we can help you. Tiff, thanks for being on the podcast. I adore you. I love your analogies and girl I'm proud of you. Your food's not...   The Dental A Team (24:41) Yeah.   course.   Thank you.   Kiera Dent (24:53) 100 %   overflowing anymore. think you've got like on the plate. So kudos. You're making huge progress.   The Dental A Team (24:57) Thank you.   Thank you. And thank you everyone for listening. We truly love and adore each and every one of you.   Kiera Dent (25:04) We do. And as always, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Tiff and Dana discuss the impacts mental health has on the dental industry, including how to take a step back and re-center yourself, maintaining a positive mindset, setting up a team of delegation and accountability, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here today with Miss Dana. She is a favorite on the team. Gosh, she is a favorite of so many of our clients. I know so many of you listening have personally worked with Dana and you've gotten to experience the amazing human that she is. We get to hear from you guys constantly. I just, I have to say kudos Dana.   You have the biggest raving fans of our company. I just, gosh, I couldn't agree with them more. You seriously changed lives. So I'm excited to be here with you today, Dana. And I'm excited to do this subject with you that we're talking about today, because I just think it's so perfect for where you come into play with your clients. So how are you today, Miss Dana?   Dana (00:44) Doing good, thank you for all that Tiff. As you know, my clients mean the world to me. And so the fact that they give love back is always appreciated.   The Dental A Team (00:49) Yeah.   Yeah, yeah, they do. You guys, if you are one of her prized clients or you are about to be and you're a future client, you are in the right hands and she really does have so much, so much love for all of you. So Dana and I are coming off of a whirlwind right now. Like we just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get in here to record podcasts. You'd think it was our first day on the job, but luckily we have.   a non-millennial on our team who knows how to use technology and clear out all the pieces that we needed. So Dana, I feel like it's also appropriate. mean, it leads right into what we're talking about today. I'm like, I've got a little headache like right here now and like, does this happen? And I think Eve calls it difficulties, but I mean, gosh dang it, technology and the world, there's so much going on.   constantly, there's so much chaos and it literally led into this subject so well today.   Dana (01:55) Yeah, I   always say technology is great when it works. It's super frustrating when it doesn't.   The Dental A Team (01:58) Yes. my   gosh. It's so, it's so crazy. So just FYI, know that there's a lot of love and chaos sometimes that goes into recording these podcasts. And we do love what we do. We do love recording them. love seeing them on Instagram when they pop up and listening to what everybody has to say. And I love listening to them on my own.   We know there's some huge, huge raving fans out there. So thank you. But it led into today so well. I wanted to take time today to talk about mental health and dentistry. I think it's definitely, I think it's talked about more now than it ever has been because I do think mental health and suicide and all of those, all of those different avenues and pieces are more widely like accepted to be talked about.   and more widely known. So I do think that it is talked about more in dentistry and the awareness, you know, they say awareness is key. The awareness is there, but I really, you guys know we get tactical. We get super tactical no matter what we do. And I think that there are some really tactical ways that we can go about mental health and dentistry. And I wanted to take some time with Dana today to really chat through some of that and really look at what can we do?   every day to make sure that we are considering our mental health within the career choice, whether you're dentistry or not, whatever career choice you've taken that has led you here to us today. I think this is going to be super beneficial. And I have personally experienced mental health issues in my personal life, in childhood and with my mother and suicide. And it's still here. It's still relevant. It's still   It's everywhere. think everyone I know and everyone I come in contact with has had some sort of mental health disturbance touch their lives in some way, whether it's them personally or someone near them, family or friend. And I just, I reach out to all of you guys and I wrap you up in a huge hug because whether it's super personal or gosh, it was, you know, three times removed, but you still heard about it. It still impacts us and it still becomes a part of   who we are. sending massive amounts of love out to everyone today and Dana, you are a master at coordinating chaos is what I will call it today. You are a stress and chaos coordinator extraordinaire. And I think that many, many of the spaces of stress that a lot of people deal with, and I think a lot of our clients that we talk to really actually deal with is the stress of   Dana (04:22) you   The Dental A Team (04:38) personal life and work life, the stresses of both sides trying not to take one into the other and trying to create this like ever seeked after work life balance and not understanding that compartmentalizing all of those pieces actually harms us in the end when they really just need to be addressed and they really just need to be, I don't know, divvied out, figured out. But Dana, you have   you have a very active personal life and you have a very active work life. You have a lot of clients and a lot of responsibilities and you help me a ton constantly. And how do you, how do you feel on the day to day? Actually, we're going to, we're going to go emotional first and then we'll go super tactical, but how do you feel in your life? Like some days, do you just have days where you're just like, I can't do it anymore. And then other days you're like, dang, I'm totally killing it. Like, what does that look like in your life?   Dana (05:34) Yeah, I mean, I am super blessed in the fact that I feel like I am a person that thrives a little bit more in chaos. I like to stay busy. I like to keep myself talk full. I know that isn't everyone. So for sure, that is a blessing, like just with my personality type and everything that I have going on. But definitely there are days where at the end of the day, I have to   take a few minutes and just breathe. I have to prioritize myself and I have to do it very intentionally. I can't just expect it to kind of fall that way. It has to be organized that way for me to be able to keep it consistent. And so just realizing that like years ago as my family continued to grow and I wanted to still have a professional life, I had to be super intentional about...   setting aside time for those things, making myself aware when I am starting to feel like I just need a breather and be super intentional on how I build my schedule and how I build out the pieces that are truly important to me.   The Dental A Team (06:33) Yeah, yeah. And you used a really special word to me, intentional. That is something that is drastically more and more important the older I get in life. And intentionality, I think, is huge. Personal intentionality on, like you said, the way that you're spending your time, the things that you're doing, the attention you're giving yourself, the attention you're giving other people, and then the intentionality behind the things that you're doing, I think plays a massive role as well. So thank you for sharing that. I do think   One of the reasons that you and I are drawn together in life is the fact that we are both insanely intentional and intentional in reaching out intentional and everything that we do. So that piece for us definitely makes us stick and keeps us sticky to one another. So I appreciate and value that about you. I think within that statement, that intentionality is something that you can pull out tactically. You guys from what Dana is saying is number one, she checks in with herself.   Right? You've got to check in with yourself. And I have been listening to this new book and it's amazing, right? We'll talk about it at another time. But something that really struck me there was the idea of upsets in life coming out of a space of lack of control. So us being angry, frustrated, exhausted, tired, upset with how   work is flowing into personal life. Like if we really take a step back and we look at it from that bird's eye perspective, we probably can find something within our day or our work life or whatever it is that's quote unquote upsetting us that actually it's something that we feel like we have no control over. within the dental industry and within your guys's positions as owners and doctors and leaders and mentors and all of the hats that you're wearing, a lot of that   could really feel like everything's happening to you and like I have to do this and this is, you know, this happened to me today and I can't believe that this happened. But looking at it from a space of how did I allow this not to guilt ourselves, right? Cause that's the opposite of what we want to do here. But to be able to say, okay, could I have said or done something differently that would have led to more control over the out.   come up the situation. So for Dana, what you said was the end of the day, sometimes you just need a breather and you're just like, I need to take a step back. That's really, really looking at how can I regain control over my emotions before I step into life with my family so that we're quote unquote, not carrying work with us, but really saying, you know what, I'm going to complete this day. I'm going to complete this workday. I'm going to center myself.   and I'm gonna move on with the rest of my day. So you're not, it's almost like you're not carrying things with you because you finished it. And when we carry things, it's because things feel incomplete, or we're still trying to figure out where it is that we're lacking that control. So you take a step back and you say, okay, this is what today looks like. Great, it's done, that's over. It's behind me and I can no longer change anything about it. But what I can do is reset myself.   be present and go be with my family or go do my workout by myself, go read a book, go take a bath, go jump through the shower to reset my mind. Like whatever it is that next step you're taking forward, Danim, you've closed the book, finished that chapter on the rest of the day that's behind you, closed that book, and now you're reopening your journal.   to like go start the rest of your day. And I think that's really, really cool and actually like super tactical to really almost like now we're positively compartmentalizing, but we're not compartmentalizing to forget about it or not feel the feelings or not finish it. You're compartmentalizing as in like this piece is done. I can no longer change what's happened. All I can do is take the next step forward and then tomorrow.   reset myself again and not let it happen to me again, but be like, how can I make life happen instead of letting life happen?   Dana (10:42) Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. And I think that takes so many different shapes in my day. even I know, you know, yes, I have a lot of clients who I absolutely love, but I have a lot of other responsibilities within the late team, like project time and podcasting and writing newsletters and you know, all sorts of client projects too. And so I have learned that I really have to kind of chunk and compartment my day too, because it's really hard to go from like content pieces into calls then back into content.   then into calls again. So I've had to really design my schedule to   Even make it more so that like my day can flow and I don't have to flip Mindsets all the time and you know, I've worked with doctors who knew doctors right who started they come in they're doing all the re-cares and they're doing all the restorative and they're and I'm like, hey Let's just make sure right when you can it's it's really hard to jump back and forth into those things So just even even taking compartments of your day in dentistry or your day as a consultant and really looking at how can I keep my mindset   with everything that I have to do, how can I keep my mindset and how can I shift in my responsibilities even within work life to be able to have a little bit more control or a little bit more focus.   The Dental A Team (11:56) No, I think that was beautifully beautifully stated and so tactical because there's so many different spaces that you can apply that to. I apply it to my personal life as well. But I think about a doctor going from like a second molar root canal, you're gonna do a second molar root canal first of all, you're nuts, right? Don't do those. anyway, second molar root canal. And then you go from that second molar root canal into a cosmetic consultation.   my gosh, one you're exhausted. it's like, when we're done podcasting, I don't know about you, but my brain's exhausted. so knowing that like, we try to schedule these today was not super ideal, but in many facets, but we'll get through it. But we try to schedule them on days when we know it's like where this is just like a content creation day. This is a meeting day. This isn't like a full   heavy client day, which I don't think either one of us have super heavy client days today. So it worked out well in that capacity, but you're exactly right. It's really about how can I make the best of what I have for me first? Because if I struggle, I have so many people that struggle with this, and I think this comes down to a mental health space as well. If you're not your best self, if you're not creating a life that works the best for you,   It's impossible to create a life that works the best for everyone around you because you can't give anything else. You have to be full, I go crazy on this one. You have to be full in order to be able to give people a piece of you. Otherwise, they're only getting a piece of what's left. so it's so like counterintuitive because we think I'm a people pleaser and I want to give to other people and I want to do for other people.   And if I do for me, it's selfish. But realistically, your cup is getting drained constantly. And if you're not refilling that cup, you're only able to give them a piece of what's left of your cup. So if you gave 50 % of your cup today, you do not reset. don't give back to yourself in any way. You wake up tomorrow, maybe a little bit more refreshed, and you've got 60%, we'll say. You left with 50, and you gave yourself 10 % while you slept. So now you come into tomorrow,   60 % full and then you give again 50%. You've only got 30 % left and you go to bed, you wake up the next day, maybe not as refreshed, 35 % rather than giving back to yourself and getting yourself up to that like 80 to 100 % refreshed and refueled. Now I can give more to the people around me because I am whole.   And so the reality is if you're not ensuring that your whole, that your mental health is a priority for you, you're doing a disservice not only to yourself, but to the people around you. So in turn, you being the people pleaser, you trying to give everything you can to other people and thinking it's selfish to give back to yourself is actually hurting the entire goal. So taking that moment and being like, okay, how can I?   take that control, because realistically, that's what it all, it comes down to. And I believe it's okay to be selfish. And I believe it's okay to like control. We all do, it's human nature. Both of those things are human nature. And us trying to battle against that is hurting us as an individual and as a community socially.   economically, politically, we are being hurt every day by trying to go against the natural grain of who we are. And so give back to yourself and look at spaces that you can control. You can't control everything. Right, Dana? Like, I can't control where someone schedules something. But what I can control is how I handle that and the system that got us there.   to the incorrect scheduling. I can handle that. cannot control and guarantee that everything's gonna be scheduled perfectly every day. What I can control is how I handle it after the fact. And like you said, building that schedule is massive. And then Dana too, I think something you do really well with your clients and newsletters you write and everything is really that delegation tool. So, and you delegate.   I know you delegate. delegated some dishes the other day to Senor Brody over there and he rocked it. He killed it and he was in the best mood all day because he got to help. But I know you delegate things at home too. speak to that a little bit too because scheduling is one thing, but I can still say yes to everything and in turn be saying no to a lot of things in the background I didn't realize. But how do you go about delegating and training doctors and teams to delegate to? I think that's a super.   another super tactical way that you really help doctors focus on that within their mental health.   Dana (16:52) Yeah, yeah. And I think the key to delegating, which I've had to use even in my personal life, is that very clear expectations of anything that I want someone else to handle. And that is like, what does it look like? When do I want it? How do they do it? And then on the other side of that is you have to train them on those things, and then you have to trust that they can do it and then build an accountability. So how do you know that it is being done? And the easiest way is to have them report   up to you. So delegation, you know, becoming a master at that truly is setting clear expectations, training on the things that you expect, and then really trusting and building an accountability with team members. And it's not always the easiest thing. But I think the more we do it, the more we practice it, the more we get feedback from our team.   on it the more that we build in systems for ourselves so that things don't fall through the cracks. So anytime we're delegating something, even just popping it on your calendar so that you know when to expect that report up, there are easy pieces that you can put into place that make it super simple to be able to delegate really well.   The Dental A Team (17:59) Yeah, and I think one of the spaces to know what to delegate, right, would be looking at looking at your list of things that you've got your duties. I do this sometimes with my home life, right? I'm like, these are all the things I got to get done. And then I look at it I'm like, what is on here that only I can do? What is on here that someone else could do? Because we've got vacations and trips and we've got all these things we're prepping for, right? So who   Who can pack for me? mean, anyone can pack for me, but I'm probably gonna pack my own stuff, right? But when I've got dishes or dinner or laundry that needs to be done or cats that need to be cleaned up after, like what are the pieces even in my personal life that I can delegate out to someone else because maybe I don't have enough time to do all of it, but I can pack and do my own laundry, right? So someone else can help with those other pieces and that's the same thing.   We tend to get into this cycle. We tend to get into this cycle, honestly, of thinking that our work life and our personal lives are so drastically different and that relationships are so drastically different. They're not. They just take on a little bit different form. Like a romantic relationship compared to my relationship with Dana. Like I'm communicating with Dana very similarly to how I communicate with Erin, right? But it's going to take on a little bit different of a form. But if I show up for Dana as a different version of myself,   I just put on this mask and I'm Dental A Team Tiff. And then I go home and I show up as a different version from my significant other. Somebody's losing and Dana's like, girl, you're crazy. Like, I don't trust you, right? Like, no, trust is built when we are authentic selves. We show up the way we want others to show up and we do the things that empower others to empower ourselves. So we delegate with empowerment. We delegate with trust. delegate with honesty.   and vulnerability and sometimes it's okay to say, hey, I'm actually really, really stressed about giving this task off because it's something that I've held near and dear to my heart and I'm super scared it's not going to get done correctly. Not that you can't do it, it's my own fear. I really need you to prove me wrong right now. Like, please help me stress or help me stretch this muscle, help me learn how to do this better and get me over this hurdle.   Dana, I said that to you and I asked you to do anything, how on board are you with, heck yeah, let me help Tiff.   Dana (20:21) yeah, 100%. And I think it's I get clients that reach out all the time about things like that. Like, well, how do I say this? Or how do I get them on board? Or how do I and it comes down to just have an open and honest conversation and actually mean what you say, right? And when you can authentically I mean, how exhausting is it to try to be someone to a million different people, right? It's exhausting. And so it really does come down to being willing to communicate being willing to say hard things, even if right, you feel like   like   it's a it's a reflection on you in some way being able to admit that you're stressed being able to admit that you need help and being able to admit that you've got a fear of letting something go. That's huge in building buy in for that team member because team members, dentists Trust me when I say this team members don't want to let you down, right? They want to do a good job. They want to help grow your business. They want those things I like it is very rare for me to come   across a team member who just doesn't care. And so being able to have that conversation with those team members are absolutely going to step up.   The Dental A Team (21:21) Okay.   Yeah. that was beautiful, I totally agree. And I hope you guys like took that to heart because everything Dana just said is a hundred percent true. We've lived this. Like I had the incredible experience of working with a really, really fantastic human for a lot of my career. And he gave me the kudos and the accolades and I was his right man, right hand man, right? I did everything, but it got to the point where I almost didn't, I didn't want other people to be able to do things because that was my title.   And so he did really well, right, at creating a human that he could, I could, I would do anything for that man. And I still would, like he didn't do it maliciously. But what it did was it created in me, I allowed it to create in me this fear of losing that special space or that the accolades of losing that title. And so I would harbor everything for myself and I'd say, it's fine, I'll just get it done. I'll get it done.   until I was overflowing and I was stressed out and I woke up one day and I remember waking up that day and I remember being like, I am angry every day when I wake up and that's not who I am. I live in rainbows, unicorns and literally like, I literally ate sprinkles on whipped cream last night. Like my family thinks I'm crazy, I love sprinkles. That's my life. When I wake up angry every day for long enough for me to wake up and be like, what is wrong?   I'm angry, I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I don't want to do anything. I just want to lay around. It's just not who I am. And so when you wake up and you think, who am I today? And if it doesn't resonate close to who you want to show up as and who you want to ultimately be in the world for yourself and other people, probably take a look at what's going on. And for me, what was going on was I wasn't delegating.   I was keeping everything to myself because I wanted the kudos for it. Or I was honestly, I wasn't even that scared that somebody else couldn't do it. I just wanted to do it. And so I kept everything. said yes to everything. And I started to become a person I didn't like anymore. And I had to really take a look at it. I had to take a look at my team. My team hated me. They, you know, they didn't, I didn't empower them. It was a team of like check-listers. They're just going to do their checklist. They're going to go home afterwards.   They weren't invested. weren't bought in. They weren't bought into me for sure. And it sucked. And I was like, I have to carry the load. I didn't have to carry the load. I just had to let some of it go. I had to ask for help. I had to pass out the oars because I was there with my one or like spinning in circles, wondering why no one was helping when I was clearly drowning. And really I had, it was like I was, I had a, you know, a bundle of oars on my back that I was like locked into. They were   They were chained to me and I had my one or going, why isn't anyone picking up an or and helping because I had them all. So I had to like unlock it, pass out the oars and allow people the opportunity to help steer the ship instead of me doing everything. And my mental health took a complete 180 that day. Like it, it was incredible. And so I want you guys to take notes from what Dana is saying here. Like take inventory, look at where you.   Where are you feeling out of control? Where are you feeling upset? Where are you feeling like this is just too much? And can you, like Dana said, create a schedule that works for you, personal and work. You know what, doctors? Go create a schedule of what you want your day to look like. If you want to do a root canal at 7 a.m. and not 4 p.m., then do a root canal at 7 a.m. and not 4. If you don't want to do root canals, then stop doing root canals. Do whatever you want it to look like. And when you have questions, write in. Dana's here.   Dana helps answer. We all help answer those. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We're happy to help you. So take a look. Where in your schedule can you clear out some of the muck? What can you do to, like she said, compartmentalize your schedule? Let's build it to flow for you. And then like Dana said, what are you doing that you don't have to do? What are you doing that you can delegate out to someone? Trust them, empower them, and speak from your heart with vulnerability.   speaking from your heart will be vulnerable every time. And when they know that you're coming from a place of love, they're gonna love you right back. And guess what, if they don't, Dana, what do we do with those people?   Dana (25:52) We're not meant to be.   The Dental A Team (25:54) Bye bye. They're not meant to be and they're   not gonna stick around. You don't even have to do it. They're gonna be like, this is weird and like, I don't really want to do this. So I'm gonna find a new job. And it's like, great. That's awesome. Because now I know why I was overloaded with too much stuff. Because I didn't have the support of someone here with me. So fantastic. Open up that space for me to find someone who can support me on this journey. You are not meant for everyone and everyone's not meant for us. So Dana, tacticals, schedule.   Go build your schedule. Make a list of all the crap that you've got on your plate and start looking at what do you have to do versus what can someone else do for you. I also like what do I get to do. Yeah, I agree.   Dana (26:34) And I think first, take off the things you don't like doing to right? Like,   those are the first things I get rid of, you know, that question where they're like, Hey, would you rather have like a professional chef or hands down, somebody can clean my house. I hate doing that, right? So if there is something you don't like doing, take that off your plate instantly if you can.   The Dental A Team (26:41) Agreed.   I agree.   That's fair. That's   fair. I have a friend who loves cleaning baseboards and I'm like, you're crazy. You're psychotic. That's weird. She won't cook a meal. She can't cook a meal to save her life, but she will clean all the baseboards once a week. Nobody's looking at those. I don't think people even have them anymore for that reason. They suck. Anyways, take off the things you don't want to do. Personal and professional. Take off the things you don't want to do. think that's brilliant. Build a schedule.   Build a list of the things that you want to do. What do you get to do every day? What do you get to wake up and do every single day that only you can do? And then delegate with honesty, with trust and vulnerability. You guys, mental health is serious and our company fully believes in that. I think there are many podcasts. There are many platforms. Kira and I have spoken out on suicide, mental health awareness, all of those things. They have touched both of us very personally.   This company believes in mental health. If you're in a space that you're like, I think I might be there where I need to just talk to someone. You just want to talk. Call us. There's a phone number on our website. Write in. Schedule a call. I don't care. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Find us on Instagram. We're all on there. You're going to find us. Dental A Team is on there. We're all there. Come find us. Let us be the support.   that's going to get you to that next level. Even if it's simply, I've watched Dana do this for so many clients saying, you know what, you can delegate. Sometimes Dana gets to just be the cheerleader behind the person. It's not extravagant. It's not always grandiose. Sometimes it's just saying, yeah, you've got this. Dana, thank you so much for taking this journey with me. This is one of my favorite platforms to speak about and platforms to speak on. So thank you for being here with me today.   Dana (28:44) Yeah, thanks.   The Dental A Team (28:45) All right,   listeners, you know what to do. Drop us a five star review because you know this one was amazing. You can't deny that. And just tell us, tell us pieces that really hit home for you and any ideas you guys have on expanding on this, leave it in the review. You guys, people do read those reviews and it's a very easy space for you to speak on this platform as well. think it's super cool to be able to do that. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and we'll catch you next time.

In this part 2 of his conversation with Kiera, Morgan Hamon, co-founder and president of EAG Dental Advisors, talks about the action items doctors must commit to to stay financially savvy. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and this is part two with me and Morgan Hamon as part of EAG Dentist Advisors, where we're actually gonna talk into the tax psychology and the tax strategies and the tax tips. And I really just feel like this episode is so powerful. And as always, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.   Morgan Hamon (00:22) But no, you got to do the stuff. So if your accountant tells you, look, take a board meeting, document it properly, there's a proper way to do it, you got to do it. That's how we say the proper legal avoidance. your account comes to you and says, look, it's time to be an S-Corp,   Kiera Dent (00:30) Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (00:39) because the profit is appropriate, you gotta follow the instruction. There's a procedure there and it's gonna save a lot of money on self-employment payroll tax if it's done correctly. You gotta listen, but you gotta engage. There's action items. And so we, ⁓ every September, I made a checklist. You know, again, Navy guy, right? I got a checklist. Log in, do the checklist. I call it our business tax savings maximizer. That's the flashiest, catchiest name I could think of. But like, log in and do it. That's the secret.   Kiera Dent (00:58) I love it.   you   Morgan Hamon (01:08) So, you know, for those listeners that waiting for the secret, that's it, right? We got to capture expenses as business deductions and there is action items for the doctor. It requires that engagement. And to circle back to where what you said earlier, like you can't come into the office and just fix it for them. They've got responsibilities on things to do too and that's the same with tax policy.   Kiera Dent (01:31) I thought that was such a beautiful way. And as you were going through the phases of grief, I'm like, oh yeah, I definitely lived all of those. And I think it does feel like a kick in the gut. like, this is worse than finding out like coal in your stocking Christmas morning. Like it's way worse. Like it feels awful. And you're in total denial that like, how is this even real? Like I live in America. Like, how is this real? I didn't know. And I mean, then you put on your state tax on there. And I'm like, for people who are in California,   Morgan Hamon (01:39) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (02:00) Like more than 50 % of your income could be going to tax pending upon your tax bracket. But I think Morgan is one of those things of also seeing, I know people don't want to hear, I'm going to be very unpopular right here and it's okay. It will like, you'll be in denial, you'll hate it. And then you'll be like, yeah, that's actually a really good point. Cause that's how I did it. Like taxes are a blessing though. Like we, we are so blessed to live in the country we are to be able to set the pricing that we want, to be able to do the work that we want to do that. like, I don't want to pay more taxes.   Morgan Hamon (02:12) you   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (02:28) but I can see me paying taxes as like my opportunity to be here and to be a business owner. And I think that's an amazing thing that we do get to have access to. But like you said, shoot guys, this is where the discipline comes in. This is where the engagement comes in. This is where the ownership comes in. I remember where I should like, I'll send you a picture. My husband and made this like vision board together, cause every December I would cry over taxes. And one of my goals, literally has like, it's a sign that says tax expert ahead.   Morgan Hamon (02:33) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (02:57) And I put that on my vision board because I'm I'm sick of this stupid stuff. I'm sick of Morgan telling me I owe this much money when I'm like, how is it even possible? I was like, I'm going to freaking figure this out. And I realized like, it's actually not that hard of a math equation. It's like, what is my profit that I get that month? What's my tax bracket? And let me go save that.   Morgan Hamon (03:00) Thank you.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (03:16) pay your quarterly tax payments. And then what I love is when, cause I put myself in the highest tax bracket, some years I'm going to be a little bit higher, some years I'm going be a little bit lower, like it's going to flush out. But if I'm saving my max amount that I would be having to pay in taxes every single month, I'm like, it's not that hard. Like you literally just take it, put it in a savings account, I put it in a high yield, so I'm even making money on it there. What's amazing is at the end of the year, I get my W2,   Morgan Hamon (03:32) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (03:41) like refund, if you will, because we realize I have over-saved throughout the year. I also put in there like buckets, because I realized for me, Morgan, it wasn't just the tax that was hitting me. It was the SEP IRA that I had to pay. It was charitable contributions I was paying. It was end of year bonuses. And all of that, it's not taxes. I think you get hit with all of those at the end of the year. It's like you're trying to put these, then you've got your Roth IRA that you're trying to like put those in. And it's like all these things are money and it's all accumulating at one time.   Morgan Hamon (03:43) Mm-hmm.   Okay.   Kiera Dent (04:11) versus figuring out how much you really are gonna pay, breaking it down into buckets, saving for it, and then I love it. My money at the end of the year, whatever I don't pay in taxes, because yeah, it's a big number, whatever, you're just going to pay it. That's part of having an amazing, thriving business. But then my slush because I over-saved, that becomes my refund, that becomes Keira's money of like, sweet, what are we gonna do on this because I've already paid tax. Now I can take that.   Morgan Hamon (04:14) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (04:37) Now I can go buy the things I want to buy. can put it in retire. I can put it wherever I want it to go. ⁓ but I have it to our peace of mind. When I get my, like this year, my CPA can be like, wow, Kara, you like, you have this. And I was like, rock on. Like you're not stressed about it, but that takes discipline every month. I'm literally like, Hey, how much do we have put that profit over in our savings every quarter? You're making those quarterly payments. ⁓ it is being strategic. is like.   Morgan Hamon (04:52) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (05:06) You were on a call the other day with some of our doctors and like, so Kiera, how like there are you when you do your meetings at your house? And I'm like, I crossed my T's down my eyes. I don't like this game. Like I do Airbnb. I look at all my rental comps around me. I saved that every year. It's in a folder. All the things are in the calendar with me and the other people. I have an agenda. I send that over to my CPA. I just don't like to play in the game of gray. But I think those are the pieces that help you. And then you just maximize.   Morgan Hamon (05:16) Thank you.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (05:34) But Morgan, I don't know. think I've just learned that's also part of the success tax of being successful. Like this is what it is. And I think that being a business owner, the discipline of saving your money and not spending it all because we think like, should get this cause I'm a high earner. No, like there's still tax games that we play. There's different ways to minimize it. But realizing like I need to be disciplined here. I think if you can be disciplined there, it also stems to your team. It stems to your leadership. It stems to your physical health.   Morgan Hamon (05:39) It is.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (06:04) It stems through   so many other areas in your life that I think like talk about a blessing of taxes that we actually get this benefit.   Morgan Hamon (06:07) Yes.   It,   I agree. And you do have to be, you do have to be disciplined. I know. I know. I also, I'll share a personal, I'll share a personal experience and kind of how I view tax because I very happily write those checks. You know, I write the same ones as our doctors do, but so back when I got out of the Navy, my family and I, so my parents, my brother and myself, we all chipped in and bought a real estate company.   Kiera Dent (06:13) Even though I hate it, Morgan, don't take me wrong. I still hate taxes. Morgan, tell me the secrets.   Morgan Hamon (06:36) back in 2005, real estate was happening. It was all in, all chips on the table. Well, guess what? 2009, everyone remember what happened in 2009? So, I mean, it was bad. It was horrific. 2009, my tax bill was zero. Zero. But do you think I was coming home saying, honey, look at this, zero, woohoo, check this out. I got no tax.   Kiera Dent (07:04) day.   Morgan Hamon (07:05) No, I'm sitting in a room and looking at the wall like how am going to face my kids telling them dad can't keep a roof over their head? How did my life get this screwed up? I paid no income tax, but those are not good times. That's not a period. And so right after that is when my dad and I started HD Accounting Group. But those days were like not my fondest memories even though I had zero tax liability. Fast forward a bunch of years, I've enjoyed a lot of success and I write some big checks to the government and I don't care.   My life is so much better. got kids college paid for, no debt. My life is good. And yeah, they are some big checks. I mean, let's face it, they're not my favorite things to write. Nobody likes it. But my life is just exponentially better. So when you're paying tax, you're making good money. I don't know, maybe boil it down to that.   Kiera Dent (07:55) I would agree with you.   which thank you for sharing because I think we, I agree. I don't want to have a year where I'm paying $0 to taxes. Cause that means that when you said zero and I'm like, we had a bad year. That's like a real bad year. Like as a business owner, you start to realize like that actually is not a good year. ⁓ But I think for that, ⁓ it's the discipline. And I found for me what's cut the stress out as an employer and as a business owner, not CPA, that's Morgan the world. That's not my world is when I have   Morgan Hamon (08:09) That's... ⁓   And now...   Kiera Dent (08:28) money and I'm disciplined and I save it because you still have profit afterwards. So it's not like you're not taking anything home every month. You're just being disciplined that that money for tax you save then I have the money and I'm like the pain I think comes from not having the money and the fear of where am I going to come up with the six figures when I've already spent it. I think that's more of why people hate taxes just like people hate root canals. They don't actually hate the root canal. They hate the pain leading up to it. We hate the pain of not having the money set aside.   Morgan Hamon (08:33) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm. Yeah.   Yes   Well.   Exactly. And let's tie this real specifically to the world you and I serve, our dentists. What really creates a lot of confusion and adds to the emotion is that, most of our clients have a practice note, a big one. And they don't always realize, look, when you make your loan payment, that is not a tax deduction, right?   Kiera Dent (09:22) not   just   Morgan Hamon (09:22) When you borrow the   money, we deduct everything you're going to buy, but then over time when you pay that back, you don't get it deducted again. So if your debt service on your practice loan is $100,000 a year, which we see often, you're paying income tax on it. So if you made $500,000 and $100,000 went back to the bank, you're living on $400,000 but paying tax on $500,000. And that is   That can be shocking and that's why you'll hear, and that applies to just both financial accounting and tax, that question of, my accountant said I made this much money. That can't possibly be the case. I just logged into the bank. What are they talking about? It's that debt service. That money's gone, but it's not a deduction. The other thing that makes it, any tax planning for dentist challenging is just the volatility in the month to month profit.   And I think there's a misperception out there, hey, look, my accountant is keeping my books up to date every month, right? And so if we get to the end of, let's say the end of September, and we can, hey, September 30, this is the exact profit, that does not equate to a granular, precise tax calculation because we have to, all your tax rate is dependent on total annual household income. If there's four months in the year that haven't happened yet, we gotta,   Kiera Dent (10:16) Amen.   Morgan Hamon (10:46) We got to estimate and it's subject to change. Maybe they were struggling in May and they said, you know, I'm calling Kiera, fine, I'm going to do it. We're going to get this thing figured out. And so then by November, they're killing it and everything's up 30%, 40%. Well, guess what's also going to be up? Your estimated payments are going to be higher, right? And so it's volatile.   and it's not an exact science. with any tax planning, those quarter estimated payments are trying to keep you in the hunt. And you alluded to that by having your buckets. Just realize there will be a settle up at the end of the year when it all fleshes out, because all we can do is estimate along the way. Try to keep it as close as we can. But I'm with you. I make those payments quarterly. I don't put my head in the sand because it'll just get bigger.   Kiera Dent (11:33) Well, I'm curious, Morgan, this is like Kara's nerdy side of me that I don't understand. So help me. And I hope this comes across respectful of the CPA world. To me, I feel like why don't CPAs at the end of every month, you know my profit, you know what I did that month. So yes, there's the estimated, but why not just give me like, the only thing I've thought of is maybe my tax bracket could change, but I'm like, why not estimate every month approximately what I need to save for taxes?   Morgan Hamon (11:43) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (12:03) So I can at least put that away monthly. Help me understand the psychology of that, because I don't.   Morgan Hamon (12:06) So, oh, trust me,   we've thought about this every which way. And I'm never done. I tweak our tax planning process every year. So to your point, like you could look at last year's tax return. So there's two figures to look at. There's your marginal tax rate, which is your whatever bracket, your highest, so the highest of 37.   But then there's what's called an effective, and that's just the average, right? If you look at total income and total tax, what's the average? So you could look at your last year's tax return and maybe your combined federal and state income tax was, call it 30%. So you could say, whatever my profit is times 0.3 is what I had to put away. So you could do that, but that's inherently going to be inaccurate.   because you will not have the same effective tax rate this year unless you have like a carbon copy and it'll be different. A lot of volatility. The other thing, it's a very equipment heavy industry as you know, and people do go buy equipment. And so if we, if say an accountant says, put whatever your profit is times 0.3, put that away, but then they get in and maybe they really do. Maybe their practice was... ⁓   Kiera Dent (13:20) Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (13:31) you know, plum for eight ops, but they're equipped for five and it's time to fit those other three. Well, that's some really nice tax deductions there, like dollar for dollar. Well, that's really going to come down. And so that estimate's going to be out the window, like really quickly. You know, we've had times where I think of this story, something you don't tell stories. We had a client, this was a few years back, where they sent us an invoice. I can't remember what they bought.   Kiera Dent (13:38) and   Morgan Hamon (14:00) It was big, right? It was $120,000. They sent an invoice, not an email like I'm thinking about this. They sent an invoice. So we booked it. 120K deduction, did the tax plan, the works. Well, it comes time to do the tax return. And we're saying, hey, we keep asking for the loan paperwork on this claim. We don't get it. So finally, hey, look, we really want to get this tax return done. Can you send us that loan paperwork? And he's like, oh, I changed my mind.   I didn't buy that. And we're like, oh, let's put 120K of income back on top. You owe, I think it was like 40,000. And they're like, how can this be? I'm like, you sent us an invoice. Think how mad you'd be if we hadn't booked it. And I just tell that kind of story. Like equipment purchases in Q4, it's all out the window at that   Kiera Dent (14:37) Bye.   Yeah.   Yeah!   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (14:58) So   it's very volatile. So to kind of circle all way back to the beginning, just for some basic tax planning, I knew for me, like federal and effective, it's like 35%. And I just planned for that. And then there's a settle up. And if I owe a bit, it's because we killed it. And I need to actually celebrate that and not be cranky about it. And if I get some money back, maybe,   Kiera Dent (15:13) Mm-hmm.   you   Morgan Hamon (15:27) Maybe it just didn't end up as good as I thought or whatever. We're accountants. We don't have like, Xerox machines to write off. I got like a laptop. So, I mean, we're kind of limited on that. So, ⁓ those are some limitations inherent in tax planning for specific for the dental industry, the volatility and month-to-month profit and the high amount of equipment that's involved, which involves some instantaneous significant tax deductions.   Kiera Dent (15:32) Right.   and   Sure, no, that makes sense. And I think for me, it's always like, okay, there's profit, there's expenses. ⁓ If I'm gonna go use that money for expenses, then I'm going to take my tax amount. So obviously it's going to reduce my tax bill by that dollar amount. I can actually pull portions out of that money I've saved to pay for my equipment potentially if I need to. But just curious on that, because I've always, I'm like, it's a simple equation. Here's my profit. This is how much my tax bracket probably is. But also maybe you guys don't want them saving more than they need to because then people get angry.   Morgan Hamon (16:01) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   The truth.   Yeah.   Well,   people, it can get emotional either way, right? If they get a big refund, they're like, wait a minute, I could have had this in my high yield savings account. So we really do try to keep it as close as we can given the constraints of this kind three-dimensional moving target. What I have told doctors in the past, if we think about, let's say they've got an S-Corp, so on a reasonable W2, we got some holding through that W2, but they should still be taking the majority of the money home via profit distribution, okay?   Kiera Dent (16:26) that   Exactly.   Morgan Hamon (16:53) Have a look at last year's tax return. If you don't know how to find it, let us know. Keep it simple. If it's 30 % or 20, it's 28 points, okay, round it to 30. What I think every business owner should do, okay, at the end of the month or quarter, however often you want to do it, you look at how much money has accumulated in the operating account, what is my chosen desired minimum cash reserve, and whatever has accumulated, distribute it.   Kiera Dent (17:06) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (17:24) And take, let's say there's $20,000 extra in there, right? And let's just say your effective rate's a third of that. Well, take six or 7,000 and just put it in, like you said, Kiera, your savings bucket. And then save that so then when your accountant says, hey, it's time for your Q3 payment, you tap that money. And I think that's just a simple thing that...   Kiera Dent (17:42) Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (17:53) habit you could get into, for me personally in our business, we always did that quarterly. And we'd take a distribution quarterly and I would just lop off the top, put it away and treat it like I had never had this and I would send it right off to the government. And that way I wasn't playing catch up so much. In the accounting world, I don't quite have the volatility that dentists have, but it's still, that habit pattern. It's that discipline of doing it.   Kiera Dent (18:20) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Yeah. No, that's super helpful. And Morgan, this is why I love to talk about it. Because it's like, hey, how can I refine? As we were talking about on that leadership, how can I refine? How can I make this just a little bit better? How can I learn a little bit more of the nuggets? How can I be smarter on my prep work for me emotionally? Because some people are just fine. They'll just like, I have a million buckets. I love my buckets. I love to know what this money is saved for.   Morgan Hamon (18:42) Hehehe.   Kiera Dent (18:45) My financial advisor teases me, my CPA teases me. I'm okay with it because I'm like, sweet, I know how much money I've got here. I know what I can buy here. My husband loves like just one big fund. And I'm like, but then how do know how much I can spend? Like I don't want to overspend or underspend. So everyone's different. So things are just going through it. Things are the psychology of it, the tax planning pieces, how the leadership and profitability connect to each other. Morgan, you guys are such an incredible CPA firm. I love that you're specifically only dentists. I tried to have you guys work with me you said, no, I'm not a dentist. So   Morgan Hamon (18:51) Mm-hmm.   You   huh.   Kiera Dent (19:14) I love that you are so niche. It was great, I loved it. But if people are curious, how do they work with you? What are kind of the broad services that people could see working with you guys that you guys do and how they can connect with you?   Morgan Hamon (19:24) So   our mission has always been and will continue to be supporting doctors by providing them the monthly accounting for their practice, providing practice profitability analysis reports and specific advising and tax planning ⁓ just for doctors. ⁓ If you want to check us out, is EAGDentalAdvisors.com is our website.   ⁓ Or just email me reach out to me Morgan.Hamon@EisnerAmper.com My business partner Cortney and I we do all initial consultations personally It's always been that way I love to meet new doctors learn about their situation tell them about what we do See if you see if it could be a good fit, but that's how folks would could go out and find us   Kiera Dent (20:09) Well guys, we have a lot of clients that work with Morgan. I think he's incredible. I love what you guys are doing. Morgan, it was always a fun time. Thanks for kicking it off with Top Gun, ending with like tack strategy. Thanks for sharing some of the tips. But truly super honored to work with you and love what you guys are doing for dentists out there.   Morgan Hamon (20:19) Alright.   Kiera,   I always enjoy our visits and look forward to each one. So I appreciate you having me. I really enjoyed it.   Kiera Dent (20:31) course. And for all of you listening, thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.

Morgan Hamon, co-founder and president of EAG Dental Advisors, returns to the podcast to talk about dentistry financials. As a CPA, Morgan pulls from his experience to talk with Kiera about what it takes to be profitable (beyond revenue and expenses). Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so jazzed. I have one of my absolute favorite guests back on the podcast, Morgan Hamon. He used to be with HDA. They have now upgraded their name to EAG Dental Advisors. Super excited. He's an incredible CPA, does all things dental, loves airplanes. He's been on the podcast so many times. We've had some good chats. Dear friend to me, Morgan, welcome back to the show. How are you?   Morgan Hamon (00:20) Ha ha.   Kiera, I'm doing good. It is so great to be with you and looking forward to our conversation today.   Kiera Dent (00:31) to you and me both. So I have to know since you love airplanes and it's in your background, are you a fan or not a fan of Top Gun? I just need to know.   Morgan Hamon (00:35) Mm-hmm.   You know, I have a soft spot   for that movie because when it came out in 1986, I was 15. And I, you know, I sort of set my sight. That definitely influenced me. said, that's what I want to do. So I went out and did it. And so.   Kiera Dent (00:46) Mmm.   So then how did you like Top Gun Maverick? was the second? Tell me, are you fan?   Morgan Hamon (00:56) That one, the purpose   of that movie was entertainment and it was entertaining, but it was a little, you gotta suspend disbelief a little bit. It was a little nostalgic because that was set in Naval Air Station, Lamar, which is where I was for eight years. So it was pretty cool seeing that and the flying scenes were real. And so they were all filmed out. It's called restricted area 2508, which is where we always used to fly. So it was pretty nostalgic seeing some of the flying scenes back where we used to go fly.   Kiera Dent (01:17) Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (01:26) But technically, there's a little, like any movie, there's a little Hollywood going on there. But it was entertaining.   Kiera Dent (01:26) No.   can't   How cool though that they like made a spot for Iceman with him having throat cancer. I thought that was incredible. Like way to go Tom Hanks. So I know you guys didn't come to the podcast to hear Morgan and I talk about top men, but we're going to segue now because Morgan does all things. We love to talk profit. We love to talk taxes. We love to talk all things nerding out on CPA land, which I have really truly fallen in love with like understanding my numbers. So this is a soft spot for me, but   Morgan Hamon (01:39) Yes   Yep.   Hahaha   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (02:01) Morgan said he won the topic today, which I think is a sexy topic and I cannot wait where he said leadership relates to profitability. And I said, Morgan, sign me up. Here we go. So Morgan, this is our time. This is our topic because I absolutely agree with you that leadership does relate to profitability, but take it away. And then we're to dig into tax savings. We're going to dig into all this stuff and who knows where else we're going to go, but ⁓ it'll be a great one. It always is.   Morgan Hamon (02:16) Mm-hmm.   Yes.   Well, think   this topic has evolved with me a little bit, because we've been doing this 15 years and going now. And so a lot of conversations over the years. And I've always thought about profitability, which let's face it, that's why we own businesses. We don't own businesses to pay tax. We own businesses to make a nice living and have some control over our lives. So you've to have profit, and it's hard owning a business. So if we don't have adequate profit, why bother? ⁓   Our mission has always been to really focus on profit, give our doctors feedback on what that profit is, and diagnose if things are, you know, if there's something that could put more money in their pocket. Now, with my CPA hat on, right, there's two parts of that profit equation. There's the expense side of the equation and the revenue side of the equation. And so for a lot of years, I mean, that's where our focus has been.   But I've recently, last year or two, I've really come to the conclusion, look, there's a third component there, right? And it's not math, I can't point to the P &L. But where this comes from is I get asked all the time about, and it's from the clients either considering a startup or purchasing a practice, and they'll say, okay, Morgan, you got clients all 50 states, like where's the great area? Where should I go where folks are doing well?   Kiera Dent (03:27) Ooh, I can't wait.   Morgan Hamon (03:47) I that question. I get asked, hey, do you have a special report for pediatric dentists? Because I'm going to be pediatric, so I'm going to be making more money kind of thing. Or I'll hear a report. Or I'll get a question that, do you have a report just for your clients in California? Because it's like way different out here. And I say, look, the answer is no. We have one report. In geography and specialty,   I think they may influence profitability, but that's not the deal breaker. We have plenty of clients who are specialists. The struggle, we have plenty of clients, like one of our longest term clients is in Nob Hill, San Francisco. She recently moved across the bay, but it's like the most expensive city on the planet. She killed a 55 % profit margin for like 10 years. So geography isn't, that's not how we connect the dots. I think we connect the dots with leadership.   Kiera Dent (04:33) Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (04:43) You know, we have a lot of clients I've known for a long time. I've been with them along with their journey as I've been on my journey, which has been very rewarding. And I've come to the opinion that if we quantify success for a doctor and let's, and we'll talk a little bit more about this when we get to tax, but you know, is it money? Is it time? Is it all the above? If we look at, who's crossed the finish line? Who has the full deal? ⁓ It's the doctor that runs a tight.   Plain and simple. Like you can tell in me talking with them, I know them real well. You can tell by their numbers. Look, they're an amazing clinician, but they're also an amazing business leader. They know how to inspire their team. Their patients feel comfortable. They lead from the front. They just, they do it all. Those are the doctors that have the high profit margin and the high quality of life. It's not geography. It's not specialty, although that can have an influence.   That's the full package. So it is, yes, revenue, expenses, and how well do you lead your practice, in my opinion.   Kiera Dent (05:50) Morgan, I was so happy when I read that and when we were talking about what to bring on because I see it as well. I tell everybody, I can tell walking into a practice even before I walk into the practice, if I've met the leader of the practice, I usually can tell if this practice will be successful or not, truly based on the leader at the helm. And it's interesting because we did, I recently did this at our summit. So people were there, awesome.   Morgan Hamon (05:52) you   Kiera Dent (06:16) If they weren't, that's okay too. But we actually broke down and me and the consultants, we went through all of our clients. Like we looked at the clients, we looked at past clients, we looked at future clients, we looked at different pieces, what were our best clients, what were our worst clients. And I actually broke down, I'm trying to pull it up here, of like common themes of great practices and like great leadership and common themes of the not so good. And so some of the things I've seen in...   Morgan, I'm super curious to hear like what you'd add to our list. Cause I, you see it from a different perspective than we see it. So on my not so good list, these are the ones that like really they always are floundering is they don't trust their office manager. They're sometimes poor clinicians. Like they need to hire somebody else or get some training for that. ⁓ Poor leaders, they have team turnover constantly. They don't implement strategies. They're highly driven by emotion. They don't look at their numbers or their results.   Morgan Hamon (06:45) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   you   you   Kiera Dent (07:11) They do a lot of CE, but they never like implement. They have lots of coaches, but they don't trust and execute. They're half in on everything. So they're not like solid on anything. They want to pay to fix the problem with no self-realization identification that maybe they are the issue. They have ego fear with no accountability. And there's a lot of blame. Like everybody else is the problem. Are some of the things that I've seen and I don't know, like I know I'm putting you on the spot. didn't, I have my nice list over here, but is there anything else you see of patterns? I'm, you and I can both like,   Morgan Hamon (07:30) Mm-hmm. ⁓   Kiera Dent (07:41) in our Rolodex of humans we know are not so good leaders or the practices who aren't as profitable, are there any other things you've noticed in their leadership that maybe isn't as strong?   Morgan Hamon (07:41) No. Right.   Well, that was a very comprehensive list. Once we're done, I'm going to write all those down because I that's very good. If I were to summarize that, if we talk about leadership, it's really about ownership and engagement. You have to own it. Everything's your problem when you're the owner. There's another podcast I like.   Kiera Dent (07:58) Yeah, of course. I'll happily share. I will happily share. And if you get anything else, share back our way too.   Morgan Hamon (08:20) and it's nothing to do with dental, it's all about leadership. And there's a saying, and it's really stuck with me, and I swear I think about this every day, Kiera, when I think about my business and how do we keep doing a good job, is that if there's a problem in your organization, it's a leadership problem. You can trace it all the way back, go any direction you want, it's going to tie back to a leadership problem.   So, if something is going sideways, it ultimately comes back to your leadership as a business owner. So, maybe the staff, maybe there was a bad patient experience, something went sideways with the patient. Was that staff trained? Maybe they were trained, maybe they were not held accountable. Do you have a bad procedure? Maybe the procedure needs adapted. mean, we think about that all the time, constantly adapting, constantly tweaking, and I think you have to do that in any business. If, like you said,   in your list there if people don't want that accountability, there's always making excuses or they don't want to engage. They say, you know, and maybe they are a good clinician. They say, I'd rather just be in the operatory but my staff's a mess. Kiera, come on in here and whip them into shape and let me know when it's all good. You know, that's not how it works. That's not how it works.   Kiera Dent (09:32) Exactly. No, not   only they're part time. I'm not your manager. I'm not your leader. I'm not your boss.   Morgan Hamon (09:38) Right, or you know   what, I'm going to have an hour meeting with my accountant and that should solve it. Like, no, we're going to come up with some action items and then you need to execute those. So you have to own it. Everything's your problem when you own a business. ⁓ And if you own it and you engage, then I think we're on the right path to not be on that extensive list that you gave, which I just love.   Kiera Dent (10:03) right? Yeah, no, and I love it. And   it just made me actually think of something I heard a financial conference and they said EBITDA equals engagement. And I've thought about that a lot because the more engaged your team is, the more engaged you are, honestly, a lot of higher EBITDA there is, I won't leave our audience hanging. I do have the good list and maybe you can add to this to see. So the ones that I found like, that truly just knock it out of the park, these are our most successful right? I'm like, what is their DNA makeup that makes them this great leader?   Morgan Hamon (10:22) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (10:32) and it's their great implementers. They allow the teams to be free, like within the parameters. So they've got a great team culture. They're great at decision-making. They execute, they're consistent. They roll with the punches. They have long-term teams. They make their decisions based on numbers. They're great visionaries. And they know what they're working towards. They don't get distracted. So there's this laser focus that they have. ⁓ And on here, I would also say that they have massive ownership. And they also are not afraid to have the uncomfortable conversations with their team.   Morgan Hamon (10:52) Mm-hmm.   Thank   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (11:02) So   like they truly do, they're excellent at it. They might not be excellent communicators, but they're excellent at like tidying it up, driving their team for success. Those are some of the things I see, but I'm curious if there's anything else you'd want to add to that list because I think you're right. But I think that's a DNA makeup, right? It's people who are disciplined. If I go into the gym, they probably have like strong work ethic. They are laser focused. It's just like, it's who they are in all the aspects of our life, but I don't think they're necessarily born that way.   Morgan Hamon (11:10) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (11:30) I think a lot of them can be, but I think a lot of them create that over time as well. Like it's an evolution of them, not necessarily like, if I'm just born a great leader, like, no, they're constantly working on it, but I'm curious your thoughts.   Morgan Hamon (11:34) Mm-hmm.   Thanks   Yeah,   no, I think that's a good list. If I were to try to tie that together, I would say it's you lead from the front. you know, like all just a personal example for me, like responsiveness is a huge part of our culture. Like, you know, if clients reach out to us, they need to hear back like in a few hours, like today. Lead from the front. is not do what I say. It is do what I do and keep up. Keep up with me.   Kiera Dent (12:03) Yeah.   Morgan Hamon (12:12) Let me show you what I expect. You follow my example and let's go where I'm leading us. I think is when you own a dental practice, you have to do the same thing, whether that's in the daily huddle. You lead by example. If there's a certain patient experience you want your office to have, you have to lead that. They have to be emulating you and say, I sure hope I can do this as well as the doctor. ⁓ Lead from the front. I think you also have to make sure your team understands why their work is important.   Kiera Dent (12:42) cream.   Morgan Hamon (12:42) And   I do that all the time. Why is our work important as well? Because our clients are these dentists. They're drowning in debt. They don't necessarily learn how to run a dental practice in dental school. They're trying to put it all together to make a nice living. And they have probably eight or 10 employees that are accounting on them for their jobs. So our work matters. We're working with people's lives here. So you really have to... ⁓   I think articulate why the work's important and maybe that's not as challenging and don't practice because everybody knows. It's care. They're there to get care. They're in the chair. They're scared. They want to be comfortable and everything's going to be okay. I think you got to lead from the front. You got to say, look, let's do what I do and make sure you keep up with me.   Kiera Dent (13:32) Yeah, no, I love that. I just, think something that I love that you brought this up is I love when I have things internal, as much as it's annoying, that could actually help me become more profitable. It's like, hey, let me go to the gym and work out to be more disciplined. Let me read leadership books to learn how to lead. Let me practice uncomfortable conversations. Let me practice my decision-making. And the reality is like you becoming this person and leadership.   Morgan Hamon (13:34) you   Hehe.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (14:00) will equate to higher profitability. It's wild. Like I look back at maybe not so strong of leadership days and my business and profitability, I think definitely mirrored and matched where I was. And so also for us to say like, Hey, how do I maybe get to the next level? How can you evolve as a leader as well and be a bit stronger of that good version rather than the not so good version I think is really powerful.   Morgan Hamon (14:10) Mm-hmm.   Hehehe.   Yeah,   I think you really have to recognize whatever industry you're in that your technical skill and your leadership skill are completely different. You have to invest in those skills to acquire those and to maintain them. And just because you could be the most amazing CPA, just brilliant practitioner, that doesn't mean you're a good leader. You could be the most amazing clinician.   Kiera Dent (14:35) 100.   Morgan Hamon (14:51) and just do the most amazing work. That doesn't mean you're gonna be running a ⁓ great tunnel practice. You have to invest in those skills. Just being a smart person with some big degrees, that doesn't do it. You have to acquire those skills. And I didn't realize, I mean, when I was a younger guy in the Navy, I I learned all this. back then, I was just trying to do a good job and...   get killed and and make it all happen. I didn't realize all these amazing lessons and training I was learning because they, mean leadership is, I mean that's first and foremost what we're there to do and so I was very fortunate in that regard but I don't, you you can't, no matter what business you're in, can't rest on your laurels. You got to always be thinking about leadership. Am I being a good leader? Okay, this is going sideways. I need to lead the team back, you know. I can't just, you know, write a memo.   Kiera Dent (15:17) Yeah   Morgan Hamon (15:44) Hey everybody, this is where we need to be. Follow me. Keep up with me.   Kiera Dent (15:49) Yeah, no Morgan, that was such a brilliant piece and I really loved how you just highlighted it and so fun to see that what we see on the team side and the success of the growth and the production and the collections also now correlates with your financial PNL, ⁓ which I think is just magic and it all just ties together. But as you listen to this list and Morgan I talking about it, I also want to just say like if this does not light you up and you're like, ⁓ gosh.   Morgan Hamon (16:05) Mm-hmm   Kiera Dent (16:17) That's okay. You actually can just be an amazing clinician and have somebody actually be the great leader. Just because you opened the practice and you do the dentistry does not mean you need to be the leader of the practice. So I've seen some doctors actually be great implementers. Like they actually would rather execute, implement, do all the ideas and have somebody else be the visionary. That's okay too. And I think like my best thing is know thyself and be free. But if you want to be more profitable, look at this. And I want to take like a sharp   Morgan Hamon (16:18) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Yes.   Kiera Dent (16:46) right turn Morgan and talk taxes. It's like, didn't know how to awkwardly like transition. So I'm just gonna like, but I want to talk taxes because I'm like, this also ties into the discipline of leadership, the ownership of leadership and like being freaking savvy to learn how to do taxes better. Like Morgan, I had this client the other day and we were talking and we built this like cute little overhead scorecard for people. We have the EBITDA on there. It comes from the CPAs. So we're like, just make it very simple, like black and white.   Morgan Hamon (16:53) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   you   Kiera Dent (17:15) And then I was like, wait a second, I should throw a tax bucket on there. So like what you're getting paid for your W-2 plus what your profit is, like that gets taxed. I have a doctor, she has been an owner, we're talking 20 plus years. She's like, Kiera, I never knew that my profit had to get taxed. Like I never knew that that extra cash, like I just thought that was cash that came to me. And I'm like, this is why doctors are always broke because they don't know how this works out. So I'm super excited to talk about.   Morgan Hamon (17:21) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   you   Mm-hmm.   No. Right. Mm hmm.   Kiera Dent (17:45) tax planning, it's mid-year, let's make sure you're not crying in December and like, popping the confetti.   Morgan Hamon (17:46) Yeah.   Yeah, right. And   crying in December. if you recall, ⁓ my topic was just kind of the psychology of tax. And again, this has evolved over time with a lot of conversations. I think...   Kiera Dent (17:54) was New York I'm   The   is like the wise sage over there, Morgan. Like you got, like, just, you're just hanging out over there.   Morgan Hamon (18:09) Well, it's always trying to,   you know, I think about my conversations. How do we kind of empower these dentists to achieve this? And it's all through, I think, education. You've got to understand why. Like this doctor, 20-year-old, didn't understand.   Kiera Dent (18:29) I was like, no, I'm not wearing a strip.   Morgan Hamon (18:30) Every initial consultation   I'm having now with a startup doctor, we do a tax 101 just real quick, takes me like five minutes. Let's get our hands on some concepts here. Why I think this is important to really understand and talk about tax, just kind of how it makes us feel, is because we've had some instances where you have a doctor, and let's just say on our previous conversation, this is how we're gonna tie it together, right? So we have the doctors on that secondary list,   They're rock star. They're killing it. They're making tons of cash. They're engaging the right people. They got the right people in place, and it ultimately results in a lot of success. I've seen people do that, but then when it comes time for tax, they lose sight of all that, and they get just really obsessed about that tax bill. They lose what I'll think of as like peace and fulfillment.   just at the start of the call, I recently got remarried and my wife and I, we talk about that a lot, peace and fulfillment. Why do we have that in life? And that's what we're working for. And I think when you own a business, you're working towards something, right? And we want to have that peace and fulfillment. And I've seen that just get destroyed with people because they get very emotional and overly focused on their tax. And I see the logic just sort of exit stage left.   and we just end up with this very emotional reaction to tax. And who I tend to really direct this conversation to is not necessarily what you just described, Bill. That's kind an interesting one. Usually if someone's been making great money 20 years, they kind of know the program. It is, Kiera, it's the newer owners making real money for the first time in their lives. And that is where there's an adjustment. There's a mental journey they have to go on.   Kiera Dent (20:21) 100.   Morgan Hamon (20:29) And so what I thought today, like, I guarantee you we have some listeners as soon as they heard tax, they're like, what's on their mind is, what's the secret? How do I save more on tax? Well, it does. So, right? So we're going to get to that. All right. Well, we'll get to that. But before we do that, I thought, let's have some straight talk.   Kiera Dent (20:40) It does feel like the CPA's hold back or the secret robot. mean, tell me your Harry Potter rules there, Morgan. I just want to know. I need to find one CPA that just knows the secrets of the trade.   Yeah.   Morgan Hamon (20:58) Let's have some straight talk on tax. Why is this emotional? Why is this hard? Let's just take the journey of a doctor that is an associate doing pretty well with their W-2. We all think that we all go in W-2s. You have mandatory withholding. It comes out of your check, gets fired off to the government. You get your net check and you might look at your paycheck and go, what's all this stuff? don't know. I got my net check. I'm to plan my life around this net check. Then we do the tax return.   There's always a little settle up. You might owe a little, get all my back. You always hope to get a little money back, but generally you just plan your life with never having your hands on that money as a W-2. So now we own a business. You get all that money and then we now have to turn around and pay it back. Now keep in mind your tax rates. Okay. If you are married, Google the 2025 tax rates, right? That's what they are. That's what they are. If you're an employee.   Kiera Dent (21:44) Yep.   Morgan Hamon (21:55) That's what they are if you're the owner of a pass-through business. They are the same. But that act of having to turn around and write a check just is, you gotta become comfortable with that and it's an adjustment. ⁓ And here's the other thing where if we just, okay, let's take all our emotions about tax, let's just kind put it over the side and let's just talk very logically.   Kiera Dent (22:12) I agree.   Morgan Hamon (22:23) If you're gonna make three times as much money, what's also going to be three times as much? Your tax. But it's actually maybe a little bit more, right? We got a progressive tax system, right? So, I think when people become high earners, and they go through the grieving process,   Kiera Dent (22:36) see what we feel. It's awesome.   Morgan Hamon (22:48) And I guarantee you, I'll just talk through this briefly, but Gary, you and I have both been through this. And the doctors that are killing it and making lots of money, they've probably been through it too. But if we think about the grieving process, what's the first step? All right, it's denial. Okay, it's the first year you went from making 200 grand as an associate and now making 700 grand. And we've already written off the equipment and now we got 700 grand income. And you get your tax plan and you're like, what? This isn't for me.   Kiera Dent (22:54) Yes.   Morgan Hamon (23:17) Honey, think our email got hacked. We got this, this can't be right. This isn't mine. You go full on denial, this can't be right. And then we're like, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, that is your tax plan. And then we immediately go to anger. I'm so mad. thought Morgan was, I thought Morgan was this cool guy. I'm mad at him.   Kiera Dent (23:22) I'm   Hmm?   I need a different CPA, Morgan. I'm finding a different Harry Potter wizard. I need someone better than you.   Not today, I'm out of here.   Morgan Hamon (23:45) You get angry.   You're like, what the heck? I got this tax bill. So you get kind of angry. And then you go into bargaining and say, you know what? I'm going to go buy a CEREC machine tomorrow. Say, OK. I mean, do you need that? mean, do you do a lot of grounds? So you get all, I'm going to do this, this, and then where people are really in troubles and they stop making their estimated payments. Well, this can't be right. This can't   Kiera Dent (23:53) Hahaha.   Ha   Morgan Hamon (24:14) I'm going to go, I'm going to buy this and this and this. And then we start, there's a 6,000 pound truck. I'm going to go buy this big truck. And I kind of joke around a little bit. Yeah. So you get into bargaining, right? And then you're like, OK, well, gosh, I don't need any other equipment. I'm already doing the stuff. And then you get into depression. You're like, really? Am I going to? I guess this just stinks. And then finally, get to acceptance.   Kiera Dent (24:23) G-Wagon right now. I'm gonna brand it.   Morgan Hamon (24:43) and you realize if you're a high earner, there is a corresponding bill. Now that can be managed. There are ways for legal, perfectly legal tax avoidance to get into the so-called secrets. But you go through this journey. This has just been my, I guess, my 15-year research project. I've been through it personally myself, and I'm a CPA, and I still like writing this check. Dang. ⁓   Kiera Dent (25:06) same.   you   Morgan Hamon (25:13) But,   so that's what we have to, I think, wrap our head around, you understand that. And I encourage people, look, if you're a dentist, and maybe this dentist joins the seven figure club, right? You got seven figure profit, that's pretty amazing, right? That's really good income. But you will have a six figure tax bill. And that's okay. That's okay. ⁓   Kiera Dent (25:37) You will.   Morgan Hamon (25:42) And you just, got to get through to acceptance and take comfort in that you are engaged to take advantage of the legal opportunities that are out there for proper tax avoidance. And that's the, we talk about the secrets, you know, I see these clowns on, on YouTube of like, ⁓ I know the secrets of the tax code. mean, if you see that, I mean, just run. ⁓ There are no secrets. They're all well-known. Like I know all our competitors in our, the dental field and I'm on friendly terms with many of them.   We all know these. We all know the stuff that can be done. Legal tax avoidance. here's, we'll call it the secret, ⁓ Dentists, everyone's part of it. Here's the secrets, okay? Here's the secret. When you have a pass through business, which is what these dental practices are, right? So the business, and this will shed some light on your client 20 years, right? Your business does not pay income tax. The business tax return   Kiera Dent (26:22) Everybody's perking up right now, Morgan. They're like, okay.   Morgan Hamon (26:42) is math. It's absurdly complex math, but it quantifies the profit that's passed it through and gets listed on your personal tax return. And you owe income tax on that profit. That's what it means by pass through. And it's all ordinary income tax. There's no special tax rate for business owners. It's ordinary income tax. So how do we save money? Here's the secret. We have to capture as many expenses that we're otherwise incurring and capture those as business deductions.   When we do that, that lowers profit. Less profit passes through to the personal tax return, you pay less tax. That's the secret. So you have to execute the strategies, right? The home office is perfect for doctors. Totally substantiated, totally mainstream deduction. That's what justifies the car.   You can deduct a car, but that means you have to be engaged. You have to get the mile IQ. You have to understand what is your business percentage use. You have to do this right. You have to document it. There's things you have to do right. Take your board meeting. ⁓ If the cash flow allows, have a qualified retirement plan. Take full advantage of that. ⁓ If you're okay with having staff over to your house, have those meetings at home and have the office rent it from you. again, these aren't... People know these. This isn't...   I'd love to tell you I'm some genius that went and studied the tax code and formulated all these myself. This is out there. What you're engaging with your CPA is folks that will actually bring this to you and do it, but ultimately the doctor has to do it. What I think about is if someone thinks, well, I'm just going to have an hour meeting with my account at the end of the year and they're just going to take care of all of this. That's like saying, you know what?   Kiera Dent (28:07) haha   cringe.   Morgan Hamon (28:30) I know I need to work out and eat right to be healthy but I'm just going to go meet with my doc this fall and that should do it. Maybe they'll give me a pill that'll make me in shape and healthy. But no, you got to do the stuff. So if your accountant tells you, look, take a board meeting, document it properly, there's a proper way to do it, you got to do it. That's how we say the proper legal avoidance. your account comes to you and says, look, it's time to be an S-Corp,   Kiera Dent (28:51) Mm-hmm.   Morgan Hamon (29:00) because the profit is appropriate, you gotta follow the instruction. There's a procedure there and it's gonna save a lot of money on self-employment payroll tax if it's done correctly. You gotta listen, but you gotta engage. There's action items. And so we, ⁓ every September, I made a checklist. You know, again, Navy guy, right? I got a checklist. Log in, do the checklist. I call it our business tax savings maximizer. That's the flashiest, catchiest name I could think of. But like, log in and do it. That's the secret.   Kiera Dent (29:19) I love it.   you   Morgan Hamon (29:29) So, you know, for those listeners that waiting for the secret, that's it, right? We got to capture expenses as business deductions and there is action items for the doctor. It requires that engagement. And to circle back to where what you said earlier, like you can't come into the office and just fix it for them. They've got responsibilities on things to do too and that's the same with tax policy.   Kiera Dent (29:53) I thought that was such a beautiful way. And as you were going through the phases of grief, I'm like, oh yeah, I definitely lived all of those.   Thanks for kicking it off with Top Gun, ending with like tack strategy. Thanks for sharing some of the tips. But truly super honored to work with you and love what you guys are doing for dentists out there.   Morgan Hamon (30:04) Alright.   Kiera,   I always enjoy our visits and look forward to each one. So I appreciate you having me. I really enjoyed it.   Kiera Dent (30:16) course. And for all of you listening, thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.  

Tiff and Dana perform a practice autopsy of sorts — one of Dana's star students, and what's been put in place to help them thrive. The two discuss key systems, metrics, leadership, and how to stay committed to all of it. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are back live today it feels like you know it's so weird Dana to still be like on video it still weirds me out but whatever we don't do as many as Miss Cara Dutt does. So we are here today to chat with you guys we are so excited I've got Dana here and I have just like   shocked her with reality today that I actually I want to hear about one of her incredible offices that she's been working with. And before we dive in, I want you guys to just know that we love what we do. We love helping you guys. We love consulting. We love helping you guys when you're not actually clients yet. And we want you to know that we're always here for you guys. Reach out.   Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. always here. Our social medias. Dana, she does this incredible video, live video. I think it's live. I don't even know anymore. On Mondays, it used to be Fridays, it used to be Donuts with Dana. Now it's Motivational Monday or something to that effect. you guys, legitimately Dana is there, just like ready to answer questions. She takes ideas. So if there's things you guys are working on or...   things you guys are trying to work through, send them in to us. Dana's always looking for more ideas on hot topics. We take them from things that we're talking to practices about and then what we're implementing so that you guys always have the best, most useful information, but we love suggestions. Same as topics for these suckers. We're always looking for suggestions for these and if you're not a part of our newsletter crew yet, you better go subscribe because we've got a ton of newsletters that come out as well. all the ways that you guys can reach out to us. If you're clients, guys, gosh, I don't, Dana, I don't even.   I don't even get suggestions from my clients on things they want to hear from us. And my clients, and I know yours do too, they listen to all of these suckers. So all of my clients out there, all Dana's clients out there, thank you for listening. But hey guys, we're here for the suggestions. We're just always thinking of everything. Dana, do you ever get suggestions?   Dana (01:54) No, no, ⁓ no, I get asked about what we're going to talk about today   The Dental A Team (01:58) Yeah, I was   like, as I'm sitting here like asking a whole slew of people for suggestions, I'm like, hey, I've got a handful of people out there that aren't even suggesting. So I need to be, I need to be more open about that. But today, I'm really excited to hear about this. Dana has been working her tail off with all of her practices. She works really, really hard. Dana, you are the grit to the fullest in so many ways and solution oriented.   For those of you who don't know, those are two of our seven core values. And honestly, you embody all of them. But today is really about grit, solution-oriented, passion for excellence, and results-focused. These are some of the key pieces of what I think you did really, really well, with these results that this client has exceeded. And I'm just excited to hear about them. I threw Dana for a loop today, reminding her that today is her   practice I wanted to hear about and that I'm gonna let her kind of take the floor for for a lot of today I have a lot of questions to ask and and kind of chime in but Dina I really just am so excited to hear about them, but Really, how are you doing? And how are how are your clients doing overall? Like how are you doing in the world of consulting? We're about halfway through the year now, which is well a little over I guess which is wild to me   It's crazy that 2025 is almost gone, but how are you doing over there and how are your clients doing?   Dana (03:24) I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. feel like 2025 has been like a wild year, a little bit different for some practices, but I feel like they're all digging in. Everybody is willing to like do the things, work really hard, talk to their team, build in leadership. I'm super proud of my clients and their perseverance throughout this year and their ability to just kind of like pivot and push where is needed.   And I think a lot of that is getting clients to look a little bit more at their numbers, to look a little bit more at what they tell them. I think it's really made a huge difference for a lot of practices this year. And so I'm just, yeah, always super proud of my clients. They're just really blessed to be able to be a part of their lives, a part of their practice and their journeys.   The Dental A Team (04:06) Yeah, I agree. think coming off of December of 2024 was a wild ride for a lot of practices, November and December rolling into January. And I feel like it's just been this kind of like ebbs and flows, ups and downs, the whole, you know, almost seven months now for a lot of practices. But I know on our, on our doctor only mastermind for our clients, our internal, you know, clients are non-shared when   Last night, there were just so many questions around that as well. And I remember somebody asked like, it normal to have had bad months? And is everybody experiencing last month, bad months or last couple? And I remember a couple of the consultants were like, well, actually, like, haven't really seen that the last couple of months. But when I sat back and I thought about it, I'm like, it has ebbed and flow, you know, flowed quite a bit for practices in general. But I think what we're starting to see is that I'll use the word again, the grit.   that a lot of our clients really persevered through January through March. They started reaping those benefits April to current. And so when the question was asked, was a newer client of ours who had asked like, this, are you guys seeing this across the country? really, most of us consultants were like, no, actually not really. We're seeing some of the highest months we've ever seen in our clients. But I think that had something to do with it was really that they had the accountability.   of their systems and of their numbers. Like you said, we really dug in deep and forced our clients to really truly learn their numbers better than we ever have this year. And really always looking back at them and always applying the information to the next steps. And I think it made a massive difference within our client base because I think overall we've seen a massive increase from end of year last year to mid year so far this year.   Dana (05:56) Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I feel like even clients who maybe they escaped the like November, December, January, then they had like the February, March, right. And but I do feel like April, it's like everybody kind of really dug in and kind of climbed out of that little bit of that.   The Dental A Team (06:05) Totally.   Dana (06:14) dip that we had there for the beginning of the year or the end of last year. And so yeah, I am just really, it was interesting to hear on the doctor mastermind and just that like clients really did dig in and they've had so much grit because there was a little bit of a rocky end of start of 2024, 25.   The Dental A Team (06:30) Yeah,   yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. ⁓ I love it. And I have so much fun on those meetings and hearing all the doctors and I think we had Moola on recently and we get to have, you know, just so many really cool things for them. So it was just awesome. That was something though that kind of reminded me of what you're going to talk about today with your client. And I wanted you guys to...   not just here, like we're not just here to brag, like, of course, I want to brag on our clients and how great they're doing and what they're able to accomplish with the tools that they're given, but also to talk about the tools that they're given. So Dana, like really take us through, I want to hear how this practice is doing. What are their accomplishments? What are their, you know, increases in revenue and everything? then on the flip side of that, really, what did they dig in and implement really well this year that has gotten   gotten them there these these changes and actually might not even be just this year like you've been working with this specific client for a little bit now so let me all the things I want to hear about it I'm excited   Dana (07:30) Yeah.   Yeah, this plan   is really near and dear to my heart because they were one of my very first solo clients. And so it's just been fun over the years to really see them dig in grit like no other. I know on their end, it hasn't always been easy. We've had to some tough conversations. We've had to look at some tough numbers. We've had to set some really tight budgets that maybe they didn't love, but they did it and have just been massively successful ⁓ because of it.   ⁓ And so I am just really, really proud of them. They've brought in a ton of leadership, a lot of team accountability. so, you know, starting out as just kind of a baby practice really with not a ton of systems. ⁓ So first year we spent heavy, heavy building systems, really getting them to talk as a team, to work as a team, to be accountable to each other. You know, so things like morning huddles and actually setting goals that they actually talked about and starting to look at numbers. And I remember   know that first conversation of like, I can't really talk about numbers, right? That's just profit. They look at that as like take home and like, now to the point of where like, not necessarily obsess over numbers, but a little bit right there, the tracking tons of things and even department metrics and the team is really involved in setting goals and setting quarterly focuses and she's, you know, brought in an office manager and just grown even the leadership in the practice we're talking about here soon.   ⁓ building more of a leadership team. And so it's just really, really cool to see someone come in and evolve from systems to just like massive growth ⁓ and a lot of change. And so, yeah, we focus on systems very heavily. Then we started to focus on leadership. Then we started to focus on growth. So we've got, you know, went from a part-time associate to now a full-time associate to now like ⁓ a buying of a space.   The Dental A Team (09:13) Yeah.   Dana (09:31) And   a build out. it's just been really, really fun to see that when we focus in on the things that are really important, that like the push and the magic that happens from it. ⁓ And so this has just been a practice. It's just been so fun to be a part of. ⁓ And we've had to do a lot of, because of the amount of growth that they came in wanting, right? We always talk about vision with clients and like, do you want to be three years and where do you want to be five years from   The Dental A Team (09:33) Mm-hmm.   Dana (10:01) now so like hearing that hey I want to be an owner of a building and I want to pretty much double the size of my practice in that time frame and and I also want to do a little bit less dentistry that takes a lot of   intentional movement, a lot of projections, a lot of even, you know, I know we've even talked about where you want to go knowing when you have to hire people and when you have to bring people on and when is the right time to add an associate. And then on the flip side of that, like, how do we keep expenses in line so that we can make this dream happen? How do we keep expenses so that we've got the profit to be able to expand and to be able to purchase a property? And sometimes those conversations are uncomfortable, right? Because like we   want all the this is this is a doctor who really appreciates team whose love language a little bit is like giving and showing appreciation and you know having to like home that in and be like hey I want you to celebrate your team when they go above and beyond and they crush these milestones we can't do that just for doing jobs though because again remember this vision right we want this we want this building we want this expanded team we want to be able to like be a part of more people's lives in the community so it's just been so fun   but I will say the biggest thing that like having to push on my end especially is just the intentionality that like the things that we put into place are to truly get them to where they ultimately want to be and and I feel like sometimes that's why we're brought in is because like they know what the vision is they know where they want to be but like they have no idea the path   The Dental A Team (11:25) Yeah.   Dana (11:43) to get them there. And so this has just been like a uniquely fun ⁓ client to be a part of.   The Dental A Team (11:50) That's awesome. So it's been about, I want to say like two years, little two years ish, or is it three now? my gosh, I'm a year behind you guys, it's fine. Time evades me, so three years. So when this specific client came on, I'm just gonna summarize a little bit. So it sounds like this client came on and they had one and a half doctors including themselves. They probably had what, three hygiene?   Dana (11:57) It's three going on four.   At the time it was just her, single doctor. Just her, single doctor, two hygiene, you know, two assistants, one front office. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (12:17) Trust her. Single doctor.   Perfect.   So we have a very small team ⁓ from the outside looking in and a vision of owning their own building, ⁓ like literally the building. And what would you say their yearly production collections was? Probably right under a million.   Dana (12:39) At the time around,   I'd say between $7,5800.   The Dental A Team (12:43) Yeah, 7, 5800.   So you guys, you can imagine owning a building on that, right, that's a stretch that's going to take a little bit of time. then fast forward, you know, now three years going on board, we've got a full-time associate in place. And how many hygienists? Four hygienists. Two dentists would mean at least probably four assistants, if not five.   Dana (13:00) There's four.   The Dental A Team (13:08) Four assistants, so three, four front office, probably including an office manager. So we've more than doubled, right? Or right at doubled our entire team, which means also, right? That we've doubled cost. So I think, Dana, what you did really, really well is that you were able to take from the beginning this client's initial goals. She said, this is my dream. And you said,   How are we gonna get there? So what you've been able to do with her is really take the financial aspect of this client and say, okay, this is where we're at, but this is what we need. And so everyone listening, something that I really want you to understand is that when you have a goal in mind, right, I talk about vision boards a lot and I talk about vision boards because I think that they're really cool. If you don't know what a vision board is, dang it, you're too young, go Google it, it's fine.   If you're a millennial, you know what a vision board is, go get your magazines. But I always say like, we do these vision boards and we're like, you know, we're gonna put an airplane on there and a picture of Mickey Mouse and I'm gonna take my kid to Disneyland. And we just put it on there and we put it on the wall and eventually we forget about it and we stop doing it and we get to the end of the year and we're like, shoot, I never got to Disneyland, right? But what we could do is say, I'm gonna go to Disneyland.   And then we say, okay, well, what is it going to entail to get to Disneyland? Right? I live in Arizona. We're both in Arizona here. I can drive to Disneyland for sure. Right. So what's the gas going to be? ⁓ it's about seven hours for me. It's probably far more for Dana. So we're probably going to fly. I'm not, I'm not trying to make that drive, right? I can, but I'd rather fly. So what are the flights going to cost for how many people? What's a car when I get there? What's a hotel going to cost?   What does Disney access cost? Because that's a feat in itself, right? And then how are we going to eat, right? We got souvenirs. We've got food in Disney. We've got dinners, okay? So with that, can price it all out. And it's so much easier, I think, for us to visualize doing this in our personal lives, because it's like, well, why would you ever say, like, we're going to Disneyland on July 17, but you have no idea how much it's going to cost. Believe me, I've done it before.   You'll make it if you have credit card, Dana can talk to you about how to get out of credit card debt. ⁓ But you can do it, but it would be crazy, right? It's dumb. So you're going to project and you're going to say, this is how much money I need to have in my travel fund in order to get my family to Disneyland. These are the dates I need to have it by because I can't buy tickets the day before, right? Flights. You can't buy Disney tickets the day before anymore because you got to block the date out.   So you've got to have all of this projected with a buy-win date. So if you're trying to get to Disneyland, you're going to price point it all out, and then you're going to work backwards. You're going to say, when do I have to have all of these things done? By what date do I have to have how much money? Then you're going to set those mile markers. So with clients, this is the same thing that we do with your goals, and it's the same thing Dana did for this specific practice. This practice owner said, I want to own   the building, I want to have this size of a practice. want to, I know I've had multiple clients say, I want to make this much money. I know I had a client who was in similar size situation when they first started and the biggest goal was to make a million dollars. I said, great, well we're at 550 now, let's see. He's like, my five year goal is to make a million dollars. Well guess what, we did it in three. Because we.   we projected it. And so what you've been able to do with this client is really project out. think the most fun piece, and I've done this with clients too, so I know, tell me if you think there's more fun. I always felt like the most fun part of it was being able to see what, if we got to this level of financial growth. So if we got to this level of production and collections and this close to ⁓ practice ownership, like building ownership,   This is how many people you're gonna need to support that dollar amount. So when you look at production, you say, okay, well, how much can one doctor support in production? How many team members does it take to support that doctor, to support the production, and then ramp it from there? So then it doesn't become such a pie in the sky dream of a number, it becomes a reality. And then you can say, okay, well, just like I said, Disneyland, it's a buy win date.   Right? So by this date, we need to have an associate hired because we need at least 90 days onboarding with an associate before they're really going to be producing anything, really. So if we need that associate to stay on track, we need that associate producing $90,000 by December. We've got to have someone in place by June at the latest. Right? So we've got to start looking for an associate.   probably February to give ourselves a really good lead time. And Dana, I think that's something that you've done really well for all of your clients, but for specifically this one we're talking about today, I think you did really well at projecting out the team member aspect of it too, and the hiring process so that that doctor could be prepared for the size that they were gonna have, and then applying that there to the financials. So you broke down for them great.   This is what the team cost will likely look like. This is your BAM, your bare ACE minimum is how we like to say it. And this is what has to happen in order for all of this to work. And then Dana, you said they had grit, they did it. And now one of the things that I picked out from your statement that I think everyone should walk away with is that you said you guys together, number one together, you got them looking at their numbers. That is the first step. Personally,   Professionally, the first step in making anything work when it comes to finances is actually looking at them. So congratulations and kudos on that. Second thing that I picked up was that together you guys created budgets and they stuck to them. They actually did them. And it doesn't mean they had to eat top ramen or get off brand flowable. It was like, these are your budgets and we're going to stick into it. And the best part about a budget, Dana, in my opinion for dental practices is like,   No, you don't have to buy the cheap flowable. But if your production and collections aren't supporting what you're buying, that's the issue. So most of the time, your supply should reflect, right? Your order should reflect the supply need. Yeah. So tell me quickly just a little bit about that. Was there a spot where you were like, no, you gotta buy the ramen?   Dana (19:55) The kind of dentistry   The Dental A Team (20:08) No, you got to get back on budget. You've got to stick to this. How did you hold them accountable?   Dana (20:13) God.   They did really well I think of I will say you know they have a fantastic office manager who was on board and wanting to know more about that side and wanting to know more about the budgeting side and the expense side so I will say they did really great at setting their budgets every month looking at it and sticking to it I think the piece that maybe we struggled with a little bit that eventually they saw like wow it's super important to do that is to just look at the expenses month over month   ⁓ I think they were great about setting the budgets great about sticking to them It just took a little bit more time and know we've got to pull those P &Ls we've got to pull those expense reports every single month and we really have to look at it and Getting them really to narrow down I think the the key or like the green light that went on was getting them to come up with this is truly our fixed costs for every single month and so when it got to the point where When you look at it and it's outside of that we've got to dig in and we've got to figure out what's   happening or where money is going because it's outside of what the norm is. so digging in and getting that piece in place, I think really comfortable about talking about practice numbers. The other side of it was a little bit more uncomfortable. And that's okay. You know, but I think they saw the importance of also connecting those dots and being able to share with the office manager and share with the team some of that because that was a little bit more uncomfortable. And so just super proud that they were able to step outside.   of that comfort level because so much of the time doctors want to hold those numbers close to their vests and it's okay to hold part of those numbers close to you where the pieces that you really don't or are super uncomfortable sharing. Again, if we want team buy-in, if we want our office manager to be able to help with these things and to really stick to budgets, they've got to understand those numbers too.   The Dental A Team (22:03) Yeah, yeah, that was beautiful. I would say for any doctors who are out there listening today, whether this exact story replicates what your goal is, or if you are able to see semblances of it in your own story, like take some of that away. And if you've got a goal, I don't care what it is, we apply the same standards to every goal. personal and professional, like apply the same standards, make sure it's a smart goal. And   Project it out. So I always look and Dana, I think we all did. It's like we look at the end goal and then we literally just work backwards. So find your goal. If you're not comfortable with numbers, get comfortable with numbers. It's worth it. It's so worth it. If you need help getting comfortable with numbers, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We are here for you. It's something we're working really hard with a lot of our teams on and I promise you, teams, even though they're not saying it, they're not like, hey, tell me our goals, they do better.   They want to know the goals. They need to know the goals. They need to know what they're working towards and for more than just an emotional space. The emotional space of we're here for patient care, fantastic. But how do I know black and white measurements that I have accomplished that? That is a very different feeling than just emotionally satisfying myself every day because that usually is going to go the negative. You're going to find everything wrong you've done. So soapbox.   So go learn your numbers you guys if you haven't I want you to listen to this again Listen to everything Dana is saying Dana. You did awesome this this practice you guys Numbers wise Dana just to give them an idea. We said that they were you know 750 or so when they started They have doubled in size including their doctor. Where are they projecting this year?   Dana (23:54) they should hit 2.4 this year.   The Dental A Team (23:56) 2.4 you guys that's massive 2.4 so within the last three years Dana has worked with this client and they have gone from just under a million to 2.4 by doubling in size so yes their employee costs went up yes there's a there's a cost for the owner doctor to have an associate so there is there is a period of time where you will make less and you will be pouring into your team build   but on the other side of it, has more than doubled ⁓ or this client has more than doubled and not only size but in income as well. So kudos Dana, kudos to your client, kudos to all of Dana's clients and our clients and I know you guys all work really, really hard. So go look at your numbers and if you take nothing away from today, please take away from Dana the idea of really getting comfortable at least talking to your office manager about this if you don't have an office manager.   Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your consultant, someone that you can really truly get honest with about it. So Dana, congratulations. Thank you so much for taking today on and telling me about your client. You're an amazing consultant and we're so happy to continue having you here with Dental A Team.   Dana (25:11) Thanks, Tiff. Thanks for having me.   The Dental A Team (25:13) Of course. All right, everybody. ⁓ Go listen again. Dana, you did incredible. Go take all her tidbits. Drop us a five star review. You'll be letting Dana know that she did awesome. But also, I would love to hear what you guys took away from today as well. So drop us a five star review. We're excited to hear from you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com as always, and go catch Dana on Instagram on Mondays. And we'll catch you next time.

Kiera gives advice to those practices stuck in the $0 to $2 million range (because the same problems tend to apply). These hurdles can often be addressed in the leadership, systems, and mindset arenas, and Kiera spells out specific steps your practice can implement today to burst through the barriers. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A team listeners. This is Kiera and I am so happy to be podcasting with you today. I hope that you are just loving your life. I hope you remember that we are so blessed and so lucky to be able to do dentistry. I mean, talk about it. So many people dream of this world. So many people want this world and yet you get to live the dream. You get to live the freaking dream. This is your life. And so today I thought it would just be fun to tackle into this of, you know what? Why are you still stuck at 1 million?   and how to break through, or maybe while you're still stuck at 2 million and how to break through. I feel like there's very similar problems from zero to 2 million. So I thought, hey, let's talk about it. Yes, it might seem like, okay, no, they're not quite the same. Actually, they're pretty darn the same. And I thought, hey, why not tell you why you're still stuck here and how to break through that ceiling? I remember once I was told about like the wifi symbol, and I feel like every one of those layers is just your next layer. And it's like, how can I burst through that next layer and actually make my life easier?   I remember I also had a friend and I was working towards my first million. I remember when I hit our first million in the company and my friend texted me and he said, Kara, now that you've hit your first million, the rest are easy from here. And I will say getting to that first million mark is tricky, but then getting beyond it. So from really, it's like zero to 2 million. Honestly, a lot of these things are going to apply. So you're still stuck at 1 million. Let's break through that plateau. You guys, this is the Dental A Team and we freaking love helping practices break through limiting beliefs.   Create the impossible into the possible. Make your life easy. Make your practice experience amazing and truly give you the life and practice that you deserve. I'm obsessed with having your life and business on purpose. Truly, why not? Like why? Why be a business owner? Why do all these hard things if we don't get to do the life that we wanted to have all the things that we wished for and to give our teams the same type of life and experience as well? So the reality is when we look at this, it's not clinical skills typically. Sometimes it is.   Sometimes you do need to take some courses. If it's clinical and you're struggling clinically, think Coice and Spear and a lot of those will be really great for you clinically. So typically though, it's not clinical. It's systems, leadership and mindset. Like literally that's what it is. It's the systems, it's the leadership, it's the mindset. Systems do tie into our numbers and knowing that. And so I just want to break through like these three little hidden barriers that oftentimes keep practices stuck and some ways to get around that. So you can plateau through that one million, that two million mark.   and really be on your way to great success, but doing it not harder. How about that? Like, I don't want to work harder here. I don't want to have to do more. Don't worry. When you actually put these things into place, you get more time back. You get more happiness back. It's not like, let's do this and have less happiness, less time, but you can if you do it your hard way. But we're going to teach you, today I want to teach you how to do this easy. Are you on board for that?   If so, welcome. I'm super happy. I'm Kiera. This is the Dental A Team. We created it to help hundreds and thousands of offices scale beyond that 1 million mark to get to the 2 million, the 3 million, the 5 million. We have offices doing 500,000. We have offices doing 1.5. We have offices doing 3 million, 5 million, 10 million, 20 million. The reality is these things apply across the board. There's different layers and different ways to fine tune and refine based on the size of practice you are. But at the end of the day, these are really easy areas to help you see where your gap is and to break through.   This truly is an episode that's for practice owners who know that they're capable of more, but honestly don't know where to go. I hear all the time when people talk to us about joining dental hygiene, they're like, Kiera, I don't know what I don't know. I'm like, you're right. So let's help you. Let's like peel off the mask, give you the resources and make it to where life is so much easier for you. So number one, the first block that I want to break down for you is you are wearing too many hats.   This happens all the time. It's called the bottleneck. Like think about it. We're like squeezing it because we're wearing too many hats as business owners. And oftentimes what happens is as the founder, you are so used to coming in, being the person who does all the pieces because that's what you had to do when you started it. But that's also a falsehood. And also what it does is it creates chokeholds because what we're doing is we're micromanaging lack of delegation, lack of trust. This is where it gets like really stuck. And the offices were able to break through and evolve.   put systems into place, they realize that they need to have a delegation ladder at our summit, if you were able to attend, awesome. If you weren't, you missed out on our amazing delegation ladder where we literally show you how to go in order of the tasks to be delegating and in what order based on the size and the growth of your practice. So when we get overwhelmed owner or stagnant teams or reactive decision-making, what we need to do is we need to build a leadership depth. So we're training our office manager, we're empowering our leads and we're letting go of low ROI tasks.   Like literally Dan Martell has a book called Buy Back Your Time and it was shocking to look at that. And that's where we came up with our delegation ladder of, wow, like if we could honestly help you all see that we could shift it and these are the tasks to go in order of, and we're delegating out. If you're producing 200, 300, 400, $500 an hour, get rid of those low tasks that truly are not serving you. So on our delegation ladder, the way we started it is we have at the bottom layer, your number one thing to delegate out first is going to be administrative tasks.   After that, it's going to be patient experience and case acceptance. After that, it's treatment coordinator. And that's going to be our case acceptance heavily. So we've got patient experience, making sure you're not the star of the show. Then we move into treatment coordinating and case acceptance. Then we move into marketing and branding. And then we move into leadership. And then beyond that, we move into overseeing. So if you're stuck in the administrative tasks, well, awesome. Let's wait till we need to delegate that and empower that out. If you're stuck in being the patient experience,   The practice runs because Dr. Smith is in the practice and everybody loves Dr. Smith and Dr. Smith, if they're not there, no one wants to come. No, it should be the whole team experience. This isn't Kiera Dent. This isn't the Kiera Dent show. This is the Dental A Team show. There are so many great consultants. They're such a great team experience, but I don't run it. Yes, I have an influence and I started at the beginning and the core values as to why I started the company, that exists as our culture, but I'm not the one responsible for our client experience. Literally, I am here to podcast.   I'm here to do our doctor think tank and I'm here to go speak at events. That's literally what I do now. And I get to see all of you, but I get to influence and train our consultants. I get to help and train in different areas. I get to influence the company because I'm clear at the top in the leadership spot because we have great consultants that take care of our client experience. You should have great team members that take care of your patient experience. Then you need treatment coordinators. You should not be the one doing all the cases and closing all the cases. And if you're not there, we can't close. It should be that your team can close cases without you.   Then we move into marketing and branding and then it's into leadership. So when you're looking at this, what hats are you wearing and how can you shift this and which level of the tier are you on to be able to buy back your time to make it to where you're super focused on those own that you're really great at in your zone of genius. Now I still enjoy some administrative tasks. There's still some things that I'm like, gosh, I really enjoy this. I feel really good checking off a checklist. When you move from administrative into leadership, it's actually awesome and un-awesome.   because you feel like, well, gosh, like I'm just doing all these things, but there's no progress. Like leadership tasks take way longer. There's not as fast of progress, unlike administrative tasks have to do. This is where you grow and you expand. So when a practice, like we have a doctor and they let go of the administrative tasks, so you hired out a virtual assistant or their office manager or team members. And I will say,   Office managers should not be personal assistants. So let's make sure like office managers, you should also be going through this delegation to your levels. Like look at yourself too. So you're able to scale leads in practices need to look at this as well. What are we doing in these tasks? And could we delegate to our other incredible team members and empower them to be great? answer is yes. So when doctors let go of this, usually like when I've seen offices empower their team, stop doing it all. They grow by 10, 20, 30%, a hundred grand, 400 grand, 500 grand.   to their practice because the breadth and depth of their expansion, now they're able to focus on high level dentistry. If you're not sitting there busying your time with answering emails and signing off on payroll and all these other things, you then have time to focus in on your dentistry to give better treatment plans, to give better case acceptance, to refine that skill set for yourself to where you're pushing that out there and that's what you're focused on. You're taking CE on that. Think of the ROI of that time spent.   versus sending emails out that really are not moving the needle forward. So I want you to look at everything on your plate today and I want you to see what things are in administrative, what things are in patient experience, what things are in treatment plans and case acceptance, what things are in marketing and what things are in leadership. And of that, figure out who could I delegate to? How could I get less hats? Who do I maybe need to hire? It's who, not how? There's a book about this, it's really great. And I want you to see, because when you are, everyone's working at the top of their,   a license, that's how I like to put it. So doctors, would mean you're only doing dentistry stuff and CEO stuff. That's it. Everything else is delegated out. You will be amazed at the growth that it adds. So that's number one. Are you wearing too many hats and where can you delegate? Number two, your systems don't scale. So a $1 million systems break down at higher value. Like they truly do. So it's like scheduling strategy and poor case presentation and inconsistent team accountability and not tracking our numbers, not having a great   treatment plan ⁓ presentation, not having great hygiene processes in place, these little things break down and it's like, gosh, like we don't know how to handle this. We don't know how to schedule. don't know how to take these phone calls. So on this, we want to implement scalable systems. like block scheduling. So it's not just dependent upon who's up there scheduling. We know if it's Kiera, if it's Tiffany, if it's Brittany, our schedule will be consistent every single time. That's a true system. I get the exact same result no matter who's sitting in that chair. Our treatment, like,   ⁓ Case acceptance using the NDTR handoff. That's literally a system that allows your case acceptance to scale We have a billing protocol where we literally like pull it all down We have a system of how we follow up with all of our claims We have a system of when we look at our money instead of like, shoot. We don't have money. Let's go look at AR We have a set system of we send claims out on these days. We send out our insurance We follow up on insurance. We follow up on patient balances on set cadences and dates doctors You have a set system of when you look at your bank account when you reconcile your   pieces with your office manager. This is where it is our AR follow-up. Like all of those are scalable systems rather than reactive systems. And the $1 million practices are often like playing whack-a-mole. It's like, here's a hot fire here, fix that. here's a hot fire here, let's fix that. Rather than like, okay, what needs to happen so we can consistently get the results. I'm obsessed with Disney. I love their model. I think they're an incredible company. And I love something that they said is that we're able to create predictable magic with the systems behind the scenes.   So for you, we're able to create predictable million dollars with the systems behind the scenes. Also, sometimes when you're in startup mode, you actually have this identity, which is going to move into our next block. You have an identity of I'm a startup practice. So you actually act as a startup practice rather than thinking like, what does a $5 million practice do? Well, you better believe they're not like just willy-nillying their schedule. They're not willy-nillying their case acceptance. They're not willy-nillying their billing. They don't willy-nilly that stuff. And it's not that they have more time than you.   It's just that they have more scalable systems and they actually have systems in place that work. So when we've implemented block scheduling, you've heard me say it so many times, literally in small practices, we've been able to add 500,000, 1 million. Like it is not something that's hard. These are not fluffy numbers. They're not like, my gosh, I'm exaggerating. They're literally like, I can show you what they were producing, what the block schedule created and how they're able to have consistent days like that. When we implement treatment trackers, we're able to boost case acceptance exponentially because we're tracking and we're looking at patterns.   When we're able to fix AR, we're able to reduce your billing and we're able to increase your collections, reducing your overhead. When we teach you how to look at your numbers, we're able to decrease your overhead, increase your profit, and you're able to like literally sleep at night because you're not stressed out about it. These are the simple scalable systems that we put into place for these million, $2 million practices. It's wild. You can have like some skyrocket success, but if you don't have these systems for sustainability, you'll never be able to break through. This is where you start to plateau. So.   Pick a system. don't care what it is, but commit that you're going to make it scalable and upgrade it this month. All right. Block number three. This is the third one that I see a lot of times of why practices are plateauing and it's because they don't have a vision of where they're going. So like I said, it's that identity. It's like, what is the $2 million vision? What is the $3 million vision? And when mindset is in the right place, clarity can drive these results. So again, thinking I'm not a startup practice, I'm a $5 million practice. What would I do today? What would that CEO be doing? What would that dentist be doing?   They're not much different than you are today, but they are doing things differently. They budget their time differently. They're working out in the mornings. They have an AR system, these things. So what it is is like million dollar and $2 million practices are oftentimes in survival mode. it's like, like I said, whack a mole versus strategic planning. You have leadership teams in place. And when I first started, I was not at a million. was like, all right, if the $5 million practices are doing this and they have leadership team meetings, Kaylee, she was my personal assistant at the time. was just me and her. was like,   We're having this meeting and I don't even know what this meeting is supposed to be, but we're having it. We were broke, we had no money, so we went to her apartment clubhouse. That's where we had it. We had all these papers. I knew nothing of what I was doing, but I started acting in the habits of what these people did. What's crazy is when you start to act like these higher level practices do, you start to become and evolve. So this is where it's going to be. We want a clear 12 month plan of what would the KPIs be tracking? What are the team members?   What are the pieces I need to do to have a $2 million practice or a $3 million practice compared to where I am today? Let's break it down. What does that look like monthly? What's that block schedule look like? What's the type of dentistry I need to do? Do I need to add another provider? But we're making sure overheads in a line with the growth as well. So when I have teams do this and we literally like, build a one, three, 10 year vision for practices, the doctors often come in a lot more.   I would say conservative and their teams grow. But when we get the alignment of the doctor and the team together, it is crazy. The growth we have, I have a practice. he texted me, he said, here, I know when you came in and you set this audacious goal with me and my team, I thought there's absolutely no way that we'll be able to hit that. Like no way that's out of the, out of the control. ⁓ and so they were originally producing about 200,000 months. So they're about a $2.4 million practice. And we set this goal to get them to 3 million. So we said, what, what did a $3 million practice look like?   What do we need to do? And the software was like, are you kidding me? Like we're maxed out, we're tapped out. So many people think this and it's like, that's where we take the impossible and make it possible. We find the solution, we find the ways and we get the whole team aligned. So the whole team's rowing together. So we broke it down. What does that extra 600,000 look like? What does that break down monthly? What does that break down daily? They then hit. So they were at 200, next month 220, next month 250, next month 275. They just broke 300. That's even higher. 300 is 3.6 and remember they were just going for three.   This is how they grow. This is how they get their whole team aligned. This is how we start to look at what systems do we need to put in place? What training do we need to put in place? What team members do we need on the bus? What right people, right seat do we need to have? And it's wild because when the whole team aligns, everybody's there. And sometimes you need an outside perspective to coach you. Sometimes doctors, you don't know how to build that vision. You've never done it, right? It's like, hey, you're telling me to like draw you a map to the moon and I've never been to the moon. So how am even supposed to envision this? That's oftentimes where a coach.   or a consultant like ourselves can paint the roadmap for you. We've been there, we've done that, we've done it many times successfully. We have practices that are 10 million. I have offices, I've got five practices. We add one to two million to their offices every single year, every year consistently. And people are like, how do you do that? I'm like, well, hey, we got the foundations in place. They have scalable systems. We've got leadership teams in the right place. And then we're looking for the refinement pieces that we can do. We focus on case exceptions consistently.   But if I only focus on that with the $1 million practices, well, great, we're getting great cases, but guess what? It's all gonna fall apart because we don't have the systems to create the predictable magic and patient experience to continually retain and keep these patients. So this is where it is. No matter where you are, even if you're not at the 2 million and you're at the 5 million, this still works because guess what? The 5 million CEOs, you are stuck in what you've been doing and you need to expand into the higher level. You're still stuck at not having scalable systems and you need to scale those as well.   You don't have the vision for what does a 7 million or the $10 million of practice have. You are still sitting in your 5 million. So all of these actually, like I just said, 1 million and $2 million practices, this is actually for the higher level ones too. It's the exact same thing. It's just different cards, but the same game that we're playing. And it doesn't mean that you have to grow to this level. It doesn't mean that we're here to push you. It's here to say, this is what's possible if you want it. But the ultimate goal is that your life aligns with the practice that you're doing. That's our goal.   and to make sure that you're insanely profitable and insanely happy. Because I don't want you working harder. The blocks that we have lead to overworked owners, broken systems, and unclear vision, which causes chaos, confusion, stress, all the pieces. So right now, to break through your barriers, it's not about grinding harder, it's not about doing this harder, it's about leading better and building smarter. There's two ways to go about it. We can like slap it all together and help and pray our house of cards doesn't fall down, or we can build foundations, we can build vision, we can build clarity.   We can build focus and we can get traction. Move your practices exponentially. So move forward. Don't do this the hard way. Do it the easy way. And this is something where like we help this all day long. This is what fires me up. If you can't tell from today's podcast, I get lit up over this type of stuff because I love helping offices. See the vision, see the potential, figure out where we need to go. And it actually becomes so much easier when we have a roadmap. We create a map of clarity. So let's do that with you and your practice. Reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com   DM us growth or visit our website. This is where we literally do a complimentary practice assessment and it is crazy. Even just that practice assessment when you come on a call with us will give you so much clarity whether you work with us or don't work with us to see, my gosh, here are my gaps of what's holding me back from moving forward. We created it recently and I'm obsessing over it because offices who come through are like, wow, this call was so valuable because I see where my gaps are. I see where I need to go and hey,   Great, if you're a good fit for us and we're a good fit for you, awesome, let's work together. We fly to your practice, we work virtually with your team, we have in-person masterminds where doctors and leadership teams get together. We truly have built this to be something where you no longer have to question if success is real for you. It's a way for you to have proven, sustainable, successful success indefinitely. So reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Kiera is joined by Ted Osterer of Synergy Dental Partners to talk about the money field of dentistry in this moment of 2025, including tariffs, negotiating and raising fees, finding supplies, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am jazzed. I have a super fun guest on the podcast today. We're going to talk about the tariff sheriff, how that's impacting dentistry, the rise of dental supply costs, and honestly what to do because I'm so annoyed by all these pieces. What's the economic outlook? How do dentists freaking survive? Like, gosh, it just seems like a funny world out there. But we have Ted Osterer. He is with Synergy. I love this buying group. I think they're   Absolutely incredible. We're gonna shed some light for you guys. So Ted, welcome to the show today. How are you?   Ted Osterer (00:32) I am doing very, very well. Thank you so, so much for having me. Congratulations on your thousandth episode recently. I'm happy to be a part of this and any value I could bring to your listeners, hey, we're all better for it.   Kiera Dent (00:39) Thank you.   Well, thanks, Ted. And yes, ⁓ I'm still in utter awe that we hit a thousand episodes. Like when I started this, it was just a whim, a pipe dream. Jason and I were hiking. It's not a joke. I literally was hiking half-dome. Mind you, Jason had said, hey, let's go down to Yosemite. I'd love a nice relaxing weekend down there. And I had learned that you could go get, like, this is prior. You can't do this anymore. That you could get these like day passes, like these day camping passes. And if you just went and sat at this little lodge for a few hours.   So I was like, Jay, yeah, of course we'll go down there for this very calm, welcoming, welcome, like very easy, relaxing weekend. Little did he know I had full plans to try and get half dome tickets and like hike half dome. I even brought the gloves, like I was ready to go. And sure enough, I got the lottery, got the tickets. Jason was like, what the heck? We're going to freaking hike half dome. Like, Kiera, we haven't even prepped for this. We haven't done any of this. We don't even have a hotel. We got a hotel an hour away. We had to drive an hour outside of town. It was the nastiest hotel. They were like,   I'm not even joking. There was like hair and like this little pill on the pillow that were not ours. Jason's like had the worst sleep of his night and I'm like listen there's no hotels around me of 70. Like we're filing so we had a place. We went back super early the next morning to hike Half Dome and lo and behold on our hike I said Jay I think we need to build a podcast. This is where it all started. It was like one of those things that I never imagined a thousand episodes would hit and here we are.   Ted, you're hanging out with me a thousand in. And I think it's just fun because of all the value, all the stories, all the people. And like you and I were talking about pre-show, the podcast is really just a place where I get to selfishly hang out and just have a good conversation with people that I like. I get to meet new people in the industry. And as a byproduct of my nerdiness and excitement of meeting people, all of our listeners get benefited by this. So Ted, I'm so happy you're a part of this. Thank you for that. ⁓   Outside of Yosemite, let's talk about the rising cost of dental supplies, the tariffs, how this is going to impact. Because I know people are really nervous about it. I see in lots of dental groups out there, and you guys are really great. That's why I had you come on, because I think you're a huge solution to these problems. So take it away, Ted also, so the listener know how on earth did you even get into dentistry? Let's talk about that first, and then let's talk about what this even looks like for dental practices long-term.   Ted Osterer (03:00) How did I get into dentistry? ⁓ It was fate, it was just destiny. Growing up, I had 13 teeth pulled. I had braces for five years and it was like, well, I'm here for life, I guess. And this is just how we can all grow as a unit. ⁓ I've been in dentistry for about 15 years now. I started out as a dental supply rep. I was going door to door for over five years and...   funny enough that, you know, this isn't the, I grew up in the New York area. This is the major metropolitan New York area. And I had a really good buddy and he was like, I think you'd be a really good fit actually managing anal practices. And I can actually introduce you to someone. And it was like a small like eight practice group. I can introduce you to somebody, the practice on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Go see if you'd be a good fit. And I'm just kind of like, sure, guess. know, it's like always like have a conversation.   And I had a conversation and sure enough, I got along really well with a particular office manager ⁓ from this group and I went to go work for this office manager. ⁓ Within three months, I had my own practice. I was a practice manager. You know, it's so funny going from a supply rep to an office manager, right? I learned the first and I'm not saying this is everybody, but I learned the first day of being in a dental office that I knew nothing.   Kiera Dent (03:59) Yeah.   Ted Osterer (04:29) about what happens in a dental office, right? Like I'm like, could, God, it's gonna be a piece of cake. I've been in dentistry for five years. And so I could tell you how strong and impressive material was. That does not help with insurance codes or posture downgrade or presenting treatment or creating a schedule or reading a schedule, anything like that. So, much respect to everyone that manages offices that's listening right now that my goodness, you're fighting the good fight. Keep up the good work. ⁓   Kiera Dent (04:40) does not.   Agreed.   Ted Osterer (04:57) I did that for some time. I was recruited to work for care credit. I oversaw New England for a few years where then they moved me to South Florida. And then a few months after that, I was recruited by Synergy. I've been here since 2021. And this is really, really cool. You know, I came to Synergy because the message was, do you want to make an impact in the dental world? You know, like you love what you do, but do you really want to make an impact? Do you want to help independent dentistry? And I was like,   man, what a line, right? Like I was suckered in and I really wanted to make a difference. And sure enough, almost four years later, we're still here at, you know, we're the largest dental buying club in the country. We are the fastest growing dental buying club in the country. And we're just trying to preserve independent dentistry by giving them the same supply and overhead cost at a 20 plus practice DSO would get. that, know, we were founded by dentists. It was as black and white as, Hey,   If enough of us order from the same places, they'll give us a discount. And now we have people in charge of negotiating pricing. You know, we have a dedicated team to each member to make sure that they're getting the values worth here at Synergy and they're not ordering more than they have to. And you you asked about tariffs, the rising overhead costs, all of that really, really fun stuff, right? Let's dive into that, right? You know, the perceived economic uncertainty of everything. Are prices going to go up? Yes, of course.   Does that mean you need to buy everything right now at the same time to save money in like six months? No, you probably shouldn't do that either. You know, the waiting game generally always pays off, be it in dentistry or outside of dentistry when it comes to money, you know, you're better off just kind of, you know, hold the chips, hold down the fort, you know, you're, it's not, you do not sound the alarms, of course, right? You know, the price of your crowns is not going to go up 10,000 % like.   Kiera Dent (06:21) Yeah.   Ted Osterer (06:50) Calm down, chill out, right? It's what we've monitored. Have tariffs affected some prices? Yes. ⁓ Many have already gone down. Many have plateaued with that price increase and we kind of have a safe, what, just gauge on what those actually are, right? The percentages have been minimal. It's a few dollars here and there.   Kiera Dent (06:52) Yes, I agree.   Ted Osterer (07:17) Again, the industry is not belly up. really should not be your ⁓ primary concern. Providing optimal quality ⁓ of treatment should be your number one concern still to this day. I don't think it's going to make a difference whether you're getting a new sensor or not. If your sensor goes, you're OK.   Kiera Dent (07:36) It's It's really true. Well, Ted, I love that. And I love your story. And I love that you have the real life experience in dental practices, because that's something that we pride ourselves on at Dental A Team. It's like, we've been there, done that, and done it successfully. And you're right. Being in a practice is no small task. It's no small feat. And ⁓ I think the supply costs, I do agree with you. think certain people were getting a little bit, maybe extra on this, of how concerned we are of cost. And I don't think it's a wrong thing.   to look at, to project down and to forecast forward to make sure that you keep in line with your overhead. Like people who are looking at this, I'm high-fiving you because you actually are looking at your numbers and you understand the cost of your supplies. But at the same time, I remember I was at a, I have a friend who's very wealthy. We're talking like this person brings in 28, 30 million annually a year. And like, I just giggle because it is a great friend.   Ted Osterer (08:25) Sounds like a great friend. There you go. All right.   Kiera Dent (08:29) I thought he said he was a   cosmetic dentist when I met him and he's surely not a cosmetic dentist. He's a cosmetic chemist. So skincare, things like that. And I remember we were talking and he was like, yeah, I just got so freaked out about the stocks. I pulled everything out of the stock market. This was two years ago. And I'm like, bro, like the amount of gains because you got so scared is incredible. And I had another friend, we were sitting at a wealth conference and we had like Ray Dalio there and Paul Tudor Jones and gosh.   Marks, Howard Marks, like so many of the big players in wealth and they weren't talking. And this guy named Harry Dent came in and Harry Dent has been known for being right and wrong on predictions of the market. And I remember like, I'm not kidding you. We talked in this conference of do not make rash decisions. Like we're here to gather all the information, synthesize it out and then make best decisions. And I kid you not, we are two days into this five day conference and I met this guy and he's like, Harry Dent just freaked me out. I went and sold all my...   like sold everything like that night pulled everything out of the stock market. I was like, dude, you're the reason people talk about what not to do because you should never be this radical. And so I feel like while those are extremes, I feel like dentistry can kind of be that way with the supply. Like we feel it's the stock market plummeting on us within our supply chain because we've got tariffs on there. When the reality is let's remember dentistry by default, a lot of our products already have very high margins on them. Like I'm not going to say it to the world in case there are people who are not dentists listening.   but you can just think about fluoride for one second. So fluoride has insane margins on it, which are very profitable for you. The bulk of dentistry is very profitable. So these small rises, agreed, let's take a look at that. But like you said, Ted, it's not the end of the world. So I am curious though, from my like nerdy side, what things have gone up the most? What are you guys seeing across the board that the tariffs or the uncertainties, like the economy's gone up you guys. Bread, I'm shocked.   or gasoline, you want to talk about gas prices? Like I don't know, in Florida it's way cheap. Here I'm in Reno in California. I kid you not in Truckee it was $7 a gallon and I like wanted to throw up the gases that much money, but I'm like if gas for a gallon is $7, bread prices, I mean you're paying five bucks, six bucks a loaf for bread, like supplies are going to be higher. It's not something that I'm like, oh my gosh, my cotton rolls went up. Well yeah, of course they went up. does like everything in the world has gone up.   Home prices have gone up, but I am curious, what have you guys seen that the tariffs hit the most? Like what are some of those supplies? But we're ashricking this. Everyone listening, you have to promise you will not be either of my two friends who go radical. So when Ted tells you which one's worth a little bit higher, do not go out and give me like your prepping situation where you go buy all this because you're freaking out about it. Like steady the course, stay consistent, and just like watch the scene because most things will level out just like in stocks, just like in investments. But if we're radical and being wild on it, that's where you get.   Like it just does not benefit. So I think Ted, everyone has promised. I made them just promise like everybody. Yes, you promise. Don't be radical. Ted, what are some of the ones that are seeing the highest hits? Like what, what products, what things are you guys seeing?   Ted Osterer (11:33) Since you all promised ⁓ not to be radical, I will go ahead and share. Yeah, unbreakable. We know that's unbreakable.   Kiera Dent (11:36) You promised.   It's unbreakable.   You did that, you like kissed the thumb, something like that. And then you like do a dance. All of them have done that, right? Nobody better lie. Don't be radical. Okay. They're good.   Ted Osterer (11:52) Excellent.   So for those listening at home, I did a very, very impressive interpretive dance, but for those watching, you saw it, it's all good. ⁓ So with a lot of the terrorists I've seen, and look, it's so volatile, you know, and for those, again, listening, I'm doing that thing with your finger, you go up and down a lot about how much it goes up and down. You know, look, I mean, you saw a lot of the anesthetics made in Canada go up a significant percent.   You saw a lot of lab cases sent from overseas or, you know, it's funny enough, for those that don't know what the gray market is in terms of the supplies in the industry, Products are made overseas, totally fine, right? There's nothing wrong with products that are made overseas. However, sometimes they're made in factories that are only authorized in certain countries, even though it could be big name, know, supply partners, major manufacturers.   I won't name drop, you know what I mean? I'm not trying to, you can Google it, you have access to the internet, congrats. When it comes to, these products that are made overseas are only regulated to be in select countries, they still have to be refrigerated certain ways, they still could have, they could have been made a long time ago, they're set to expire. They are mailed here and then they are sold to the United States, they're unregulated. You'll see their costs are...   Insanely low to the point where it's too good to be true spoiler a lot a spoiler it is too good to be true right in the event that someone You know your malpractice insurance Is kicked in you use great, you know gray market products. You might be losing a case and that's not the smoke you want However, in the event of these tariffs funny enough what went up these gray market products, right? ⁓ They went up to the point where   Kiera Dent (13:25) Yeah.   Interesting.   Ted Osterer (13:46) They're the same pricing, if not more than what your rep is offering you now. know, and look, you don't want to be caught with something like that. And it goes to show you that you, again, you're worried about optimal care. You should be worried about what you're putting in your patient's mouth as well. And depending on where you order it from, right? Like picture yourself, you're a patient in a chair, okay? And an assistant walks in to set,   you know, to set the room, to put the supplies that you're going to use on that tray and she opens an eBay box. Imagine what the patient must be feeling knowing that or an Amazon box. It's like, wait a minute, if your patient's aware at all, you probably don't want that. And now that price is the same price that a major dealer is going to offer you or a rep can offer you. That's the worst case scenario. I believe that that's what I've seen went up the most. And there were some labs from overseas.   Kiera Dent (14:23) Yeah, no. No. No.   I'm just.   Ted Osterer (14:44) ⁓ where the tariff was taking effect, a lot of the tariffs they were getting, were passing directly onto the consumer. I've seen that stop also. I'm not gonna say it's not gonna happen again, but it's not like you can order in bulk all these cases, you know? So, you know, again, when it comes to your labs, if you're satisfied with your lab, play the waiting game. You should be fine.   Kiera Dent (14:53) Mm-hmm.   It's true.   Yeah, that's actually really helpful to know Ted, because I was really curious and I think it's one of those things of, I don't know, I'm the clinician inside of me. I originally dental assistant, office manager, treatment coordinator. We have a lot of hygienists on our team. ⁓ I think all of us in consulting, well, yes, we watch the numbers exponentially, which is why I brought Ted on. I wanted synergy to be here. I think it's a great solution for your numbers. The biggest thing I will also say is like,   Please don't be so obsessive with the numbers that you cut your amazing dentistry and you are actually not doing the best dentistry for patients. I believe that when we do good by our patients, when we take care of them, when we use great products, I'm not saying you have to be I have a car. I'm not saying you have to be like high, high end. You can if you choose, but just making sure that we're doing right by our patients. Like I said, dentistry is a very profitable industry.   as is, like we have done a really good job of keeping the practices profitable in spite of insurances and all of that. But I really just want to make sure people, when we're looking at this, let's not penny pinch and nickel, like watching all of our nickels when we're actually doing a disservice to our patients. So agreed, like that gray market, things like that. Yes, I like to be a good shopper. I love to get a good deal, but making sure that it's a good deal that's also taking care of your patients would be my like word to the wise.   Again, I believe that when we are good and we're honest to our patients, people feel that there's good karma, there's good energy, it's all the way around. So Ted, how does synergy work? Like how do you get around this? Because things are going up. Being a business owner, mean, our margins are, they've been high, so maybe they're a little less high. I will also say, like doctors, I hope you've increased your fees too. You should do that. like, it's not just supplies that get to go up.   Dentistry also gets to go up and it should be going up. And if you haven't raised your fees, I'll just asterisk that right now. Like that is very common. It's very normal. It should be done every single year. I think that's a way to offset some of these costs for you too. It's ethical and honest, but Ted kind of walk us through like independent dentists, which are most of the practices listening. We do have some DSOs on there. I think sometimes you can feel like, I don't know. It's like the little brother who's watching the big brother drive the car and it's like, why can't I get these deals? Like I know I'm just one practice, but.   Sometimes you feel neglected. sometimes feel like distributors and manufacturers don't give you as good of a deal. Like, let's be real. The DSOs do get better deals than you do. I I've heard, I go talk to a lot of people and they're like, well, yeah, if you've got 20, 30, 50 practices, we're going to give you like pennies on the dollar compared to my solo practice that's going to be paying more for it due to the bulk distribution. So how can we have that of like, how can Independence Dennis win? Not have these costs hit them and to still play in the big leagues, even though they don't want to necessarily practice that way today.   Ted Osterer (17:53) Yeah, awesome question, right? You hit on the head. What did DSO's do? They strong arm these dealers, manufacturers, distributors, and they say, look, I have 30 offices. We all want to order from you. We'll commit to this amount of spend. We'll commit to this amount of product. Give me the absolute best deal that you will, or I'm going to the other distributor that's on the next page of this advertisement that I am looking at, right? So they're just negotiating fees all day.   That's what the ESOs are doing. They have people in place to negotiate these rates all day. That's what Synergy Dental Partners has, Independent Dentistry, ⁓ I mean, look, it's alive and well. We see it every day, you know, just because there's not major conferences that you're demanded to go to like the ESOs and things like that doesn't mean they're not alive and well and band together and know what's actually going on in dentistry, right? So Independent Dentists will subscribe to Synergy.   to have access to the same pricing that those 20 plus, 30 plus practice DSOs would get, right? We negotiate with these supply partners all day long on the supplies that you're already using, right? I mean, that's what we do. We bully our vendors. We come to an agreement with specific supply partners to be in our network and have very attractive offerings that they will only offer to Synergy members, right? We're partnered with major distributors. We negotiate with...   them all day, we're partnered with different implant organizations, with different rotary organizations, with different services. Depending on what you're looking for, we're going to offer you something that you would not be able to get on your own, right? Do you have to order in bulk with a synergy member? No, that's the point of us because we have enough dentists all ordering from the same place that the bulk is taken care of. Order as you go, right? So Darby is our anchor supplier, shines the largest distributor in the country.   Patterson's the second largest distributor in the country. Darby's the third largest distributor in the country. When you place an order with them, everything comes in one to two days. As a synergy member, any order over $249, there's no shipping charges. And let's think about that in itself. Do you have to order in bulk now? No, do you have to hit a crazy minimum? No, you can order four times a month and not pay shipping. Everything's gonna come in one to two days. Now regarding all these manufacturer deals,   Kiera Dent (20:01) awesome.   Ted Osterer (20:15) Oh, I like to buy four to get one free. like to buy three to get one free. You hear the word free. Awesome. Great. Now we do have a lot of offerings just like that care, right? However, we've negotiated the net costs of those buy four, get one threes, get one free, buy three, get one free for just one. So you can order one. You don't need to spend $700 on your favorite composite to get one free. And now shade C3 is going to sit on your shelf for the next three years and it expires. You're going to throw it away anyway. So you wasted all that money.   Kiera Dent (20:23) Right.   Mm-hmm.   Ha!   Ted Osterer (20:43) The point of us is inventory control. It's cash flow management. I mean, if cash is what you're worried about, well guess what? mean, order as you go, you're probably not gonna pay shipping anyway. You have the supply you need. My goodness, Kara, have you ever had to clean out a supply closet? Is it not the worst day of the month? You know, when people order the wrong things, yeah, maybe you'll return it, or what are you gonna do? You're gonna check it off that checklist and then put it where you think it goes. Now it's gonna sit there forever. Yikes, right?   Kiera Dent (21:02) Yep.   Yep.   Ted Osterer (21:13) You know,   with Darby, things are easy to return. You order as you go, it's not gonna get lost in some shuffle if you order as you go, right? We are partnered getting discounts with Strom and NeoDent for implants and BioHorizons and Zest for the locator attachment through overdenture materials, Comet and Brassler for rotary. ⁓ We just rolled out our partnership with Bisco. We're partnered with UltraDent, Crestor, LB, Phillips. I'm going to put your listeners to sleep as I shamelessly plug these.   Incredible companies offering the incredible deals are giving our members but the whole point of us is Carrie said you love to shop Bad news pal. I'm taking that phone away from you. We've done that shopping for you We know where your pricing should be is every price the lowest price on the market. I can't confidently say yes It's not true. I can confidently say that a lot of them are the best price in the market But every price is going to be competitive and if you're taking four or five hours to place an order with six tabs open   texting four different reps. That's four patients that you could have seen in that time. not only, let's say you order from all those places. Now you got five different shipping charges. And now you don't know when any of these orders are gonna come. It could take weeks. Something could be on back orders. Something could be expired. But hey, you saved a dollar on gloves. Congratulations, you know?   Kiera Dent (22:16) you   I love it. And I think that this, is why I like Synergy. I feel like it's, you get the Costco discounts without the bulk requirements. And that's something that I really enjoyed about it because something we teach with our clients is do not be stocking up. I remember I worked at Midwestern University's dental college for a few years. And I remember I went through their supplies and because there was so much   Ted Osterer (22:44) Yep.   Kiera Dent (22:58) We, like, I remember throwing away boxes and boxes and boxes of expired supplies, things that we couldn't use anymore. And it was disgusting. And I was shocked and I was like, that's it. We have to get this to where we can see everything. And so we're really big in consulting of like tip out bids, having clear things, having it where your order is not like tucked in boxes and nooks and crannies. ⁓ And the way you're able to do that is by buying as you need it, rather than buying. Like I remember buying when I was an assistant ordering.   Ted Osterer (23:07) What a waste.   Kiera Dent (23:25) I think like 10 boxes of gloves. Like we had them stacked everywhere. It was just like an absurd amount because we were like, well, we got the deal. We need to have this versus like, no, like what are we using? That also keeps our costs down. We're not having these high end fluxes and low drops in our supplies. We're able to have that more consistent, have more consistent overhead. And like you said, sometimes Costco is not the cheapest. Sometimes I can get it cheaper at other places, but the reality is the time we're saving and also the more dentists buying within Synergy.   more we're able to get the bulk discount. So it's like, it's the biggest DSO you can be a part of without being a part of a DSO, like air quotes around it, because you're not a part of a DSO, but it's the collective community group that's driving down the pieces for it. And Ted, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like when I've talked to Synergy in the past, you don't have to give up your reps, because I know people get really weird about like, but like we've been best friends with so and so, and it's like, you can still order from the companies you want. Is that correct? Or do you need to like order through Benco? I thought it was like something with that, but help us understand like,   Do I have to give up my rep? Do I have to only order through your guys' people? How does this work for me to transition over? Because I do know dentists are very loyal and I think that's an amazing attribute. I would say like stay loyal. Also make sure that your overhead's making sense as you're going and buying supplies.   Ted Osterer (24:36) If you're a member of Center Gentle Partners, feel free to order from whoever you'd like. There's no minimums or anything like that. Now, are you better off buying from the suppliers in our network if you're trying to save money and time? Yes, like you just said. So Darby's our anchor supplier. They're the only distributor that we work with. If you're best friends with the Banco rep and you're looking to save money,   and you give us a shot and like I said the sole point is to save money we can very much help you and there's plenty to go around that if you need to order from Banco who you mentioned earlier or any other distributor have at it but I mean if we can cut your supply cost by 25-30 % you keep your reps for service you keep your reps for whatever you choose to keep them for yes by all means we are not offended there's no exclusive like that.   Now relationships are important. know, like you said that regarding manufacturers, if you have a rep already with Darby, you don't have to change who you're already ordering from as long as they're network. We don't force you to do anything differently. But hear me out. You brought up Costco. Now, you know, you went to Costco, you you only have how many free hours in a week? You know, either you can get that at Costco or you could spend the gas money and the time.   Kiera Dent (25:44) Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Ted Osterer (26:01) to hit up Walmart and Publix and somewhere else on the way home and now you're too tired to go do whatever it is that you wanted to do that night. But hey, you saved like 26 bucks, have at it, well done. How valuable is your time to you? Yeah.   Kiera Dent (26:05) Yeah.   Well done.   Yeah. And if your gas is $7 a gallon, you did not actually make any money. thinking about that, but like for dentists, I think there's a good book, Dan Martell, I raved about him quite a few times to buy back your time. And I think this is a zone where we can have, where you can actually save time. You can save money and you can actually, even your assistant. So doctors, you might not be ordering, but your assistant's ordering. Think of like, if I didn't have to give up five hours or four hours of my assistant's time, which is what I used to have to block off.   Ted Osterer (26:22) You   Kiera Dent (26:43) and you can see more patients with that assistant rather than them ordering that right there is a cost saving. So I did some quick math because I heard what you said. If we are able to save you usually 25 % on your supply costs. So I just thought, okay, let's say there's a million dollar practice. This million dollar, that's about 83,000. We'll just do 84,000 rough math. A month is what this practice would be producing. We like as a consulting company for your supply costs to be about 5 % of that. So I was like, okay.   That'd be like 4,200 bucks that month that could go towards supplies. If you guys save 25%, that's a thousand dollar savings, over a thousand dollar savings on that 4,200 a month. I was thinking about that, like a thousand dollars a month. This is on a million dollar practice. I didn't go for a sky high one. If you're bigger than that, obviously it's way more than that. But I just thought Ted, like, if you could save a thousand dollars a month, cause I know you guys have this, like you guys have sexy stats on how much you're able to save practices. I understand you might have to have two, three conversations with your reps.   of like, guys, for us, we care about you, we love you. The reality is, I'm willing to have that conversation if I'm gonna get thousand bucks a month. Because that's now $12,000 for the year. And I think about, well right there, if you're looking at other things, virtual assistants can cost you $12,000 for a year. They can do all your billing, they can do outsource pieces for you, you could hire a personal assistant for you for $12,000. Even that extra $1,000 a month, I'm thinking, could you bring on different team members for that?   What does that look like? I understand like a full assistance not going to cost you 12 grand, but I'm like virtual assistance are outsourced billing, different things that you could use those funds for that right there to me. I'd be willing to have some conversations and just look at. So that's where I want to, I'm really big on numbers because I'm like, cool, 25%. But I'm like, when it breaks down to like thousands a month that I could then reinvest and use in better areas, just like I'm like, you guys, you can keep spending money on Indeed. Go for it. And I'm not here to say indeed is not great.   but you could also switch to AvaHR, which used to be VivaHR. It's literally 149 bucks a month for unlimited posting of ads. I took my cost of posting ads. I'm doing the same thing. I'm literally posting ads on the exact same platforms. I used to spend $15,000 a year on that, and now I pay about $1,200 a year. Right there, I'm like, that's a switch I'm willing to make. Yes, bummer, I don't get to like post directly to Indeed anymore. Same thing, I don't maybe get to like buy directly from my rep.   you still can keep the relationship. Like if you need to buy equipment or different things like that, like you can still keep the relationship. But I think, and they will try to sweet talk you, but I've seen it with the buying groups, the savings that you get, I just say have the conversation. A thousand bucks a month, go on, get a massage, do something fun. Like, I don't know, take your kids on vacation for 12 grand, whatever it is, but that's just literally buying the same materials through a different platform and getting...   money kickback. don't know. To me, Ted, it's always been a no-brainer, which is why I bring you guys on the podcast. So that's my spiel. But Ted, anything you have to take, wrap this up because I think with the tariffs, with the rising costs, realizing it's not that big of a deal, buy as you go. You can use these buying groups. You can be like a DSO, but you can buy what you need, not having to get all these deals. You're able to cut your costs. You said about 25 % on supplies and just go look at what you spent on supplies last three months. Think if you got 25 % of that back.   I think I'd be willing to have a conversation. But Ted, you tell me what you think. Those are my thoughts on this.   Ted Osterer (30:06) I said, I was going to say like the exact same thing, unfortunately, but I, you know, I'll take that one. I'll take that one second further to really, really simplify it. Right. And just summarize everything you just said. You know, we're partnered with over 50 supply partners, including eight different labs. Right. So as a consulting agency, right. Like we see labs as high as 10, 15%, you know, it should be what six to 8%.   Yeah, so I mean, let's say you're a million dollar practice. That's the practice Kiera just said. If I save you just 1 % of your overhead, that is a $10,000 that Kiera's talking about. And it is so easy to save that as a member of Synergy. And my goodness, thank you so much for having me on. It really means a lot. And thank you for acknowledging.   Kiera Dent (30:59) Yeah,   of course. I think it's a matter where Ted, I, when I get really passionate about things, like I love Swell. They do their Google reviews so well, you're able to save costs on your marketing, but get like really incredible patients. When I see a zone where I'm like, supplies are supplies are supplies. I understand you love your rep, but I'm like, supplies are. If I can get the exact same anesthetic, like I need my Lido, it's certified and I can buy it from Benco or I can buy it from Shine, but I can get it for...   X versus Y and I'm going to save substantially to me that's a way doctors it. I think that this is just being a higher level CEO that realizes just like DSO CEOs do as much as I love the product from X. I'm going to buy it from here because I'm literally able like it's the exact same thing. just get it on sale. So why would I not do that? And as a female like that's girl math for you Ted. Like if I can get it on sale, I'm going to buy it because I can use it to go get what I want over here. I just think like   These are the zones, dentists, that the elites do. These are the zones that the multi-million dollar practices are doing. So learn from their strategies. Again, it's gonna be one, two, three, maybe a little bit uncomfortable conversations. You don't need to burn the relationship. But I would say if I was you sitting there looking at my overhead, looking for ways to do cash flow, I would radically consider something that's not going to impact your patient care, that's going to make your practice much easier and also give you more time back in your life. So that's why I you guys on. Again, I don't work for Synergy. We don't have an affiliate relationship with them.   I love them, I adore them. I truly think you guys are just doing a great thing in the business. We are working on a partnership with them in the future for all of our clients. It's something that's really been big on my mind because I feel like, hey, why not? All of our clients that are with us, let's get them the best deals. But this is why I wanted you guys on the podcast. So Ted, how can people connect with you? How can they try you guys out? Again, you don't have to burn your rep. can just go even test it out. ⁓ But how can they try you guys out just to see what this looks like for their practice?   Ted Osterer (32:53) Go to the TheSynergyDentalPartners.com know, leave your information with us. Please, please, please tell us that the A team sent you, you know, of course extra promotional offers if the A team, I mean, A plus team in my book, of course. ⁓ Yes, yes, A plus plus. And please let them know that you were sent by them so we can make the offering even more attractive for you. And you know, when you join Synergy, you don't even have to have that typical conversation. You can just hide in the bathroom.   Kiera Dent (33:05) Thank you. Thank you. I agree.   Ted Osterer (33:23) and we're all good. It's okay.   Kiera Dent (33:25) Yeah,   it truly is. Don't make this wild, you guys. ⁓ Ted, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming and talking about what the reality is and what things have gone up in pricing and how you guys have been able to watch it go up and down. You're seeing so many more supplies than just the solo practitioners seeing. so you're able to see, kind of like stock markets, we're able to see at a bird's eye view of what's really going in the landscape of it. And I want to just remind people, you guys, the future is bright. No matter what's going on, the future is bright. There's always solutions.   Ted Osterer (33:29) Thank you.   Kiera Dent (33:53) And I think right now is where we get a bit more scrappy, a bit more innovative, and truly you shouldn't be seeing much of a hit. Like shoot, if you're seeing a hit, just switch over to Synergy and you won't even see that hit. So try it out. ⁓ Ted, thank you for being on the podcast with me and thank you for everybody. I really think this is an awesome way for you guys to truly take care of your practice, take care of your patients, and make life easier, which is what we're all about. So Ted, thanks for joining me today. I super appreciate you.   Ted Osterer (34:03) Yeah.   ⁓ I'm happy to be here. Thanks again.   Kiera Dent (34:19) And for all of you listening, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! Dr. Lewis Chen is aboard the Dental A-Team! Dr. Chen has become an extremely successful dentist in a short amount of time — like, 10-practices-in-two-years successful. He shares with Kiera what he did differently to find his success, including utilizing the right resources and committing to a schedule. Dr. Chen and Kiera also discuss the difference between work and luck, things that went well, and pitfalls he wishes he'd avoided. He also shares life hacks, his best tip for delegation, and how to elevate teams. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:05) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's say dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you.   Kiera (00:14) Because face it.   Kiera (00:34) Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A-Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. ⁓   Team listeners, this is Kiera and you guys. Today is a pretty special day. I have a dear friend. We have chatted so many times. He is a rock star on Instagram. If you do not watch his channel, you definitely need to. And he's just one of the coolest people that I feel is a great inspiration. He's been able to do what a lot of other offices have not been able to do. So I'm so jazzed to bring on Dr. Louis Chen. How are you today, Louis?   Dr. Chen (01:14) Good. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. It's been so long since we've been actually meeting in person. think the last time was in 2018, 2019.   Kiera (01:23) I Because I saw you I think first, was it Paul Goodman's event, the dental nachos? I think that's where we first met.   Dr. Chen (01:30) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's when I saw Mark in person for the first time and then I saw you for the first time, but I've known about both of you, you know, from some years back. So it's about time. Almost fangirling at the time. I'm fangirling now still.   Kiera (01:43) So.   Well,   you're so kind. You just you inspire me. So I am so jazzed. Kind of take our listeners. I know a little bit of your journey, but gosh, you have done some impressive work since 2019, only in 2021. And in the middle, we had COVID. So kind of just walk our listeners through just your back history, your backstory of how you even got to being a dentist, what kind of inspired you to become one, where you're at today. Just kind of give people your quick bio on you.   Dr. Chen (02:13) Quick bio, so okay, I'll give myself a short version. So I started in college with an economics major to which I graduated with that degree. And during that time in sophomore year, I remember interning at dental office and my parents liked the arts, liked the sciences, tried dentistry and I did. since that time, I shadowed a dentist and he was very,   I was very shy guy. He's like, listen, you should spend some time learning about patient care. Just learn about patients. Don't think about the dentistry. Dentistry will come. go to school for that. School doesn't teach you how to speak to people. ⁓ then later I focused a lot of my time doing it. And I realized in New York City, the crux of New York City, dentistry is not cheap. It's an expensive commodity. part of that   you when I sat there, realized like, you know, patients who've had a great time when they checked out, they had to build a pay, it's usually not as exciting.   Kiera (03:21) It's true   Dr. Chen (03:23) Yeah, so I had I was sought out on mission. said, well, you know, why in New York City is very saturated? Why should I be perpetuating that sort of, you know, that the stereotype of dentistry, dental work to be expensive? So I sought out a vision and said, you know what? I love dentistry. I want to provide good quality care. It's like, social hour, happy hour, every day, every hour. But why can I just make it a little bit more affordable?   than my neighbor, neighboring dentists. And I wanted to provide exceptional patient experience and exceptional patient care, the dental care, so on and so forth, the whole camera things. And then I said, know what? I want to do on a scale. I want to at least have five offices by the time, and I want to achieve that. And I was 19 at the time.   Kiera (04:13) Haven't even gone to dental school. You're like, here's the vision. This is what I want. And let's make it happen.   Dr. Chen (04:18) Yeah, and that's exactly what I mean, through dental school, wasn't my vision. My vision was to be an exceptional provider, which is kind of still falls into my core values when I first started. purpose behind what I do is just, know, making, helping as many lives as, you know, impact as many lives as possible through this journey. then now fast forward, you know, I went to dental school, did right residency. And then 2019 to 2021, my partner and I   which is who I met in dental school. was my professor at the time. And since then I've got all the new partners we just started to build and from two locations and now in 2021, hopefully by the end of 2021, we'll have 10.   Kiera (05:02) You guys heard that right. That was 10. So, you know, 2019 to 2021, 10 practices. It's pretty impressive, Louis. And what I love, ⁓ you and I are very aligned. Our mission at Dental A Team is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And you also wanted to positively impact, ⁓ and change the way patients view dentistry. So I just love it. Louis, I think you're an inspiration to so many. So I'm going to like, let's get ready. Let's dive deep. Cause I'm sure people listening are like how.   How did you do it? It like, that's great. You had a vision when you were 19, you went to dental school. Sounds like you partnered up with somebody fantastic. And now here you are two years later and you've got 10 practices. So kind of walk us through some of the things that you felt helped perpetuate that and make it into a reality. You're also in New York. I mean, you got hit hard with COVID. I think you actually were one of the hardest hit places of all. I mean, massive growth, massive, massive change. And you're also like real chill. You are always like,   fun and engaging. also attend a ton of CE. You also have a personal life. So I'm a lot of people ask how and I'm always curious to know like very successful people, people who just I feel like and sometimes it's weird to say like successful people because you're like, I'm just Lewis, like I'm just this person. But it's like you do things differently. You are a different breed. Everybody else has the same opportunities in life, but you do things differently. So what are some of those things that you feel like you've done differently to get to this state in your life right now?   Kiera (06:18) Your   Dr. Chen (06:29) That was a loaded   Kiera (06:30) It is a loaded question. That's why you're on the podcast, Louis. You can ask all the questions to you.   Dr. Chen (06:33) I   You asked amazing questions. I'm happy to entertain and I feel like I should be a better question asker too. To start, think to perpetuate is one is having the proper resources available to you and just committing yourself. I remember when I was in residency or whatnot, on top of being in residency, learning what I had to do and just kind of self-learning. I was listening to lot of podcasts and then eventually podcast was a huge learning experience because it's available. It's available and why not utilize it? Over time as you start building your sort of   operations business, I entertain, you know, just taking CEF. Actually, one of my team members, couple of my teams are infatuated with you, Kiera, by the way. They love you. They're like, Oh my God, I wish I could be Kiera. I'm like, you should.   Kiera (07:19) When I come to New York, I'll be there in December, let me know, we'll hang out, be a time. It'd be a fun surprise list, we should definitely like off air, come up with a surprise, it'd be real fun.   Dr. Chen (07:30) Yeah, it's it's it's I do send a lot of information you send out to your newsletters are fantastic. So again, actually reading the resources are provided. I know sometimes people just kind of sift through and kind of toss it away. But I should sift through it and I say, well, I'm going to forward to the appropriate team members so I can elevate them. Right. So one of the just, you know, being the good filter of resources is one of what you do is committing yourself to a schedule. Right. For me, like I'm always an early bird now, like   5 to 35, 45 wake up. I work pretty much all day, like nonstop and it's hard to get a hold of me. I'm always bouncing around offices. And I what gets me going is really just that commitment to purpose, which I think that people don't focus so much on. And when they go into dentistry, it's that purpose. I still stand by what I want to achieve when I was 19 till now, which is basically just continue to drive and push for great, great things, you know, and over time it, you elevate yourself.   and you realize you just start to grow in size, expand, you need to have a belief system. And it comes first, which is, know, what's your core values and really just redesigning everything that you do. So ⁓ that gets me going. I wake up in the morning, I have a purpose behind what I do. ⁓ I have my own personal core values that I abide by. ⁓ And there's nothing better than that.   Kiera (08:51) I love it. I love it so much. And Lewis, of course, I'm going to dive in deeper. think a few pieces I pulled from that is one, it sounds like you're very, ⁓ let's say like regimated, like, you know what you want to do in life. And I found that when I talked to successful people, it's one of my favorite things about the podcast is picking people's brains. ⁓ Tony Robbins has a quote that I love and it says successful people ask better questions. So it's like, what is that routine? Like you have a morning routine, you wake up at certain times, you're very much dedicated to a purpose, something beyond you.   Because like when those hard days come, which they will always come, it's pulling back to why are we doing this? What is the why behind it? So I love that you, started first with that. I also love that you mentioned you filter through the resources that are available. You're right. This podcast is free. Like people can download it, listen to it. We put it on for free and we bring on really awesome guests. also like our newsletters are written by our consultants and I check all of them, make sure there's awesome facts, tangibles in there. It's not just a newsletter of like   But it really is, but also filtering through like what is that best information? So I love hearing that you actually take the time to read through it. Be systematized in how you operate. So I'm going to dive into like, what do you feel? Cause I feel like I was given the golden spoon of success meeting Mark Costas. Like I will say that again and again and again, just like proximity is power, right place, right time meeting people I connected in, I helped an office grow exponentially. They connected me with Mark Costas, had the whole DSI experience. It was amazing.   Kiera (09:56) but you're also very   Kiera (10:18) perpetuated Dental A Team, learned a ton, but like that was a strike of lightning, but I don't think it was just pure luck. think right place, right time, also looking for opportunities. So for you, what were some of those opportunities again, cause I hate when people say it was just luck. I'm like, yes, did I get a really lucky golden card out of heaven? Absolutely yes. But I also think there was a lot of preparation that came for it. So what were some of the things you feel like you've been, you've done well that has kind of propelled you to be able to do 10 practices in two years?   Dr. Chen (10:46) To your point, know, like I do say it's a part of luck, but I think it's a little bit of understanding whether the luck is presented to you. Because sometimes people, there's plenty of opportunities that presented it. And sometimes we just don't visualize it to be a luck. know, for me, I was really hard. You I worked hard and I graduated early from dental school, but I was the only guy who worked till the very, very end. Even though didn't have to, I still wanted to work.   didn't take the vacation that other people did. I just really wanted to be the absolute best at what I did and be comfortable with it. And my partner at the time, my professor at the time is a prosthodontist. So he's very detail oriented. He had his eyes on me, like this hard worker, great with people, loved dentistry, good clinician. And I had a vision, know, him and I sat down and he said, what are your goals? Because he wanted to hire me as an associate. What are your goals? What do you want to do?   And then as soon as we got off that dinner, I remember it was December 2016, something like that. He was just like, what if I want you to work with me? Like not just work with me, like work, build something with me. I'm like, what's going on? And I didn't went to residency and I was like, all right, cool. I'll continue to do what I had to do. ⁓ But I continued to revisit and commit to my, that luck and opportunity. ⁓   Again, I think to that point, I think we have to understand that we have to our best self out for us every day because if you're not performing optimally, yeah, sometimes people perceive, you know, under performance is not optimal performance. And I'm going to deliver, you know, if an interview falls short, you know, like what I have to do, that's the first impression, right? ⁓ So I definitely think that we have to be on A game all the time for sure in order to, and then...   Once you hit that point, critical mass like a games always your game.   Kiera (12:38) That   becomes your new standard. That's where it is. That's your baseline.   Dr. Chen (12:41) That's the baseline. Did I answer your question, Tyler? There's another loaded question. So I was like,   Kiera (12:46) It   was a loaded question, Lewis. I just like to pick people's brains of like what it sounds like if I were to recap it in a way, it's almost as if I feel like you put in a lot of hard work, hustle and grit. And I think that that's important. I love the picture. I'm sure a lot of us have seen it of the ballet slippers. Like there is a ballerina on point and one foot's in the ballerina slipper and the other foot is this like cut up bloody hot mess. And it says everybody wants success, but they often don't realize what it takes to get there. And   I think about, like, I just heard a lot of that hard work, that grit. You also had a vision and you were very committed to it. So I think about team members, I think about practice owners of what is that vision and are you actually committed to it? Are you a fair weather fan or are you like ride or die? I will achieve this goal. And I hear a lot of conviction, but also because of that conviction from you, Louis, I feel like it also presented you opportunities that might have otherwise passed you by. This professor was looking for an associate.   ⁓ You had proven yourself to be this very successful student. So they were looking, there was an opportunity sitting there. You didn't even know it. I tell people often, I groom people. I watch people before they even become in leadership. My husband was groomed for about four years before he was taken into leadership. Had no idea it was happening, but people are constantly watching. There are opportunities always around us. It's just, like you said, who are you presenting day in and day out? So I love that. I love that.   Kiera (13:51) And a lot of times I   Kiera (14:11) And I hope other people are listening and realizing it's not just a stroke of luck. Being your best self, having that baseline continually, that's what's gonna set you up for opportunities that you may have otherwise missed. next up, professor, decide you're going to become partners. You're gonna take this on, you finish up residency. So I also love that you equipped yourself with the skills and tools you needed. So if it didn't work out with your professor, all eggs were in that basket. You're like, with you or without you, I will do this. And I like that you did that.   Kiera (14:15) It is literally.   You and   Kiera (14:40) So then what are some of the things you felt you and your partner did very well from the get go? Cause I also feel a lot of success comes from pivoting quickly, learning from your mistakes very quickly. So what were some of the things you felt at the beginning you guys did really, really well, and then I'm going to pivot to mistakes. But right now, what are some of the things you felt like that set me up for success exceptionally well in the beginning?   Dr. Chen (15:03) Well, I think they keep an open mind and think that having the clear expectations of one of each other is important. As we continue to grow, we add more to partners too. We've been again, it's awesome to have different. we, we, we may get very clear what our strengths are, stay in your lane kind of thing. My partner is great with the financial aspects. I'm great with, well, I'm not great with system, but I like systems.   Kiera (15:26) I can tell you wake up at a certain time, the process, I got the vision, you're good.   Dr. Chen (15:30) Yeah, the gaining writing it, the process, the system, putting it in place, organize, that's the hard part that he doesn't take care of. But that's what I do. The one thing that we did do well is we talked about where we want to what we want to achieve. I think that one of the things that he mentioned was, you know, what he's trying to achieve is not, you know, for the financial goals. His is very in line with mine, which is to provide exceptional care. So our core values were aligned. So at any given point.   I just know the decision that he suggests and makes ⁓ is for better, for good purpose or for the right reasons, not for any other intent. That was really important to us. ⁓ of course, you know, just building a lot of trust. I did throw a lot of my eggs in his back. And in fact, I did, threw everything in. have nothing. All my trust is all in. and, be, you know, be, be have the conviction to finish and, and strong.   And that's kind of where we stood. And I think that's what we did well. And we continued to grow. We weren't stagnant. We all, like my partner, he's 10 years my senior. So he's constantly in leadership classes because he needs to be a better leader. He wants to be a better leader. He takes the necessary classes to be a better leader.   He understands he's self-reflective and self-aware about how he presents himself to his team. And it rubs off on me. again, we learn ⁓ one also great thing is we embrace honest mistakes. We embrace the humility. Cause even if I made a mistake and I would, I would honestly tell them like, cause I'm looking my bad. I didn't think about this. I didn't think about that. Here's the outcomes. Like it's fine. Just, just don't do it again. Just figure it out. Put it on a sheet of paper, figure it out, do it again. And ⁓ that's, there's a lot of forgiveness in that process, which helped.   I oftentimes think that if there's no open communication to allow for humility, ⁓ people get, you know, they're probably get stuck with within their own confines. ⁓ And I think that's something that was really beneficial for us.   Kiera (17:38) As you guys look back on 2021, how was it? Was it your best year? Was it a year you could have done a little better? And as you're looking forward to 2022, what type of a practice and a person do you want to be? Well, guys, now is the time to take massive action and to have the life and the practice you've always wanted. Dental A Team Platinum is where it's at, guys. We focus on system development. That's right, top to bottom. Team development, growing leaders, growing you as a person, making sure you're balanced, that we have happier teams.   And we also ensure that your practice is profitable, teaching you how to be business. So if you're looking to enhance your practice, take it to the next level. You yourself want to grow. Now is the time. Dental A Team platinum. We fly to your practice. Most of our offices see a 10 to 30 % increase in revenue, reduction of stress, happier teams, better patient experiences. So if you know, you want to rocket launch yourself into 2022, don't wait guys. We are only taking on so many platinum practices because we physically fly to you. So email us today.   Kiera (18:09) Abby.   Kiera (18:34) Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and you better believe we have something special for you end of year offices. So be sure to reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Remember you're only one decision away from a completely different light.   Kiera (18:37) So   Gosh, so many good takeaways because I think so many people have partnerships that actually don't go well. And so helping to see you guys were in your lanes, you also had complimentary skillsets to one another. I think that that's actually amazing that you figured out stay in your lanes. And then there's the honest mistakes, like that happens. I tell everybody like fail successfully. And I also love another quote, like there are no failures. There's just results. Like what happened? Why did it happen? Like let's learn from it so it doesn't happen again and move forward.   And when teams and partners feel that they can make those mistakes, there's so much freedom. Like the rules and the boundaries are all open. You can have anything. There's massive creative success and openings and ideas that can come because you feel very, very free, I guess, to make those mistakes. You know you're gonna be accountable to it, but there's nothing wrong in not having it go exactly as planned. So I'm not gonna pivot, Louis. Like you've been so generous. And I just, wanted to pick your brain. I've been dying to talk to you. You guys have such a fun culture.   which I think kudos to you guys for doing that. But now next up is going to be, what do you feel, like I know I can go back in my career and say like, these were big pivotal mistakes that if I could do it over again, I would never have done that. So maybe one or two of those, and not even mistakes, I guess it's just like, like of course I learned from them. I'm grateful I had them, but if I was giving someone guidance, these would be some pitfalls that I wish I would have known about prior to making them. Do you have any of those that have come? I mean, 10 practices in two years, Louis, I'm not gonna lie. Like it's impressive.   I love it, I'm so freaking proud of you. I'm like high fiving you through the screen right now. Just impressed with who you are and that your vision's coming to light. What were some of those pitfalls though that you're like, wish I would have done that.   Dr. Chen (20:25) I couldn't, there was a laundry list and to your point of failing successfully, so important failing forward. I mean, God, like it's, can give you a whole separate podcast on just fail failures. Biggest thing is, Eagle let go of Eagle. Huge thing about Ventus is Eagle. It's like, it go. Number two, team culture. number three, put the, pro provided proper resources for success. you know, seek out, there's tons of resources out there. Like you said, you can.   Kiera (20:27) Ha   Dr. Chen (20:55) You can purchase the protocols, can purchase manuals, can, you know, whatever it is, you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you don't have to. Very simple, right? And oftentimes people think I want my own recipe. And I always say it, I say it to my teams. I'm like, at some point, re-revent the recipe, you know, the wheel, or just follow, always following someone else's recipe. Use the recipe to make something that you like to cook, not what they like to cook. If you want that breaded chicken, maybe you want some breaded cutlet chicken cutlet with some other paprika or something like, or Cajun.   That's your recipe. What are those additional variables? But you don't have to reinvent the wheel, save yourself the time and struggle. ⁓ Number three is learning to elevate the team. I realized that people forget that every team member is looking for growth. You just have to provide that platform for growth. Another one is, again, same thing with race humility about your leadership. I think that sometimes people look for   team members with skillset and they don't provide the opportunity to look at potential more than skillset. And to this day, I don't hire for skills. I hire for talent to hire for potential because you can't find someone who's really good with hospitality, who hasn't been in the hospitality.   Kiera (22:05) Amen. true. So true. I love it.   Dr. Chen (22:09) Yeah, there's so much more to things that I, ⁓ again, even cultural alignment with your partners, resetting that, having that conversation or revisiting, you figuring the differences out that, know, the only way you can grow is to be aligned and there's no other question. There's no other way around it.   Kiera (22:27) Gosh, I love it so much. think that there's just so many pieces on there. And something I really wanted to highlight, the reason I asked that question is because again, I think so many people look at that and say, my gosh, 10 practices in two years. Is this person really human? Do they ever make mistakes? And I think it's really important to realize on the path of success.   I loved, heard a quote and it's called the success tax. Like there are hard times that follow. There are things that we wish we wouldn't have done. There are things that we learn along the way, but it's like, just keep growing and becoming better. So I'm actually gonna ask you, I came up with a few questions that I've wanted to ask podcast guests that I'm like, ⁓ I'm gonna remember to ask Louis these. So my first question is, what is your best time saving hack?   Dr. Chen (23:12) time-saving hack. People oftentimes say it's because I sleep so little.   Kiera (23:17) How many how many hours do you sleep at night Louis let's talk about that   Dr. Chen (23:21) So I got an aura ring. So this is a ring that measures your sleep and the REM sleep. So I'm trying to life hack myself through data by understanding like, well, if I'm, if I'm getting X amount of hours of deep sleep or REM sleep or whatnot, am I going to, do I wake up feeling like I'm going to be productive? Right. I feel like I'm energized. Do I feel like I'm putting myself, you know, put my best foot forward? That's key. I am huge on calendars. I know that I heard a podcast on productivity. Some people say to do lists are great, but   calendars even better, but I personally have all my work that I do actually on calendar by blocks almost. I put it on my calendar to say, all right, today payroll, got to do payroll. Not that I hope to achieve it, but there's so many moving parts that what time set forth is not usually the time I will take to complete. at the minimum, I try to tackle it by, I have a to-do project management to-do list and I break it down by location, by management, by, you know,   team members or administrative or all that stuff. And I prioritize it based off deadlines. So for me, I feel like I will prioritize and provide a deadline for myself if I find this work's gonna take a little longer. If it's easy, I'm not gonna get out because there's no point to delay procrastinating easy tasks because I feel like completing easy tasks, tasks drive, provides us momentum and inertia to continue to achieve more. So sometimes I wake up waking in the morning, like tackling the biggest task and like,   this is a drag. gonna take a long time to do it. But if I just start tacking like, you know, just, you know, finishing off some emails or just, you know, taking off some of the things on the to-do list, I get this momentum of feeling pro tip productive and I continue to be more productive. ⁓ but that's one of my life hacks.   Kiera (25:03) I like it.   I like it. Okay. So I like also that you, one thing I hope people are picking up is that you innovate. You are literally looking at your sleep habits to see do, could I actually be as productive with less sleep? Like I love it. I love that you're testing it out. You're trying it out here. Like you think outside the box and I really hope that people are realizing like it doesn't just come with like the flick of your wrist or you know, a magic wand. Like this is called, you're actually putting these things into play. also agree with you. Calendaring.   It is a world of difference like I literally put blocks on the calendar because if there aren't blocks I've got an hour or two of free time Well instantly that hour or two gets sucked up by all these other things because I didn't actually proactively take care of it. So awesome next question is What's your best tip for delegation? And this is me just selfishly asking you all the things I want to get better at So I'm just asking this is you and me having a private podcast more for myself. So best tip for delegation. Louis. What is it?   Dr. Chen (25:58) I think the best question that that question I should be asking you instead, because you've been you've been able to grow practices, you're in consult now. So like, delegation is a weird thing. I think everyone says it the same, you everyone says the same thing. Abdication is very, very different delegation. Abdication is really just kind of relieving yourself of the work that you don't want to achieve. And it's putting into hands of someone with autonomy and then not providing the outcomes that you find to be successful. ⁓ Delegation is understanding that   your productivity will increase by you offloading some of the workload. So you can spearhead the delegation, not to do the work, but you can provide projects or spearhead, you know, with an individual who can take the load off and understanding an agenda. Even for myself right now, I'm at the point where I need to hire some more HR recruiters and more operations team members. And I know what I need because my time is   diminished if I continue to focus on so many different things that I know I can offload and just oversee, have a project timeline for that.   Kiera (27:06) Totally. I love it. I also, like, as you said that I'm hoping people heard that you prioritize your time and you're constantly hiring and innovating and bringing on different people. So that way you're always on optimum peak performance. Like what are the things that only you can do? Times being diminished. I could outsource this. I could hire somebody else. So, ⁓ and then the last question I have for you is your best tip for like team communication, or you talked a lot about elevating your team. This is a team podcast. What is something that you feel you do really, really well?   I think you guys have a really fun culture from what I see, super jazz for what you guys are doing. What do you feel is something that you've done very well to help have a great team culture in your practices?   Dr. Chen (27:46) So when I, and I still do the HR, so I hire for, I hire every person. And one of the biggest things is me being the person who can establish that culture through the interview from the get-go because, that comes from speaking to if with the right candidate, ⁓ I spend a little bit more time really going through the company culture as well as the core values of the, of the, of the office. So this way they come in expecting that what's harder is kind of shaking up the culture that doesn't exist.   Basically trying to create something that didn't start. like every office I'm trying something new, like find you the new Peto office that my partners and I have, you know, I came in and did this whole cultural thing and I'm not great at it. I'm trying it, but I walk in, I feel amazing. You know, I feel amazing. I see the team, the team is great. I feel I can't wait. I love coming to the office, right? And I love knowing that I can, because I also know that the team loves that too. ⁓   So that's one thing is to create the culture is just establish it from the get go. Like do not this do not delay the process to onboarding. If the moment you get onboarded culture comes first the belief systems. ⁓ Another thing is, you know, being honest with yourself with that process because it's very it's corny. And everyone talks about no one no one is like when I first started like core values, what are those like this work needs to be done right? Totally.   realize that toxicity happens and there's other stuff that needs to be managed and navigated. And it's just so much harder if you don't, especially if you start growing, the culture has to be consistent across the board. So yeah, and it's easier with one because you see the same people all the time. But if you're drop shipping yourself in different locations, you expect the culture to persist. And am I great at it? I am far from it. And   I'm constantly, even right now, I'm just trying to figure out how do I measure culture, right? How do I ensure that it's being consistent? Maybe because I'm coming in, people are performing well, maybe they're not, right? And how do I measure that? That's being, that's, I think that's the first and foremost thing.   Kiera (29:59) I really love that you said that and I love that you said it's cheesy because I think so many people think it's cheesy so they actually don't do it. And yet at the end of the day, we've got great resignation. It's hard to hire all these different pieces, but I'm like, you clearly are hiring a lot of people. And I think having a great culture that people genuinely love to work there. Having a culture that is based on core values. I have redone my core values. I think we're on like rendition four, but it's because I realized like things are being missed from our company.   And so I love that you brought up like the cheesy aspect of it. So bottom line is, and then you ask, and I'm actually just going to give you a tip that I've heard for how do you measure culture? Cause you're right. Like it should be a tangible thing. should be something when we walk in, it is the same from practice to practice to practice. So an office that I really, really love and respect and admire, they actually send out quarterly surveys or twice a year surveys. So November and May, and they actually have an anonymous survey of like, how is the culture? So they get a pulse on all the practices. ⁓   For my team, I'm constantly ripping our core values down and I will spot audit them and say, all right guys, what are our core values? And I will randomly ask different people on calls just to see, do they know the core values? Having core value shout outs at morning huddle where they have to all choose a team member and pick a core value. I don't care which one it is that exemplifies that. it'd be like today, Dr. Chen, I'm going to give him the core value of fun. Like he's always fun. He brings a lot of fun energy. So it actually is infused into your practice.   but then how to measure it doing those quarter or those twice a year surveys oftentimes can give you kind of a anonymous pulse on your practices. So I love that you brought these pieces in. I love that you're focused on it because I really do believe great cultures are where great practices are able to impact their community stronger. And it also impacts the lives of those that work there. So I love it. Those are so fun, Lewis. think it's fun to see your journey. It's been fun to watch you grow.   Kiera (31:40) this is happened.   Kiera (31:51) I I met you pre even owning practices and now to see you where you are and I just know there's so much more ahead of you. So I love it. I'm always rooting you on always happy to help. We should definitely plan a time to meet up. I'm always in New York. So I'd love to see you guys, but ⁓ thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing all your tips. Any, any last things you want to share as we wrap up? I'd love to hear anything else you want to add in.   Dr. Chen (32:13) I think to any team member or any provider, particularly the providers, because to grow, you have to keep an open mind to what's out there. And even for myself, like you mentioned, I do say it's cheesy, but no one talks about it. But you know what? I see the difference day and night. It changes the way you deliver your care, it the way you lead, it changes the way you manage. And to your point, I tried the team surveys.   Again, I like trying a lot of things. And I realized that sometimes trying things has to have a structure. when you're ready for it, like I couldn't measure culture if I didn't understand what culture meant. But now that I have culture set in court, the core values of company culture established, now this might have a better impact. Now I have team members who can understand that and deliver that. So it is requires a lot of step back. I think one thing to learn from any team member is like,   take a step back and just kind of take a read on the practice. Whether people are feeling great, there, you know, I like, I like Danny Meyer. Danny Meyer, is podcast I sent it to you. And he talks about having team members, you know, check the weather report before to come in. Because if you're feeling sunny, there's going to be a sunny day in the office, patients, team members, everyone. But if you're feeling like you have a rainy day, you check yourself, leave that rain behind because you're going to rain on everyone else.   So that's one thing that I've started to realize is I gotta make sure to check on my Retherport every single day before I deliver my results.   Kiera (33:46) That's awesome, Lewis. You are just like I said, an inspiration. It's fun. Thank you for sharing. know it's sometimes uncomfortable to share our successes, sometimes uncomfortable to share failures. But I just love that's why I love this podcast because we bring the best of the best. We share ideas because I think sometimes just hearing someone's story, hearing someone's experiences, learning from them helps rocket launch so many other practices to success. So thank you, Lewis. I just adore you. I'm so glad you're here today. Always cheering you on. So thank you. Thanks for being a part of this today.   Dr. Chen (34:15) Thank you, appreciate it.   Kiera (34:17) Of   course. All right, you guys that wraps it up. Dr. Lewis Chen, super grateful guys. If you check him out, he's all over social media. ⁓ great, great person. He will respond to you. Like you will never believe this man is as busy as he is because he responds all the time. He's always gathering so much information. So check him out. Such an inspiration. And as always to all of you, thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.   That wraps it up for another episode of Dental A Team Podcast. Thank for listening and we'll talk to you next time.   Kiera (34:44) Thank you so much for  

Tiff and Kristy talk about revisiting those goals your practice set at the beginning of 2025, and if you're falling short, discuss how to get back on track. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be back here today. I've got Kristy with me. You guys know I love podcasting with the consultant team and I love each of them for something very, special. Kristy, you are my gal that, like, I feel like we can talk about anything. Always be on the same page. You riff with me very easily.   And you always, always, always, I have to value this and appreciate it at the end. If I ever ask you for anything I missed, you always catch something and always have a pearl of wisdom. And I just think it's really, really, one, talented. Like not everyone can do that or think. A lot of people get like stressed, especially podcasting. And two, it just makes me really, really excited for your clients because I know you just operate in that way.   You're always thinking of like, my gosh, what else can I add? What value can I bring? And your clients are just insanely lucky to have you as a consultant. And your previous clients I know are just always checking in with you and they're always asking those simple questions or those hard questions. And Kristy, think it's just really cool. You're an insanely special human. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of our team.   I hope you understand and know how valued you are, the Dental A Team, and just personally and professionally.   Kristy (01:25) Absolutely. Thank you. I'm honored to be here and be a part of ⁓ changing dental lives. ⁓   The Dental A Team (01:26) Yeah.   Thank you. And   just so everyone knows who's listening, podcasts are not like super easy. Recording podcasts can be a little daunting. And that was even before we had to do it by video. And I think about this a lot, actually, because it just, I think it's so funny. This is kind of like cell phones. We're going go on a little small little tangent because I think it's hilarious. I remember way back in the day when we were like,   bricks with these giant cell phones. We were like, this is stupid, like, why it needs to be small? So we had this little tiny flip phone that you really couldn't do a lot on, right? Because it was so small, but it was small. We wanted small and compact. And then we went to a BlackBerry and it was like, this is a whole computer and I can do my emails. And then we went small again. We like keep going back and forth and back and forth. And now, know, iPhones got it pretty well dialed in, but it's so much bigger than my cell phone was in high school. And I think about this a lot because   I think we go forward and backwards in life constantly. This is no different than that. Because you remember, I remember Brody was little and I used to do Beachbody coaching. I loved it. It was just like a past life that I absolutely loved. The fitness industry, the fitness world is my passion. But I remember we used to get on Facebook Live or we do YouTube videos and we were like, hey guys, this is how you make this cake or whatever it was.   And then we removed the video aspect, right? And that's when podcasts got popular and podcasts were not video. Podcasts were strictly just talking. And I remember Dana and I, or Britt and I, like get together and we could see each other, but it wasn't being recorded. So we could come however we wanted to look. It was just like, come as you are. We're only here for the voices. And then now, then we added the video back in and I'm like, wait, like we keep going backwards. Now I feel like we're doing YouTubes all the time. So.   Anyways, my small tangent there is like going forward and then coming backwards and feeling like you're making progress, but then technology pulls us back a little bit. And I think that we do that in life and personal life. We do that in habits. We're like, so good. The 30 days sugar detox, like I'm doing so good, right? We get to 28 days and we're like, but just a little bit won't hurt. I just want a little sugar. And we're like, dang it. Now we're sliding backwards or whatever the   I think we do that a lot in life and it doesn't have to be technology. It can just be habits. It can. It can be anything in some some places. A place that I see it a lot is within our goals within a company that only team has company goals. We we do the same thing over here. Every business is business is what I always say. We've consulted eye doctors and chiropractors and like business is business. I talked to.   You know, my financial advisor about his business structure, he's like, help me with the CPAs, whatever. Business is business and we all move forward and fall back and move forward and fall back. And today, Kristy, I thought it might be beneficial kind of being mid-year-ish to do a check-in on that. I know we do it with all of our clients, but making sure even non-client doctors who are here, business owners who are listening, that you know that this happens. This is...   This is life. Like we're back on video. Here we are. This is life. And we go forward and then we fall backwards. But no matter what, there's always a space to move forward again or move forward more. If you didn't fall backwards, you move forward more. There's always that space and there's always that availability. And oftentimes we get to this space in the year, June to like August timeframe, and we haven't looked at our trajectory very often.   in and maybe we look and we're like, ⁓ heavens, Tiff, like, I'm like 300 grand short of what I wanted to hit this year. And Kristy, how many times have you had a doctor call you just like, this is it, we got to change my goal. We've got it. We're not doing three million. We're doing 2.7. And you're like, no, we're not doing that. Yeah, like, no, we are not here for changing goals. We're here for pushing forward.   And I thought it would be fun for us to really take a look at that today and figure out how can you know that you're on or off track? And when you're off track, what do you do to get back on track? Now, Kristy, ⁓ what do you have your clients doing? And what have you always, you've worked with, you've consulted for a while. what have you always had your clients doing to stay, not even to stay on track, but just to know where they are. Like how do we know our baselines in business?   Kristy (06:15) Yeah, well first off, I always like to start the year projecting out our year, right? So looking at what we did last year and creating a goal with growth on top of it and projecting that out for the future. But then also when we do that,   ⁓ taking it and chunking it down. So we may have a big goal and starting the beginning of the year, if our goal is three million, that can be so daunting, right? And I think we all have to remember.   The Dental A Team (06:44) Mm-hmm.   Kristy (06:47) Yeah, we always have to keep our eye on the prize, but we need to also chunk it down. And you made a very good point about it being June. And my mind went to thinking back to the beginning of the year and how we're really excited, thinking of like starting school even. Your first year in college, I'm a freshman and I'm all gung-ho and I'm ready to study and I have these habits. And then all of a sudden we start to fall back in routine. remember,   The Dental A Team (07:05) Yeah.   Yeah.   Kristy (07:17) that each day is a new day to start over. But to your point...   Right now, we have our big goal and maybe we have a sheet with a thermometer or however you want to fill it and make sure we're always keeping our eye on that prize, but go smaller. Go to your month view, go to your weekly view, then go to your daily view and chunk it down because it makes it so much more doable and we resist the urge to change the goal then because we can look and see where we're at.   The Dental A Team (07:33) Yeah.   That's nice.   Kristy (07:49) and what we have to do to get back on track.   The Dental A Team (07:53) Yeah, I love that you said that like scale it back. Look at what the different layers are and then always looking at if you added these layers together now, does it equate to where you need to be? And something you said, Kristy was massive. Like I think so many doctors get into the year and like I'm going to do three million this year and then that's it. And it's like divide three million by 12. That's what we're hitting every month. And then we just go month by month by month.   But if we're not looking at our leads, our lags and our current, then we get lost in the shuffle. And Kristy, I think that's what you're saying, right, Cheon? Get back and know and then always look at what we've accomplished and where we have left to go. Not June to August timeframe can be seriously pivotal in making or breaking those goals, because if you now look at January to June and you say, OK,   What did I, what have I done? What is my year to date production so far? And then subtract that from your yearly goal and you're going to see your gap, right? So that's what you have left to do this year. Sometimes you might look at that and you might see your $300,000 short. That sounds massive, right? You're like, holy cow. Well, let's divide that by how many months we have left this year. Doesn't mean we throw in the towel and we're done. We say, okay,   If I'm going to do this, how do I get this done? And again, what you said, Kristy, it's mid year, but we're doing the same thing. We're doing the same thing that we did at the beginning here. We're just reevaluating and reassessing where we have left to go. So a lot of times, you know, I've had dentists that were like a hundred grand short, even at the end of the year, we look at it and we're like, oh my God, we barely missed it. Well, let's look at where we missed it. Why did we miss it? What happened?   to get us to this point? And how do we make sure that this doesn't happen again? And typically it's been missed somewhere during that year where it was like we were short 25 grand on this month, we were short 25 grand on this month, and we were short 10, 10, like whatever it equates to, right? But it's like those add up so quickly that we tend to miss them. So if you get to that mid-year and you say, okay, this is what I have left, let's reassess.   and look at how long do we have. Kristy, something I do get asked a lot is, well, what do we do when doctors are like, let's take this vacation time? Or I've got associates who are like, oh, guess what? Next month, I've got CE and I've got this and I've got office managers and doctors that are calling me and pulling out their hair. And they're like, I have a goal, but how am I supposed to hit this? So Kristy, what do you suggest when they are off?   goal, they're off track, they've got how much ever money that they need to make up and then they've got something looming, some sort of maternity leave or something we just didn't really account for. How do you have your doctors really account for that and put it back into their goals?   Kristy (11:02) Yeah, I love that we're talking about this subject and I know we tend to talk about, you know, bridging the gap when we're behind and we'll certainly talk about that because many times it's that but...   Also, don't forget to celebrate if you're ahead, you know? And so celebrate if you're ahead, but not just celebrate, take a look at what you did to get there so you can repeat those processes, right? And to your point, if we are behind, take a look and chunk it down. What would it take to bridge that gap? And if I have providers looking for time off,   The Dental A Team (11:28) you   Kristy (11:37) Factor that into the equation. If we're behind already and we take this much time off, what now will the gap be? So for associates, for owner doctors, ⁓ it may not be easy to find a temp for them, but for hygiene, it's very easy to say, if we're ahead, do I really need to find a temp? Because we're ahead in our goal. Or,   The Dental A Team (11:44) Okay.   Yeah.   Kristy (12:02) Do I need to find a temp because we're behind   in goal? So it helps you make those strategic decisions. ⁓ with that being said, for owner doctors and associates, if we're behind, can we add in anywhere? Could we add one more hour to the day or could we work a Friday versus taking it off? What would that do in order to take that week off? And or can we change our block scheduling?   The Dental A Team (12:19) Yeah.   turn.   Kristy (12:32) some bigger rocks. Take our mind back to during COVID when we only did emergency treatment. It's okay if we push a filling off here or there if it means adding that big rock so we can make up for the loss, right? It's not that we're not going to do the filling, but could we put it in a month where we're already at goal, if you will.   The Dental A Team (12:39) Yeah.   Yeah,   yeah, I think those are really great points and something you said there was like work the Friday instead of not working made me think of I do have an office that does a few offices that do this, but one particular does really well at looking ahead one to three months consistently, if not further. But they're always looking at OK, if we want to as an office, take this time off or if we have to take this time off for CE or whatever, are there days in the month that were closed that we could open to make up that production?   And think that's massive. And again, like you said, I'm going to mimic it. You like definitely celebrate when you're ahead and then look at what does that mean? Now, something I do steer away from, and I know, Kristy, you do too, is changing the goal because you're ahead. So that doesn't mean next month you do 120 instead of 160. It just means great. We've got padding for if we need to utilize that. So if the time comes, I know I had a practice in February that by March they were like,   How are we so short? When they looked at it, they had hygienists that had called out sick. They had an associate dentist that was out for a week. They had a hygienist that was on surgery. They lost almost $60,000 just in like crazy schedule happenings that they weren't truly prepared for. And so that can happen at any point. So if you're ahead and then you get to November and it's like, wow, this is kind of crazy.   you can account for that. if you get to December and you're so far ahead that you're like, hey, actually, like, we're going to take two weeks off or we're canceling everything for two weeks because we're good. You want to be able to have those flexibilities. so, Kristy, I think it's brilliant the way you have them constantly looking at them. So your practices are always looking at their KPIs, their measurables of where have we gone? Where are we trying to get to? And what do we need to get there so that we can constantly strategize and figure out   a new route for that. Now, what do you suggest if we're, I don't know, say $300,000 short, whatever, a hundred, I don't care how much it is, but we're getting towards the time of year, we tend to forget this, that June to August timeframe is a good time to look at your goals because September to December can get a little wild, in my opinion, within dentistry. So if they're a little bit short here or a lot of it short,   What do you usually suggest to the doctors going into that kind of holiday season, which is freaking around the corner, which is crazy. How do you suggest that they start really preparing for that?   Kristy (15:22) No.   Yeah, well, number one, I like to start preparing early. A lot of people think, you know, we hit the September, September, right? And prepare early because we plant those seeds, right? And it doesn't have to be that way. So number one, looking at our unscheduled treatment, you know, who can we re-enroll that has already been in and we just haven't started treatment on?   The Dental A Team (15:36) huh.   Yeah.   Kristy (15:52) There's so many different avenues that we can start to look at and really with the goal of getting our patients healthy, tap into those resources. Or we have patients within our own schedule coming in that have unscheduled treatment. How could we add more on what we're already doing? Because we already have them here, you know, and capture more. The other thing that I was going to say, Tiff, is I do have a lot of doctors that are willing to work through a lunch hour.   The Dental A Team (16:00) Go.   That's a good point.   Kristy (16:19) You know, I know that's not gonna win fans with team probably, yet if we're behind on goal and we all are part of the goal, could we still honor lunch hours with team, but maybe we rotate through so we don't have to add another day, but just simply adding that procedure during lunch if it works for the team, you know? So there's so many different avenues, but if we fail to look at it, then we're already behind the game. But again, to your point,   The Dental A Team (16:19) Yeah.   Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Kristy (16:47) starting now to start preparing for the end of the year and talking about what we have to do to bridge that gap, but tap into the resources we already have with the patients we already have.   The Dental A Team (17:00) That's brilliant. Looking at your unscheduled treatment is massive. And something you said earlier, Kristy, I'm going to pull back into the space right now. You said, look at what you've done that's worked, right? So look at what has gotten you here. Whether you're where you want to be or not, things have worked. And that's the space that is often missed in life in general. We're really great at looking back and seeing what could I have done better to have gotten a different result. But we often forget to look at what am I doing right?   that's producing the right result so that I can repeat that. And when you're looking at your unscheduled treatment, one, if you don't have a lot of unscheduled treatment but you don't have a full schedule, we need to look at diagnosis and new patients. So that's a space. And when you're not hitting goals, those are all spaces that we forget to look at. Often we're just like tackle the same day treatment, which works if you're diagnosing the treatment.   if you're getting the patients into the practice that need treatment. So a lot of times we might be behind goal and we might miss that there's something more underlying. It might be lost in marketing. It might be lost in the right new patients. I know I've got practices that are like, we're getting a ton of new patients, but they're clean patients. Fantastic. I love healthy mouths. I want everybody to have a healthy mouth, but I need dirty mouths. need unhealthy mouths.   to feed the production. And so being able to get that good mix takes a lot as well. So Kristy, to your point, like, are we celebrating the things that we're doing really well? And then the things that maybe aren't working to move the needle, are we really diagnosing what's truly going on there and tackling the root cause? A lot of times it's within the new patients, it's within the processes. If you've got a ton of outstanding treatment and it's not selling, why? Why aren't patients accepting?   If you don't have a ton of treatment and you don't have a full schedule, why? Is it under diagnosis or is it a lack of right patients? know Trish has a client right now. I've had the luxury of watching her consult this client and it's just been a lot of fun to see her take his, what's the word I want, like his, what are you seeing, his view and just shift it.   his attention, right? So he was getting the new patients, probably not as many as we'd love, but he wasn't focusing really heavily on the diagnosis, but wanted higher case acceptance, blah, blah, blah. So she really helped to shift. And Kristy, I've seen you do this too, shifting that focus back into, we looking at full mouth or did we get stuck on something? I've seen doctors do this where they're like, I'm going to do implants.   So we're only looking for implants and we're missing fillings. We're missing the like GP stuff that I know you don't want to do right now, but it's what fills the schedule. so, Kristy, to your point, really looking at what's working so that we can repeat that and diagnosing what's not working so that we can shift that and make massive impacts. Because sometimes I think that the money is missing because we've got something else is missing and we're maybe not focusing on the right things.   Kristy (20:14) Yeah, I love that you said that and you know something else that came to mind when you were talking is so many times we're looking at the dirty mouth, right? And healthy infected mouth or whatever but on our healthy patients It's a great time to take a step back to and say hey Is there anything you don't like about the shape size color of your teeth? So many doctors want to do cosmetic dentistry, but we never talk about it, right? So it's a great opportunity to also celebrate the healthy patient. my gosh, you've been coming for five   The Dental A Team (20:38) Yeah.   Kristy (20:44) years and haven't had a cavity, keep doing what you're doing at home, and this is a great time. Is there anything you'd like to change about your smile, right? And just by asking some questions, you could probably drum up more ⁓ treatment in your chair right there.   The Dental A Team (20:46) Yeah.   That's a brilliant idea. I do love that. You do well. This is what I'm talking about, you guys. I said it at the beginning. Kristy's like, yes, and I love that. And I use that. You say that a lot, Kristy. Words are insanely valuable and important, I think. And you say yes, and a lot. And I've noticed I've started doing that. So thank you for giving me that habit. But it's true. You're constantly thinking like, yeah, for sure, healthy patients. And you can still help your healthy patients in different ways. So Kristy, thank you for always having   that extra nugget, always thinking like, yeah, for sure. And also, this is what you could do. So, Kristy, I think it's invaluable. Our listeners, I know, picked up on it as well. And your clients, again, they're just, all of our clients are so lucky, but your clients are truly lucky to have you. you guys, I think our biggest action items, go look at your numbers, go look at where you are, where you're going, and what you need to do to bridge that gap to get there.   This is the perfect time of year to really prep the rest of the year and look at what are you offering your patients? Are you offering them everything? Like Kristy said, are we looking at healthy patients too and saying, hey, what else could you want to do? What else do you want to do? Are we looking at those options as well? Are we super focused on something right now? It's broaden your focus, change the game and figure it out guys. As always, Kristy, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the invaluable information.   And listeners, thank you for being here. Whether you're a current client, a future client, or just here to listen, like you guys are so valuable to us and I hope that you really truly feel that from us. If there's anything we can do to help you, to support you, or guide you, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Again, if you're not a newsletter subscriber, know that there's a slew of information in there. We write almost all of the newsletters from the consultant side ⁓ and we answer a lot of the emails that come through or the social.   requests and engagement over there too. So thank you everyone. Kristy, thank you and you guys will catch you next time.  

Ryan Isaac of Dentist Advisors returns to continue his discussion with Kiera about the future of dentistry, including options aside from DSOs. The question a practice owner should ask themself, Kiera and Ryan say, is what that individual wants out of their life — then consider the best platform to get you there. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and this is going to be part two of mine and Ryan Isaac's conversation where we're digging into DSOs to sell to not to sell, all of that. And I truly am so excited for you guys here, part two. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.   Kiera Dent (00:17) why don't we take a pause and just think of like, what's the future of dentistry as now the future pioneers of dentistry? And what are we going to do to our profession? Yes, there's top dollar. Yes, there's things about it, but is there a way to influence?   and make sure that the integrity of dentistry can maintain long-term. I have no answer to that, but again, this is Kiera Dent sitting on my podcast where I think that there is a voice and an influence and like on Dentist Advisors podcast, is there a way that we can influence our industry in ways that will protect and still pay out? Because I'm like, even if you don't get the 10X EBITDA, you still can get a freaking great payout if you do your life right to where you can be financially set up.   Ryan Isaac (00:33) Mm-hmm. ⁓   Kiera Dent (00:58) still be able to sell your practice, not have to sell it in ways that could potentially hurt the industry. I'm not saying one's the right answer or the wrong answer. There's no judgment on my side. It's just, let's maybe think and consider how it could influence. Can we get people that could be private equity higher up that could help protect it? Those are things that, and again, I'm just Kiera Dent here in Reno, Nevada.   Ryan Isaac (01:03) Mm-hmm. Yeah.   Same, okay.   Okay. Yes. No, these are the questions.   You're totally influential. I think it's just in the opposite direction. ⁓ I don't think we can influence private equity. Private equity is ruthless in every industry. They don't. It feels dirty. It feels dirty. And I have a question for you, but I just want to say really fast. ⁓ I do feel like, yes.   Kiera Dent (01:30) It's dirty. It's dirty.   Is there a way though, Brian, you   don't finance better than me. Is there a way that there could become dentists that could become in private equity where they own it? Because once you, there's no way to insulate, you don't think. Because once you get to that level, you just, I mean, I've had.   Ryan Isaac (01:44) Yeah, but they'll do the same thing. I mean, they'll want the same thing.   Now, money's money. It's why capitalism runs   the world. mean, that's why, you know, it's like why it influences politics and money and business runs the world, you know? ⁓ Okay, hold on. There's so many good things here. Number one would be not every group will be a DSO, private equity backed DSO. And you know, many, many ⁓ clients and just dentists around the country who will end up being owners of   Kiera Dent (02:05) Okay.   Ryan Isaac (02:19) 20, 50, 100 group practices that will stay privately held and ran by owner doctors. That will be a chunk of this ⁓ group practice ⁓ takeover. So in that space, the influence can still be huge. ⁓ I think the chance to influence the integrity of private practice is in those who don't sell to DSOs.   I think it's in the industry, educated in influencing the industry for people who aren't going to sell and who are going to maintain control. Now, I do think that in the future, more and more dentists will be in a group. ⁓ are probably, yeah, be fewer and I can see why it would make sense to do that. There would probably be fewer and fewer people with just solo doc, solo location practices. know, some towns and rural places, that would be hard to do.   Kiera Dent (02:47) Mm-hmm.   I do too.   Ryan Isaac (03:15) So I think you're Dorothy, is that what you said? I'm Dorothy. I think that is possible, not with private equity, but with still the owner doctors that still exist and the group practices that are ran by dentists, not private equity back. I think the influence is still gonna be, I mean, if you took the projections of what will stay private,   Kiera Dent (03:20) Yeah, hi.   I agree.   Ryan Isaac (03:40) and then the chunk of the group stuff that'll be non DSO non-corporate, that's still got to be 40, 50 % of the industry eventually.   Kiera Dent (03:49) I would think so.   I mean, look at it right now. There's corporate dentistry within. And again, there's nothing wrong with any, because I have clients that are in corporate dentistry that run their practices like private. They take care of their teams. So it's one of those things I still think, like even if you are, and that's another way that we can influence this, if you are part of a private equity-backed DSO, you can still influence your practice. You're still the dentist working in the practice. You can still run culture. You can still run change.   Ryan Isaac (03:59) Totally. Absolutely.   Yes.   and hit it.   Kiera Dent (04:16) ⁓ I know the doctors I have, they're part of a very large group corporate and things that we have done together, like I work with them, they're my only corporate practice that I work with, but we have literally influenced the top tier CEO. They've asked what these offices are doing differently. They're taking things that I've helped bring into the practice and they've asked like, what's changed in your practice? Like we hired this girl who teaches us to run it like private practice. Their culture's incredible. We're even right now petitioning up to the top people because they're writing off things that you can actually   bill out to insurance that they're making them write off when it's like, actually, no, we can bill it as a non covered service and actually have the patients cover. So I'm like, I do still think whether you're in private equity, but I think you've got to be a strong enough doctor where you advocate for the rights of your patients and the rights of your practice. And I'm super proud of my client who does this because her and her husband, they go to bat and they're like, they write some pretty direct emails to the CEO of this and say like, hey, and they're a big enough force. Cause I mean,   Ryan Isaac (04:55) Mm. Yes.   huh.   Kiera Dent (05:15) They're the top tier practice in their area. have them making like, we are adding multiple millions to their offices every single year. But I'm like, I think that's also how dentists, even if you're in private equity, even if you're in group practices, I think at the end of the day, are clinicians and clinic, like you are, you are the product. And I think that they have, I think dentists have more say than they might realize that they do to influence the industry and keep it more positive and more ethical than it could be otherwise.   Ryan Isaac (05:38) Yeah.   Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree with that. We all know people who are in those group models that are still running like amazing, almost privately held practices. The other thing that's interesting that's different than medical, because it always gets compared to the medical field consolidation that happened, is medicine has a distinct difference and advantage in that they have hospital systems where gigantic campuses where they can house hundreds of doctors in one place, right?   It's just not that's not a thing in dentistry, which I think will will force it to stay a little unique, different than medical, because you can never have a giant campus building with, you know, 400 dentists. Yeah, like 500. I mean, I don't know. I guess never say never some some group might invent that and you know, like the dental campus of the city. I don't know. Yes, it's possible. But it seems a lot less likely. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (06:18) Mm-hmm.   500 off, you imagine?   Say hi.   I mean, dental schools have a lot, but   I'm like, okay, I think the piece that would be really hard is to justify 500 beds, like 500 ops. You've got your hygiene that's cranking. So you gotta have, in a 500 bed, would need, like, we can only see 500 patients a day. so you can only see if it's 500 a day, that's how many patients you could actually see. I don't think that would be a full city, and we're basically taking over whole city.   Ryan Isaac (06:55) Yeah.   No. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (07:03) And then you might   not be pulling out that much dentistry outside of all of that to be able to fill that many doctors in their schedules. Cause so much of it's hygiene run, it's like a two to one ratio that I think that would be the zone. ⁓   Ryan Isaac (07:07) No.   I love this analysis. Yeah, I   couldn't go that far, but there you go. That's exactly right. So I do think it'll stay different enough in nature because of that. ⁓ And yeah, I, to go back to the, love your question. We've been kicking this around a lot in dentists advisors and I want to reiterate the same thing. There's no judgment here. There's no right or wrong. For some people, it's absolutely the best decision to exit with the DSO and just find the right one. Take your time. ⁓   Kiera Dent (07:19) There you go.   I agree.   Ryan Isaac (07:43) to go through the deals with someone who really knows what deals look like, not just a friend or a CPA unless that CPA is looking at hundreds of deals. Call Brandon, right?   Kiera Dent (07:51) Seriously, I'm like, why? He's got like every flavor of ice cream available of DSOs for you. And like, what are your goals with your financial advisor? What do you need to retire? And then you make sure that the deal is going to actually get you that because like you said, Ryan, it's your greatest asset. And that's where to me, it breaks my heart when people do this. And I was actually, when we were talking about assets, ⁓ there was a stress test portfolio that I heard at a conference that I thought was really awesome that I think about often. so thinking about when you said like, we're investing into this stock.   Ryan Isaac (07:59) Yeah.   That's it.   Kiera Dent (08:20) portfolio, like we're basically putting so much of our biggest asset and so many of our dollars into one single stock. And they said, just stress test your portfolio. If my two biggest portions of my portfolio. Okay. So the two biggest portions right now. And I think about this often, even you and me, Ryan, if those two asset classes dropped yesterday, cause I always do like, if they dropped tomorrow and you're like, well, I'd freaking move things. No, if it dropped yesterday, so there's nothing you could do. Do you have the staying power for things to recover? So like, I don't need to liquidate my assets.   Ryan Isaac (08:24) in one single, yeah.   Mm.   Kiera Dent (08:50) can still have income from our other assets and buying assets that are down. So looking at that, and I think about that often, like, so if your biggest ones are in the stock market and in your DSO and both of those dropped yesterday, like that's all that's gone. Could you still be okay? And if not, maybe look at other ways to diversify that portfolio. I'm not an advisor, Ryan. So you speak to like, if you agree or disagree on that, because that's my thoughts on it.   Ryan Isaac (09:11) Yeah.   Although yeah, no,   that's a really ⁓ logical way to look at stress testing something. If the stock market disappeared as a whole yesterday, all, yeah, well, we just, every publicly traded company in the entire world would be gone simultaneously. We would all be in so much trouble. Like we just wouldn't have cell phone service or gasoline or, you know, like a million things. Yeah, for a minute.   Kiera Dent (09:26) You say that we're all gonna go to the apocalypse, like.   Good thing you're by the ocean. You at least have a good time there, Ryan. I need   to get out of Reno, Nevada for that one year fact alone.   Ryan Isaac (09:44) Yeah, yeah. For me, yeah,   it would work for a minute, but then we would have no grocery chains, there would be no shipping distribution, there'd be no trucking, there would be no like, you know, we'd be done within like a week. You know what I mean? So, but you're the logic of it is true. It's almost like what if we just looked at stress testing a deal, you know, and you said there's usually three parts in a DSO deal, there's the cash up front, there's usually some kind of earned back, or bonus system, that's usually a smaller piece. And then there's the equity piece.   And if one of those didn't exist, if one of those dropped off, what would this deal look like? And I think the question we have to ask is if the equity didn't hit, you know, if they don't get returns on multiples on their equity, like they're projecting and always, of course, the projections are huge, you know, always, always. If this does not come in like you expect, let's just say it's half of what they expected that which would be probably fair to say, or it's all you do is get your money back one day.   Kiera Dent (10:32) always.   Ryan Isaac (10:43) What does this now look like to you? Is this a survivable thing? And is this even something you would be interested in doing? But again, you said this before, I've been saying this, go talk to someone who knows what these deals look like, like Brandon. I'll give you an example. with a client a few weeks ago who had an offer. They were getting a lot of pressure from the group where this came from. They were kind of involved in like, well, I won't even say it. It was just a group of people of other dentists that were kind of pooling practices together. And this buyer,   Kiera Dent (10:50) you   Ryan Isaac (11:14) just a lot of pressure, a lot of hype, right? A lot of hype. And the deal as the details started coming through started smelling really weird. And even he was just like, I don't know. He talked to Brandon for 30 minutes and it became so obvious so quickly how bad this deal was. And now he's pushing the brakes a little bit. He's going to ramp up his profitability, work on the practices some more. He still wants to consider a sale, which is great with that's fine if that's still what you want to do.   Kiera Dent (11:38) Yep.   Ryan Isaac (11:43) But I think that conversation probably just saved him millions of dollars, literally in 30 minutes of conversation. So just talk to somebody, please, about these deals. There's every flavor out there. There's so many ways that they can twist and bend these things. And yeah, there's just a lot of moving pieces in there. So just be careful. Yeah, just talk to someone. Be careful.   Kiera Dent (12:02) I would like, and what   you said, also think like, make sure that you're also selling it for top dollar. This is something I really love about working with you guys, working with clients is if we know that there's a sell on the horizon, think one of the best things you can do is truly like pulling a consultant, pulling somebody. And like I was talking to a doctor the other day and they're like, KK, we want you to come in and help us like with our systems, but they're selling in a year. And I was like, well, respectfully as your consultant, I'm not going to sit here and deal with systems.   Ryan Isaac (12:13) Yes.   Please.   Kiera Dent (12:31) If you're selling to a DSO, odds are a lot of those systems they're gonna bring into you anyway. Our best thing we can do is make your life easy right now, boost your production, reduce your overhead, increase your EBITDA so you get top dollar on the sale while making it like amazing. Like we'll still put systems into place. We'll still take care of your hot fires with your team right now. But like, why not go, it's like, if I know I'm selling my house in a year and if I did a few things to make it exponentially higher.   Ryan Isaac (12:32) .   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (12:56) in the next year of my sell, why would I not do that now? And for us, it's not even like a house where I'm just painting the walls. We're literally boosting your production. We're pushing your overhead down. We're helping your whole team get on board for that. So that way your asset really is the best asset you can get. And we're not doing it in a hard way. So I know it feels like a push, but just know Dental A Team's way is ease. So it's like, it's going to be an exponential growth for you, but with like ridiculous ease. And most of our clients, we just did a huge study across the board of hundreds of our clients.   Ryan Isaac (13:13) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (13:24) And on average, they're seeing a 30 % increase in their production and a reduction in their overhead within their first three to six months of working with us. So like even if you have a year or two year timeline, that right there, so getting the right deal, making sure you're selling it at top, like squeezing the juice out of every single thing we possibly can get out of your practice. ⁓ But then also I feel like what happens in that scenario, Ryan, I see it all the time, is when we come in and we like powerhouse it up with them.   Ryan Isaac (13:34) Thank   Kiera Dent (13:51) They're like, wow, I'm working two days a week and I would make what this DSO was going to offer me and I don't even have to work. Why would I get rid of this practice right now to the DSO? That happens more than I can tell you because it's like they didn't realize it could happen this way. And I'm like, just tell me what you want. Like you want the DSO, you want to work two days. Why don't we build you that right now and like keep the asset that you've got and sell it when you want, which is going to make you the same amount of money as the DSO, but it's on your terms.   Ryan Isaac (13:59) Yes. Yep.   all the time.   Kiera Dent (14:20) So I think that like people don't realize that you can have the benefits of the DSO today. I think the only piece you can't have like, but I give air quotes on can't is like, you still are an owner, but I'm like, there's literally ways for you to sell to partners, have it pay out to you. And you can actually get rid of that ownership piece if you don't want it ⁓ and still have it be the same type of a deal. I think like, don't forget that there's also deals outside of DSOs that you can do internally. ⁓   Ryan Isaac (14:26) Yep.   Kiera Dent (14:48) but it is shocking Ryan how many practice, like I had a doctor and he's like, Kara, I'm going to get 5 million for my practice on this. And I was like, rock on in two years, we literally will make you 5 million net post-tax in two years. was like, literally, and that's net that's post-tax like in two years. I was like, this is not a good deal for you financially if you're going after the financial dollar. So I think just be smart with how you look at this because I don't know, right. And you do it to me all the time. You're like, Kara, yeah, go sell.   Ryan Isaac (14:58) That's what you're make in two years of income. Yeah. Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (15:17) but you can also just get the life you want and have your practice and your business run differently, why not consider that scenario too? So I think.   Ryan Isaac (15:19) Yeah.   Yeah, I'm,   yeah, okay. Sorry, finish your thought. I just like what you just said. I just love that. I was gonna ask you this exact thing. I was gonna ask you this exact thing. I was gonna say, Kiera, aren't there ways someone could step back and pause and say, why am I interested in selling to a DSO and then just try to create it through the work you guys do easily?   Kiera Dent (15:27) Okay, so yeah, take it.   100 % and right you do   it to me all the time. You're like Kiera. Well, what would you want your life to look like if you were to sell it? I'm like, I would care if you stopped if you sold what would your life look like? And I'm like, I do this. I do this. I do this. You're like, all right, then why don't we just make your business do that today? I don't think people realize how like you can manipulate your business to truly support the life, the finances, everything you want. Like it's shocking. I'm like just basically give me the North Star and we will manipulate the entire thing for you.   Ryan Isaac (15:59) Just do it.   Yeah.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (16:14) in ways you didn't even know. like, I need Ryan to know our North Star where we need to get. Then we break it down to your, like what lifestyle you want to have. And then we just crank, like, it's like shake and bake. It's such an easy thing for us to do. And we're still doing it with like amazing ethics. It's under your control. It's your culture. It's your business. It's your life. But I mean, I have a doctor who's producing over 5 million a year, working two days a week, taking home DreamPaycheck and they were going to sell it to a DSO. And I'm like, it took us two years to get them to the offer.   and they're like, they're so happy and they're able to now, like you said, I think one of the best pieces on this is they got everything that they would have gotten from the cell. But in addition to that, they didn't lose everything that they've built to where now they can go build and create, like you said, the two day a week practice where they're having it, but they've kept their huge asset over here. And so I just think like, I don't know. I feel like there's so many more options on the table than people necessarily think there are. And so.   Ryan Isaac (17:03) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (17:12) Maybe don't listen to all the noise, be the smarter. It's like when everybody's doing X, maybe there's a Y that would actually benefit your life.   Ryan Isaac (17:16) Yeah. A million percent.   Yeah. I mean, Warren Buffett has a quote around that. It's a little bit different with stock market buys and sells and greed and fear. But yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. I love that you said that. I assume. What are we like 45 minutes already? I assume that you probably want to wrap this thing up, but I wanted to end it with that exact question you went there, which is like, can't we do this? Can't you? No. I mean, that's not the job we do. The Dental A team can help design.   that what you're trying to accomplish that you think some private equity firms gonna come in and give you. And again, let's all just remember, private equity firms, ⁓ they don't love you.   Kiera Dent (17:57) It's true.   Ryan Isaac (17:58) They love your money   and they are not stupid. There's a reason why they gobble up every industry in the economy is because they make us believe they're just giving us sweetheart deals. Like, they're gonna give us so much money. Isn't it so crazy? Like, no, they're really smart. They're gonna get so much more money from you than you're gonna get from them. So if they want your thing so bad that they're gonna chase you down and send you offers and every time you decline, they're gonna be like, okay, wait, what about this one?   Kiera Dent (18:15) They are.   Ryan Isaac (18:26) They want it so bad. You must really be holding something really special. So how can you make that thing become your dream scenario without having to give it up? First, just consider that again, no judgment. There is no right or wrong. Maybe that is your path and that is best for you. Great. If you do the work and the, you know, the research and you're just sitting and you're asking smart people like here in the Dental A Team, you know, about all the details and you're asking yourself why through all this process, that's just, that's the whole thing. So I'm glad you   Kiera Dent (18:31) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   Ryan Isaac (18:56) Assuming we're ending it soon. I'm glad you ended it with that because that's what I was thinking about   Kiera Dent (19:01) Well, and I'm glad I'm going around the same beach because I feel like DSOs can be such a buzz. I think it's, I don't know. I just thought about, I remember when Jason and I were graduating from pharmacy school and we had a lot of debt on us and it was so tempting to go the 10 year loan forgiveness plan. So tempting. And Jason and I decided like, Hey, we don't want to like hope and bank that in 10 years, we're actually going to get all this paid off.   Ryan Isaac (19:07) yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (19:29) And if it doesn't happen, what's it going to cost us at that point? And so we elected to just go for it to pay for it and to basically have it like, it's within our control rather than someone else holding my future. And I think that's how I often live my life of like, is there a way that I can get my dream life or I'm not banking on someone else holding up their end of the deal, hoping and praying that their equity makes it and it's something that we can actually do with ease? Why not do that?   Ryan Isaac (19:33) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (19:55) Ryan knows it was a huge issue with me and Jason for about a year to pay off his student loans, but the growth and the life that we were able to achieve that we wouldn't even be done. We still would not even be done with our debt right now. And it would have ballooned and not all of the debt's being eliminated. Like there's so many things around these loan forgiveness programs that I think about that with DSOs too. You have so much banked in, the hope, the promises, like everything has to go right for this huge multiple to have it there.   Ryan Isaac (20:07) yeah. Yeah.   Uh-huh.   Kiera Dent (20:24) Is there maybe a few other paths that you could look at that might get you what you ultimately want, give it to you with more control on your side, and also be able to allow you just more flexibility and freedom. Again, no judgment. think what Ryan and I are trying to bring to the table is maybe just consider looking at things differently to see what's the best path for you. And I say like, right back at you, Ryan, use your financial advisors, know what your magic number is, know what you need, and then figure out which option is going to be that.   Ryan Isaac (20:48) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (20:52) while also providing you the dream life that you want. So Ryan, thanks for the riff today. It was a solid time.   Ryan Isaac (20:54) Yep. Thank you.   It almost felt like planned. was so smooth.   Kiera Dent (21:01) So, mean, it does help when we're good like peanut butter jelly. Like we're very aligned on how we see, that's why I think our clients work so well together because like Denali team clients going to Dentist advisors, it's amazing. We think on similar investment strategies and like just the planning and the protecting clients. And on the other side, it's, Hey, here's our financial number. Denali team literally can like give the gas and give the pieces to it of tactical. So thanks Ryan. was a good time.   Ryan Isaac (21:04) Yep.   Hmm.   We all want to do. Yeah.   Yeah. Yeah. We want to grow and protect that business and make it, you know, it's your whole life. Make it as good as you possibly can. You guys are so good at that.   Kiera Dent (21:34) Great.   Well, Ryan, if people are interested in connecting with you, how do they get connected? Because again, I think for me, before I even talked to DSOs, I always tell them like talk to your financial advisor, figure out your project number. That way you actually can then have even one filter on what deals you're looking for, what plan you need your business to be. So Ryan, how do they connect with you?   Ryan Isaac (21:41) Yeah, totally.   Million   percent. So I'll always say friends of the Dental A Team always can email me directly. I'll always have a conversation with anyone no matter what you're looking for. You don't have to be trying to hire a financial advisor. You might just have a few questions and I will always get on the phone and talk to someone. Just email me directly if you ever want to. Ryan at Dentist Advisors dot com. It's with an O.R.S. You can all just also just go to our website dentist advisor dot com. have   probably thousands of hours of free content on there, podcasts, articles, webinars, everything. You can book a consultation with our whole team there at any time. go learn as much as you want, listen to anything, tons of free stuff on there, but that's the best thing. I'm always happy to have a conversation.   Kiera Dent (22:29) It's amazing. And just so you know, Ryan does not take very many clients. So that's why I love him being on here. He's one of the founders. I think Ryan's one of the smartest people I've ever met. So definitely take him up on it. I know tons of our clients love meeting with Ryan because Ryan will tell you like, Hey, you don't need me or Hey, here's someone better for you. So I think it's just like, you're just an incredible human who ultimately cares and loves about these dentists, which is why I just appreciate you. So check him out. Yeah, of course. And for everyone listening, thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time.   Ryan Isaac (22:31) Yeah.   I do. Yep, I do. Thank you. Thank you.   Kiera Dent (22:59) the Dental A Team Podcast.  

All the new tech out there available to practices can be exciting to get your hands on. But if you're not integrating things in a productive way, it'll likely end up in the digital broom closet, collecting dust. Tiff and Kristy talk about the best methods to use when bringing a new program, software, service, etc. to the team. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here today. I have a really exciting, I don't know, subject today on our content and I'm actually really, really excited to talk to you doctors about this and team members, office managers alike, everyone who's here, this is great information for you. I have some offices I'm gonna chat about and just some things that they're doing really, really well I think with their dental assistants that's really setting them apart from.   other practices that I've seen or worked with or other practices in their area specifically. So I'm really excited to talk with you guys about that today. And I have brought on with me, of course, one of my favorites. I love all of our consultants, you guys, but Kristy, I know I just love your heart, like your heart and your soul and the love you have for other people. I love having you on our team. And I think that   No matter what content we're talking about, you relate to it in some way or you find a way to love on our clients regarding it. But I think today, like, I think it's gonna be a really cool one to do with you. So, Kristy, thank you so much for being here with me today. How are you? You're in a new home. hope, gosh, everybody, if you are a client of Kristy's, I'm gonna brag on Kristy right now. And Kristy does not brag on herself often, unlike any of us do. But Kristy moved states. She moved...   She moved states, you guys, without anyone even knowing. I told Kristy, and I will say it again, if I didn't know you were moving, I would never have known you were moving. And I know your clients felt that same way. So you guys, if you are clients with Kristy's, if you see Kristy on social media, you want to write in, like, please give her some kudos because you literally never would have known that you moved entire states. And now you are in comparison in my backyard. It feels like I know you're still like.   Kristy (01:49) Yes.   The Dental A Team (01:50) hot minute from me, but ⁓ you're here in Phoenix with me. So welcome to Phoenix, Kristy. How are you guys doing? How was the move? How is your family? Tell me.   Kristy (01:58) Yep.   my gosh, we're doing wonderful. We're enjoying this weather. I know it's going to heat up pretty good this weekend, but we're enjoying it and just making the most of it. ⁓ Getting rid of boxes. How about that? We'll leave it at that.   The Dental A Team (02:11) Yeah, yeah, good.   I know you went through a garage over the weekend, you said, and it is hot, you guys. Like, I was freaking dying this weekend. I'm like, gosh dang it, why does Phoenix do this to me? But I love it. I'd rather, I have to remind myself all summer, I would rather be hot and like dipping in my pool, you know, or my community pool or my friend's pool or whatever. Somebody has a pool somewhere. I would rather do that than shovel snow.   any time of the day, any time of the year. So I will not complain too much about our weather.   Kristy (02:46) That's right, amen. I agree.   The Dental A Team (02:48) Awesome.   I love it. Well, I know a lot of people, you know, follow our journeys and I just think it's really special. So thank you again, Kristy, for the dedication you have to our clients, to our company, and to the results for clients and non-clients alike. You really worked your tail off to, like, you know, you integrated just family and work so well. I think while I speak on behalf of your family as well, I think you really do it seamlessly and every one of us really truly appreciate you. So.   That's my spiel on Kristy today, you guys. And I'm so excited to jump into this and you'll see it in your newsletters. If you're not subscribed, go subscribe because there's a slew of information in there. And just so you guys know, if you're not subscribed to the newsletters, you should be. Those newsletters, we actually write them. So the consulting team and our marketing team, we put a lot of work into those newsletters. actually, we write a lot of the content that goes along with those. know marketing takes like one a month, I think, but gosh, there's   anywhere between four and six newsletters a month, and they are written by us consultants. So you're always getting the most up to date, accurate consulting information as possible from there. And then we do utilize those similar subjects in our podcast here. So today we are going to speak to one of the newsletter subjects, but we're actually going to spin it just a little bit. So if you're not getting the newsletter again, go check that out because it's going to have different information than we talked about today.   Our newsletter focus, our subject here is really, really focusing on dental assistants and new tech and how dental assistants should integrate it or could integrate it and what that looks like and just what we've seen and what we recommend as a company and as consultants on that standpoint. But something I really wanted Kristy and I to focus on today and to really take a look at and kind of spitball between us some ideas is really integrating the tech because I know dentists.   I know most dentists, I know the dentists we attract as well, dentists I've worked with are just like so excited about new tech and new everything and we want the latest and the greatest and I love that. I think it's because I think dentists are artists and I think there's just a huge massive creative space within dentistry and for those.   individuals who want to be in like healthcare, medicine, but really have that artistic creative side, dentistry fits really, really well for you guys. And the new tech allows us that creativity and to be up to date. But then on the flip side of that too, for the healthcare space, you guys really want the most up to date technology to serve your patients and to serve your community. So I think those both of those reasonings are super massive. But what I see, and Kristy told me, you know, if you see this as well,   What I see most often is that doctors are gung-ho. They're like, they're on all the forums, first of all, all the forums. And I know my office managers are like, get him off the forum. But they're on there, they're on all the forums, they're getting all the information, and they're researching the heck out of everything. And then they're jumping, and they're saying, all right, I'm going to get it, and then I'm going to get trained on it, and then I'm going to come back, and we're going to use it. And...   They go, they get trained on it, and then they come back and, Kristy, what have you seen in your history? I you've been working with a lot of dentists. You've worked in office. You've worked consulting. What have you seen most commonly? Doctors getting new tech coming back. What do you typically see?   Kristy (06:16) you   It's multifaceted, think. I think that I see them getting very, very excited to implement it and show the patients the new technology and also for them to use it, like you said. Yet, I think they fail to remember that they sometimes forget to include the team on the training and then their team gets very frustrated. so quickly, ⁓ the doctor ends up getting frustrated because I've invested in this technology and ⁓ my god.   my team's not using it and all of a sudden it goes in the cupboard or you know they're not using it like they want to so ⁓ typically out of the gate that's what I've seen happen.   The Dental A Team (06:55) Yeah.   sure   I totally agree and I have to say I've been that person right I've been the dental assistant that's like I don't have space for this like what are you talking about I know how to take an impression I'm gonna keep taking an impression and then I'm gonna take my backup impression because I don't trust the scanner right and I'm like   double dipping and wasting time and just really afraid to like jump right in because I didn't, I wasn't there. I didn't get the excitement that the doctor did. I'm not on the forums and truth be told, like I'm just trying to survive. Like I'm just trying to get to the next patient, trying to take care of this patient the best that I can. And I'm trying to get to the next patient and keep a schedule on track and you like flooding this in and you being like, Hey, it's Monday morning. Like I learned this cool thing. We're going to implement this really is like, it's like,   It reminds me of like a clock spinning and you've got all these cogs and all these wheels and then you put like this little toothpick in there and it just like stops and it's like trying and trying and trying until the toothpick breaks, right? And then it can go again. But like that's what it feels like when you're in like go, go, go, and we're going to keep the flow of the schedule and we're going to do all of these things. And then you stick this little toothpick in the cogs and we're like, no, and we're like fighting against it. ⁓   until it breaks and we're like, okay, cool, this actually does help. But it takes a minute for us to get there, I think. And I do think that it's just so sad on the doctor's side in most cases, because you guys are so excited for this thing and you're like, this is going to change our lives and I just need you on board. And it can be so deflating. so number one, I love new technology. Number two, human nature is to say no and to slow down and to be like, nope.   things are great the way they are, even if they're not working perfectly or super well, they're working enough to get us to the next step. And so we're not always gonna be super on board to just change something. Change is scary and we're like, nope, I'd rather stay where I'm at, because this is comfortable, whether it's right or wrong, than jump on board with change. So in thinking about this, as we're writing the newsletters, I'm like, gosh, there's so many.   There's so many things we can talk about with the tech. Like you guys know what that is and we'll throw it in the newsletter. Like, yes, it's there, but what do do with it after the fact? And something I have seen, Kristy, that I've seen a few doctors this year, then one in particular, he's a go-freaking-getter, and he is like go, go, go all the time, and he pushes for the change and he does it really well. But something that I saw him do recently,   in the last like year to two years is as he's growing his tech. So he's layering on rather than whole new. So he's doing a really great layering effect, especially with like the in-office crowns instead of being like, we're going to do an office crowns and dentures. He was like, we're going to do in-office crowns. Then we're going to learn to design a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And now we're going to do dentures and we're going to learn to design. So one thing he's done well is he's been able to see the technology and then scale it back.   So like a reasonable learning capacity. Whereas I think dentists, your brains work that way. Your brains are techie by nature to a point. Like that's just, that's how your brains work. That's how you got through school. Not everybody is that way and that quick to understand things. Like my kid, he's gonna be an engineer. He looks at something since the day he could start talking. Like, I don't know, I remember him being like three years old and he's in the car asking me like, how does that?   work? And I'm like, I don't know. Right? Like, and so I'm like, how do you think it works? So then he's like, I think, you know, and he's constantly he's always done that, like he, or thought he had figured out how like traffic lights are put together, right? This was a funny story. Actually, he said, they take two giant bendy straws, and they stick them together. And that's how the traffic lights are built. And I was like, Yep, that's how they're built. But that's how his brain works. He's got that like, engineer.   thoughtfulness behind it, where I look at a traffic light and I'm like, thank God that's there. Like, thank God we're all stopping when we need to stop. I don't care how it was built or how it was put there, just that it works. So you bring new technology in, right? You've got Brody's mindset that's like, how does this work and why does it work and what's it going to do? Then you've got my mindset that's like, how do we get to the end? Like, what's, what are you trying to do with this? I don't care the mechanics of it, just like, what are we trying to do? And we get stuck. Now, if we had a   bunch of people on your team that thought the same way you do, right? So we've got a bunch of engineer Brody's running around, nothing would get done. Literally nothing would get done. You would just be talking about the process the whole time about how it could get done. It'd be theories running around and like, what if we changed this? And what if we took this tech that works and we'd like tweaked it? You would get nothing done. So then we try to, we try to take that mold and that learning style and smash it on top of people.   who don't necessarily think in that capacity. So what this doctor has been able to do is really take a step back and layer the technology and layer the training, Kristy. And then what he's been doing, I've noticed, is taking his team with him. And maybe not all of the dental assistants, right? Maybe the lead dental assistant and like one more so that two people know it. we're not.   We're not saying break the bank and send everybody to a course, but he has been able to take like two dental assistants to a course where he's learning how to design something or he's learning how to use a new scanner, how to use a new mill or a new 3D printer. Gosh dang it. Like I don't even know how to use those things, right? Because I'm not in office learning, but he's taking them and they are coming back with the knowledge. So then what he's done, and I've seen a couple of practices do this really recently with them, implant courses and   all kinds of new things. What they've been able to do is now it's not just the doctor, right? That one has all the knowledge. When are you going to trade them? Like, do you have time to do that? No, you actually don't, right? Now it's not just the doctor who knows everything, but it's also not just the doctor who is excited. And when you have people behind you in that excitement, one,   I think, Kristy, you don't lose the, like, you don't lose it as quickly, you don't get as deflated because you've got people there rallying with you. And two, Kristy, I think we can speak to this because we train teams. When you have more people behind the idea, it's easier for a group to follow. One person compared to three people on the same team is going to get everybody else following. So he's done a really great job at that. And Kristy, like,   from your perspective as a consultant, me just like if I was that doctor, how do you see that working for practices that you know? Like if we were to be able to implement this with more practices where they take them to these courses, how do you think that would change implementation in a practice?   Kristy (14:01) my gosh, huge. And I think you spoke volumes to also doctor explaining their why, why they're wanting that technology. So number one, when they can take them to the course, number one, I don't have to spend all the time rallying them and exciting them, right? That excitement's already there. All I have to do as the owner or, you know, doctor that wants the technology is explain why and what's the end result they want.   The Dental A Team (14:08) Yeah.   Kristy (14:29) Here's the thing, many times when you start to incorporate the team behind it, they have better ideas for implementation than we do. And when they come up with the implementation ideas, holy cow, it's half the battle, right? And they're brought into the process. All the doctor has to do is keep reinforcing why we're doing this, why we want to change, right?   The Dental A Team (14:36) Yeah.   Yeah, that's a good point.   Yeah, that's a huge point, Kristy, because it's like that brain thing again, right? Brody doesn't always have the quickest A to Z, that process, because he's thinking about every single little thing, whereas somebody else coming in can be like, okay, I can get on board with this, and I think we can get there this way. And between the two ideas, like you said, implementing different ways could really, really be beneficial. And probably, Kristy,   I would imagine get more people on board too, because if they're like, those are gonna be too hard, it's too complicated. Somebody else simplifying it, that would get me on board. You throw something complicated at me, I'm like, sure, I'll get to that. That's my procrastination. I'm gonna get to that someday. I'm gonna do everything else first because it's easier.   Kristy (15:41) Yep, I agree with you Tiff and here's the thing, doctor might short change. He might think, well, let's start scanning on every new patient and they're like, what the heck, we can scan every patient. So you may also limit what they're able to do if it's just your idea. So in you be the cheerleader, explain the end result and the why, but then incorporate them on how, how.   The Dental A Team (15:47) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   Yeah, yeah,   that's totally, that's a good point. Cause I've actually seen that too, where they're like, let's practice on each other. And then they're like, well, why don't we just practice on the patients coming in? Like we'll practice on each other for sure, but we've got 16 patients coming in. That's two scans, each of us today. And I've seen doctors be like, ⁓ okay. Do you just have to remember, think, and Kristy, you spoke to this, like you don't have to have all the answers and you don't have to have all of the ways. You have a group of people here.   ready to rally behind you if you let them. I do think, Kristy, I think we both have probably seen this or actually experienced it ourselves as well. When you give people that space to also be creative and to have some creative control over whatever it is, you get better buy-in, but you actually get better, like stronger people. I know I'm stronger when I have the availability to create what I need. You give me, you tell me what you want it to be.   I can create what that needs to look like to get there. I'm just a better employee. Like, Kira loves me more when I'm bought in, and I get bought in by being able to say, okay, I see what you want. This is how I think it might fit in. And then coming to you ladies consultants and being like, okay, what do you see? And I think to speak to that from the dental assistant space, if you're taking, if you have the availability, you have the...   the capability to take your assistant with you, at least your lead, he or she then can say, fabulous, this is how I think we could train on it. This is how I think we could implement it. This is how I think we could get buy-in. And you've got that different perspective from someone who's living, breathing, and working in that space. And I have actually a doctor, I just thought about this this weekend. I think it's this weekend they're going.   He's doing a sedation course and I know there's a ton of doctors doing sedation courses right now or they've already done it. I've seen both spectrums. So I've seen the sedation courses. I lived the sedation course that they brought no one and had and I've seen it. I've the same doctor that does really well bringing assistance did the sedation course on his own and that's why he started bringing his assistants is because he did the sedation course on his own and saw zero traction. It was so hard.   because there was so much information that he had to bring home to them that then he was like, we've got to have this, this, this. And they're like, I don't know what those things are. Like, I don't know what this means. I don't know when you expect us to do this. So this weekend, I've got a dentist who's going to a sedation course and he's bringing, I think he's bringing all three of his assistants actually, which is going to be massive because then they're going to be able to say like, I'll take this on.   I'll take this on and really like divvy out those pieces and implement it so much faster. The biggest thing I think doctors struggle with is the implementation process and it's because they take it all on themselves instead of sharing that love. And Kristy, I know you work with a lot of practices and I know this is like not new information. It's just needing to be heard. What do you suggest for those doctors who are listening that are like, cool, but like, I don't know who I would take.   And then, so I don't know who I would take and then how do I pay for that? how do I budget that? What do you suggest for those doctors?   Kristy (19:27) Yeah, there's two parts to that tip. think number one, hopefully we're all doing performance reviews with our team and asking their goals, their professional goals. What are their growth opportunities for the year? If we're doing that, we kind of know the path that they're looking for, right? And hopefully through that, we identify areas where they want to learn. If we haven't done it, let's get it on the agenda to do it. But also,   The Dental A Team (19:53) That's a good idea.   Kristy (19:54) maybe reach out to the team and ask questions. Hey, I'm looking to learn more about this. Who else would be interested? You know, and before you tell them you're going, but I'm looking into this and just see who would be interested for one and ⁓ invest in them. And that's kind of what I heard you saying. When the doctors invest in their team, team members take great pride in that. Like I know   The Dental A Team (20:04) Yeah.   Kristy (20:19) I was privileged to have a lot of CE in the offices that I worked in and I always felt so honored, you know? And it just makes me a better me and I can come back and implement that in the office and help be a part of something bigger than myself. So investing in them is huge, but yeah. ⁓   The Dental A Team (20:29) Okay.   Yeah.   Yeah, I love that. I totally agree. think I was honored to be able to take a lot of CE as well. And it really did make me feel ⁓ invested in and special. And like I reinvested back in the practice. it's not to say that everyone's going to feel that way or going to utilize it that way. But I do think sometimes you just got to like go for it. You've just got to say, you know what, if it works out that way, fantastic. And if it doesn't, that's OK, too.   because I'm willing to see this through. I'm willing to go for it. And Kristy, suggestion of really chatting with the team and figuring out like, what is your future? What do you want this to look like? Where do you want to go? Kind of helps weed out to the people who are going to reinvest back into the practice or the people who are going to be like, that was cool, but whatever. You you'll be able to tell that. And budget wise with this practice that I just worked with, that's sending everyone to the sedation course, I make him do a CE.   a CE bucket. And so when he said to me, he texted me, he said, and when he listens to this, he's going to know exactly what I'm talking about. He texted and he said, Tiff, I want to send this assistant, like I've already got these two covered. And I said, sure, price it out. What's the flight? What's the hotel room? Do you have to pay extra for her to go to the course? What's your total cost? And what do you have in your bucket?   can you take that from there considering also any CE you're going to have in the future. You've already got two going. I don't care if you take that third. That's totally up to you if the availability is there. If the funds are there or you're willing to make that investment out of whatever funds you have, go for it. Just make sure you're always looking for that. So I do always, always, always say make sure you're dumping into some sort of a CE bucket for those pieces. And a lot of times doctors will think like, well, the CE course only costs this much.   You got to think of your travel as well. Just like when we come in office to you guys, when we talk to you about your platinum model subscription here with Dental A Team, where you're getting a one-on-one consultant, we consider all of those pieces too when we know we're going to be traveling to you. That's always considered in the cost of your Dental A Team membership. So same theory, same thought process, just make sure it's all bundled together and you know all of the pieces.   Kristy, I think I love the way we spun this one. If you're not getting the newsletters, please make sure to let us know and we'll make sure we get you subscribed because I do think this one is off the cusp of the newsletter and the newsletter is going to have a ton of really great information as far as actual technology. Our biggest piece today, Kristy, I think we nailed it, was really, really honing in on how beneficial it can be to one layer.   your CE, so layer your courses, layer your technology, make sure that it makes sense and that it goes in a trajectory that truly benefits the practice, team and the patients. And then really making sure if you can get your team members there to do it. Just gets people on your side, get people that can help you implement it when they know the knowledge. It happens so much quicker. I can quickly say we did sleep together as a team, we said.   and we took two people out of 17. When I was in office, and this was a long time ago, know, so sleep has come a long way, but two people out of 17 coming back was still really hard. So just make sure whatever it is that you're doing, whatever technology you're about to implement, whomever you can bring that will continue the progress and get people on your side, we can do it, invest in it, it's worth it. Kristy, any last words or anything you want to summarize that I didn't hit on there?   Kristy (24:23) No, I think we did a good job there. I guess the only pearl that I would say is then when you bring it back into the office, rally together, gamify it. Maybe put a quantity of we're going to do this many and just celebrate when you reach your goals.   The Dental A Team (24:41) Yeah,   that's a great idea. I love game of buying things. That was brilliant. Awesome. Thank you, Kristy. And thank you, listeners. As always, we are here for you guys. If you have any ideas or any hopes, dreams, wishes, desires on podcasts that you would love to hear more about, more ideas or anything like that, please don't hesitate to read to write in. We get those a lot at Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. So send us what you want. And as always, leave us a five star review below, letting us know that you did enjoy this and also   I would love to hear your stories. If you guys are sending team members, taking team members, or you're hesitant to, please, please, please, please write in. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Just like the newsletters, we do answer a lot of those emails that come through on the consultant side. So just let us know how we can help you and we'll catch you next time.  

Kiera is joined by Ryan Isaac of Dentist Advisors to dive into DSOs. They discuss such questions as: Are they the best financial choice for your practice? The best life choice? Are the horror stories true? And so many more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I am freaking jazzed for today's podcast. It has been way too long. Me and this guest talk quite often on like life and personal and business, but podcasting it's been a hot minute. I've got Ryan Isaac from Dentist Advisors, my personal advisor, one of my dearest friends. I think we're siblings in another life. Ryan, welcome to the show today. How are you?   Ryan Isaac (00:07) Mm-hmm.   Thank   Thank you.   I'm really good. just realized I was trying to hit mute and cough, but I hit like a chapter marker instead. So there you go. To your listeners or your ⁓ editing team, then there's a chapter marker while I'm coughing. So in your intro. Yeah. Tis the season.   Kiera Dent (00:35) You're welcome. Yeah, that's fine. I'm   okay with it. This is real life. We're sitting on, I mean, Ryan, you're sitting on the couch. I should get like my posh chair. I've been considering changing up my podcasting zone. Yeah, of course. All of us can see it. We're excited for that.   Ryan Isaac (00:40) Hahaha   Can I show you? Can I just give you a little vibe check here? I mean, it's actually, that's   the ocean. I'm on a little summer getaway for a second. So yeah. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (00:54) my gosh.   That's amazing. So that's Ryan's   life. Ryan's living his rich life over there. He's like truly. So, okay. If you're new to the podcast, Ryan is my personal advisor. Like truly he actually works on. We talk about my life. He's helped me make some really good decisions and not make some bad decisions. So I feel like financial advisors. My best advice is you gotta just find someone you trust. And I know Ryan is way more conservative than me, but cares about me as an individual so strongly. And Ryan, huge kudos to you.   And so we talk about it a lot, but something we talk often is like, what's our rich life? And I remember Ryan for years, you were like living in your van, truly driving to California all the time to be by the beach, because you love surfing so much. So it just makes me so happy to see that you are living your best life by the ocean. You're doing what you teach all of your clients to do of living their version of a best life. Something that we try to do in dentistry and dental team too, like, hey, let's help your business provide you the best dream life you want. So that's Ryan.   Ryan Isaac (01:36) Yeah.   Thank you.   Yeah, yeah.   Yeah, thank you. And there's no there's no right way to do that. I mean, everyone has their own thing that's worth the money or worth spending on. We're just kind of joking around about this, too. There are people who will sit in ⁓ small rentals or apartments on millions of dollars because to them having lots of security and liquidity is more valuable than houses or everyone's got something different. But, you know, we're all we're all chasing it, hopefully.   Kiera Dent (01:57) Catch y'all.   I think it's called the like emotional ROI and what helps you sleep at night in your financial world. So Ryan and I usually get on the podcast and we'll talk about finances. I mean, obviously dentist advisors, Ryan do a spiel. What is dentist advisors? Just so people know. I think you guys are financial advisors for dentists specifically. I'm not a dentist, but I can speak honestly, but a spiel. And then we're going to actually go like a hard left turn of what we're going to talk about today. Like really.   Ryan Isaac (02:26) Ooh. Uh-huh.   Yeah. Thank you. ⁓   Yeah, yeah, our   on ramps coming up here really soon. We got to get over it. We got to get into the right lane. Dentist advisor started ⁓ almost A Team years ago now with me and Reese Harper. Shout out to Reese Harper. And yeah, we were dedicated to being ⁓ an independent fiduciary fee only ⁓ advisor for dentists to manage investments and give financial advice. Ultimately,   Kiera Dent (02:51) Yep.   Shout out to Reese.   Ryan Isaac (03:17) you know, a dentist path through school and debt and taxes and all the stuff they go through, ⁓ you know, buying a practice, building businesses. There's no reason why all of that should not pay off every it should pay off for every dentist. There is enough money to be made in dentistry. And so our job really and you kind of said this with the you know, in the intro, ⁓ I really do feel like just protecting my clients, you know, and that's a philosophy that we've.   built into our business. There's no reason why dentists shouldn't make it to the life they want and to the finish line financially. so, you know, ⁓ it's more about consistent, small, good decisions for long periods of time and avoiding like a few big mistakes that could derail you forever. So yeah, we have a custom financial planning process, ⁓ a lot of like reporting and data, and we just manage and track ⁓ dentist finances and make sure they end up in a good spot, safe and healthy and   Happy, hopefully.   Kiera Dent (04:15) which I love about you guys, Ryan, and I really think you guys do a great job. And this is something you've taught me. And we have a friend who said a great quote that I feel should be your quote. I can't give it like, so you can take it and like make your version. But they said like regular investing is like vanilla ice cream. It won't make anyone jealous, but it always tastes good. And I felt like that's such a great way to look at how you've taught me how to invest. ⁓ At the end of the day, it's just a small, consistent thing. So I think Dentist advisors does really well. And Ryan, something you've done for me. ⁓   Ryan Isaac (04:24) well. Okay, okay.   Mm.   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   .   Kiera Dent (04:44) Like it's so dumb, but I know you're watching me and I know like when I, like you're really not watching me, but I feel like you're watching me.   Ryan Isaac (04:49) Yeah, well, let's   hold that disclaimer here for a second. I see your numbers. I see your accounts. I see your emails. Every time you save money, I'm like, Kiera, good job in the email thread. Gold stars. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (04:53) Like, I know he's not, like, he watches my account for sure.   That's   all it is. And I just know having Ryan there where I need to send it in every single month of what we're going to invest. We've talked about the plan has been such a game changer for me. So that's why I love Dentist Advisors. And like we said, we're now like taking our off ramp because Ryan and I want to talk about DSO sales. I think this definitely implies to a financial advisor. We have a lot of clients that we send to Dentist Advisors. We work such hand in hand with both sides. Like we love what you guys do. You love what we do. It's   Ryan Isaac (05:19) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (05:30) Truly like the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich or whatever your favorite. If you want this to be meat and cheese, peanut butter and honey, whatever it is, I think it's the best duo. Yeah, exactly. That is the best. Captain Crunch, but would you rather Captain Crunch or Reese's? Or.   Ryan Isaac (05:37) Captain Crunch in 2 % milk, you know.   No. I would actually say   fruity or cocoa pebbles, to be honest with you. Or cinnamon toast crunch. Can we arrive there? Okay.   Kiera Dent (05:52) We both disagree on that. So cool. Okay, can handle Golden   Grahams or are we like back to the s'mores run? Remember the s'mores Golden Graham?   Ryan Isaac (06:00) Yeah, I do remember   the scores. How are we like not landing on the same one at all? What about honey butches of oats? Wow. Okay. ⁓   Kiera Dent (06:05) It's okay. That's fine. I'm not like the biggest serial fan and I go through phases. I love Lucky Charms, but I'm not joking.   Those marshmallows give me the chills. Like I can't crunch into it without it being like full body chills. So I don't know. weird. But back on this. So we've actually had a lot of clients that are debating of do I sell? I sell to a DSO? And I'm like, talk to freaking Ryan.   Ryan Isaac (06:18) Yeah, it's like biting Styrofoam. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah.   you   Kiera Dent (06:32) I don't know what you want to do for your retirement. I have no clue how this is gonna impact you with your taxes. I don't know all the stuff, but what I do know is I'm a freaking miracle girl, so we're gonna get you top dollar for your cell, but like let's talk DSO. Cause also like DSO to not DSO, like I don't know Ryan, there's a million things. So let's Rift. You wanted to talk about this. I love this. Let's do it.   Ryan Isaac (06:41) Yes.   Yeah, yeah. Yeah,   well, and so you said something a few minutes ago about ⁓ dentist investments. And yeah, like our job is to help manage investment money for people ⁓ in a really long term kind of boring way, if we're being honest. But yeah, it's very yeah, it's just like it'll be there forever. Just let it do its thing. But the biggest investment any owner is going to have is their practice. And that is the thing   Kiera Dent (07:08) vanilla ice cream ish.   Ryan Isaac (07:18) is why you and a team is so important because the thing they should protect above everything is their practice investment, their business investment. There's nothing more impactful to a dentist's entire life and not just their money, but their entire lifestyle, probably their mental health, their wellbeing, where and who they spend their time with. So it is by far the most important factor in all of this. And so the world that we're in now is that   DSOs are an option to sell to, to work with, to become a part of. They are in some shape or form, you know, supposed to become the majority of the industry in the future. I think that's a broad category. think the category is more like group practice will become the majority of the industry. I'd love to hear what stats you've heard and what you actually see. think people talk about, you know, 60 to 70 % consolidation in the industry.   becoming some kind of DSO or group practice. ⁓ yeah.   Kiera Dent (08:19) Yeah, I was actually at an AI conference with   that just literally this last week. And they said that they're estimating 65 % of the market will become in the DSL world in the next like five to 10 years. So I think a lot of people are expecting, which is so funny to me because I remember, gosh, I think I was Mark, this is a long time ago, we were at the dental college. And so we're probably talking like,   Ryan Isaac (08:32) Uh-huh.   Yeah, okay.   Kiera Dent (08:46) 2018, 2019, I remember talking to the students, like, what do you think is gonna happen? And I'm like, I know I'm unpopular, because even Mark wasn't on board with this. And I'm like, I think I'm unpopular, but I'm pretty confident DSOs will be the future. And they're like, you're full of it. They're like, there's no way. And I'm like, I mean, I'm not emotionally invested in this, but if I look at what's going on, my husband's in healthcare. This is what happened to pharmacies. This is what happened to mom and pop shops, like for medical.   Ryan Isaac (08:57) Mmm.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (09:14) I cannot think for one second the dentistry and with the EBITDA like offers that you're getting, it doesn't matter. And Jason, were talking about this the other night. I'm like, even if doctors want to have a legacy practice, that's great. You sell to this person, but this person now is younger. They have more debt and DSOs is like one bad day and this DSOs right on their doorstep. They're going to sell. Like it's just, I mean, you've got to some really strong guts around you to not think about a DSO. And I think DSOs,   Ryan Isaac (09:42) Hmm.   Kiera Dent (09:44) can often hit you at emotional times. Like Brian, you know me. There have been times that I told you like someone offered me a buck for Dental A Team, they could have it like one bad day. It's just like shirt. Like everybody has it in business ownership. So I think that that's where the DSOs are super attractive to people. But like I was talking to an office yesterday who's considering working with us and they're like have a one year buyout. And they're like, we're thinking about doing this DSO. And I was like, all right, but like what's your ultimate end game? What are you trying to achieve?   Ryan Isaac (09:46) Mm-hmm.   yeah. Yeah. yeah. We all have those days. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (10:12) you met with other people to talk about DSOs, there are other options and he's like, well, it's too big for these partners to buy. I'm like, well, it's actually not like there's ways for partners to buy you out if you want. think it's just, DSOs feel like the easy button, but I don't know if they're really easy. And I think that that's where I'm a little bit on the fence and I'm super jazzed for us to rift on. Is it really the best financial choice? Is it the best life choice? I don't know, Ryan, you know, the finances more than I do. just.   Ryan Isaac (10:14) It's on.   Mm-hmm.   Same. Yeah.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (10:40) I do good job of helping people get their assets where they want them to be. So they have choices and options of what they want to do.   Ryan Isaac (10:42) You do.   Yeah, so I think, you know, it makes a lot of logical sense, especially the way it started with DSOs, that it would have gobbled up a lot of the industry. Hearing 70 % made a lot of sense to me. Maybe we're just in a dip in a lull, which we totally have become, we've entered into that because of the, you know, the debt and rate situation that happened over last few years in inflation and, you know, just interest rates. Money got really expensive. It was hard for a lot of companies to grow across a lot of industries.   And, uh, but, and I, I'm, uh, I want to say these statistics correctly, uh, from smarter people than me in the DSO space. I think there's something like maybe, you know, 350 to 400 technical DSOs in the country right now. And I've heard in multiple sources that up to a third of them are in some kind of financial receivership right now. Meaning, and I know you've seen this with clients too. DSOs have grown and they purchase and they borrowed money and then   rates hit them and they grew too fast. They went ahead of themselves and they defaulted. And ⁓ there are some major DSOs, huge ones that I did not ever think would happen that went into default that are going bankrupt that are changing ownership. ⁓ People are losing their equity money, they're not going to get their payouts. ⁓ And they're they don't own their practices anymore. I mean, there, we have some clients in that situation. So   Yes to the consolidation in the future of that because of just that's the nature of economy sometimes in industries. And I don't know if it's going to hit 70. I don't know. It makes me wonder. ⁓ Those multiples are down a lot than they than they used to be. And they'll probably you know, they'll probably fluctuate, come back up a little bit more when money gets easier. ⁓   Kiera Dent (12:22) I don't know anything.   Ryan Isaac (12:36) Also, I think people are getting a little bit wiser to it. Do you see this? I mean, let's say three to five years ago, it was the most exciting thing to get an offer sheet across your desk and be like, know, some multiple of you, but this is insane, I'm done. I do find people way more hesitant and not as excited about that number anymore. What have you seen with that when people see those initial numbers?   Kiera Dent (12:47) Made it.   think people are way smarter. think the grads coming out of school have been trained on business a lot more than say dentists 20, 34 years ago are trained and not to say dentists 20, 30 years ago weren't. I just think it wasn't like we weren't talking EBITDAs. You weren't selling like this. So you didn't there was no need for it. ⁓ And I think in the past, I think the reason people are more skeptical right now, Ryan, is because they're hearing the like horror stories coming through. So people are like, hold on. Maybe it's not as like   Ryan Isaac (13:12) It's different. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (13:28) rosy as it was. I honestly like DSOs might be a little bit of dentistry's dirty secret. Like there's a small piece of me feeling that way and not all DSOs I'm not here to blanket statement it, but I do think there's like, think the dentist is the one getting ripped off in the whole scenario. like, because Ryan helped me, this is where I, guys welcome. This is what Ryan and I used to talk about off camera, but I'm just going to like have the conversation here because I'm curious. So your clients, okay, so hold on.   Ryan Isaac (13:43) Mm-hmm.   Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, huh?   Kiera Dent (13:58) answer your question, no, they're not as excited about it. And also I think that they're being flooded with a bajillion offers. And so almost like overwhelm of who the heck do I have? Who do I trust? Who do I know? 400 DSOs out there. They're being bombarded every single day. I have heard dentists tell me they get four to five offers every single day of a DSO, which is why I'm like one bad day, you click open an email and like bottom, bottom, there you go. So I do think Bron and Man.   Ryan Isaac (14:02) Yes.   Yep. Yeah.   Yeah, you're done. Like, yeah, that's the buyer. Yeah, take it. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (14:22) Brandon Moncrief with Dental Transitions is probably the smartest DSO man I've met and I think you and I have circled. He's really brilliant on like who he knows offers that you can get like he kind of knows how to navigate the DSO world of what you want, which I think is awesome. But what I'm curious on Ryan. Okay, so you said you have clients. So when you sell to a DSO, there's lots of different makeups of how they can do these deals for you. But let's say there's I think the most standard one I usually hear is they pay you about 50 % of your practice is worth like you're giving it to them.   Ryan Isaac (14:24) Yes.   Yeah, I still send people there. Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (14:52) You also have them 50 % in equity in their business, hoping like with stock shares, hoping that it builds and that's like basically your payout. So it helps with tax. It helps with like future investments of the EBITDA. Those are the things that they're going to be dealing with. But my question is, so like your clients, they sold, they don't own their practices anymore. They're an associate there now ⁓ and they're getting paid. They don't have to do the management, billing's taken off of them, hiring, all that. But let's say these, so let's say I sold to Ryan Isaac DSO.   Ryan doesn't have a DSO just for clarity, but let's pretend I'm dentist. We got to make sure I don't want him getting in trouble. He's a financial advisor. So Ryan doesn't have it. okay, we're selling, okay, lies. We're selling it to Captain Crunch DSO. All right, let's just go safe. Captain Crunch DSO. Captain Crunch buys me. I'm now, I got my 50 % payout. have 50 % equity in Captain Crunch DSO and I'm now working as a dentist there, but I don't own my practice anymore.   Ryan Isaac (15:23) Yeah, just so we're clear here. Yeah, yeah. I've highly regulated. Yeah, might be in trouble for that.   Kiera Dent (15:49) Captain Crunch DSO is growing, growing, growing. Everything's looking good. I've got my stock in it. Captain Crunch loses its funding. They go bankrupt. What happens to me? Because odds are they go bankrupt. Another like lucky charms DSO is going to come buy Captain Crunch. Like they get a penny, dollar. What happens to me as the dentist when Captain Crunch goes under, but then lucky charms comes to buy me. How does that work for me as a dentist?   Ryan Isaac (16:02) Yeah.   Yeah,   I'm watching that happen right now with a gigantic national specialty DSO with some clients. And what has happened is that their equity money is likely gone. So they got their payout money.   Kiera Dent (16:19) Mm-hmm.   Even   with Lucky Charms coming in to buy it. My equity money's gone because it was with Captain Crunch. Do you love that I did cereal for you?   Ryan Isaac (16:28) Thank   I love it. It's so good. And I'm trying   to like, like who's more evil in this hierarchy, you know?   Kiera Dent (16:35) I think Lucky Charms isn't more evil. Lucky Charms is one who capitalized. They saw a dill. They don't care about the dentist. I'm not saying that they don't, but it's like hungry, hungry hippos. One goes out, someone's going to come buy it all. That's what they're going to do.   Ryan Isaac (16:37) Who's more well capitalized? Yeah.   Yeah.   Yeah.   Yeah, this   would be such a good question for Brandon again, and I'll just second that every time someone has questions about deals, or they want to compare things, ⁓ or get to know the space a lot more, I send them to Brandon. So just find Brandon Monacree, if he's on all over the internet and all of our content. Yeah, there you go. So it depends on the structure of the deal. It depends on the fine print and the paperwork. ⁓ In the ones I'm seeing right now, these dentists   Kiera Dent (17:04) dentaltransitions.com. Yeah, he's everywhere.   Ryan Isaac (17:17) lot, their practices are not there. So their practices are still gone. And they likely are not going to they're definitely not going to get any return on their equity. Some of them depending on how early they got in might get their equity back or, or parts of their equity back. But a lot of it's just, you know, when another company when a big financial company comes in to save a bankrupt company, it's ruthless, you know, I mean, they're they're cutting and they're scrapping   as much as they possibly legally can. they'll do that, of course, because that's good business for them. So what I'm seeing, and again, I'll just say that it's probably different in every single scenario of this. But what I'm seeing is one that happens. ⁓ These dentists are losing their practices, they're not getting any return on their equity money, and many of them probably won't even get their full equity back. Luckily, some of my clients that I'm thinking of were in early enough and the fine print of their deals was good enough that they're going to get some of their equity money back.   Kiera Dent (17:48) course.   Ryan Isaac (18:15) ⁓ that's it. They're done. So what really happened in that transaction was they got front loaded a certain amount of years of income, paid some taxes, paid off their debts and lost their practices and worked a job for three or four years at a very low salary compared to what they produce. ⁓ many of them got really burned out, bombed out, kind of lost their fire and spark for the work. ⁓   And they're back to square one. Some of them have enough money to be finished. What is interesting though is even the ones who have enough money to be finished are still contemplating starting or buying another practice where they can legally and doing like a really chill lifestyle two day a week thing. Really common. Other people will fully lose their equity. And in a situation, again, back to your point, a lot of people are   Kiera Dent (18:54) and   Ryan Isaac (19:05) Maybe it's not as excited about this. The multiples aren't what they were. Then they could come back. I don't know. A lot of people just say the longer this goes, the smaller the multiples will become, which is, yeah. No, we're definitely not. And so now we're talking about an offer where someone's coming to you to take away like your main, main asset, your cash cow, the biggest thing in your whole life. They're going to front load five or six years of income. You have to pay taxes and pay off your debt with that money first.   Kiera Dent (19:13) which I would agree on that completely. I don't think we're half as high.   Ryan Isaac (19:33) The deals that you mentioned, some are 50-50. I've seen them in thirds where it's like third buyout, third earn out where you have to keep producing and then a third equity. I've seen them 70-30, 60-40. They can really be any shape or size. ⁓ Yeah, but they're smaller. And so now we're talking about, you know, five or six years of front loaded income. You pay taxes, pay off your debt, and then you just hope that this company that bought you and essentially what's happening if you think about it.   Kiera Dent (19:48) They really are.   Ryan Isaac (20:02) You're taking like seven figures of money and you're putting it into a single stock. You're investing into a single stock and it's a very small privately held company. I know it feels safe and secure because it's your field, it's dentistry, know, all these things are, but you're taking seven figures of your money and you're putting into one single company where right now maybe up to a third of these companies are failing.   Kiera Dent (20:08) Thank   Ryan Isaac (20:30) It's not not a gamble, you know, and the whole kicker in all these deals, as you know, and your audience knows, Kiera is all in that equity piece. Everything else is just front loading your income for the next five or six years and taking away your ownership. And then, you know, really changing the nature of your career and your work. And it really does change people. It changes. And I'm not saying it's always for the worse, but it is change changes, teams changes, the patient experience changes, the culture and the vibe.   Kiera Dent (20:34) huh. ⁓ huh.   Mm-hmm.   Ryan Isaac (21:00) And so if that one little equity piece does not pan out the way that they say it's going to, ⁓ you know, that's the part that everyone's kind of wising up to. And if you're under, let's say, your late 50s, if you're younger than your late 50s, I think it's becoming a tougher decision for people to make. in late 50s or above, it's kind of like, I'm done anyway in three or four or five years. Might as well get top dollar.   even if the equity doesn't fully pan out all the way, it might be more than a private buyer. But even then, I've seen the math on a lot of things and like, it's close. And yeah, you've seen it all too. So yeah, it's tough. It's tough to watch the ones that fail. ⁓ Some of these, some of these, and you've probably seen, we're not going to name anybody, but you've probably seen them too. Huge practices, multi-location, huge DSOs that now...   Kiera Dent (21:25) Mm-hmm.   Agreed.   Mm-hmm.   Ryan Isaac (21:52) own these practices. And okay, here's a question for you. What do you think is going to happen, let's say 10 years down the road or longer, when all these DSOs have been bought by the next company and been bought by the next company? And then in the end, some like third and fourth party removed private equity firm, international private equity firms holding 10s of 1000s of dental practices around the country?   What is that like in the industry? mean, you're in the practice as you know that you're like in the heartbeat of that. What does that mean for the industry? What does that feel like? Does it feel weird?   Kiera Dent (22:27) It does feel weird. And I think this is where I've been, I don't know, Ryan, you know me. just sit over here and think of ideas all day long. I've been like, how can we like, hi, I'm Kiera. I live in Reno, Nevada right now. It's like, how can some, I feel like I'm like Dorothy in Kansas right now. It's fine. It wasn't the destination, but it ended up being, it's fine. It's got really great. No state income tax. All right. That's really one of the main reasons we're here. It's not.   Ryan Isaac (22:42) I like to write now by the way. Just a little shout out. like to write now. Yeah. Loud and clear. Yeah.   Yeah, fine. It's pretty in some seasons. There you   Kiera Dent (22:55) But it's okay. We have Lake Tahoe. ⁓   Ryan Isaac (22:55) go. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay.   Kiera Dent (22:59) But only half of Lake Tahoe because California owns the other half. So it's okay. But I've thought about it. like, how can, like, it's like I'm Dorothy in Wizard of Oz right now. It's like, how can we somehow influence these private equity firms? And there might be no way. But these are the questions I think of often, because I do think if we're not careful, it will radically shift the way dentistry is done. And it will turn into a business rather than into our   Ryan Isaac (23:02) Yeah, you're half.   Okay.   Kiera Dent (23:24) our healthcare profession. I mean, I look at modern medicine, my husband's in it and it is a freaking drill machine. Like his number one thing was patient productivity and they had to have so many patients, otherwise they were going to fire providers. And their providers worked hard. They weren't getting paid what they like want to get paid. And so I'm actually watching in healthcare, lots of my friends in healthcare, nurse practitioners, doctors branch off and go open up their own practices because they're sick of working in modern medicine. So I'm like,   Ryan Isaac (23:24) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (23:51) if we can look at modern medicine and see how the healthcare system has been working and how can we do something now as like you said, third, fourth remove private equity, owning all these dental practices, like is there a path? And I don't know, right? Like this is I feel like I'm like Dorothy sitting in Kansas of like how on earth can we influence it? But I'm like, if enough brilliant people start thinking this way, what can we do now to show that you can be profitable and ethical and still give great dentistry where we're not having to like,   Ryan Isaac (24:08) Hmm.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (24:21) not running it like a private equity business, but still showing. so Britt was like, we need to become the Wegmans. Like, have you been like up north, like Wegmans is an amazing grocery store. They're not the biggest, but they still are ethical. And I'm like, if we even had a few private equity that's third and fourth removed that would still run practices that way, I think dentistry would still feel the same. Something else though, that I think of like new dentists coming in that I think is really paramount is you've got to look at the future of the industry. I think the current doctors,   Ryan Isaac (24:39) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (24:50) that have been in dentistry have like safeguarded and kept dentistry like we're healthcare when we want to be and we're not healthcare when it doesn't benefit us. Like we literally have straddled the spine line. It's still a little bit of the wild wild west dentistry is not as regulated as far as like our fees and like what we're able to charge in every single practice and like insurance is schmuck. get it. But I'm like, you also only have $2,000 of max most of the time that we're dealing with rather than it being like a hundred percent of what your patient base is and like what the patients are paying out. So I'm like,   Ryan Isaac (25:11) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (25:19) I feel the pioneers of dentistry have actually done a really good job of setting it up to where dentistry is still very profitable. It's still able to be its own thing that I'm like, let's, again, I feel like I'm like Dorothy sitting on my soap box in the middle of prairie fields and saying like, hey, why don't we take a pause and just think of like, what's the future of dentistry as now the future pioneers of dentistry? And what are we going to do to our profession? Yes, there's top dollar. Yes, there's things about it, but is there a way to influence?   and make sure that the integrity of dentistry can maintain long-term. I have no answer to that, but again, this is Kiera Dent sitting on my podcast where I think that there is a voice and an influence and like on Dentist Advisors podcast, is there a way that we can influence our industry in ways that will protect and still pay out? Because I'm like, even if you don't get the 10X EBITDA, you still can get a freaking great payout if you do your life right to where you can be financially set up.   Ryan Isaac (25:51) Mm-hmm. ⁓   Kiera Dent (26:17) still be able to sell your practice, not have to sell it in ways that could potentially hurt the industry. I'm not saying one's the right answer or the wrong answer. There's no judgment on my side. It's just, let's maybe think and consider how it could influence. Can we get people that could be private equity higher up that could help protect it? Those are things that, and again, I'm just Kiera Dent here in Reno,   Ryan Isaac (26:22) Mm-hmm. Yeah.   Same, okay.   Okay. Yes.   Kiera Dent (26:38) Yeah, of course. And for everyone listening, thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time.   Ryan Isaac (26:37) Thank you.   Kiera Dent (26:42) the Dental A Team Podcast.  

As the weather heats up and schools let out, there's one main thing on people's minds: vacation! In this episode, Kiera talks about maximizing the slow days and weeks at your practice, including batching vacation days, production goals, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I just thought this would be a fun one to release ⁓ right before we're prepping for summer, ⁓ because I know a lot of you want to take some summertime off, but our practices are still running, right? ⁓ A lot of times we don't want to close it down. Sometimes we want to close it down. So I thought, let's just pop on, do a quick tactical practical of what to do to have products for our team to figure out what to do to make this tour. You can have an amazing summer vacation and a profitable practice.   As always, Dental A Team is here for you. We are here for dentists and teams. We love consulting. We love working. We love making your life easy. We love helping you have the dream life that you've been looking for. And honestly, it's so magical to be able to help so many offices turn what they thought was impossible to possible. So today, let's dive in. Let's talk about, all right, I go on vacation, but my team's still working. What on earth should I have them do? Like...   honest to goodness, what do I do? So I'm going to give a few ideas, but before I get into that, I think it's super important that for future, some offices will actually strategically plan when doctors are off and when the full team is off. So what I would say is let's look at this and is this something that you want to do or is this a way to like max out all the vacations that you're looking to get done? Cause team members might be wanting to take vacation too, or is there a time of year that you want to take off?   that then the rest of your team could take off. So we're kind of like batching our vacations. Some offices will do that. And you can look at a projection forecaster and figure out, okay, how far do I need to go? What do we need to do? What would we need to produce? And it will help you actually set goals so that way you can be on vacation stress free. So that'd be number one. Other times offices love it. They love to where the hygienists are going to keep working pending upon your state laws. Front office is going to catch up, but what do we actually have them do? So that way they're working effectively.   we're able to move this practice forward. So things that I would recommend are always an operations manual. This is a great time. People always tell me, I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. Let's actually get that operations manual completed. Let's build out the protocols, let's take the pictures, let's write the pieces. And we have an operations manual, a template in our, ⁓ in our virtual academy that all of our offices get.   And so like just certain things that you could do for like an office manager is leading morning huddle tracking. Like how do we track our production? How do we track our collections? How do we do our reappointments? How do we fill out our KPIs, end of day checklists, next day schedules, checking to see it? How do we fill out a scorecard of all of our metrics? What about for monthly closing the month by the fifth of every month? How do we do that? How do we set the supply budget for the next month? How do we do production and collections? Doctors, you might not even know how to do half this stuff I'm rattling off.   ⁓ making projections for the years, putting in our OSHA training, our HIPAA training, who do we contact for all of that, ⁓ looking at payroll, how do we do team training. For schedulers, would be like routes look prep, new patient referral tracking, confirmation calls of all the patients, re-care calls to fill the schedule, patient check-in. Like these are the type of protocols going out to our dental assistants and hygienists. How do we set up for...   breaking down a room, how do we do a bridge prep? How do we do burr blocks? How do we do the seric machine, changing traps, charting, checking insurance eligibility, cleaning the mill, co-diagnosing treatment, crown prep, crown seat, downtime. There are about a bajillion ⁓ protocols that your team could honestly do. And we have this whole beautiful checklist where you literally, who's writing it? When does it need to be done? What does it look like? And also in our template,   we show exactly how these protocols should be done. So like at the beginning, what's the purpose of this? What are the steps? What are the supplies needed? And then a picture of it if applicable. So that way everybody knows how to make this template. Everybody knows what we're looking for. We have it in there. So it's like all of them should have a purpose, step-by-step, supplies if needed picture, and then making sure that they're all in a word format. You can also add videos as well if you want. But if I had this much time, this much downtime,   I would set it with my team of how many protocols that we need to get written or also updating my operations manual. It is an amazing time to get so much work done. And this is just, feel like like dusting the baseboards. Like it's annoying, it's obnoxious, but it has to get done. And so really making sure we're maximizing our time on that to get that done. That's a huge, long beast of a project that if I'm out on vacation, yeah, that's a great one to get done. Other things you can do while you're out for your team to have downtime is,   Some offices are swapping softwares and it's a great time to get everything prepped, have everybody take on training modules, things like that. So if you know you want to swap a software, great time to do it. Get your whole team trained, have a team champion, their job is to swap X number videos. Please don't say like go learn it. Nope. Take our like template of all these protocols, have them learn how to do it in the new software so that way they're able to train people. So I definitely recommend if you're doing a software change, go on vacation, have everybody learn it while you're out. And then we come in or not even just the software, but implementing like   if we're doing flex or we're adding weave or we're adding Modento or adding whatever it is, whatever software, AI, we're adding toothy, we're adding Lassie, whatever it is, it's also a great time for the training to happen, the onboarding to happen without all the patient noise. Other things during this time, this is huge where I'm going after re-care and I'm going after unscheduled treatment and I'm also going after collections. Hard, hard, heavy hitting on the front office. And what I say is like, let's set goals before we leave of what we're going to collect, what we're going to get done.   That way we're on the same agreement and alignment with each other. We're not sitting here like, I hope and pray they collect this much money while I'm on vacation. You also can do this when you're on CE because you're out of the office, set it up. Let's think about these things. These are great things for you and your practice to be doing. They should be happening consistently, but this is where we get like that big oomph, that big like, my gosh, we got to get this done. So it's operations manual. That's a huge lift calling on all your own schedules, re-care. Like I literally would have it.   Pound out how many we've got, like how many days we're going to be gone. If my scheduler is not seeing any patients, but they want to work, they should be able to get through a pretty hefty list. Now you might say like, but Kara, we're booked out so far. And I'll say, high five. We still need to make those calls for when patients fall off the schedule, but also get them booked even further out. You just built yourself a VIP fast, quick fill list that then when patients do fall off, we have all these patients teed up, ready to go. So I'm always pro. Get them in, get them in, get them in, make the calls.   Same thing on unscheduled treatment plans. Let's get all those patients scheduled in, like clean it up. And that means we print out the whole list of unscheduled treatment plans we're going through. We're cleaning up treatment plans. they ⁓ didn't accept treatment and they denied it, we need to clean it out of the treatment plans. We need to clean it up towards an actual list. We need to call patients. And I prioritize, I'm not just going down the list A to Z of calling patients. I really want my team to get the best bang for our buck. So I'm going to look to see what do need to fill our schedule for to hit our goal.   let's go find treatment plans that fit that amount, fill those in first. So let's prioritize the treatment plans that we want. And then after that, I'm going to suggest that your team starts to clean it up, call your TC should be able to get through that entire list. So I've got my scheduler calling all their re-care. I've got my TC cleaning up all of my unscheduled treatment when I'm gone for, and this would be if I was out for a week. If I'm only out for a couple of days, there are other things. Then we're going to go after that and we're going to go to our billing. So this is like office manager, biller.   We should be able to in one week's time if we have no patients truly, they should be able to get through your almost your entire AR list if not the whole AR list. So I prioritize which days am I calling on insurances. I'm going to be calling my patient balances. I'm also going to prioritize which ones I want them to do to make sure that we're hitting our biggest bang for our buck because we can collect. Tiff and I were talking on another podcast. sat there for a couple of minutes in an office, called and collected on three accounts very quickly and easily.   but we need to go into like the mindset we're here to help these patients. We're here to collect the money. We're here to serve them, ⁓ figure it out. Now this does not mean we're sitting here texting. So many people are like, we're calling, we're texting, but I'm like, no, no, no. We're calling with intentionality to get the AR cleaned up. Like your job in one month is to collect, I don't know, a hundred grand or whatever it is. So setting that goal and expectation and agreement together really makes it to where a doctor's like, we're getting us out of the hole that we got into.   We're doing these big hefty projects that we've been putting off and we're really making a huge movement. So those would be like real quick. Now for your hygiene team, if they are there, I recommend that they are seeing patients pending your state laws. And dental assistant teams, this is where we're going to go through. You can organize your supply closet, clean it all out, put the tip out bins in place so we cut down our supply costs for us. Notice every single thing I'm saying is propelling your business forward. Every single one of them. We're not sitting here like, I really want to reorganize my ops.   Well, great, if you're reorganize your op, you're making a protocol for it, a template for it, and you're making all ops exactly the same. ⁓ If we're doing supplies, we're not just sitting here like cleaning house, we're putting tip-out bins, we're making it towards a more efficient ordering system, we're actually moving the needle forward rather than just wasting time and spending time. ⁓ Those are some really big things for every single department. You could organize the burr blocks, we could figure out our inventory, we could get an inventory thing in place.   We could work with a buying group. could negotiate deals on that. We could get a membership program put into place. ⁓ We could work on our marketing, like our TikToks for the next hour long. Now, if I was having them build out all of my marketing videos while we were out, I would limit it to, I only want you working on this for two hours because marketing's so fun and your team could sit there for so long, but that's more fun in its brand awareness more than it's going to drive and get results moving forward.   So those would be some things that I would do. ⁓ You can go and answer all the reviews and answer every single one of those. So you boost up your SEO to get it higher on the algorithms. All of that would be stuff that I'd be building out, mapping out, putting things into place. But really, think getting that ops manual updated would be something so valuable. Calling on all the unscheduled re-care, calling on all of our unscheduled treatment, going after our insurance and AR. And even if you've got clinical team members,   give them some of these lists. They can call on unscheduled treatments. They can call on re-care. They can call on balances. They can call and sit on hold with insurance companies. Imagine if you will, you've got five phones going on different insurance companies and when everyone picks up, the biller goes and pops over to that. Like that is huge efficiency to get through these lists, to get things resubmitted. And also if your team members have to come and listen on insurance, you better believe they'll be much better at getting those claims. Correct information. Update your note templates if we're noticing a lot of these balances aren't getting paid. Why?   How can we fix this forever and move it forward? So I'm always looking for what are the like cobwebs that don't just make us feel better, but actually move our company forward. These are things in the doctors, when you come back, you're like, wow, like, and have them report. I always love them to report like, hey, I was out, what did you get done? Like tell me your wins. What did we end up like? We were able to schedule 50 patients while you guys were out. That's amazing. That's a good use of the time, like absolutely worth it. We were able to bring in.   I don't know, 100,000 worth of unscheduled treatment plants. Like, frick, yeah, that's amazing. We were able to collect $100,000 worth of balances and that took out 55 or 100 accounts that we were able to get through. They should be able to get through way more than that, especially no patients, no interruptions. Now, when I have that, also make sure that I'm like, hey guys, I want you to have a good time. I'm out. I also really do expect that we see results from this. So let's set this up. That way all of us are on the same page. Here's extra projects if we get done earlier.   Could you imagine if you came back and your whole operations manual was done? No, this is not fun. So if team members are going to be working there, I want it to be something that's moving our business forward. I don't want it to be like, we're just sitting here cleaning the mill. No, we can get that done. We have to get that done. That's urgent. That will get done no matter what. But what won't get done is the unscheduled treatment list. What won't get done is the AR. What won't get done are the operations manuals. Things that we won't like.   Urgent things are you will sharpen your instruments hygienist. I promise you, will. This is not a time where we have everybody out that we just sit there. That's a nice to do, but it's not a must do. I'm looking for projects that move you forward that we wouldn't otherwise take the time to do. I know people will sharpen instruments because it hurts your hands. So you'll get that done. I know you will reorganize ops. Like things like that, like things that are urgent that always will get done. That's not usually the week that I want that to be done. I don't want you cleaning the mill. You have to do that. I don't want us like   sending out all of our cases, like we have to do that, that will get done. What I want us doing are things that will move us forward. So hopefully that gave you a bunch of ideas. A lot of times we'll actually work with teens when doctors are out and just get that operations manual done. We're working with them, we're checking in with them, or we're helping with the billing. A lot of these things can be done when you're on vacation. So hey, if you're like, I don't want to have that conversation with my team. I don't want to tell them I'd prefer a consultant to do that. Right, that's what we're here for. But hopefully that just helps you think of all these other ideas that your team can do that are.   moving you forward while you're gone rather than just like having a good time while you're gone. Again, I want it to be play. want to be fun. But if I'm paying them, I want to make sure that we're actually getting the results and we're moving things forward. That way we're not wasting our time either. So as always, I hope this was helpful. I hope it was informational for you. And if you need more tips or tricks, be sure to get on our newsletter. We have a lot of these things. If you haven't joined us, be sure to subscribe. Head on over to TheDentalATeam.com There is a newsletter link so you can join it. You can be a part of it. I'd love to have you be a part of it.   And if you're like, gosh, I just need help on my practice. I don't even know where to start. Schedule a call. We actually go through an entire practice assessment, show your blind spots, give you valuable tips and resources. I'd love to chat with you. But go enjoy your vacations guilt free, having a solid plan in place with your team. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.  

Tiff and Dana are in the mood to talk about moods — specifically when it comes to setting the tone for patients and case acceptance. The two discuss overcoming objections from a foundational level, including your mindset, effective language, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners we are so excited to be here with you today. I have back on the podcast with me Miss Dana. I am so excited to see your beautiful smiling face today and gosh Britt did Rim to Rim, Grand Canyon Rim to Rim recently and Dana   I've lived here my whole life. I am an Arizona girl. I love the mountains and I'm like, gosh, people just go out there and it's like, why didn't you bring water? Right? Like you guys are crazy. You've been here for a long time. You hike avidly. Your husband hikes more avidly than anyone I know and knows the Arizona mountains like the back of his hand as if he grew up here. And I'm like, yeah, I could do rim to rim. And then Britt got back and I was like,   Dana (00:47) you   The Dental A Team (00:48) Okay, Dana, like we should do Rim to Rim, but holy cow. If you guys don't know what Grand Canyon Rim to Rim is, please go look it up. It's like an event that people literally, my boyfriend says to have like, you take it for granted. People literally come here from other countries to see the Grand Canyon. I do take it for granted, that's fair. But hearing Britt's story, Dana, I'm like, holy cow. If we are going to ever do that in our lifetime, I think we need to start today.   What do how do you prepare for that?   Dana (01:18) Yeah, my biggest   takeaway is like the planning of it because I like because I avidly had because my husband like you're right hikes more than any human on earth like I'm just like we can just go do room term and honestly, I'll be like I was like, no, I'm doing rim to rim to rim. Like I'm not loving at the first. I'm not starting at just rim. And then hearing her I'm like, Okay, well, I definitely need to plan.   The Dental A Team (01:22) Yes!   Literally.   Yes!   Yes!   literally the same.   Dana (01:45) more   because I'm like I hike in Arizona all the time. I know what the heat is. I know how to hydrate. I know how to do all those pieces. I'm like but maybe I should plan it out a little bit more.   The Dental A Team (01:54) Literally what I said, my takeaway was I did not do planning for it and I didn't, I just, I don't know, I'm take it for granted. I didn't think it was necessary. I'm like, I hike, I work out, I run, I do the stair climber, I do cycle, I do spin classes. Like I am pretty okay to just like sign up for a race and do it and whatever and I thought the same thing minus the rim to rim trip. I was not going an extra rim.   I thought I could just pop over and do rim to rim like no big deal people do it all the time constantly can't be that hard just kidding just kidding so I think we need it on our bucket list here within the next I would say three years based on the fact that I'm over 40 at this point I'm not gonna lie to myself I'm not I need to get myself three years to get this sucker done ⁓ and probably shorter than that so Dina we just need to prep and plan for this sucker   Dana (02:53) Yep. Yeah,   we just need to pick a date, right? Because if I don't pick a date, can think I'm going to plan all I want. ⁓ So I just need to pick a date and then I will force myself to plan. Now that I know how much prep I should probably put into it.   The Dental A Team (02:55) We need to a Yep.   same. Same z's.   I agree.   I agree. I tell people that constantly. I'm like, gosh, the most fit you'll ever be is when you know vacation is coming. You will have bikini body ready when you know that vacation is coming. But when there's not something planned, you're like, I'll do it. I'll eat this for now and I'll make it up later. I do it constantly. So you're right. Okay.   Everybody just congratulate Britt for surviving rim to rim. And that's a real statement for surviving. Um, it's a huge feat. It's massive. So if you are on our Instagram, which I'm sure you are just give her a shout out. If you see her face in there, if you're one of her clients and didn't know she did it, congratulations. Here you go. Text her. Um, but it was super cool. So Dana, we're going to put it on our list. That's our next to do. We'll add it to, uh, our fitness challenge thing over there.   channel. Today guys, I wanted to talk about more than the Grand Canyon, but seriously if you don't know what it is, you should look it up. And if you are planning on coming and you don't live in Arizona, like seriously you think we need to plan like prep and freaking plan you guys? There was another hiker this weekend and it's not even our true ⁓ hot season yet and there was another hiker this weekend in Phoenix that did not make it through her hike and she was an avid avid hiker. So it's no joke you guys.   ⁓ Please be safe. So on that note, overcoming objections is actually what I wanted to talk about today. So rim to rim is my objection today. I'm not ready for it. I get that. But overcoming objections in the practice, you guys, we really want to talk about case acceptance and what that might look like. And doctors, office managers, I know sometimes we get in the space of like, this is for my treatment coordinator. Doctors, this is for you too, especially when you're chair-side treatment planning. Because sometimes I feel like   Dana, feel like doctors get that look of glazed over, like, okay, either this is too much information or I've checked out because I have an objection, but we just talk through it, right? And how many times have we even done that in a personal relationship? That makes me laugh because I'm thinking, even my kid, I'll just keep talking at him and wait for him to catch up. And then he's like, yeah, sure. And then turns around and I'm like, I don't think that's gonna happen. Whatever that was. He checked out. He's obviously no, right? Yeah.   Dana (05:24) I'm thinking that, no.   The Dental A Team (05:27) Like he checked out and I didn't catch it. So the moment when there's a checkout, like that's your objection. There's an objection in there somewhere. Either it was overload of information or they're just not, they're not on board yet because of a reason. I like to go into everything assuming, yes, I live my life that way. My boyfriend's constantly like telling me that I'm like a golden retriever. Right, I'm just like, yep, life is great, what's next, let's go. Because it's just a detour. Whatever it is, it's just a detour.   And it's an opportunity to gain more information, in my opinion. So if there's a no, if there's a roadblock, I'm like, cool. What can I learn from this? What information do I need in order to get around this roadblock? Or should I be taking a different route? So it's a detour. So when I go into a treatment case, when I'm presenting treatment or when I'm training team members to present treatment and doctors, I'm constantly in the yes mindset.   Tony Robbins talks a lot about mindset, about mind frame, on where you're supposed to be, and that yes zone is massive. If I assume the yes, I'm leaving opportunity for that. And Dana, isn't it true, like when you go into a conversation with the like, yeah, everything's gonna be fine, you're more optimistic, right? You're not set on an end result necessarily, and if it's not fine or a yes,   it gives you that opportunity to create something new. And do you feel like Dana, I have a question, an actual real question, because I live my life this way, but like, I don't always check in with other people. People coming to you with that open mindset, right? That like, yep, this is gonna be fantastic. Does that then set the tone for you on that conversation? Like you as a person, whether it's personal, professional, whatever it is, does that set the tone for the conversation for you being like, okay, well, this is an opportunity?   rather than it being like, this is a conversation. Like, how does that feel on the other side,   Dana (07:24) Yeah, and I think it's funny that you asked that question. I agree, it does set the tone and I think though it's harder to see when it's from that mindset.   right? Like I think we very easily see when someone negative sets our tone negative, right? But I don't think we always understand that like the initiative and the consciousness that the person that is setting the positive tone is doing. And so I think it's harder to relate to or harder to think that it works because it's very easy to spot it when it's the other way, not necessarily when it is the positive outlook and the positivity that breeds the positive. So I love that you specifically asked that question because I firmly do believe it. I think it's just a   The Dental A Team (07:33) Yeah.   Dana (08:03) little bit harder to see.   The Dental A Team (08:05) Yeah, that was a   huge massive point because it's like anything we're always going to remember the negative more than the positive, right? So I always tell teams, well, number one, this rolls into case acceptance as well because if you get a no and you carry it, you're always going to remember that no, you could have 10 yeses today and that one person said no to two fillings. And it's like, oh, I suck, right? But I just sold 10 freaking implants, right? But it's like getting your hair done. And I say, you're walking down the street.   walking down the street and you're like, gosh, my hair, it's so good. I got bangs today. And you've got like nine people walk by you. And they're like, dang, I really like your hair today. I really like your hair, right? Nine people tell you, you look amazing. And one person stops you on the street and they say, gosh, I like your hair, but I'm just not sure I would have gone with bangs. When you get home or when you get into your car, what are you doing? You're looking in the mirror and you're second guessing your choice on bangs. You're not saying,   Nine people and myself love my hair right now. You're saying one person's second guest bangs. Why did I do this? Should I have done this? And I think that's exactly what you just said too, Dana. It's really easy to be like, gosh, they just like came in so aggressive and just totally changed my mood. This person put me in a bad mood. One of my least favorite statements of all time. I get to choose the mood I'm gonna be in. That's my power and my control.   ain't nobody taking that away from me. But we say that, right? Like this person just totally changed the mood, but it's not always noticeable when someone comes in with a positive, right, or an open mind and they change that or they keep the mood that you've been in. You're totally right. It's not always noticeable, but it makes a huge impact. So your patients may not notice that you're like, hey, let's go. They may not notice that they're like, yeah, like let's figure this out instead of being in like a gosh,   Dana (09:49) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (09:59) treatment mood. So huge point there, Dana. I love that you pointed that out because going into it with that mindset, you're not going to reap 100 % of the accolades and the rewards. They're not going to be like, thanks so much for being so positive all the time. You might get that every now and again, but we're looking for that feedback and we're not always getting it. So then we get worn down and we're like, why even try? When you're tracking your results, you're going to know why you try.   when you're tracking those yeses, when you're just tracking the conversations even, like you're not always gonna get a yes, that's okay. And that's what we're here about today is those objections. When you go in with that yes mindset of like, I can do anything. It's not always this person's gonna say yes to this treatment. It's this person is gonna say yes to their health and we're gonna get them there. So I go in thinking, this is a huge opportunity to learn more about this patient and to get them healthier.   I don't always go into it, which I think is a mindset shift, Dana, for the healthcare field in general. We think like, I'm selling treatment. You are selling treatment, but you're selling someone their health back, right? So I'm selling you back your health. You are unhealthy. You came to me with a deficit, and I'm selling you back your health, right? And so when we put it in that perspective, we put in the perspective of learning and opportunity, it shifts the mindset quite a bit. So.   That was a fun tangent. Thank you everyone for following along with us. I hope you gleaned some opportunities there and some mindset shifts. I think it's huge. Now, Dana, when they do come in, they're like, okay, we've got this, we've got this. And then they're like, I'm just not ready. Like, what do you, you train a lot of systems, you train a lot of communication and a lot of ⁓ verbiage, that people like to call it scripts, right? What do you tell your teams is the best path to take?   when you do get an objection.   Dana (11:54) Yeah, I think that I think first of all, Mr. Preface that right. I always try to teach teams that anything outside of a yes is a no. Right. So but there are no's that are true no's and then there are solvable no's. And so it's it really helps teams to kind of know the difference. Like a true no would be I'm leaving tomorrow to go out of town for three months and like I truly cannot do the treatment. Right. Or ⁓   I just bought a new house and haven't paid my first mortgage payment. Like I want to wait until I make that that's a true no, right? Or there's then they're solvable knows which are, you know, gosh, I don't know if I'm ready or I need to talk to a spouse or ⁓ that's a lot, you know, that's a lot financially or all of those are solvable knows and usually the easiest way to solve them is to ask better questions to find out what is the actual   barrier, right? Because driven coordinators, we teach them a lot, you've got a lot of tools, you've got a lot of things that you can offer patients. ⁓ But what I want you to do is hone in on what to offer instead of throwing the book at them, right? Like, well, here are all of my solutions and now you choose. Well, they don't actually know what those choices mean, or they don't actually know what to pick in those choices. So I think it's asking questions to get down to the bottom of   The Dental A Team (12:56) Yes.   Dana (13:09) what is holding the patient back so that you can provide the right solution for that patient.   The Dental A Team (13:15) Yes, I totally agree. You made me think of ⁓ the game Guess Who? Do you remember that game? When we were little? I think it's back around again and they have way cooler pictures, by the way. Ours were like, ours were bad when it was like trending back when we were kids. Anyways, Guess Who is the game where you flip your board up and you've got all the pictures of the different characters and you're one of the characters on the other person's board. You've got your little card down here.   and that other person is supposed to try to guess which character you are by asking questions. So you say, do you have dark hair? No, okay, great, we'd mark down all the dark hairs. Then we say, do you wear glasses? Yes, okay, so anyone who doesn't have glasses, we mark down those guys, and it leaves you with a couple of options, and you narrow it down until you're so sure you have the answer, and that's what I feel like treatment coordinating is like. You have this massive board.   of options, of opportunities, and you're like, okay, great, what do we need to overcome today? And we're narrowing it down until we get to the actual root cause or the root issue that the person's suffering because...   I mean, I'm not gonna lie to you. I've seen so many memes recently and I'm like, that is so me, where they're like, if she says she has to check with her husband, I mean, she doesn't wanna go because she ain't gotta check with her husband. Like, that's me. If I'm like, let me check our calendar. I know what our calendar is. And if I'm saying that, I just don't feel comfortable telling you no in the space that we're in. I'm gonna text you because it's less invasive and it's less confrontational. So I'm just gonna text you later.   Right? So when they're like, I need to talk to my husband, right? I have had instances, I do have to, I do have to caveat this. I have had instances where that is a hundred percent true, but I've said to them, totally, I completely agree with you and I would never want you to make a decision without consulting your spouse financially. I never support that. Right? I want you guys to be on the same page. What I would suggest is let's set up a consultation where both of you can be here with us or can he come, is he here? Can he come in?   because what I'd hate to do is for you to get home and have to try to reiterate everything that I just said today and everything that you learned from the dentist. That's a lot of information for you to carry. It's a heavy weight for you to carry, and I'd love to help support you in that. So is he here? Is she here? Can we get you guys scheduled? Now, I've got a soft no, a soft no because we're not scheduling the treatment yet, which you   Dana (15:44) Thank   The Dental A Team (15:49) You still can, you can say, let's schedule this for two weeks out, let's get him in before then, right? Let's hold the space, let's get you and your spouse back before that, so let's try for Thursday, whatever. It's a soft no, but I'm still scheduling them for something, and I'm still providing support for my patient, because I want my patient to be healthy.   That's all I want. I want my patients to be healthy. And if it means that I have to have an additional conversation with a spouse in order to get that patient healthy, I'm going to do that. I'm 100 % going to do that. So whatever that objection is, it's finding that space around the objection that's providing the ultimate benefit to the patient. So I've even had it, Dana, you said even like vacation. I've had patients, we have snowbirds in Arizona. Super cool.   Phoenix gets a ton of snowbirds. We love you all. Sometimes the roads get crazy, you guys. It's fast driving here. You got to keep up. Anyways, we get snowbirds and these snowbirds come. They're like, gosh, well, I'm heading back in two weeks. I'm like, shoot, like I don't have anything in the schedule for two weeks in the next two weeks. Right. So I'm like, hey, let me see what I can do. Let me see what I can move around. Let me see whatever. If I can get them in, I will. Or we've had snowbirds that are like, hey, I'm only gone for three months in the summer. I'll be back.   1st of September, great. Let's schedule you for the second week in September because I want to make sure this is taken care of. And if for some reason something gets worse while you're gone and you've got to see your dentist back home, tell us. We'll take it off the schedule because I just want you to get taken care of. So if you get it done there, let us know. If not, we're going to put you down for the second week in September because I just want to make sure that they're investing in their health.   to the best of their own capabilities. And I have the tools for them to do that. Something I talked with a client about last week, was not everybody knows. Patients don't know to ask the questions they don't know. And I was in office with a practice last week, and we were talking about ⁓ educational overload and confusion. And we often over talk because we're trying to educate past objections we think people might have.   And in response to that, we can create decision paralysis and just educational confusion. And something that I said was, if you're giving them this much information, like there's so much information, sometimes they don't know what questions to ask to gain clarity. And so Dana, to your point, us asking them questions will bring that out.   Dana with that said, what kind of questions do you train teams to be able to ask either chair side or at treatment coordinating upfront?   Dana (18:49) Yeah, so I think that it comes down to just like, ⁓   Asking questions to understand is it is it a like do you understand the actual treatment right? Like do you understand what a crown is? Do you understand? ⁓ Do you remember what the doctor said as far as why you need the treatment? Do you know what will happen if we do nothing right because I think some of the times it is like they may understand the treatment They may know what a crown is they may remember why but they they struggle with   How do I put they struggle with like, where do I prioritize this? Right? And so if I've got an AC repair, right? Well, it's 110 degrees out in Arizona. And if I don't have AC, right, like, so where do they put it in their priority list of things to get done? So sometimes it's okay to say, Hey, what other big things do you have coming up? Right? Because you may be able to help them with that priority.   The Dental A Team (19:29) Yeah.   Dana (19:50) Like, the doctor review with you, if we do nothing, what's going to happen, right? Do you understand the risk of like not doing this treatment, where that puts you? So I think it's just figuring out what part of it they don't understand. Is it the actual treatment? Is it the reason for the treatment? Or is it that they don't know how to prioritize it in all the things because life is busy, right? And things are happening and there's other expenses elsewhere. And so how can you help them prioritize where to put that?   The Dental A Team (20:11) Yeah.   Dana (20:19) in all of the other noise that they have going on in their lives.   The Dental A Team (20:22) Yeah, and to that point of prioritization, Dana, in addition to that, I think a lot of treatment plans are delivered with this is everything you need, okay, goodbye. And there's no prioritization put on the treatment that is next, the next visit. And I had a doctor recently tell me, well, like, it's their mouth. And I said, you are the only person that can make this decision with and for them. You have to tell them what the most important next step is, even if it's like,   All of this is about the same. Where I would start is upper right. I don't know, what's the easiest, what's the hardest? What do you want to start with when you don't know the priority? The issue is that patients don't know a lot about dentistry. Most patients don't know a lot about dentistry. So when you leave it up to them, they're making a decision based on not a lot of knowledge. You have all the tools under your belt.   prioritize the treatment that needs to be done and then help and assist your patient in prioritizing getting that treatment done. I love it. So I would say in an effort to overcome objections, first and foremost, be open-minded. Go into it as a conversation, go into it as an opportunity, and make sure that your mindset is set. If you just got off of a really hard call, if you just had a patient berate you, if you just walked down the street and someone yelled at you,   I want you to be like, okay, how can I shift my mindset right now? And then ask all of the questions. What questions can you ask that help prioritize your patient's treatment? So you place the priority, go in with an open mindset, you tell them what's next, what do they need to do next, and then help ask all of those questions. You guys just get them over the hurdle. Do not assume what their hurdle is.   because you can implant an idea and make yourself some big problems there, ask the questions. I love it. I usually say, Dana, be in the why, or be in the what. Be in the question. You guys, if you go into any conversation open-minded, meaning leaving room to ask for more information, whatever that conversation is just became tenfold easier. go do the things, you guys. Dana, we got to put rim to rim.   You can do the extra rim if you want. I'm doing two. We gotta put it on our calendar, rim to rim. You can all wait for you at the other side and pick you back up if you're doing that extra rim. But we gotta put that on our calendars. And Dana, thank you for podcasting with me today. I love our time together. Listeners, thank you so much for being here. As always, write in at Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and let us know what you think. Thanks so much, everyone.  

iera returns with the Green Park Dentistry team, Chief Operations Manager Jeff and Dr. Andrew Sugg, to discuss tips for those who want to evolve their leadership. Jeff and Dr. Sugg share their own journey, which included immersing themselves in a new community. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and this is part two of Dr. Andrew and Jeff talking about, they already went through their expansion, what they did, and now I really wanted to get into the nitty gritty of what makes Andrew so incredible as a doctor and what makes Jeff an incredible leader in his practice to get the growth and the success that they've been able to have. And I'm so excited for you to experience it. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.   Kiera Dent (00:24) Andrew, can you walk us through, what do you feel are some of the things you do so superior? Like, I want you to brag a little bit. This is a moment where Kiera Dent is so freaking proud of you. Tiff is proud of you. Our company is proud of you. ⁓   because I think other people want to know how to do this. So I almost want to peel back the curtain just a little bit on what are some of the things you do really well in assembly? Like I said, Jeff, chime in too. Then we're going to reverse. We're going to talk about Jeff and Andrew, you can chime in on him. So like both of you can just schmooze each other tonight as well. You guys are going to have an amazing night post podcast. You're welcome. All right. But truly, Andrew, what are some of the things you feel set in part?   Jeff & Andrew (00:52) Yeah, thank you.   Well,   that leads into a great, was going to say, like, I feel really lucky to have Jeff, obviously. And I know not everybody has a Jeff or can trust someone as much as I trust Jeff. But I think obviously it can be very hard on our marriage. So that's one side note. And I know like a lot of couples that that happens. But I think I have to always. Right? know. Two years ago, I was worried. And in gay years, that's like 40 years.   Kiera Dent (01:19) I'm so proud of you. 10 years in and you still, I think, love each other, which is amazing. I think   everybody is. You're like, okay. But it's one of those things also though, I will say, like throwing it out to couples, when couples go through what you have gone through and you're able to like be through the thick and the thin of it, I will also give advice. Like when I watched people go through dental school, and Andrew, I'm sure you saw this, I was so angry at so many of our like friends that went through.   Jeff & Andrew (01:33) you   Kiera Dent (01:46) Like they went through the residencies, they got to the end and I'm like, you freaking made it. And that's when they get divorced. And I'm like, Oh, if you're to get divorced, get divorced during the hard times, but like you have made it. You've made it. And now it's like, it's a matter of like, we bonded together, we grew together. And I think like making sure that stays a priority in your marriage. You guys remember I was a marriage and finally therapist prior to this. Like that was my thing. I like, Oh, don't give up on what you like. You went through the freaking hardest years together. Now it's like, enjoy this amazing life we built together.   Jeff & Andrew (01:50) Yeah.   Right, yeah. All right.   Yeah.   Yeah   Kiera Dent (02:16) and don't lose sight of how grateful we are for one another. anyway, like off my tangent, keep going.   Jeff & Andrew (02:20) No, that's   that one. So I guess that's that's part like that's kind of part of my after always remind myself I need to be very appreciative for everyone around me. So that's probably number one. And I guess that goes into like, you need to kind of check your ego, right? Like as much as everybody wants it to be all about the dentist and all about me. I'm really just the guy that does the dentistry and I enjoy kind of being like that side note, like I'd rather people come talk to him. Right. So I think like the more you can step back and see yourself as that clinician is very beneficial. And then   kind of let, again, the people around you lead and be those positive lights that they can be, that's like how you're gonna grow, right? And then I think that goes along with an associate where, ⁓ again, kind of being humble, like, yes, I know a lot, but I don't know everything. And I learned stuff as much from the associates or how they do things differently as much as they may learn from me. And I think when you come to a situation more with ⁓ curiosity and...   really trying to find how you can learn and be better every day, then they only want to do the same. So you really have to lead by example, lead with curiosity, really come to work every day, just trying to do better for people around you. And I want to chime in. think you lead from your heart too. You have a passion for people and you have a passion for what you do, dentistry. Like you live, breathe, speak it all the time.   Even outside the office. You're always- Too hard, right? Shut it down. You're always seeking new things. You're always at speaking with Dr. Parks about, what do you think about this? Or how would you approach this rather than this point of, hey, I do it this way, you have to do it. You do approach curiosity. And I think the frequency that he's able to, the amount of time they spend together in this office, they share an actual office. ⁓ So they're able to compare.   Kiera Dent (03:45) ⁓ And now you look beautiful!   Jeff & Andrew (04:14) Everything all the time. So if at any time that they're both in the office together I could walk by they're always talking about a case or how they could improve something or how could we approach this or This is funny. What like what should we do? You know, it becomes this collaboration and less of a like we're having a calibration meeting this day for this time We're going to talk about X. It's kind of a constant Yeah, like I listen in on his new patient exams. He listens in on mine. And yeah, it's just a   constant thing. I think, honestly, again, that was a necessity that that started that way. And I think in our old office, it was actually me, Jeff and Dr. Parks all in a room that was really meant to be for me. And we all were crammed in there. And eventually Jeff moved because he got tired of listening to us talk about dentistry.   Kiera Dent (05:01) I was gonna say that's why   Jeff's not in the office. He's like, I don't wanna hear about this dentistry. hear about it way too much. You two have fun.   Jeff & Andrew (05:04) He's like, I gotta get away from Yeah. need some space. Yeah.   So that wouldn't have been a decision I probably would have made if we had all this space, right? So I think it is funny, like again, that necessity and just kind of trust in the process and learning what you can. But I'm like, I'm so grateful for those early years and like he and I have such a bond now that we're excited for our next associate and bringing him or her into our office and making them a part of our little dorky dental group.   Kiera Dent (05:32) love it. And   I mean, Jeff, you're right. But I if I'm to have a dentist, I want the dentist who talks nonstop about dentistry. I know that's not probably so nice at home. Jason has an alarm on our phone for us. So, Jeff, if you want to take like marriage tip from me and Jay, because I will talk about business forever. And he's like, shut down, girl. The alarm goes off at five every night. And that's when I have to stop talking work. And it goes off like it's every single day. Six o five. I know what time and I'm like, OK.   Jeff & Andrew (05:40) I'm   Hahaha   Kiera Dent (05:59) That's my time limit. So you want to talk about like a show? I'm like, I don't even know what I'm about. So it's a really handy thing for me to have to shut it down. But Andrew, I am curious on that. I think a lot of doctors struggle and I love how you talked about like, this isn't how I do it. Like, what do you think and how can we do this? I'm curious. So let's say you saw of a future associate, we'll use Dr. Parks right now, cause that's one you know, you won't know the future one's personality, but   Jeff & Andrew (06:01) Yeah.   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (06:27) Let's say you see dentistry that's not up to your standard with Dr. Parks. How do you go and have that conversation with him to where he feels supported, but at the same time, you don't allow your culture, your brand, the type of dentistry to go out the door without having, like, people don't know how to have this conversation because you're both dentists. So how do you handle that with Dr. Parks?   Jeff & Andrew (06:46) Yeah. So I think, ⁓ kind of bring it back to like what he's doing it for, right? So it's not about me seeing a problem, but it's like, hey, here's how this could maybe be a better outcome for your patient, right? Or I would like argue, I would like to kind of always spin and make myself an example. Like, hey, I used to do it this way, right? Like, or I used to do something different, but my old mentor who I love and admire, like she helped show me the way, right? And I've really learned a lot from her. So I think that's also where   like for our future associate, need to make sure that that is a key component of their culture is to be open and constantly learning and be curious. And ⁓ I think that is definitely a big goal of ours is to find that in the next person. And that's where we also feel very lucky with our associate. We know that that's not ⁓ very easy to find an associate and kind of have that success with it. So again, as much as I'm appreciative for Jeff.   I'm very appreciative for Dr. Parks too, and I think it shows in our relationship as well.   Kiera Dent (07:46) Yeah. Well, I think like also though, when you've built a practice to your size, you normally now get to be choosy and picky. I feel like when you're like a little bit smaller, it's kind of like, I got to like help someone wants to come work in this like amazing brown, purple, green popcorn ceiling and share an office with me, my husband, and you get to be in here too, like Harry Potter corners all the way around. But now you get to be even more choosy on who comes forward because you've got this amazing space. You've got the place where someone wants to come.   Jeff & Andrew (07:56) Yeah. Right.   Yeah. Seriously. Right.   Kiera Dent (08:14) And I think that's gonna be really awesome to watch you grow on that next one. So thank you for that. Jeff, I wanna pivot to you. I've watched your leadership. I've watched you grow. I've watched you run a team. I've watched you go from Gilbert to Jeff. I've watched you sit in meetings. It was so fun to see you in person. It has been far too long for me. It was pre-COVID since the last time I saw you. And we met in person and I watched you. You sit there with this inquisitive mind. You sit there with this, you've got a...   Jeff & Andrew (08:31) I know.   Kiera Dent (08:41) depth of knowledge that's just impressive to me. And also I've watched you grow in your leadership. I've seen you, I talked to Tiffany and you're in your community in leadership courses, you're doing pieces. I just wanna know, and Andrew, this is now where you're gonna like love on Jeff on this, of how have you gone from where you were to where you are today? Like I know that's a whole process and I know that's very broad, but just even thinking of some of the strokes that you've taken, I know you and Tiff have worked super hard. I'm gonna give like mad kudos to Tiffany and I'm sure you will too.   Jeff & Andrew (09:08) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (09:08) But   I'm just curious because I think leadership is so elusive for so many people. And yet I've watched you like take this on this, but you're also a baller. Like you don't get run over. You have hard conversations. You speak up. You're very brilliant in what you do. Andrew, I agree. Jeff's a machine. I watch him. He's like, all right, got my list. I got all these things. I'm going home. Andrew, this is what we're going to do. You think, Jeff, you think Andrew's running the show, but.   I know that who's really running it is you. Like you're like, all right, this is getting done. We're getting all this done. This is where the lights are going. Everybody move in on this day. But you do it with poise and grace. so I'm just curious at like tips for people who maybe are trying to evolve in their leadership, things that you've done to be the, like truly, I think you're a huge example of a successful leader. And so it's okay. This is your brag moment. I know it can be awkward, but I really am just so proud of you and excited to hear what you think has been part of that evolution of you.   Jeff & Andrew (09:37) Yeah.   Well, the first, thank you. That's like, I want to cry right now. Thank you. You don't often hear that. ⁓ So thanks for that. ⁓ Honestly, know, I had a little experience ⁓ in my past career about, ⁓ you know, it was an industry that's off offshore. So it's a difficult industry.   Kiera Dent (10:06) You're welcome.   I feel tear-eyed, Luke, because I'm just really proud of you. Like truly.   Jeff & Andrew (10:27) for me personally to enter into, know, with these rough, greasy, you know, I'm not scared of dirt, obviously it was geology, but, you know, a lot of people aren't socially aware who might be working with them, you know, so, you know, being gay in an industry like that, that's nobody's like, ⁓ did I offend somebody by what I said? That's, you know what I mean? So that's, you kind of get a little bit of a tough skin there, right? So I've had experience.   With that, I've had experience managing projects ⁓ offshore. I've had experience managing projects onshore. I grew up in a family that my dad, my parents are business owners and I was put to work for not a legal pay at a very young age. So I just learned like, I've got to work to do this stuff. then, you know, fast forward to meeting you guys when I was unhappy, I was like, what am I going to do? Right? So you guys, you, Tiffany,   the collaboration, the tools, the building blocks, the confidence, the empowerment that you were like, you can do it and you're the only one that is, right? ⁓ So that led me on it. And then we went into the catalyst of showing up to that office that day with a different vibe and then seeing that it works. ⁓ So then I think naturally we moved to this county from a very different county in Florida that a lot...   Kiera Dent (11:46) Thank   Jeff & Andrew (11:55) population was very different and we're in a very different population here. So we did have some fear coming in. So we were cautious about, you know, how we represented ourselves, if we made a big splash. And then as we realized the momentum of the practice and the service of what we were doing, it was gaining momentum and people came to us for our service and our dentistry. So then that gave us confidence to be like, okay,   this is what people want. And I think part of my mindset ⁓ in creating the vision and how the business that we want is thinking about past jobs and what did Andrew not like about ⁓ how he was treated by a mentor, previous employers, or how he had to follow a protocol to do this to the patient. And we realized, I kind of just have a challenging mentality, like why?   You know, like, can we do it different? Should we do it different? Yeah, we probably should, because that's what everybody wants, right? So then we started to see those little pieces gain success and the community be like, we're going to them because they do that different. Differently. Differently. Thank you. We call them by name, something as simple as that, you know. It's like, wow, that's a big difference. So then.   Kiera Dent (12:51) .   Mm-hmm.   Right.   Jeff & Andrew (13:14) I think I'd encourage people to start looking in their area. I didn't realize the opportunities that our county and like had around us, right? So I started to take advantage of that. I to the chamber, we joined the chamber. ⁓ And then that led me to an opportunity for leadership Catawba. We live in Catawba County. I was like, let me try this. was, you know, a small time investment in the big picture. And that introduced me to people in our area that I was like, you're   I can lean on you now and I can use you as a resource. How can we work together? Then I was just learned so much about our county and the riches of it, like what sets this county apart. And I was like, I love that. That's what we try to do in our business. So then, you know, as you learn about your surroundings and how like the local government works, you can start to make those contacts and start to go to those people and then you become a source to them as well. ⁓   So in that, I learned about other opportunities. took an HR class at our local, our community college. I was like, I should probably know some like legit HR stuff, right? Right? Like before we build this giant dental practice. So that led me to the community college, which the HR class was in the furniture academy. So that led me to a relationship where in a big furniture area where they were custom building as they were teaching students creating furniture for a dental practice. So.   That opened up a community door. Then we started with the building. The whole purpose of buying a building bigger than we need it is so we can put that vision forward and ⁓ create a big collaborative space. But in doing so within our own space, we did create a large conference room, a little kind of event space that we've welcomed Hickory Football Club in. are soccer teams, we've had Girl Scouts in, we've had other nonprofits in.   It's kind of become a space that we can host and collaborate with the community and welcome them into our space. I kind of love that. I think it's been the curiosity and kind of just little incremental like, cool, this sounds cool. I'm going to do this. And then that leads to so much. And we were even just saying like the whole like our building is so big. Like we have an area that we actually offer like a nonprofit in the area to come. were they were losing their space and they came here and it's led to so now I feel so fulfilled that I'm   helping someone in a way that's not dentistry, which I never thought I would do. And so it just feels good to like given that way that we never imagined and it's led to so much more. So I think that curiosity is led to that. That's where with Jeff, like he really is like so amazing at being good, being, he's living by that example, right? Like he's gonna be here every day. He's gonna be put in the work. He's gonna do all these things and he's inspired now that he did the leadership we've sent.   one of our other staff member or team members. And then we've got a third one that's about to go to leadership Katawba. So it's just kind of led to a lot of inspiration for the people around us. And yeah, I think that the more you can kind of be there for others and let others kind of lean on you, it's just really, like that sense of community is there. And I think that's where too, you kind of start realizing you're not there for everyone and everyone's not going to love me as a dentist, but I get, there'll be enough, right? There's enough people. yeah. And we feel good about what we're doing.   And we know we're raising people up and it's raising us up too. So, and I think it's really important to ⁓ provide opportunities, like learning opportunities outside the practice, because that's where connections really get made.   Kiera Dent (16:41) Yeah.   I Jeff, was just I agree with you, Andrew. What I was hearing, I'm like, I always am listening for like, what's the pattern? What's the silver lining? Like what really sets you apart? And I think Jeff, it was truly hearing the curiosity and also the drive to be the best. Like I should go learn HR. Like this is a zone I'm gapped in. And instead of it being like, well, let's just like find some for you. Like, no, I'm going to go learn. I'm going to hunker in. Then I'm going to figure out how I need to delegate this out. And I have a sign over here from Gandhi that we've given our leaders this year and it's   Jeff & Andrew (17:15) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (17:20) A sign of a good leader is not how many followers you have, but how many leaders you create. And I think, Jeff, that's something you're doing really incredibly well of creating more leaders around you and rising more people up around you. And Andrew, the same thing for you. You're rising these doctors up around you. You're bringing your team up with you. And I think it's so beautiful to see. So I'm just really proud of both of you. And it's like, it's just such a fun thing to be able to give back to both of you and to just highlight how many amazing things you have.   My last question for us tonight is where you're wrapping up is what's next? Like what's next on the radar? Like business-wise, personal-wise, like we built this, we had this vision, but I believe like if we stop dreaming and we stop evolving, then we stop growing as well. It does not have to be large, Andrew. You don't have to have like a huge next, like we're building ⁓ a city. I could see you coming up to that big, all right, Jeff, we're like build our own city now. But like what's next? Like what's in the next like one, two, five years?   What's it looking like for your practice, for each other, where you guys at? And I'll let anybody take this on. What's next for you guys?   Jeff & Andrew (18:21) Yeah, well, think for, well, I did want to say one more thing about ⁓ inspiring leaders, because I we were talking about associates. But another thing that I have to always bring up is my mom was a single mom, four kids, because you were talking about ⁓ our parents earlier. And so single mom, four kids. She was also a dental assistant. So I think I grew up around dentistry. I grew up with a mom that wasn't making a lot of money for what she did. So I appreciate so much our team and my assistants.   I don't leave a room without thanking them for what they did in front of the patient. So that's probably the most important thing I've taught ⁓ our associate is to always be thankful for the people that are helping you do what you do. So I think living every day and coming into work with that mentality is super helpful. So I wanna keep that.   Kiera Dent (19:08) that and I'm also gonna say Jeff you had no hope when you met Andrew there was no hope for you to get out of dentistry like mom, family, his life, if you were destined for dentistry when you and Andrew met so I love that I'm like wow now hearing your mom I was like ⁓ he he saw you from a mile away not only did he like fall in love with you but he's like ⁓ this his life to be changed forever   Jeff & Andrew (19:12) Yeah, I know. Yeah.   I should have saw that coming. Yeah, he was. He's going right in.   Yeah. Yeah. I was like, need that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   Yeah. So yeah, I think my, my next goal will be to help us find a new associate. So our daughter parks and I both are super busy now or both feeling like, gosh, it would be really nice to be able to take some time off and not feel like we're putting the other one in our tough pickle. You know? So we also have a lot of great things to teach our next associate and, ⁓   I think what used to scare our team is to think about that growth. And now our team feels empowered to be like, we're not so sure about that person. They speak up and they're our guardians. So I think what's really cool is like, I've kind of let some of this go and now I get to really focus on my dentistry and learning more and what can I improve? What do we wanna bring into the office to offer more patients or how can we be better every day? So, yeah.   Kiera Dent (20:18) Amazing. I   love that. Okay, that's what it's on for Andrew. Jeff, what about for you? What's next for Jeff's world?   Jeff & Andrew (20:24) a vacation in two weeks. We got one planned. got do. We do. Yes. It's our first two week vacation ever in my life. I'm really nervous. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (20:26) Yeah, where you wanna go?   Like be so excited. You should listen to all the other podcasts. I'm always like, owners, we need leave because if you don't leave, can't find the gaps in your practice. So like, this is the best thing to do. So don't freak out, Andrew. Just realize you're doing your business the best service. You're leaving. You can see the gaps. You can fix them when you come home. Yeah. That's how I justify it. like, no, the business needs me to leave, obviously.   Jeff & Andrew (20:39) Yeah. I know.   Yeah. Yeah. Okay.   I like it. Yes, that's great. Yeah. Yeah.   And I will say, I feel excited now because I can see people knowing that we're leaving. Everybody's making sure everybody they're looking ahead at the schedule. They're making sure I get people in that I want to see Megan. Sure, everything's going to be OK. And it's just awesome. I used to stress so much about taking a day off and then now to know like we're about to take two weeks off. It's really amazing.   Kiera Dent (21:19) Amazing. Okay. Well, I think that's good. Just like we need this. I need this. You need to shut it off and we're not talking about history.   Jeff & Andrew (21:25) I wouldn't do it without.   I wouldn't have done it without him. That's another big thing, right? So he's pushed me. I'm like, Jeff, are we okay to do this? Like, that's another thing I probably would not have said to I know I need to write. So you kind of need those people to help kind of make you see the other side and say, okay, we're okay. And we do need it. And everyone has told me that like, I know you're thinking you don't need it or that you are going to stress out, but you're going to come back so invigorated and so excited.   Kiera Dent (21:49) always tell everybody the best things I do for my business are when I do what I call white noise time. And I check out what I do, Andrew and Jeff, you guys might take my tip. I literally don't turn my phone on at all. So like no one can connect me. If I go out of the country, I do not connect to wifi. It's a smidge creepy for my family. So like Jason usually turns it on. And then I get angry for about two days. So I'm like detoxing of having like everything. And I'm like mad at Jason. I feel like I'm putting time out. I feel so angry that I've just got to sit here and read a stupid book.   Jeff & Andrew (22:06) Hahaha! ⁓   Yeah.   You   Kiera Dent (22:20) once the adrenaline's   gone, I'm like, ⁓ and then my best ideas actually show up. So, better or for worse, get ready, Jeff. He'll probably come home with like million ideas, but, and you should probably have alarms that like you're only allowed to talk down the street for like one hour a day. Like that's it, because of course it'll like come up, but it's also shocking when I did that last summer, Jason and I, took a whole month off and I'm like,   Jeff & Andrew (22:25) Weird. Yeah, that's awesome.   Probably.   Kiera Dent (22:44) I don't actually know what to talk to you about if we don't talk dentistry. So I had to like, refine myself, refine our relationship of like, what do we do beyond dentistry? This is helpful. So anyway, okay, going on a week trip, where are going?   Jeff & Andrew (22:47) I   We're going to Sweden for two weeks. Yeah, we're excited.   Kiera Dent (22:58) I'm so ⁓   Jeff & Andrew (23:04) I that. I'll be too. For like a minute.   Be prepared.   Yeah.   So I think we there's a there's something we want to do internally that we've been kind of mulling over and kind of taking a couple steps to we brought somebody on that I think we can actually elevate and help create this. So it's a it's a younger team member and he's got really good skills ⁓ with the lane that we want.   him to go down. So we kind of want to empower him to build this, ⁓ not for us, but with us, ⁓ and kind of create this position for himself. And kind of, it would be job sustainability, know, and have him, elevate him to build a team under him as well. ⁓ At the same time, you know, we want to   Kiera Dent (23:57) Yeah.   Totally.   Jeff & Andrew (24:14) We need to fill the rest of our building. We've, ⁓ we're working with some nonprofits. brought one in, we have two more suites to go. And, ⁓ so I want to continue that and make sure, ⁓ one thing that we're not like putting for lease signs out there. want to make sure that, you know, serves our vision and serves the community, the people that come in. and we were also, you know, we have our own building to create something. So I don't know, there's a lot.   Kiera Dent (24:45) amazing. I do too. I need to... I was gonna say this is where you need the vacation Andrew and Jeff so you like shut it down all the great but I my best idea the podcast literally came when I was hiking Half Dome Yosemite like I'm not even talking about work and I was like this is a great idea I should do that so here we are like five years later but   Jeff & Andrew (24:45) I see a lot in the future. All good things. Lots of dreamings needed.   Yeah. That's it.   Yeah, yeah They're kind of like just   waiting and I think you're right I think this little white noise period could just be like, there they all are. I totally agree   Kiera Dent (25:14) It really   happens. It's weird. And I feel like as owners, we are in such a grind, like we don't know how to shut it off. But when we do, I'm like, that's when the best ideas show up. Like best ideas hit us in like when we wake up in the morning or when we're in the shower or when we're on a run or when we're on a hike or, I'm like, okay, so clearly I need to schedule more of that in consistently. So that way my best ideas can show up and we can keep evolving. But guys, you should be so proud of yourself. Like go enjoy that vacation. I'm so excited for you to go to Sweden.   the chocolate, please. mean, you hear it. But, ⁓ but no, just as as someone who's watched you evolve, I hope you guys just take in like, the kudos. I hope everybody listening, you're hearing like how they went through this, how they built their vision. And the thing I think I really glean from today's podcast are one, you two really lean on each other as a very safe duo of you two trust each other. You're in your lanes, you allow each other to be experts, you allow the like, nerdiness of either side to come out and you love that about the other person.   Also like really being true to yourselves, to your vision and building an entire team around you. I think so many people are scared to be themselves. And Jeff, thank you for sharing like agreed being gay, being different, having a different maybe, especially with the town you're in. I think that that was probably a big step and leap for you, but to stay true to who you are and you'll find that you will attract your tribe. You'll attract in the people that want to be a part of it ⁓ and not being afraid to share that. So I'm just so proud of you guys.   I am so grateful you came on. It was so fun to highlight you, to share about you. Are there any last things you guys wanna leave as we wrap up today? I'll start with Jeff first. Last thoughts, anything you wanna add to today?   Jeff & Andrew (26:48) Yeah, I just want to make sure that ⁓ you, Dental A team and Tiffany are really recognize, like understand your value because at every step of the way, you guys were always there for us. I could pick up the phone, Tiffany will pick it, she'll answer. It could be about plumbing. It could be about team. It could be about operations. You guys are always there for us consistently every step of the way. If you don't have an answer.   You know, we brainstorm and we are like, okay, or you'll find it. You know, it's, I couldn't thank you guys enough. You did. I tell you every time, but it's true. You guys changed my life, both of our lives, honestly, ⁓ for the better. And we wouldn't be here today if we didn't have your encouragement, your support, and your backing behind us this whole time. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Kiara. Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you, Den-L-A team.   Yes, thank you, Tiffany. Thank you. Thank you both for everything. Tell a team we were like so it like a pretty shit for you guys here. Like I remember we were talking about earlier meeting senior on the plane, giving you the brownie brittle. And I think I go back to like our first couple meetings and I I think you guys were like the first. No, you were the first that helped us not just see like when we were doing like team meetings about dentistry. It also was how does this relate to your personal?   Kiera Dent (27:46) Thank you.   Jeff & Andrew (28:15) And I think that's where the that could have been the switch you were asking about earlier. Sorry, it took me this long to realize that's what I love. That was the switch because it went from like, what can I teach you about dentistry to like, how can we all just live better lives? How can we come to work and be happy? How can you go home and use what you're learning here with your your house? And I think every time Tiffany comes in, we talk sometimes more about personal things going on at home and how this relates to work. And it's really just made that our culture. And I think   whether it's me and my weight loss, that's something too. lost 90 pounds three years or four years ago now. that's, thank you. And that's kind of led to like we did a whole weight loss program with our whole staff. Like we learned nutrition and like we made things not about just dentistry, but like how we all can just live better lives. And I think that's really what's kind of just blown us up. So thank you so much for all of that.   Kiera Dent (28:48) look amazing, Andrew, like, amazing.   proud mama over here and just huge like thank you because to hear clients, to hear people that we didn't know prior to dentistry, like dentistry is our platform, life is our passion and to hear that you're thriving, that you are these amazing humans that are fulfilled, that is what we want. We don't want just dentistry. Like I said dentistry is our platform, life is our passion and so   And like, Andrew, I saw you I was like, my gosh, you look like so great. And Jeff, you just look vibrant and you've gone through so many pieces and yet you're still smiling. You're still happy. You still, like you said, it's life. This is what it is. And we just get lucky enough to find each other through dentistry. So thank you for being a part of our family. Tiff's been incredible. And I'm just excited for like the next level and to continue to watch you guys flourish. Like I said, my biggest passion is making the best people have the best lives and truly win. So thanks for being on the podcast. I appreciate it.   Jeff & Andrew (29:56) Thank you.   Kiera Dent (29:57) you. ⁓   Jeff & Andrew (29:58) Thank you for having us.   Kiera Dent (30:00) of course. And for all of you listening, I hope you were inspired today by Jeff and Andrew. They're people that have inspired me and I hope you saw yourself through the writing in the fabric of their story to see the things that are possible from Jeff not feeling like he even knew how to be into dentistry to running this huge practice and inspiring people to Andrew growing and evolving and bringing on things that he never thought were possible.   I hope all of you see the potential within yourselves and ⁓ I'd love to be a part of your story and your journey. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental Team A Podcast.   Jeff & Andrew (30:32) Thank you.  

Kiera talks with Chief Operations Manager Jeff and Dr. Andrew Sugg of Green Park Dentistry about identifying your dreams as dental leaders, and finding the path to get there. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is such a special magical day on the podcast. I have two of my absolute favorite human beings. We have known each other for so many years. They are incredible, incredible dentists, practice owners, managers, like you name it. These two men are some of the most brilliant people I've watched in dentistry and I've watched them grow from beginning, very basics.   to this masterpiece of their life, of their community, of this practice that I truly think is such an example in this world. So Jeff and Andrew, welcome to the show. How are you today?   Jeff & Andrew (00:33) Great, thank you for having us. Doing well, thank you for having us.   Kiera Dent (00:37) You're so welcome. And I know it'll get a little weird, because when there's three of us here, it's always like, who's supposed to talk? So I'll try really hard to just call someone out. But honestly, guys, how does it feel to be, and I'll ask Jeff first. So again, I'll just riff through this. How does it feel from when we first met to where you are today? How does it feel? What would you even say? What's a word? Or what's the expression of where you started to where you are today? How was that experience for you, Jeff?   Jeff & Andrew (00:42) Yeah.   ⁓ if I had to sum it up in a word, looking back at myself in this experience, I think my younger self would look at today and be astonished that one, this is the career path I'm in that I didn't set out to. ⁓ you know, two, I started in this dental industry with zero experience other than knowing Andrew and listening to what he talks about when he comes home, to today.   that we have gone from a team of seven in this tiny building with five ops we started with to now a team of 20, 17 ops in a 16,000 square foot building. I literally cannot, I have to pinch myself being like, we did this, take a minute, let's reflect. I'm still kind of coming down from all of the renovation and the moving and calibration. ⁓   So every now and then I have to remind myself like, wait, this is our place, we did this. So take a minute and reflect. And I'm still kind of battling with that because I'm used to going full force. So I'm astonished.   Kiera Dent (02:16) It's amazing.   And Jeff, I'm so glad you said that. we've known each other. Jeff and Andrew have been clients of ours for years. This is like a client spotlight where we bring on people to just, I think, share their journey, share their experience. And for me to have like a proud mama moment of just being so freaking proud of where you are. And I agree, I'm astonished. It's not something when I met you too that I thought, would it be capable? But I do think it's all for all of us, like a pinch me moment. And for me,   What I love is seeing my favorite humans just flourish. And I feel like you guys give back to your team, you give back to your community. You're the good guys that I always want to win. And so I'm your biggest raving fan over here. Yes, have the life, have the experiences, do the things because you're just amazing humans that are contributing so much to this world. So I love that. Andrew, want to hear, and also Jeff, always you should just love Andrew so much and the fact that he brought you into dentistry. Welcome to the best profession ever. So kudos on that, Andrew.   Jeff & Andrew (03:07) ⁓ huh. Yes.   Thank you.   Kiera Dent (03:12) What about for you? How's this journey been from where you started? You and Jeff, think it's like adorable. Jeff literally had no clue. I remember Jeff, you're like, I don't even know what these things.   Jeff & Andrew (03:20) That's exactly what I was going to say. Like Andrew brought me and I was like, Hi, Kiera, I'm Jeff. And I don't know what I'm doing and I think I need your help. So I do have to throw in a kudos, a super thank you for guiding me and helping me get to this place. So yeah, you guys really helped kind of us.   Kiera Dent (03:32) my gosh, I   can't take the huge credit. Tiffany has been like the mass superstar for you guys. I've been able to be the proud mom on the side that's just freaking rooting for you all day long. But yes, I do remember definitely like, hi, your adorable glasses. Like you guys were just like dressed in white I think the night I met you and hi guys, super nice to meet you. So, Andrew, didn't mean to cut you off, go ahead.   Jeff & Andrew (03:47) No, it's okay.   I think that's it though, is you guys have really helped bridge that like my clinical side and love of dentistry and what I've always really enjoyed and still geek out over all the time. And you helped pull Jeff in and help him understand how he can kind of make this what he wanted to be. And I think that was something that kind of stuck with us ever since we first met y'all was that was on that weekend that we heard was   Like if you're not happy in your office, there's one person to blame and it's you, right? So it's like, you have the power, you have the energy, the time to put into that and kind of make it what you want. And I guess that's where like, my word would be excited. Cause I do feel like the more that we lean in and kind of just trust our gut and do the things that we kind of really want to do, it becomes more fun. We kind of are instilling in our team what you've instilled in us to kind of take that leadership and   work towards their goals and find their secret secrets that kind of stand out and really make them shine. And I think it's just, it's been really fulfilling and really exciting for us.   Kiera Dent (04:57) That's amazing. And I think for both of you, I remember, I feel like there was a pivotal moment. I don't know what year it was, but I feel like there was a moment where you both just hunkered down of what do want our life to look like? What do we want our practice to be? What do we this to look like? And I feel like that was your, I call them lightning bolt moments. And I feel like it was just like, from there, I feel like that's where momentum just skyrocketed for you. And I don't know if you guys remember that from persons on the outside looking in.   That's something that I really watched, but I'm just curious, like, did you feel that way? I'll start with Andrew first on this one. Did you feel that way? And if you did, like, okay, give me the thumbs up or like, yes, did you feel that way? That's question one. Let me be a better host here. Andrew, did you feel that that was something that changed for you guys in your practice?   Jeff & Andrew (05:37) Yes, no, I definitely did. it is hard though for me to put pinpoint. I think I had to lean into trusting having Jeff here and having you guys help him. It just allowed me to really focus and be that dreamer that I am. I'm definitely the dreamer. He's the implementer. So I think you helped us to find roles and understand kind of where we really can help each other, you know, kind of reach those goals together. So.   Yeah, I don't know the day or time, but I definitely felt like it was soon after meeting you guys and we just really felt like, okay, we can do this. it just, yeah, it's just magical. ⁓   Kiera Dent (06:14) It's truly magical. Thank you. Jeff, what about for you?   Jeff & Andrew (06:18) Yeah, ⁓ I remember several moments and I think a lot of ⁓ it was like a light bulb. I remember it was, you know, the career change and all that. It was hard for me, you know, going from the scientific, you know, yeah, marine geology, marine geophysics, so like offshore to now dealing with people.   Kiera Dent (06:22) you   Is it geology? Am I like making that up?   Jeff & Andrew (06:43) you patients, the public, it was crazy. I don't know what world I was in. But then I realized, you know, I was coming into the office. I am not enjoying coming into the office. I'm not enjoying this. And I started to see, you know, you know, at the time we called it staff or employees. And it was like that. Why are we doing what we're doing? Right. So you guys helped me realize that I'm the catalyst to change. We are. ⁓ And   Kiera Dent (06:43) Yeah.   It's real!   Jeff & Andrew (07:11) We had past experience of being treated poorly or maybe unfairly or just feeling unfulfilled. And I started to realize we're in this industry that I'm not enjoying going to work, so nobody else is enjoying going to work. Who can change it? That's me. And then I started to notice that it felt like people in their roles and their careers within the office felt unfulfilled or underappreciated. And it's like a dental assistant isn't just a dental assistant.   do the work that the dentist to allow the dentist to do his job. So without that, it's essential. So why don't we treat them like essential? So there was that moment that I walked into that door and I had you and Tiffany in my ear like, come in with a different energy, present differently. And I did, and I remember that moment. And I remember seeing people be like, whoa, this is a little different. Like, this could be a fun day. And I'm like, this is going to be a fun.   career. And then that started, okay, how can I make people's roles more fulfilling? How can we create growth opportunity? How can we show them that there's opportunity in our practice and they have the power to grasp that, to have a fulfilling life? We go to work every day for eight hours or longer, you know, so if they're not fulfilled there, how are we serving the people that are serving us?   Kiera Dent (08:38) That's incredible. And I think Jeff, this just highlights a lot of your leadership and like the growth I've seen in you. I remember Cranky Jeff, who did not enjoy going to the wards. Like, what is it? Yeah.   Jeff & Andrew (08:45) They call him Gilbert, that's my middle name. So that's   the ⁓ alias for Cranky Jeff.   Kiera Dent (08:53) like it. Yeah, I do remember those days and you were not happy in this and I don't think Andrew was super happy. Andrew, you've always been like one of the most passionate dentists I've ever met, which is so fun to see you like light up when you talk about dentistry and do all the pieces. Jeff, on the other hand, I think you kind of like drug him into this like, Hey, I need you in here. Gilbert, it sounds like was the one that and then Jeff came to the scene realizing like the the space for you and Jeff, that's something I really love to highlight is I think so many leaders don't realize it's within them.   Jeff & Andrew (09:01) you   Yeah.   Kiera Dent (09:21) because it doesn't look the way that they thought it was going to be. I just I'm excited to get into that. And I'm just curious. So you briefly mentioned you guys had this small practice in my mind. It's like purple or pink walls. Is that really true? Like inside?   Jeff & Andrew (09:33) It started   that way. It was like very dark green, brown, had purple. Yes, there was some magenta. Yeah. Yes. Very dark brown. Popcorn ceiling too. ⁓   Kiera Dent (09:39) knew it. It was like a dollhouse in my mind. Like it was like this like little like very short like ceilings. ⁓   Yes, not that great.   I remember being like, Tiff, this is where they work. Like, okay, looks like this. Like, I mean, how could you not have fun, Jeff? There's like colors of every rainbow on all the walls for you. Like, okay. ⁓ but you guys went from this small building to now this massive practice. You've got all these team members. but something I, I'm probably going to like butcher your vision just a little bit. but I remember hearing it when you said it and it stuck with me again. I think I'll get like the gist of it, but I remember you saying like, we are going to be like,   Jeff & Andrew (09:51) Yeah.   Yeah, yeah.   Kiera Dent (10:17) the dentist that the community chooses. Something like that. don't know how, I feel like I'm close to it, but I really loved that it was like, okay, we're gonna impact our community really largely. We want to be the place that our community chooses. And you did this whole expansion and I'm just curious, like, okay, what worked well? What didn't work well? What were like, let's just kind of go on like a fun road. I'm not gonna pick who like you guys can tag team over there, but I'm just curious of.   You went from Gilbert Jeff, who's angry to this like weird house that you're in to now this like amazing business building community. Like the impact you guys have in your community is amazing. You have all these team members. Like what were the highlights? were the like walk me through? I need to know what did you do right? What did you wish you would have done? What advice do you have for other people looking to go down this journey? That's something I think you've done so well.   but I think like it didn't come without a lot of learning and a lot of growth that I'd love you guys to just highlight. But also you did some things really freaking well too, so highlight that too. So ⁓ it's over to both of you, whomever wants to pick up the ball and run with it, it's yours. And tag team, because I'm sure both of you have very different perspectives on how that took place.   Jeff & Andrew (11:23) Well,   I can start because I think one thing for me that's been really amazing is like, really, you guys helped be our cheerleaders to say like, hey, if you stick with these things, you stick with these systems, it's really allowed us to kind of be ourselves. And in a way, that's what feels unreal. Like it feels really magical that like we get to be ourselves every day. We get to stick to like what our core values are. And it feels lucky that people appreciate that. And that shouldn't be like.   rare in the world today, but it really does feel that way. So I feel really lucky to come to work. I feel lucky. get to be honest and authentic with the people around me. And I think ⁓ that's been like the biggest, coolest thing to me, like through all of this is I think having you all as cheerleaders, I was really like the biggest thing because you move into this building and increase in our team size is kind of like, that happening? And then I'm like, I'm going to go do the dentistry. You, you guys figure it out and you're like, yeah, we're to hire some people.   Kiera Dent (12:17) Andrew's always pushing it off like, Jeff, I'm gonna   go do this, like good luck on all the fires. No wonder you a good one. I'll put it.   Jeff & Andrew (12:19) Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, can you stop being   the dreamer for like a year? need a break. Stop dreaming. Come down for second. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. would say so, you know, kind of piggybacking off what we touched on earlier with elevating the team and that sort of thing. So when we did that, was kind of like positivity just keeps.   Kiera Dent (12:26) He just can't stop. That's amazing.   Jeff & Andrew (12:46) building, right? It's contagious. People want to be around it. People like it. They want to feel that way. So we did some work internally with the team and then we realized the team likes it. You know, this is real, you know? So then that immediately transfers to the patients and then to the community. So there's kind of like the little trickle effect there. So when patients start to come in and they're like, this is kind of fun. Everybody enjoys their job. I enjoy coming here. ⁓   or when I walk in, I feel happy, you know? It's like, that's the vibe we wanted and that Andrew and Dr. Parks, their dental work is exceptional. So pair it with that. And then the word gets out and it just continues to snowball. So as that's happening, we're like, maybe we should expand. Okay, so I think we can take on somebody else. Then we were, the plans kind of evolved and there was the first plan was to ⁓ double the size of the building that we were in.   Um, but then COVID hit. pre COVID we're like, we're going to do this. Let's plan it. We've got enough land to double the building. Let's get all this done. We actually used our waiting room as an extra spare room because we are kind of outgrowing our space. So business was getting bigger, but the project was not moving along at all. So we cut into the waiting room and we made six rooms and we're like, can we sustain this? Yes. We sustained it immediately. So, um,   Kiera Dent (14:04) Yeah.   Clever.   Jeff & Andrew (14:14) After COVID hit, said, shoot, what are we going to do? Like, we can't afford this expansion anymore. And then what does the timeline look like that just went out the window? we're like, let's pivot. If we were going to spend X amount of dollars here for this, it ended up being ⁓ about 2000 workable square feet that we would add to the practice. ⁓ So we started looking at, there buildings for sale around? And we kind of had a vision a long time ago.   Kiera Dent (14:37) Mm-hmm.   Jeff & Andrew (14:45) even before considering moving the practice itself, like there's some cool buildings in our community that could look beautiful. ⁓ So maybe we look into some of those ugly ones and that's what we end up doing. So we identified a building that was way bigger than what we needed. ⁓ However, the thing that we identified was the plumbing was around the exterior between the levels. So we thought that's super expensive.   Kiera Dent (14:58) Hahaha   art.   Jeff & Andrew (15:13) you know, ground up. So let's utilize some of this plumbing. We interviewed ⁓ several contractors. We chose one to do the original project expanding that building, but we chose another for this project because of our interview. So it took ⁓ a lot of back and forth to figure out who's going to work best with us and who's really going to build in some cost savings. Like with the building that we did buy,   We made sure that the contractor that we hired was going to retain as much material as they could. We had solid doors. like, save the doors. We'll paint them or reuse them. I don't want to buy a ton of new doors. we were able, the relationship started well. It ended well also, but that was the building blocks. Like, are you going to work with me or are you going to be like, let's tear it down and start fresh to make a buck? ⁓   Kiera Dent (15:53) Yeah.   Mm-hmm.   Jeff & Andrew (16:07) So that was a huge win. So we made a really good relationship with the contractor there. And then ⁓ he guided us through. And I think, you know, in the planning stage, architecture and engineering took a lot. And those were, ⁓ those were really the holdup, pretty much the engineer. So I would say stress on the engineering part first, because it's hard to make changes later, just because they don't typically work as fast, I guess.   Kiera Dent (16:33) for sure.   That's true. ⁓   Jeff & Andrew (16:36) takes longer, or in our case it was.   But ⁓ I mean, it might seem like you're being redundant about layout and switches and these sort of things. ⁓ It's not. Visit the practice as many times as you can while it's in construction. Talk to everybody on a day-to-day basis. I popped in here so many times and was like, I don't like where that light is, or people don't always listen. it...   stinks to be like, hey, I prepared all this stuff and this is what I want done. This is where I want everything and nobody looks at it. So it's like, you got to be there in person and kind of guide them. ⁓   Yeah, well, I also kind of I think you kind of point out like to make is ⁓ we really stuck to like our our goals and just ambition and just knowing that like, hey, we're just doing good things. And we're just trying to do good for the community. And like, how can we expand? And it was scary at times expansion. It was always very scary till we got here. Like we say, jokingly, when we were at the old building and we come over here, even bringing the staff, you could tell everybody's like, what the heck, this place is really big. We're going to lose each other like   Kiera Dent (17:36) As always.   Jeff & Andrew (17:46) We're not going to hear in our old office, I could hear our front desk and I could actually like tell them like, actually don't do that. You know, like I can correct people from like the room, you know, down the hallway and here it is a lot more space, but it's like, once we got here, we're like, how the heck did we all fit there? And then you just quickly fill the space and it's really, it's exciting. Cause yeah, I don't know. ⁓ you just gotta really like trust in, ⁓ your, process and your values and what you're working towards. And I do feel like it has been.   Kiera Dent (17:46) Hmm?   Jeff & Andrew (18:15) building up, like we're going to celebrate our 10th year in practice next year. And I think that's what feels unreal. Oh my God, it's this year. next year. Yeah. Next year. Sorry. Oh, year. Yeah. Oh, see? Don't even know. We need a break. But it just flies by, right? Like it's just... Yeah, we celebrate every year. For sure. And I think that is like, it is just kind of in a way, you just kind of stick to like little goals, kind of just keep it moving those like, hey, how can we make this better? What can we do? Oh, we need space. How do we solve that problem?   Kiera Dent (18:26) I don't know, it's just not dirty. Pop this celebration all the years. ⁓   Jeff & Andrew (18:43) and necessity just helped kind of push us along. And yeah, I think if we would have done the building before COVID, we probably would still be in our old office and kind of wishing we had more space. But in a weird way, I'm really happy that things worked out the way they did. ⁓ yeah, we've ended up here. So it's been amazing. I'd say on a team perspective too, like the team was really scared to be honest, like moving over here. There were concerns. ⁓ But... ⁓   Kiera Dent (18:58) always.   Jeff & Andrew (19:10) You know, when we said it first, were like, we're do, we're, we're going to do this instead. And they were like, Oh, so I think keeping them regularly informed and kind of showing them the things that we're doing. like, we made them a part of the process so they could be excited about it. We took them to visit when milestones were done. We'd like, Hey, meet over there. We'll, we'll talk about it. Um, we kept them involved in the process. And I mean, we we weren't like financially open about all of the things, but it was nice to be able to like, listen, we've got to buy.   cabinets and cabinets cost this much money. You know what I mean? So ⁓ we could do it, but we have to do this. So we want to take care of it too. So it instilled value and it's still excitement. And then helping, you know, getting votes on like color choices or that sort of thing involved them. And then before the move, they were really nervous about what it was going to be like in a space as large bringing on new team members. So with the help from y'all Tiffany, we   Kiera Dent (19:42) Yeah, yeah. huh.   Jeff & Andrew (20:08) We were like, okay, everybody write down what the specific concerns are. And then we're going to talk about how we're going to combat that. ⁓ So we're going to prep you with like the solution before a problem even occurs. And that was, that was helpful. And then we did move in one weekend, long weekend ourselves with some movers. It was crazy. And everybody pitched in and everybody just had fun doing it. And it was Labor Day weekend, so we had an extra day. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (20:20) So smart.   Amazing.   You're like, okay, we'll do it. I mean, Labor Day seems very fitting. It's labor, it's very intensive.   Jeff & Andrew (20:41) I know, right?   Yeah. But we didn't require anybody. like, hey, we're doing this. Like nobody's required to, but if you want to, we would love it and we'll make it fun. And it was good. then like, what, less than a month after we got slammed at the hurricane in North Carolina, the mountain. So that was a hurdle. We had a generator that was took the longest to get in the last thing installed. One the expensive things we bought and they didn't hook it up. Because the gas inspection.   Kiera Dent (20:49) and   Shoot. Uh-huh.   Thank   Jeff & Andrew (21:11) So double check your inspections, make sure the gas inspection is ⁓ like.   Kiera Dent (21:14) Yes.   Yeah, make sure   it's actually all prepped for in case of hurricane. But like, kudos to you guys. Like, I'm so proud of you and to hear, I love the two different perspectives. And I think something I hear is you are true to yourselves. want like, knowing that you want to be, like I said, I probably like butchered your vision just a little bit. Sorry on that. Like being the dentist that the community chooses and being the place that we can serve them. Well, you can only serve so many patients in six ops, which is like a makeshift six op. We were like five, realistically five and a half. So,   Jeff & Andrew (21:21) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (21:48) It's like, it's not like, if you build them, they will come. You guys already knew you had made this footprint. You knew what you wanted to do. I feel like you guys really hunkered in. You're like, we're going to be a part of this community. This is where we want to be. We want to change the lives of our employees. And I feel like in doing so, I think that almost gave you the, the steam. It's not like something I really love about both of you is on paper, you guys have really sexy numbers that I'm always like, love having them as clients. Like great job over there.   Jeff & Andrew (22:14) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (22:15) But as   human beings, mean, right? As a consultant, you're like, all right, like, look at my perfect, like, model students over here. Well, you guys are one of them. And I'm really proud of the numbers you put up, and I'm proud of the dentistry you do. But the piece is you grew because you wanted to for the impact. You didn't grow for the ego associated with it. And I think that that's so paramount because I think that that's why you guys still are happy. I think that's why you love coming to work.   going through that mayhem, if it's not your passion project, if it's not something you really want to do to serve and to give back and to have a bigger vision beyond the dollar signs, I think the dollar signs for you were secondary and the community and the impact was number one. And I think that's why, like, of course you got to pay for it. I mean, there's no doubt about that. I mean, maybe you guys are truly children of like the billionaires and who knows what world and I didn't know that about you. I'm pretty confident you're not yourself made of where you are over there, but like.   Jeff & Andrew (23:01) No. ⁓   Kiera Dent (23:06) Looking at that, feel like that's a huge probably differentiator of your success because it was built from passion, love, and a desire to give back while also being incredibly good. Like Andrew, you're an amazing clinician. And I think that having, like you said, Jeff, top-notch dentistry, Jeff, you're amazing at building this culture and this community of people that love and serve. I think combine that together, then want to give it back to your community. I feel like your success was inevitable and I'm just really proud of you. And Jeff, to hear about going to the inspections, I'm like, yeah, good for you because   How annoying is it when you walk in, like my husband and when we were building our house, they were gonna put our huge AC unit on the one side of our house that I could actually put like planter boxes and have stairs. And I was like, why don't we just move this over here? My husband tells me all the time, like, Kiera, that was one of your best moves. And I'm like, yes, because the function and the flow, like it would have been all of our neighbors. Where do you think their AC unit is? Right in the middle of the only usable space on the side of the house and they all put it. And I'm like, you're welcome. Or like little things like, like all of it.   Jeff & Andrew (23:56) Yeah, everything. Yeah. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (24:03) And so   just like making it a space that you wanna be in that you're proud of, I just really love and like hearing, I mean, you had an obstacle right after you started and I think some people could have gotten really down, but it's like, no, we built something bigger. It's not like a burn and churn. You guys wanna be there for the long haul. You want this to be a place you're proud of and I think that that just bleeds through. So I'm really proud of you and thanks for sharing that journey. And I wanna pivot to highlight both of you just a smidge because Andrew, I think you do something really special.   and you're able to mentor doctors really well. And I think that this is something that not all dentists are able to do. And Jeff, you're more than welcome to chime in on anything. Like at this point, guys, you should compliment one another. mean, hello, let me just make your life even better for you. But Andrew, can you walk us through, what do you feel are some of the things you do so superior? Like, I want you to brag a little bit. This is a moment where Kiera Dent is so freaking proud of you. Tiff is proud of you. Our company is proud of you. ⁓   because I think other people want to know how to do this. So I almost want to peel back the curtain just a little bit on what are some of the things you do really well in assembly? Like I said, Jeff, chime in too. Then we're going to reverse. We're going to talk about Jeff and Andrew, you can chime in on him. So like both of you can just schmooze each other tonight as well. You guys are going to have an amazing night post podcast. You're welcome. All right. But truly, Andrew, what are some of the things you feel set in part?   Jeff & Andrew (25:11) Yeah, thank you.   Well,   that leads into a great, was going to say, like, I feel really lucky to have Jeff, obviously. And I know not everybody has a Jeff or can trust someone as much as I trust Jeff. But I think obviously it can be very hard on our marriage. So that's one side note. And I know like a lot of couples that that happens. But I think I have to always. Right? know. Two years ago, I was worried. And in gay years, that's like 40 years.   Kiera Dent (25:38) I'm so proud of you. 10 years in and you still, I think, love each other, which is amazing. I think   everybody is. You're like, okay. But it's one of those things also though, I will say, like throwing it out to couples, when couples go through what you have gone through and you're able to like be through the thick and the thin of it, I will also give advice. Like when I watched people go through dental school, and Andrew, I'm sure you saw this, I was so angry at so many of our like friends that went through.   Jeff & Andrew (25:52) you   Kiera Dent (26:05) Like they went through the residencies, they got to the end and I'm like, you freaking made it. And that's when they get divorced. And I'm like, Oh, if you're to get divorced, get divorced during the hard times, but like you have made it. You've made it. And now it's like, it's a matter of like, we bonded together, we grew together. And I think like making sure that stays a priority in your marriage. You guys remember I was a marriage and finally therapist prior to this. Like that was my thing. I like, Oh, don't give up on what you like. You went through the freaking hardest years together. Now it's like, enjoy this amazing life we built together.   Jeff & Andrew (26:10) Yeah.   Right, yeah. All right.   Yeah.   Yeah   Kiera Dent (26:35) and don't lose sight of how grateful we are for one another. anyway, like off my   I hope all of you see the potential within yourselves and ⁓ I'd love to be a part of your story and your journey. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on The Dental Team A Podcast.  

Tiff and Dana give guidance on how to successfully manage a practice through an office manager, including long-term business vision, powerful leadership, productive systems, and a ton more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. Dana and I are back at it again today ⁓ with our podcasting spirits behind us and we are so excited to be here with you guys today. Gosh Dana, this is like the beginning of summer for us right now and no matter where you're at in the country, I think you've either been on summer for a few weeks or you're just barely getting there. feel like summer breaks are wild. Like Brody is in school two weeks past my niece. Like it's just been crazy but.   The most fun part about this for both of us is that, I don't know if you guys know this or not, we get asked this question a lot, where is your headquarters? Like, where are you guys based out of? And Dana and I, Britt and I, gosh, I think most of the consultants at this point are in Arizona. Our HQ is actually Reno, Nevada, but we work from home. So, fun part about podcasting during the summer is that each of us have some sort of little or family member or someone   At the door honestly like I had to text in our you know got a family chat go and that's like hey guys FYI and Dana's like let me put a sign on the door so Dana welcome I know I know being a mom is something that lights both of us up and I think one of the best I don't know most I don't know it was like fun parts of our relationship is being able to also laugh about what it's like to be a mom in   Arizona in the sports and in the summer and I love that about the two of us and Dana tell me what has what's the start of summer looking like for you guys over there you've got your I have it easy I will never never discredit the amount of moming that you do over there so tell me how is mom life today Dana   Dana (01:47) it's good. You know, I mean,   it's wild, right? Like, there's a beauty of being able to work from home in that, like, I can very quickly throw chicken nuggets out the door and everybody is fed, right? Yes. But they like all summer long, there are no go zones, depending on what I am doing during the day. So like, if I am on calls, the front room is off limits, because it's directly beside my office. And so I can hear everything that you do.   The Dental A Team (01:58) You just turn them down the whole way, get it. Yep.   I love   that.   Dana (02:17) So I'm constantly like chunking my windows of time as to like where they can be in the house and I've had to put signs up because my neighbor kids also want to come get my kids and I'm like well we just can't knock on the door right now.   The Dental A Team (02:31) Yeah,   yeah, please just give us a moment. I love that. And honestly, though, it's kind of ⁓ like time blocking for practices, right? Because like, when can you do certain procedures? Like you don't want, you know, sedation in the front room with everybody walking by, you've got to have a very specific place for the sedation and a very specific, like no-go zone of do not pass this line once we've started. So it kind of kind of makes me think   Dana (02:34) Yeah.   question.   The Dental A Team (02:59) of how synchronistic life is in general. I say this a lot, with clients that tell us work-life balance, right? We just talked to a client about this together recently, and I'm like, goodness gracious, like we just need a life-life balance, because if we take the systems that work in whatever aspect of life it's coming to you, and if you've got systems that are working at work,   you can probably duplicate them at home and vice versa. If you have systems that are working at home, you can probably take that same thought and that same theory and apply it at work. And it works truly like tremendously because your brain's already wired to think that way. So when you can just stop trying to recreate the wheel and use what you know works, applying it in all areas of your life, things just are easy. I feel like that's how you create easy discipline.   and how you create easy habits. So taking that like time blocking and room blocking and like, guys, from these hours, this is what you're gonna be doing. It's very similar. Billing, you know, all those things. Billing coordinators need to be like, don't bother me between these hours. It's just like, you've got your kids on the other side. I tell doctors constantly or office managers, leadership teams that people are people. We learn how we learn. And if we look at how we teach our children, we can duplicate that.   Dana (03:59) Yeah.   Thank you.   The Dental A Team (04:18) in training systems as well. So Dana, I just spiraled my whole brain right there. I love it. Thank you. Thanks for being such an incredible mom. You are truly impressive. And for those of you who don't know, she's got a slew of children and animals and happenings at her home constantly. And the way that you manage all of that truly is impressive. I think you're an incredible person, Dana.   Dana (04:41) Thank you, Tib. It is a whole lot of winging it. So I appreciate that.   The Dental A Team (04:44) But winging   it, I mean, I think we all wing it when it comes to parenting. I don't think anybody actually knows the step-by-step on what we're doing. So we're all winging it and we're all doing the best that we can, but you also make time for you. You make time for work. You make time for making sure that you're prioritizing what makes you happy and fulfilled because I think that is then teaching your children to do the same and it's super cool to watch. So having an almost grown kid.   I live vicariously through you watching you parent your children and it's super fun from over here. So thanks. Thanks for continuing to have more for us. I'm here for it. I'm here for it. And I hope all of you are here for it too. know you guys, I know you guys get a kick out of my questions I give to Dana because Dana just intrigues me her life and really her choices intrigue me. She's always got something that I'm like, give me all the goods. What can I do now? Brody brought home a soda the other day or I guess the water.   Dana (05:11) you   Keep enjoying the video, Jeff.   you   The Dental A Team (05:38) that you had mentioned a couple weeks ago and I was like, oh my gosh, I know what that is because Dana told me. So you guys, she's here for the tips. If you want them, write in, ask them. Ask Dana, go on Instagram on Mondays now I think it is. Mondays or Fridays, it pops up all week for me. I find them, but she's on there too you guys. She's constantly just divvying out the tips. Find Dana, she's our tip master. And today I'm going to pick your brain some Dana. I want to talk about really effectively   Dana (05:41) you   The Dental A Team (06:06) running a practice through an office manager. And doctors, I don't want you to hear that and think, OK, I don't have to listen to this. Let me go get my manager. Nope, this is for all of you guys. This is for everyone. This is for dentists, owners, office managers, leadership, anyone aspiring to become an office manager, anyone aspiring to just give good tips to the team. Office management can come in varying sizes. And the label office manager, we found even just in hiring consultants, right?   hiring when we were in practice that office manager really doesn't have a good definition for it in the industry. Anything can be an office manager. Most of the time, Dana, maybe you could speak to this as well, I have found that the office manager position, like quote unquote there, usually narrows into billing or dealing with upset patients and really doesn't broaden outside of that. Have you found that as well, Dana? Yeah.   Dana (07:04) Mm Yeah. Yep.   And I usually feel like anytime it is promoted within right, it's typically like, well, she's really good in those insurance. So yeah, yep, I agree with you. Sometimes, you know, yeah, there's some HR pieces added in there or like, you know, I, but I feel like it does encompass mostly keeping track of AR and the money, which is fine.   The Dental A Team (07:11) Yeah.   Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that's one aspect of it, right? And being able to oversee everything. So there's different avatars for a billing representative, a billing person, and most other positions in the practice. That's gonna come with a different kind of avatar. So depending on the type of office manager that you want in your practice, that's gonna be making a decision there on what your avatar is going to look like. And for us, your office manager in your practice is really helping to run the practice. think Dental A Team considers an office manager   like a secondary owner almost, right? You're looking at it as this is my practice. This is something that I'm fully invested in growing and I love it the same as I would if it were my own business. So that kind of investment really comes from a certain personality type and a certain leadership type. So that style of office manager is really what we're speaking to today. And there's nothing wrong with any type of office manager, any style, any avatar, like you do whatever your business needs.   is what your avatar needs to look like. So today we're speaking towards that different kind of mindset of really growing the practice and being fully invested in it. The reason that we look at it that way is we really think that there's two different minds between a dentist and the office manager that needs to push the agenda of the practice. Our dentist is kind of our idea maker. They're the person who's just coming up with all of the plans. And I think we all   can name a few of these. have one on our team. Ms. Kierdent is fantastic at this. She has the brains and the ideas behind most of the things that we do. And they're just shouting things out, right? They're like, my gosh, we could do this. We could do that. We could do this. And the team is like, stop changing things. Well, when you leave the practice management up to the dentist who's there to create ideas, and there's no one there to filter ideas through,   and to project manage when things do make it past go and we're like, yes, we're gonna do this. When it's all on the doctor, you are gonna suffer those changes consistently because no one's there to say, hey, is this projecting us towards the goals we're working on or is this confusing us and keeping us from reaching those goals? So then we do have teams that are in constant chaos and constant change and they're like, Dana, I can't take another word from this doctor. It's like, well, that's.   We gotta get the doctor out of that position. So that's the type of office manager we're speaking to today is a type of office manager that can say, yes, that's a fantastic idea. Let's see where it will take us. Is this going to push us towards those goals? I have to just brag a little on a client that I've worked with for a while now. Near and dear to my heart, like just two of my favorite humans in the whole world. And honestly, their whole practice is full of some of my favorite humans, but.   not that they didn't start as my favorite humans, but they didn't start there, right? They didn't start where they are today, years later. They started in a very different position. And when they came to me, their goals were to grow production. were like, everybody's goal, right? I want to grow production, which actually means I want to grow collections, right? I want more income. We want more saved on the side. They wanted to reinvest in the building. They wanted to do a little bit of a build out, but they knew that they didn't have a lot of space, so they needed to work with what they had.   And the dentist who was there, he really, really wanted to be a dentist. He loves having a business, but entrepreneurship just is a path for his dentistry. So he truly wants to be a dentist, and he wanted to do more surgery. He wanted to do more involved dentistry. So I was like, fantastic. Office manager, let's talk. Now this specific office manager had never been in dentistry before, at all.   at all, very different career path. could tell you all about it on a whole, it would take a whole podcast because the career is just so cool. Very different career path, probably about as far from dentistry as you could possibly get. And he made the decision to support the doctor and said, I'm going to figure this out. And he was a great manager, right? He managed expectations, but really felt stressed out, second guessed his decision.   He's like, don't think this was right for me. I don't think I'm cut out for this. And I was like, well, let's test the waters. Let's see. And we went down a journey together that has changed, I think, the course of both of our lives, probably. It's just been so cool to take this journey with them. But taking an office manager, Dana's done this too. I think all of us at some point have taken an office manager who's never worked in dentistry before and helped to create an amazing office manager.   So all of you dentists who are like, well, they don't have experience. It's not always necessary if the other pieces are there and if the dentistry can be taught if there's space for it. So keep that in mind. I don't I'm not telling you go find someone with no experience. I'm not telling you you have to have experience. Like I'm telling you it's just got to fit for you. This specific manager and a couple others that I've worked with didn't have that experience. And what we worked on then was what it takes to be an office manager, which is actually leadership.   And Dana, I know you work on this a lot with a lot of practices, starting with the leadership and really becoming the person that a team can look up to, starting with the culture and creating what you want your practice to look like. Because without that, Dana's freaking systems queen. But Dana, how difficult is it to create systems for a practice that we can't imagine what we want it to look like?   as compared to being able to imagine what we want the business and the practice to look like and what the leadership should look like, then the system's followed. Which do you feel like in your experience, especially with an office manager who's never been trained in dentistry, which do you feel like is the path that you take the most frequently?   Dana (13:06) Thank   ⁓ hands down it's building the vision and figuring out what you want because anywhere in dentistry when it comes to the schedule when it comes to your leadership team when it comes to goals like you have to know what you're trying to achieve before you build the pieces to achieve it   The Dental A Team (13:41) Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of people start with the systems, right, Dana? And that's where it gets really confusing. And it's like, the systems are so tailored to an individual. Systems are so tailored to a specific practice, and that practice is goals. So when you start out just blanket systems, it could be anything. You could create anything, and it will or won't work. It's it's hard to tell. It's like throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping that it sticks, that it's done.   you just, don't know. But when you have a vision and you can create something that supports that vision, which you want that to ultimately look like, you're able to custom tailor it. And that's what we were able to do with this practice and working side by side with the office manager in leadership, teaching him how to speak to people, how to have conversations hard or easy, how to invest in other people and really showing him or giving him the opportunity to see what it feels like.   when you put yourself aside and you put someone else almost ahead of you without it being ahead of you. Like that's hard to say out loud. Like him investing in his team and his team's success in the practice gave him such a high, I couldn't even stop, like his trajectory. He was just running because he felt so good about having this higher purpose. And his higher purpose truly turned out to be   investing in ⁓ leading and guiding his team members for them to be their best selves. So within that, we learned, ⁓ what he learned is really like hiring and firing the systems behind a five star patient experience, the handoffs, like what creates this relationship that I'm having with my team members, with my team members and my patients. So it started to spin once we got some really good leadership footholds in there, some really good communication skills and practicing.   ⁓ weeding out the team members that didn't need to be there and replacing them with team members that should be there, narrowing down those avatars, narrowing all of this down. He was really able to see how the slightest movements that he made truly affected every piece of the practice. He would move one needle just slightly. I always think of implant torquing, right? Like two millimeters is a lot when it comes to an implant. And that two millimeter change in a system   or in a statement or a word that you use can create a massive difference. It's the success or the failure of an implant. And same goes for everything you do in life. said earlier, everything you do, you just duplicate it. So if you're making a two millimeter change on an implant, what's going to happen in that respect when it comes to words, to leadership, and to guidance? And he truly took all of that and invested in people. And he said, hey, I'm learning too. Help me learn. And he got his team on board. It's been.   Incredible to see their success and so between the leadership and then the systems which gosh guys we talk systems constantly Dana Dana we did NDTR I Mean you guys are basic our basic core systems of Dental A Team truly work and they are case in point leadership is an ideal leadership is kind of that like personal side of it, there's not a   Dana (16:43) you   The Dental A Team (16:59) black and white, follow these steps and now you're a great leader. It's a learning system. It's something that is in you, something you have to desire, something you have to want. But the core systems, the handoffs, the NDTR, the ICRP, the communicating between team members, ⁓ gosh, blocked scheduling. We implemented blocked scheduling. We implemented time management skills. We implemented avatars for every team member, avatars for our patients, marketing.   All of the core pieces of what Dental A Team has to offer, we've implemented with this practice and gained his leadership skills as well as an entire team full of leaders at this point. They have leaders of departments, but you guys, every single team member on their team is a leader because they are manning their ships and they're acting as if they're leaders for the good of the practice overall. And it's been incredible. So that first year we worked on core systems of NDTR.   blocked scheduling and just literally ICRP handoffs to your side. Leadership in conjunction with that. So getting rid of some team members that no longer fit the needs of the practice or just weren't on board with the trajectory, replaced some great new team members in there, got them trained up. And you guys within that first year, remember their goals were to increase production, start a build out, right? And get the doctor doing dentistry.   So we were able to remove the doctor from a lot of those pieces, a lot of the decisions that he didn't have to make, we took them away from him. He didn't have to make them anymore and he trusted doctors, he trusted the process, he trusted the office manager. So things that the office manager could decide that if, you know what, if the office manager decided incorrectly, could be fixed, right? Or it's like, it's not that big of a deal. We could have gone the other way, but it's not that big of a deal, okay? Strategically moving those decisions over to the office manager.   We started doing that so that the doctor was in the chair more. He increased his surgery so much, you guys. increased, they were able to with one doctor and two hygienists, they were able to increase their production by $800,000 that first year just by narrowing down the systems and the leadership, getting the right people in the right seats, getting the right systems in place, using them and really knowing where they were going. And that first year was incredible. Stack on top of that.   They've decreased the decisions from the doctor, increased the amount of productivity that he was able to do without, by the way, expanding his hours. He stayed within the same hours. And we also, the end of that first year, got them ready for that associate space because they wanted to see that expansion. So they started the conversations on what it looked like to expand the physical building, and then what is it going to look like to add another dentist. And we projected.   five years out and then worked backwards on one, three and five years of even down to like how many hygienists and how many assistants will we need to hire? What will your overhead cost be based on current employee numbers, et cetera, all of those pieces. And we were able to just spear this incredible trajectory of growth, not even just for their first year, but gosh, five years later now, Dana, you know, they've got this massive building. They have impacted the community.   so much. Like there are people that come up to them on the streets of their community and thank them for what they were able to do for a friend or a family member, not even for themselves. They have had literal strangers say, I know who you are and you changed my friend's life. Like that's crazy, Dana, crazy. And to think that it started from leadership skills, just from someone who is invested in that blows my mind, you know?   Dana (20:53) Yeah, yeah. And I think that it's when you have an office manager that can make a mindset shift of leading versus managing, right?   And I know it's called an office manager, right? So we can kind of get ourselves stuck in that place, but it's like managing is the tasks, right? That's the tasks, the leadership, right? That's the people and the culture. And when you have those pieces running smoothly, then the task part becomes so much easier. And so I do feel like that is when you have a manager who is focused on the people, the culture and leading.   leading to the tasks versus like being the one that feels like they have to complete all the tasks themselves.   The Dental A Team (21:35) Yeah, yeah,   that's a great point. I love that because that's massive, I think for everyone listening. you've got, gosh, like if there's KPIs on you, right? There's a measurable that you're responsible for. I think one of the biggest things that we do really well, is getting people to understand you don't have to do all of the pieces to create that result. You just have to make sure the result happens.   To your point, a lot of managers and lot of doctors who are managing hold it all to themselves in order to manage the results to get the right result. But then we end up not having space for whatever it is that we need to get done, right? And we get lost in that and it gets a little chaotic. I know I've done that. I did that as a manager in practice and my team suffered tremendously because I kept everything. So one, I was not empowering my team.   I was basically telling them that they couldn't do it, right? They didn't know how to do it. I could do it better. I was overworked, overburdened and burnt out. I was angry constantly. Like I woke up one day and I was like, this is not who I am. What have I done? What have I done and how can I change this? And it was that exact thing. It was the fact that when you become an office manager, sometimes it feels like you're supposed to do all of the things.   And we forget that we have an entire team of people who want to help us. And I think Dana doctors do that too. We've seen that as well. And coaching them out of that, think is sometimes part of our biggest jobs as consultants. The biggest contributor is coaching them out of holding all of the cards to themselves. Would you agree?   Dana (23:26) Yeah, yep, absolutely.   The Dental A Team (23:28) Yeah. Well, guys, I know that sometimes we can chat and you can say, gosh, I see myself in that. I hear that. I've done that. ⁓ Or I want to do that or something similar. So I hope that today you heard something that you can take for face value, something that you can utilize if it's systems that you need to go back to. You guys, there's a slew of podcasts all over the place. We have a million of them.   Just search NDTR if you don't know what that is. We're not explaining it today because we've done it a million times. So search it on our website, you guys, on our website, TheDentalATeam.com. can go to podcasts and then you can search within our podcast. So search some of those systems, you guys. Search Avatar. Search all of those pieces and figure out where are you at right now and how can you guide yourself towards those goals. Dana, thank you so much for doing this podcast with me. I love our time together as always and I know.   It's busy season for everybody right now, so thank you for carving out the time. I appreciate you. Listeners, thank you so much for being here. We find this so valuable. We love our time together. You give us this opportunity to be quote unquote face to face. Thank goodness for visual podcasts nowadays. And you give us this opportunity to give our speech to the world. So thank you. Please drop us a five star review below and let us know how valuable you felt this was. And as always, reach out   Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We're here to help. Thanks guys.  

Kiera gives tips to get your practice to become one where team members have accountability and ownership. Set clear expectations and empower decision-making. Create measurable goals. Celebrate those who achieve. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00.834) Hello, Dental A Team Listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you are just having an amazing day. I hope that things are going so well for you. I hope that things are just really, really, really incredible for you. I am so excited to be podcasting with you. I just truly, truly love and adore all of you. And I just think that the world of dentistry is such a great place for us to be a part of. And so today I just wanted to dive in. I wanted to give you guys some tips. I wanted to have some fun with you today.   And a topic that comes up often is how do we honestly help our team have ownership and accountability? It's something I hear a lot on sales calls. It's things that I hear from clients of, Kiera, like I just want my team to want to own this company. I want them to be accountable. I want them to feel like they own part of this. And so I wanted to just dig into this because the reality is there are a lot of ways to do this. And I just want to ask you, what would it be like if every team member in your practice actually took ownership? Like, what would it look like?   So today let's talk about how to make this happen. The reality is when we have accountability, there is better basic care. There's higher efficiency. There's like we get stronger team engagement. We're able to have better profitability in the business. We're able to have a happier, more cohesive team. All these things are super, super powerful for you. And the reality is that these are gonna be some effective strategies to help you create that culture of ownership in your practice. So.   You guys know us, we are the Dental A team. We love what we do. We love being here with you. We love serving you. We love giving you tips and tricks to make your practice even better and easier. So that's what we're about. That's what we're here for. And we are so excited to have you here. The reality is we have coached hundreds of practices, thousands of team members and helped them figure out exactly how to give this ownership feel, how to give accountability feels, how to be able to do these things within your practice. And I'm happy to share those things with you.   We do work in person and virtually with practices. We work across the nation and we do it in a fun and effective way. We're truly the experts in consulting and it's something that I just love and obsess of working with clients. Today, I just want to do this quick short actionable episode with you guys so that way you guys could go implement them. I like it to be tactical, practical, having a good time. What do you say? I'm here for it. I hope you're here for it. So step one to get this ownership and accountability is   Kiera Dent (02:16.386) Number one, you wanna have clear expectations and empower decision making. So something that we did just recently was we changed up job descriptions and we were able to make it to where people knew exactly what their decision making power was. And I thought that that was something so just weird. I was like, do people really need to have this? And what I realized is they do, they need to know, they need to know what is it? Like, what can I make decisions on? And Britt and I talked a little bit about these six principles.   of how to make decisions of like, number one is look into it, report it and I'll decide what to do. Number two is look into it, report alternatives with pros and cons and your recommendation. Number three is look into it, let me know what you intend to do, but don't do it unless I say yes. Number four is look into it, let me know what you intend to do and do it unless I say no. And five is take action, let me know what you did. Six is take action, no further contact required. And what's interesting is when you start to give team members   kind of even these levels, which one do you want them to do? How can they make it? What are the areas that they have control over to make decisions and really empowering your team? That way it doesn't fall all back onto to leaders. This really can help them start to feel a sense of ownership because now they know, they know their department, they know the areas that they can actually influence and impact because otherwise it just becomes blaming, it becomes waiting, it becomes like, hey, we don't really know. And so what you've got to do is you've really got to make sure that there's clear defined roles.   I notice the front office is often what I call sloppy soup. We don't know who's doing what, everybody's doing everything and no one is actually accountable. Nobody actually can do things. They have no idea what they're doing. And so let's get out of that. Let's figure out what are the clear roles, what are the responsibilities, and what is the KPI or key performance indicator? What is the number that that role is going to actually impact and have an effect over? That's really what we wanna look into. We wanna dive into that. That's gonna help them out.   Then within that, we help them also know what is your decision making authority and also who do you report to within that. What this now does is we've just set the rules of the game. Your team now knows who do I talk to? What can I make decisions over? What my number is? What my job is? There's a lot less confusion. And I know this sounds like so cliche and like, but Kara, that's really it. A lot of times the ownership just comes from a lack of clarity. It comes from a lack of, don't even know what I need to do. This is where we're going to be able to get.   Kiera Dent (04:36.27) people super empowered, super on top of it, super on their A game and helping them to really be able to make decisions. A lot of times people don't have ownership, not because they don't care, because they don't want to, but because they honest to goodness just don't know, like they feel they can't take the ownership, they feel they can't make the decisions. So I have really loved those six areas of how can I get feedback? So when Brit has a project or we're working on something new, so let's say we're rolling out a new project or we're hiring a new team member.   I try hard to tell Britt like, okay, this is a number four. So look into it, let me know what you intend to do and do it unless I say no. And when you're working with new team members and new leaders, sometimes they are gonna be at this like look into it, report and I'll figure out what to do. But that doesn't give a lot of ownership. That gives a lot of dictation and dictatorship rather than ownership. And so if you really, really want to have your practice flourish, help them know what the clear expectations are, what their role is, and then what their decision-making authority is.   There's a practice that I watched do this really, really, really successfully. Well, and what's interesting is the owner doctor picks, like they are, they're growing, they have multiple practices, multiple locations. And the owner doctor picks and says like, this is where we're going to actually have the practice be after that, the team members get to make all the rest of the decisions and it's leadership and then the office managers. And I think what's really incredible about that of the rules of the game have been laid out and then they're allowed to make those decisions. How much ownership do think this practice has? It's insane.   and they fall through and they're accountable because they feel that they actually can contribute. They feel like they can own this. And I think that's one of the biggest pieces to helping your teams have that. So that's number one. So call to action on that is like, your key responsibilities, figure out the KPIs, get clear job descriptions, and then help them know what the decision-making power is. How can they do this? And even start using those six steps. They really, really, really do help. It's been incredible to watch it work out. Step two is going to be making sure that they have measurable goals and accountability system.   What we're gonna do is we've got job descriptions, it's defined, they know what their number is, but now like what are the goals? What are we even reaching for? And then how do we follow up on this? So Tiff and I were talking about this with a client and it's interesting because when you actually have strong accountability with your practice, team members flourish. But if we don't have accountability, we don't follow up if something's off track. We don't look into it and ask them like, hey, I noticed this, what is your plan to get this back on track? This is going to really struggle because A, our numbers are going to go down.   Kiera Dent (07:02.678) And B, our accountability is really lacking. And it's wild because when you start to track your KPIs and we track them consistently, and then when they're off track, we figure out why and we get them back on track. Like it's this whole tracking progress and having follow through to make sure things are actually moving forward. Otherwise we just sit there. Otherwise team members are just like, well, we track numbers for the sake of tracking numbers, but what does it really matter? Or we don't even track numbers. You're looking for trends and we want to teach our team to look at these numbers, their KPIs, the numbers that they have.   We want to teach them to use these numbers to be able to be levers. and I talk about this often of how numbers are levers in a business. And once you know what your numbers are, you can actually then know, I raise our production? Do we need to increase our diagnosis? Do we need to increase our case acceptance? Do we need to decrease our costs? Do we need to make more outbound calls? Like what really needs to happen? And we utilize all those numbers to figure out exactly what we're doing with it. So it really becomes something of like,   tracking on a scorecard and all of our practices track it. We have team members tracking this. And then we teach leaders how to follow through with accountability. And accountability is really just being consistent in a lot of ways and empowering them like, hey, this number's off track. What's your game plan? What's your plan for it? And this way we can constantly review it. So we recommend tracking your numbers weekly and then reviewing them in depth monthly is what we do with a lot of our offices to make sure that our numbers are moving forward, that things are tracking in a really good way. This is what it's going to be. And what's crazy is   People who start using KPI trackers, people who start tracking their numbers with their team is going to be an area where they actually like truly they start hitting numbers that they've never hit and they're like, wow, just as tracking numbers, instantly we started to become more profitable. Instantly we start to have more production on the schedule. Why? Because we're focused on it. And what you focus on is what you're going to achieve. So if we're focusing on these numbers, you better believe they're going to start to increase. We then start to change systems and implement other pieces based on what the numbers are telling us.   Otherwise, we're not gonna change things. So this is where it's super powerful and super fun because now you've got numbers. You've got all these different pieces that are going to impact it and influence it that are really truly going to help you and your team thrive. So really building up a simple tracking system to track those KPIs weekly and monthly is going to exponentially help you. And then number three, when I think about ownership, like...   Kiera Dent (09:23.022) I don't know how to say this in a polite way, so I'll just say it. I also think for owners realizing that your team, you are still the owner and team members might not take as much ownership and that's not to say there's anything wrong. So I think also being like realistic with what's going on with it, but then also really truly highlighting those who take ownership. So within our company, we have our team read extreme ownership. We have pens, I'm not even joking. I have it right here, I saw it.   Literally, extreme ownership. have pens, there we go, sorry, extreme ownership. And we share it with our team and we remind them that we want them to have extreme ownership. I want them to take ownership of their position. I want our leaders to take ownership of their departments within the realms. Remember, we put the bumper lanes there of what are the realms and what can they do? And then I want them to truly take ownership of their practice. I want to constantly highlight team members that are taking ownership.   So we put that in our Friday five shout outs. put that in our core value shout outs. I put that in highlights in the team chat of celebrating and encouraging when people are taking ownership. And then if someone's not having that honest conversation with them of, this is what I'm expecting. What's going on? What are the hurdles? What are the stumbling blocks and how can we overcome those together? That way we can truly own our business. And I think when I realized like bottom line is a lot of team members may never care about the business as much as I do. And that's okay.   I really hope you heard that. That's okay. But there will also be a lot of team members who do care about the business like you do. They care about it maybe even more than you do and that's really beautiful. And so hold on to those ones who are truly incredible and they own all their positions and then also be okay when people aren't necessarily that way. They don't necessarily care about it as much as you do. That's also okay. But we wanna create a culture of ownership. We wanna create a culture of accountability and follow through. We wanna create a culture.   where we're following through on numbers and KPIs. And that's something that we're super, super, super paramount about doing. This is going to help you really have it. And it's wild, because when I watch offices highlight people and shout people out and I watch it within our team and I watch it within other teams, people start to follow through on that. We had an ownership award all last year and it was really fun to see who was winning ownership and who was the person who was taking this on and who was getting those MVP awards. And what's wild is you will see an increase for Rao.   Kiera Dent (11:46.446) you'll see an increase in culture and you'll see an increase in ownership being taken in your practice. So whatever you need to do to create a culture and recognition of that, I would recommend highly implementing that. So this was a quick down and dirty episode with you of these quick actionable items for you of number one, creating clear expectations and job descriptions, making sure that we really are super crystal clear and empower that decision-making ability. Then after that, we wanna make sure we've got tracking our KPIs with accountability and follow through.   So we don't just track for tracking, we track with actual follow through updates, making sure we're getting the results that we're looking for. And lastly, finding a way for us to celebrate those who are taking great ownership within our practice and our company, really truly empowering them, giving them the praise, giving them the recognition and teaching our team that this is the culture that we want. Giving them, like I said, the reading opportunities, different opportunities, letting them know this is the culture that we want to have.   We want extreme ownership. We want to have our team taking ownership. I want you to feel like this is your practice because it is. So if this is your practice, what do you want to do? How do we want to behave? What are the core values we want to be living by and really empowering your leadership team to influence and push that forward for you. The reality is this is going to be a way to help you increase ownership and accountability within your practice. And it seems so simple, but just because it's simple and easy does not mean that it's easy to execute on.   These things take office as time, it takes change, takes change to shift a culture, it takes change to implement ownership and accountability. And so really taking that on and committing to that, you are going to be so much happier in your practice. So with that, I honestly believe that if you want to build this high performing team with true accountability, ownership, really getting them to take it on, DM us, we're here to help you. This is what we do day in and day out. I would love to help you send us a message on Instagram.   or check out our website. We have a lot of leadership tips within our newsletter, so be sure to join our newsletter. Tons of free resources for you. And if you're like, hey, I wanna go to the next level, I want you to help our team, I want you to be able to do this, reach out. This is where we're able to help you get ownership and accountability within your practice. We have these conversations with your office manager, so you don't have to. We have these conversations with team members, so you don't have to. And it becomes something where we really can grow these teams to have high accountability, high ownership.   Kiera Dent (14:01.9) and being able to have that culture within your practice. So reach out. This is truly what the Dental A team does. This is what we're about. This is what we love to do. We are truly the best in the business at doing this. And I know that if you implement these things, you are going to see a very different practice. You're gonna see so many great things happen that you will be shocked and so happy. And with that guys, always, always, always, always make sure that the culture that you want is the culture that you're creating. You as leaders are the ones who are creating the culture. So make sure it's the culture that you want.   And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.