Dental A Team Podcast

Introducing the Dental A-Team YES Operating System — a framework created after looking at thousands of practices to help you have predictable growth, profitability, and freedom. Hear from Kiera about why this approach will change the way you do dentistry (and improve the way you live your life).

The DAT YES Operating System:

Y: You

E: Earnings

S: Systems and Teams

Episode resources:

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:01)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I just want to talk to you guys about how we can say yes to more things. I call it the Dental A Team Yes operating system. It's truly a blueprint for profitable practices. And we've talked about it a few times, but honestly, it is just like what's a different operating model that we can go off of to have this profitable practice, but also to feel fulfilled, to have it more easy. Like great, let's do this. So I want you to know that this is a framework we created looking at thousands of practices, coming up with it, because I don't believe they're profitable practice.

is created by luck. I don't. I think that you can have it and you just need the right framework, the right operating system. And then you're gonna be able to to align, to guide, and to be able to truly say yes to everything you want. So I'm gonna walk you through our YES operating system. The Y stands for You. It's all about you first. That's the very first step. E stands for Earnings and S stands for Systems and Teams. And these are three pillars that are gonna help predict have predictable growth, profitability, and freedom for you. So I hope you're excited for it. I hope you're excited to say yes to more in your life. And hey, if you're new here,

Hi, I'm Kiera. Super nice to meet you. I'm obsessed with all things dentistry, so much so that my last name is actually Dent. Yep, I really am Kiera Dent. I love dentistry. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, you name it, regional manager, consulted hundreds and thousands of practices across the nation and the globe. And we are so committed to helping dentists truly reach their highest potential, empower teams, and make life and running a successful practice easy and fun again. That's what we do. I'm obsessed with it. We do startup to multi-million dollar organizations, no matter the practice size.

Things are still the same. The YES model works for all of you. So I want you to know that a lot of times we're focused on production or marketing or this or that. But a lot of times if we just get our whole team aligned, everything falls into place. And I'm not saying that you have a vision and everything works. And we to put in the action. Like we got to put in the effort. Your practice does appreciate effort. But I want to help you build a very successful business that's going to support both profitability and lifestyle because you don't have to have one without the other. So the Y stands for You. This is your vision. This is you.

And I think so many people skip over this and dive right into the numbers. And I purposely put it in this model. You are not going to say yes. You might say say S-E-Y. Guess what? You're not going to get everything that you want. You won't. Because if you focus on you first, like it took me forever to come up with this acronym. I kid you not. We're going to do the SPF, then we're going to do the this or that. I was like, what is it? Like, what order do these need to And then I was like, my gosh, it's YES. You Earnings Systems. Because we got to make sure that you are dialed in. And I tell everybody when you start with us as a new client.

We focus on what is your vision, personally and professionally, because your business has to have it. I don't care. Like I just had a dentist I was talking to yesterday and she's like, I want to work three days a week. And I'm like, great. Let's put it on the board. Math can math. That's why Earnings comes next. But if I don't know where our North Star is, if I don't know where we're going, then we're constantly changing our goals. Growth doesn't feel fulfilling. You're running around like a crazy operator rather than running the business. This is what's happening. Like I want you to own your business, not be owned by the business. So number one is you gotta define what success looks like for you.

Two, what do we look like? What's our one, three, ten year vision? We work with this, like I pull off of traction. What is it? Nothing is off the table. I don't care what it is. But you also have to realize that, like, hey, if I want to cut down to three days, are we also okay to make less money? Or is like, no, I want to work three days and make the same amount. Okay, well then maybe we need to change up our procedure match. I can't just be like, I want to make two million and work two days a week. Okay, great. Like you're doing bread and butter dentistry. Like math has to still math. So let's figure out how we can get there. Maybe you gotta get some side hustles, maybe gotta get some real estate. I don't know.

But hey, everything's there, nothing's off the table. We do need to make sure we back it up with realistic numbers. I remember my financial advisor gave me a crazy goal and I was like, there is no way. Like, I don't know how I'm ever gonna do it. Guess what? You chip away, we chip away. We have that as our north star, guiding star. Everything will come into place. So I want you to know that like this works. If you're if you don't have a vision and you're not anchored of where you're going, and then second to that, your team knowing where we're going.

All of this doesn't work. We are working for nothing. We're working for ego. We're working for stress. We're working for shoulds. We're working for what everybody else is posting about that they're doing. You're not working for what you actually need to do. And so I want you to know you is number one. You being fulfilled, you being taken care of, us knowing what you actually want it to be. And then I need that like tattooed on your shoulder. I need it to be put on a mirror. You've got to look at this freaking vision every single day because where we focus our attention, we're actually going to achieve it. So we can't build the right practice unless we actually know what we're building for. So

I need you, if you're gonna have a profitable practice, we gotta know where our clear vision is. What does profitable mean for you? Then we're gonna back it up and make sure that it's realistic. So I want you today, if you haven't, go on a little vision building adventure with me. Let's go right. What's your one year? What's your three year? What's your ten year? Ten years from now, how old are you gonna be? Wow, that feels like a moment. Just think in 10 years, it's gonna slip by. You either can actively create it or you can passively manage it.

Your choice, but I'd highly recommend that you create it. Step two is Earnings. I know, I know, you're waiting for me to get to this part. You just want to talk about this part. Don't skip step one. So Earnings. This is our profitability. So revenue alone isn't going to create your wealth. Profitability does. I don't care what your top line number is. I care what your take-home pay is. I really do. I want you to all your expenses, including paying you. I want you to have 20% left over after we pay tax and everything. Okay? So if we can figure that out, great. That's our ideal. That's our benchmark. That's what we're striving for.

So what happens oftentimes is people are so obsessed about not looking at the numbers so they don't look at anything, or they're so obsessed about like just only focusing on their production number. Like I had a doctor tell she's like, I'm at two million, but her collections are at one million. And I was like, yay, I gotta be the person that tells you you have a $1 million practice, not a two million. Hi, I'm Kiera. Nice to meet you. the reality is, like, I know you don't want to hear this.

But I also know that we've got to know what our true numbers are and what we're going towards. So once I know your vision, we then break it down. This is what we do with our clients. We break down what does that actually cost us? What does it cost us to run the business? What does it cost us for you to live? What is our debt services? What's the vision we're working towards? You're not gonna be there today. We know in 10 years you wanna be making three million, fantastic. We you know you wanna be at five million, fantastic. Break this down production-wise. Now it's easy for a practice because I can just plug and play, put that in there. But if we're building your personal life too, we need to know what that has. I will also say.

If your business can't support that, it's not your business's fault. You either need to readjust or produce more or have another side hobby that brings income. All of it's true, but we just we gotta make sure. I had a doctor once tell like, here, I need to make more. Well, they weren't willing, like 50% of the revenue coming through they were spending on personal items. Yeah, that practice couldn't support it. Like they their lifestyle was too expensive for the practice that they were doing, and they weren't willing to do more work, they weren't willing to bring in more patients, nothing. And I was like,

Okay, the math doesn't math. Like I know you want to spend this much, but like you're you're out of your budget. So and you're not willing to make a bigger budget, like we either can cut or got to produce more. It's one of the two things. or we gotta collect it. So when we look at this, I really want you to dive into knowing our numbers. We're talking our our net, not our gross production. What are our collections? You should be sitting at 98%. What's our overhead? Ideal, like I said, ideal is 50% overhead, 30% doctor pay, 20% profit. That profit then pays our debt services, leaving us at the end.

I would love, love, love for you to have 20% profit, profit, profit at the end. Like that's our cash flow after everything's paid, all of it, have that hanging out. That's an optimal practice. Not all practices can achieve it, but that'd be optimal. What's our payroll? What is our our hygiene period production? What are those items? Like, let's look at this. What's our case acceptance? Sometimes it's not even an issue. Maybe we're just not diagnosing enough. But what does it tell us? So, like if I know that we need to build a $3 million practice, I then need to make sure that we're producing enough.

Create that three million and then we need to make sure we're collecting enough. So, what are my levers in that? Well, levers are case acceptance, diagnosis, hygiene, and scheduling. Like those are pretty much it. And then obviously collection. That's really yeah, I can get marketing in there, but if I don't convert my new patients and we're not converting case acceptance, whoop-dee doo, like could be an issue, but can we maximize our patient base that we already have? That's a great question for us. So focus on these items so that way when we have it, we can actually make sure that the plan is leading up to our vision.

You don't feel stuck. And then we also got to build in our staffing, our payroll. Like if you're doing all the pieces and you're miserable with it, well, what's it gonna cost us to hire an office manager? Or what's it gonna cost us to hire two more dental assistants or another hygienist? Let's build that into our plan. That way our practice can produce it. We can afford it. The great news is dentistry's untapped. Dentistry's untapped. So this doctor has talked to you as like, okay, your cash flow, you just need 10,000 more a month. Let's break that down. You're working four days a week, 16 days a month, that's six hundred and twenty-five dollars a day.

That's a night guard. That's like a couple ceilings, couple fillings. It's nothing to make ten thousand more a month. You can do it. This is what is awesome. Like, so whatever your goal is, we just break down by your daily goal, get your team rallied, look to see where we could find this amount. You're back in business. So production is super important, but profitability gives you options. And profitability, we need to make sure that you're profitable. I don't care what your top line is. If you're not profitable and you're not paying for your life, you're miserable.

So that's why what is your top line? And then what is our profitability? And do we like do those match? So what we do with our clients is we actually put them through, we build out an annual plan with them. So excited. So excited. It's in the beta role. We've been doing it. And now we actually have it like really there. Shout out to Britt. She's been working hard on this. but we go through, we look at all your expenses. What does it cost for you to have it? What is your practice producing? What do we need it to produce every month? Maybe we need to get our doctors to be a little bit higher, a dollar per hour. Like, great, you can do that.

There's a lot of options. Maybe you don't want to. Great, then let's go cut. I always do it. It's like what is it? What can we really do? What's the cut? What's the actual production? Let's go. Let's live our best life. So I want you to truly like taking away from this, get your vision, then review your profit margins every single month. Get into it. Should review it every single day. But I want you looking at the profit margins, not just your production numbers. Then this leads us to the S, the Systems and Team Development.

This is going to be your engine portion of this, okay? So based on our vision, then what did the numbers tell us? Now it's our systems and team. Based on whatever our numbers tell us, that's a system we're gonna go put into place. It might not need to be all the systems. Everybody's like, well, what systems do I put into place? I'm like, I don't know. What's your vision? What do the numbers tell us? Put that system into place. I know you want it. I know you want all the systems, but why? You're probably doing so many things great. If our vision is this mount, our numbers tell us this, we can fix a lot through a morning huddle, we can fix a lot through handoffs.

We can fix a lot through just your hygiene department. We can fix a lot through your production. We can fix a lot through your leadership meetings and how you guys are doing it. We can do a lot through hiring and onboarding. I guess those are all important, but like what does it tell us? And then also what are your pain points? This is also where we're developing the team. I found that so many people focus only on the doctor. And I'm like, cool, that's fun. But why don't we focus on you as well? Like, let's make sure that the team is elevated so you, doctor, don't have to go tell that team everything to do.

We literally coach your team for you. We create office managers. We build leadership teams. We teach your team how to talk about hygiene. What do we do when we got a bloody period patient? Great. What do you do when your fee schedules aren't completely entered? Fantastic. Let's teach that person. Let's help your team actually be optimized based on what the numbers tell us, based on your pain points and where the ultimate vision is. I hope you can see that all this comes together. This is why it's called the YES operating system. It helps you say yes to more in your life. It helps us see what systems are broken.

A lot of people come in and they focus on systems hoping to get to the top. But I'm like, no, let's focus on the top. Where are we going? What your life is. Let's look at the numbers because they're going to tell us everything. I can just look at the numbers very quickly and tell you if you're diagnosing enough, if you're producing enough, if we're collecting enough, if our case exceptions there, just by looking at your PL and your KPIs. It's all there. And then let's go fix the systems over here. Sometimes you're overwhelmed. Well, that's not going to show up in your numbers, but what it will tell me is we need to fix that. We need to add.

An office manager or somebody to this plate, or we need to grow your office manager into the person they need to be in order for you to have the successful life that you want to have. I really truly want you to know that like your systems and team development can happen when we know what the vision and the numbers are. You're probably doing it in the reverse order, and that's why you feel like you're trapped and stuck. Because you're trying to focus on systems, you implement the system that you heard on the podcast that doesn't get you the numbers that you want, and it doesn't ultimately get you to the vision you want. So then you're frustrated and you're like, well, the systems aren't working.

So then you put in another system to try to get the numbers you want, to try to get the per the vision that you want. Instead, let's rework this. I would like you to have your vision, look at your numbers. Wherever your numbers are down, let's put that system into place and see if we get closer. Teams don't want to be micromanaged. Teams don't want more systems on top of system upon system upon system. Teams want to be like why. They want to understand the why. And then they're gonna rally with you. So look at that. Look at your vision.

Look at the numbers and identify one system that needs to be improved. Go listen to podcast on it. I promise you, I got the how-to for every freaking system that you've ever wanted to put into place. Systems are not your issue. Your issue is that you don't have a clear vision and that you're not looking at the numbers. So you're scrambling at all your systems. This is why, if you put it in the YES success framework model, go from You to Earnings to Systems. You literally can say yes to everything you want. So, what I'd love for you to do is to focus on all three of these. Most people just focus on one, do it in that exact order.

You're going to be able to say yes to more. Because when your vision and your profit and your systems work together, growth becomes predictable, stress becomes less, happiness becomes more, team morale improves. This is where it's at. This is what I love to do. This is something of like, how do we help you say yes? This is what Dental A Team is built upon. This is our framework. This is our foundation. And so many people struggle because they're not willing to do the vision. They're not willing to look at the numbers. They only want to focus on the systems or the team development or say it's my team or say it's my system. Or if I just had something better, well, here is something better.

And I hope you take it. I hope you execute it. I hope you implement it because I know that you deserve to say yes to everything you want and more in your life. I think back to where I was six years ago. Wow, company was so small, so tiny, like so many things. And I look to where it is today. Yeah, it's so stressful. But guess what? I'm able to say yes to a lot more in my life. I've aligned my vision. I've hit pieces off of my goal board. I'm living the life that I dreamed of living like not too long ago. You can have that too.

So come be a part of it. Come be a part of our community. Come hang out with us. Be around people who truly say yes to more in their life. You deserve it. So the good news is this is available for all. You don't want to be a certain size practice. It's available for all. So put it into play. Align your vision and we help you. We help you identify what your vision is. We help you look at your numbers every single month. Sometimes you just need a freaking accountability partner. I need that like, hey, be my bestie. Hold me accountable. Sometimes that's all you need.

And also that bestie who's been there, done it, done it multiple times over and successfully grown practices. That's who we are. That's what we do. And this is what we do all day long. So let's help you say yes to more in your life. Commit to saying yes and living the life that you absolutely deserve, not just the one that you think you should have. I promise you it's there for you. Follow our yes success model, and I guarantee you you'll be so much happier. And I can't wait to help you. Reach out [email protected]. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Kiera is joined by Sean Hamel, CEO of Art of Dental Marketing, to talk about … yup, dental marketing! Sean goes through why dentists struggle so much with messaging, what the right language for patient referrals is, how to make your practice stand out from that other practice 0.2 miles away, and a ton more.

Episode resources:

Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast

Schedule a Practice Assessment

Leave us a review

Transcript:

Kiera (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I have a very special friend back on the podcast, Sean Hamel. He and I actually worked together. He worked in Dental A Team for a hot minute. he is a CEO and founder of the Art of Dental Marketing. He is here to talk about all things of what works, what doesn't work. I shoot, guys, you guys know marketing is my Achilles heel. So I get really smart people in the industry to come on the podcast, talk about it. So, Sean, welcome to the show. How are you?

Sean Hamel (00:25)

Thanks, Kiera. Good, thank you. It's always good to see you. I that was when when was the Dental A Team kinda overlap? That was like four or five years ago now. Crazy how time flies.

Kiera (00:33)

I know. It

yeah, because we were doing an event. So I think it was like three, four years ago, and we were going through like

Sean Hamel (00:38)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (00:38)

a rebrand and I still have emails from you and like campaigns that we worked on together. So it's fun

Sean Hamel (00:44)

cool.

Kiera (00:44)

that we've actually like worked together and now here we are. You work with all the dentists too. So yeah, but it's been a hot

Sean Hamel (00:49)

Absolutely.

Kiera (00:50)

minute and now here we are podcasting again together. So here we are.

Sean Hamel (00:54)

Absolutely, always good to see you.

Kiera (00:56)

Likewise. Okay, Sean, for those who don't know you, tell them a little bit of who Sean is, how did the Art of Dental Marketing come about, and w like why you we should even listen to you today. Like basically pitch yourself.

Sean Hamel (01:07)

Absolutely.

I know there are so many dental marketers. It seems like every day there's like 20 or 30 more, probably more than that. But I started dental marketing about 15 years ago. I was purely accidental. I have a degree in marketing, graduated, and in doing that, got a job it for a dental financial services company basically running their marketing and was meeting a lot of doctors and making friendships with a lot of doctors.

And nobody tells you when you graduate school with a marketing degree, but you suddenly become all of your friends and family's like resident marketing expert. And

Kiera (01:41)

Yeah.

Sean Hamel (01:41)

so one of my buddies was graduating from dental school, and another buddy of mine was having some issues with SEO in his practice. And so they just kind of asked me some general questions. long story short, helped them choose some solutions, wasn't really amped about any of them, but you know, tried to help them make the best decision they could, and they didn't get great results.

and so I started helping them and using story-based marketing, which is a big piece of what makes ADM different, we were able to get them really solid results and they gave me a lot of grace to try things. And over the course of doing that, we were able to get really good results for them. And so in doing so, other dentists that were their peers and friends and things started asking, you know, who's doing your marketing? And so I started to get more and more clients. to now, you know, 14, 15 years later, we've worked with

hundreds and hundreds of doctors. and I travel all over the country speaking and teaching doctors about why dental marketing largely doesn't work. most of the time here it's a messaging problem. But why dental marketing doesn't work, why no matter who you seem to hire, you can't really get results. and also just kind of talking about why the industry is tilted in a way that it's not really set up for doctors to be successful and they have to kind of learn as they go how to vet, how to properly seek out help.

And then even how to monitor the people they're paying to help them to actively get results. Cause that seems to be the biggest issue for doctors is I hire seven marketing companies and nobody can

Kiera (03:10)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (03:11)

get results.

Kiera (03:12)

Okay, so dig into it. You pitched me, well, I'll listen to you, Sean. Why doesn't cause selfishly for myself, I'm in the same boat. I'm like, my gosh. Sean, I looked at my numbers. This is gonna be fun for you. We decided to do a revamp. I've done this twice. So this is

Sean Hamel (03:25)

Mm.

Kiera (03:26)

year two that I'm trying this. Like I did it a couple of years ago and then I was like, forget that. That was a really that was a five hundred thousand dollar mistake. This year I'm up to a

Sean Hamel (03:32)

Mm.

Kiera (03:32)

seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar mistake. Like I don't know if it's

Sean Hamel (03:34)

Mm.

Kiera (03:35)

a full mistake, but it is like it just feels like this bottomless pit in marketing. It's like

Just keep pumping more money into it and hope and pray something works out. And then you re-pivot the strategy. And then it's like, okay, it's gonna take three more months to do it. So I am equally piqued. We have a great CRO on our team now that actually I've seen more results than I've ever seen. But it's like

Sean Hamel (03:52)

Mm.

Kiera (03:54)

that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like I just listed Kiera's dirty laundry on the podcast 500,000 two years ago, 750,000 this year. Our marketing expenses are up by 350,000. So enjoy that.

Sean Hamel (04:04)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (04:04)

Like those are some big numbers. And so I don't want any of you dentists out there being like, my $50,000 marketing is expensive.

Listen, all y'all, I know what this is. And also don't tell me consulting's expensive. Like I've gone through, I paid 250,000 for Tony Robbins. Like there is expensive consulting and then there's also just like it is just a a good fee. So Sean, talk to us. Talk to me. Hi, I'm Kiera. I'm your I'm your client today. Tell us why doesn't marketing work and how do we actually get it fixed?

Sean Hamel (04:29)

Well, and and d for dentists specifically, you know, dental is so unique. your issue with which is selling two dentists is a lot of times a messaging problem too. but as far as it relates to dental practices specifically, I talk about what I call the cycle of mediocrity, but it basically is what I've kind of drilled down over over a decade of doing this, working with hundreds of offices. And I talk about it in depth. I'll kind of give you the the cliff notes because it is a very

long conversation. I know we're trying to stay

Kiera (04:59)

Okay.

Sean Hamel (05:00)

like under 30 minutes here. But with dental practices, largely what happens is everybody looks the same. So if you pull up, you know, five dental practices, everybody looks the same. They say the same things. They're hiring marketing companies that are selling very like generic templated things. So everybody looks the same. It's all hyperclinical. You know, everybody's trying to to chase the same people.

While they're all looking the same. And so because of that, Kiera, the only way the marketers know how to differentiate the businesses is with discounts. So

Kiera (05:30)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (05:31)

the the practices, because everybody's so close together and they're all saying the same stuff, they get locked in these price and proximity battles. So they're fighting over how can we how much can we outdiscount the practice next to us? They're being advised by industry leaders, industry leaders to do

Kiera (05:46)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (05:47)

new new patient specials constantly.

And then a lot of it too is just, hey, this practice is 0.7 miles from my house. This practice is 0.9 miles from my house.

So

Kiera (05:55)

Totally.

Sean Hamel (05:56)

you have you have those kind of decisions happening, but you get locked in price and proximity battles, which leads to what I have kind of coined as what I call the freebie trap. But the doctors get conditioned that they have to give away what they do in order to be successful.

Kiera (06:09)

Totally.

Sean Hamel (06:09)

It's not super helpful because that means you got to do more dentistry to make up for it. And when you're battling on price, that's all you're giving people. That's the only thing they have to make a decision off of.

But those price and proximity battles, getting in that freebie kind of mindset and constantly giving things away, that brings in non-desirable patients. And the non-desirable

Kiera (06:28)

Right.

Sean Hamel (06:29)

patients are the one everybody's complaining about, right? They take a chair time, they don't have credit, they're not going to accept treatment, they come in for the special and they leave. And so that puts a lot of pressure on the practice because dental practices, as you know, you have to see somebody repeated times before you really start monetizing that relationship. But dentistry is a relationship business.

And so the one and duns put a lot of stress on the practice, and that starts to cause burnout and frustration on the team and the doctor because they're constantly chasing this new patient number, but they're still not making any money. They're busy, but they're not profitable, which is a huge problem.

Kiera (07:01)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (07:03)

So from there, the burnout starts to set in and the doctor goes out and starts throwing up Hail Marys, hoping to get help, like you are, hoping to get help. I'm spending all this money, nothing's working.

And this is where, Kiera, the cycle mediocrity, it's multifaceted. So the dentists are kind of their own worst enemy sometimes. The marketing

Kiera (07:19)

Right. Right.

Sean Hamel (07:20)

companies, I'm not saying marketing companies are nefarious, but a lot of people that get into dental marketing are not qualified to be here. And then the industry has kind of pitted itself in a bad spot for dentists. And the reason why I led with that is because at this point where that burnout comes in, the doctors are going out to events and study clubs and groups and they're trying to get help. And the marketers that are being put in front of them largely

It's not there's no vetting of their work being done. It's who bought the diamond sponsorship package. That's who's gonna get up on stage and they can say whatever they want. And there's so many conferences that I go to and I hear people say things from the stage and I'm like, that is factually incorrect. That's not how that works anymore. That's not true anymore. Don't want to get into that today, but there's no vetting going on. And so the doctors are coming out and they're trying to get help to be profitable, right? To be chairside less, make more money, not take the wear and tear on their bodies, hit their goals.

you know, pay for their family vacations, put their kids through school. And there's all these marketers entering the space that are promising them the world, but there's no accountability. And

Kiera (08:21)

Right.

Sean Hamel (08:22)

so because of that, the doctor hires the next marketer, hires the next marketer. And this here is where the cycle comes back around, is every marketer they hire largely is doing the same stuff. So it's the same messaging, the same websites. They're promising them the world, but they're not actually doing anything to be able to hit that goal. And if they don't hit the goal, there's there's no repercussion if they don't.

But they hire the next marketer, promises them the world. They go through all the change and transition. They kind of go through that high of, hey, this is gonna work. It's new, it's exciting. And then things start to slow down. The phones slow down, right? All the growth slows down because the messaging is off, and we can get to that in a second. But they start, they call the marketing company and they say, hey, we're not busy, or hey, this isn't working, or hey, these leads aren't good. And the marketing company usually will blame the front desk.

Or they'll

Kiera (09:06)

Mm.

Sean Hamel (09:07)

say, Hey, why don't you go you're not you're not busy? Well, let's do a thousand dollars off in in Vizaline or whatever.

And so they bring the discount up and it starts back over. So no differentiation leads to this race to the bottom discount mentality, which brings the patients that they don't want to see anyway. The patients put stress on the practice, the doctor starts throwing hail mares to get help, hires the next marketer who's not vetted or anything like that, comes in, promises the world doesn't do anything, aren't busy. So the marketing company decides, well, let's just do a discount. And that's the loop. And that's why practices hire seven companies and can't ever get results.

Kiera (09:41)

So I agree with you. And that is a good way to put it in there. And as you were saying that, I say it sometimes. I'm like, practices are like dental Tinder. Like, guys, you're just like,

Sean Hamel (09:49)

Yeah.

Kiera (09:50)

you look like everybody else and they just keep swiping. Same thing when you're placing ads out there to hire team members. I'm like, you can't be dental Tinder. You gotta like stand out somehow. Like in my mind, I was like, all right, it's all black and white. Like, how do you stand out as hot pink or how do you stand out as hot blue? Like there's gotta be something in your right. Like a lot of times it is proximity. And so I tell a lot of doctors, like,

Hey, when you take over a practice, they're probably not gonna wanna leave you because they don't wanna go find somebody else. Like it's much easier for them to like you and stay where they're familiar rather than going somewhere else. And that's also the tricky thing is because unless I've got more people moving into the area or I have a very disgruntled patient, they're kind of creatures of habit. Like switching dentists is not fun. And so that's another piece that we have. So you just you laid it out perfectly. What's the solve? What's the solution? Like how do people get out of that? Because I think you're not wrong. And I will say that that's something

Whether it's right or wrong, I got so annoyed. I went to so many conferences and I, my gosh, early, early on, I signed up with a marketing company. I spent 80,000 on that company. And I remember like almost bankrupting the company. I was it was just and they're like, just keep going, just keep going, just keep going. And I'm like, I don't have any more cash. Like, we're gonna go under. And it was the most stressful thing I'd ever done. But it does feel like like almost like gambling, like one more pull, one more pull, one more pull. Like maybe this one will be

Sean Hamel (11:06)

Yeah.

Kiera (11:06)

big money.

and I remember it is like

Sean Hamel (11:07)

Yeah, I call it I call

it the finding Nemo, the just keep swimming thing. But yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kiera (11:11)

Seriously though. Like I was like, I just felt like I was

just like pulling the slot machine, hoping and praying big money was coming. but it didn't. And it was that was the early on learnings. Clearly, I keep learning them. but how do people get out of it? Because like for me, you're right, for conferences, I got sick of it. I signed up with so many people, I was like, my gosh, like I should have done a little research on these people. But even research, like marketers, the thing that's stressful, Sean, and I will say this too, I'm interviewing marketers right now for our company actually, and I'm like

A marketer should actually be able to sell me. Like that's their job. So they are smoke and mirrors. They're like their job

Sean Hamel (11:43)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kiera (11:45)

should be to put something in front of me that I want to buy. That's who I'm trying to buy. So then how do you cut through a good salesperson who's actually a good doer? Because that's what I'm really looking for in a world where their job is to sell me and to sell me well. So

Sean Hamel (11:58)

Yeah.

Kiera (11:59)

how do people get past that?

Sean Hamel (12:01)

Well,

for dental practices especially, I think the biggest thing that's missing, well, it's a I think it's a two part problem. One is anybody can be a dental marketer now. So there there literally is a whole industry of influencers that are out and they're encouraging the unqualified to do niche specialization like dentistry. So I I always say everybody can it's really easy to be expensive now, but nobody is valuable anymore. And that's why I say like market

Kiera (12:28)

So I say it.

Sean Hamel (12:29)

marketers aren't

Nefarious by nature. A lot of them aren't. They just don't know what they don't know. And the reason I say that Kiera is because when I started, I didn't I did everything I learned in college and none of it worked. That's why I had

Kiera (12:39)

Yep.

Sean Hamel (12:39)

to kind of relearn it and helping friends. And luckily those friends gave me grace to try things. But once we figured it out, it's all it's all emotion. Like the average person does not know who the best clinician is. And we also spend a lot of time validating things that the average consumer already gives of practice, which is that the doctor is skilled and smart and that they work on teeth.

And yet that's most of the messaging that's out there. And so it's no wonder it's problematic because people are afraid, largely are afraid of dentistry anyway. And so you're shoving the things that they're afraid of down their throat. And it's not marketing differentiators because the average person doesn't know anyway. When I speak and I talk about it, it'd be like if you went out to buy a car and you walked on the lot and the salesman was like, All of our cars have turn signals and brakes and transmissions, you'd be like, duh, because you expect that stuff to be there.

Kiera (13:29)

Right.

Sean Hamel (13:29)

And yet if

you look at the average practice, all of that wasted messaging is there. And that's why I say it's a messaging problem. But with regard to the industry itself and these marketers that are entering the space, like where we initially started before that kind of caveat, a lot of people you can get in dental and you can with AI and stuff, you can pull smoke and mirrors. And and there's a whole industry of people selling white

Kiera (13:50)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (13:52)

label products to unqualified people and encouraging them to get into dental. You can charge 3x.

And the doctors don't know any better. Like, have you have you seen the like 19-year-old looking kid that's in his like gamer den who's talking about I'm gonna get you 30 all-in X patients in 25 minutes? They're buying that, they're buying that

Kiera (14:08)

Totally. Yep. Yep.

Sean Hamel (14:11)

somewhere. And the doctor's like, what you're going through, there's no way to vet that. And that's where I want to encourage as I'm out speaking and stuff, where people come to organizations and associations and meetings.

for guidance, like do your due diligence on the other side of it, that the people you're putting on stage are worth their salt to be speaking at your event, advising your members, telling them things to

Kiera (14:33)

Read.

Sean Hamel (14:34)

do, because they're the ones that go back and stroke the giant checks and get no results. And then they come back trying to find help. And that kind of is where I think with marketing a lot of people, including you, you kind of just get burnt out on even trying to find help. And it's just like, okay, what can I do to self-maintain without bleeding money? Right.

And so, with that, like as far as dental practices go, and I told you this is a lot longer conversation,

but

Kiera (15:00)

Mm.

Sean Hamel (15:01)

most consumers with a dental practice care are afraid. Fear is a huge part, and that's what makes dentistry singular. There's not a lot of stuff that we buy that we're afraid of. And so most people are not operating from a feature and benefits mindset with dentistry. It's like self-preservation, right? It's why.

referrals work so well. Like if you really think about why patient referrals work so well, it's because trust and safety are immediately passed because their cousin, coworker, friend from church, whatever, is validating that you're safe and it's a nice place to go and they're not going to hurt me. And all of that is an emotional process that's happening. And so to get out of the cycle of mediocrity, you stop talking about clinical stuff all the time and you start using human emotion to connect with people. So that's patient experience. That's the differentiator, right?

But how do you communicate that ahead of time? You really can't. I mean, you've got Google reviews, you've got the ability to do, you know, photo tours and things. One of the biggest things that practices can do that's easy is stop wearing scrubs. Stop wearing all your

Kiera (16:00)

Yeah.

Sean Hamel (16:00)

scary gear. You don't need tools in your hands. Don't wear

Kiera (16:03)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (16:03)

white coats. White coat syndrome is real. Just take a picture. Just take a picture of you being a normal person. Talk about who you are. Talk about hobbies and interests and things people already know you're smart. They know you work on teeth. They you do all the scary stuff.

Why should I pick you? you play guitar, I play guitar. Cool. We have something in common that as a human being, that means I'm wired that you're safe. That's safer to go there. Standing out being memorable. In this day where we're like bombarded with advertising all the time, that's how you do it. And that's how you get off the cycle of mediocrity is you stop trying to do the same messaging as everybody else. Stop trying to chase discount patients all the time.

Focus on just leaning into human emotion and how people are wired and understanding that six of every ten of them is afraid of you. So it's a different relational connection than it is just like, hey, I know you're scared of this, but guess what? We do that really cheap. Like that's like the 90,000 foot view of the average dental message. It's no wonder it falls on deaf ears. And most of the time it's quality pain-free dentistry. It's a headshot of the doctor. All the marketing is all about the doctor. It needs to be about the patient, their outcome, right?

Hey, you're gonna look better at the family reunion because you came and saw me. Not, hey, this is everything we're gonna do to you and I'm really smart and here's my headshot. So it's those little tweaks that make all the difference.

Kiera (17:22)

Do you really believe that, Sean? Like here I am like

Sean Hamel (17:25)

What's that?

Kiera (17:25)

digging into that. Like, I think a lot of us feel that way, but I think a lot do put themselves out there. And I'm like, that just feels like such a slow road. Like, I want to push the easy button. I want you to just do like SEO. I want it to when they search for me, I look like a good enough dentist rather than being like, let me share my entire life out there. Let me tell people because I think that they're just spaces like business owners that like I don't really want people to know me. I've had clients use my personal life against me and tell me like

Well,

Kiera XYZ. And I was like, forget that. Like, I'm not sharing half this stuff anymore. So I'm just like, it's a I agree with you to a point. And I think that there's a space of me that's like, is that really true? Me going out there, me being my authentic self. Like, there's so much noise on TikTok. There's so much noise on Instagram. There's so much noise there that like me as just average Kiera or average Sean or average Britt or average Kevin. My story.

Is that really going to break through the noise of all these other people chasing that bottom line? Or do I need to get people with that hook of what everyone else is doing and then win them over when they meet me?

Sean Hamel (18:29)

So I I mean that's that's fair and I appreciate you being devil's advocate. I mean we see clients

Kiera (18:33)

I will.

Sean Hamel (18:34)

that have well we I mean we see clients that have tremendous success with it. Again, dentistry is singular. So what what would work for Kiera and Dental A Team isn't what's gonna work for a practice because most people aren't afraid of you. So it's a a different relationship. It's well, I mean, I I I highly doubt it. I highly doubt it. Yeah. But

Kiera (18:45)

I hope. Some might be. I sometimes come in a little more intense, but no. But you're right. Like

people people hire Dental A Team because they've met me with air quotes on the podcast.

Sean Hamel (18:57)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kiera (18:59)

You feel like I'm your friend. You feel like I'm your bestie. Like, and I should. That's who it is. But you're right. Like in dentistry, they're not listening to you on a podcast getting to know you. They're looking at your website to see do I like you or do I not like you? And do your reviews say that

Sean Hamel (19:10)

Yeah, and it's

Kiera (19:11)

you're good.

Sean Hamel (19:12)

and it's in and it's indirect cues. The the the way that our clients have so much success with this, I mean, we have we have one office that's getting eighty X ROI using these principles

Kiera (19:20)

It's awesome.

Sean Hamel (19:20)

and leveraging these principles. And it's just it's it's not a gimmick. Like it's not me selling you anything, it's me trying to bring people back to center on just use the way human beings are wired to your benefit. So when people are afraid of something, we as different as we all are, we largely operate the same.

And so that's where Google reviews and all that pulls in. There are so many people that talk about the topical thing, right? You need to get Google reviews, it's good for SEO. You need to get Google reviews because it's social proof, and social proof is safety for us. That's why

Kiera (19:50)

Right.

Sean Hamel (19:50)

we hang out in packs and we always have. Even with SEO, like what you're talking about, Kiera, the best you can do is top three. It's the

Kiera (19:57)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (19:57)

best you can do. So you still only have a one in three chance that somebody's gonna pick you. So

Kiera (20:02)

True.

Sean Hamel (20:03)

33%.

So if I can give them emotional cues to pick you in addition to them finding you, that's where most of this falls off here is everybody's focused on being seen. Nobody talks about how do I get you chosen? How do I get you to be the one that they pick? And that's using the emotional cues. That's using neuroscience and using trust and safety. Same thing that happens with the patient referral. We're doing the same thing with messaging, with imagery. Instead of saying, hey, $99 new patient lightning special.

Run, hey, like in the spring, we will run you know, you bought the dress, give her the smile, prom 2026 whitening specials, 99. And it's not

Kiera (20:44)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (20:45)

that the message is different, it's just it resonates different with people because it's fitting into their life. It's not transactional where they're having like burn mental calories to figure that out. And the average person in that sequence, like, we've done this long enough. Yes, I it does work. Putting yourself out there works, but it's not just about putting yourself out there, it's doing it strategically.

Right. But when you do say that in the spring and graduation's coming and proms coming and all, a parent whose kid is going to prom and they see a ninety-nine dollar whitening special is not gonna have it resonate the way the other ad does. And that's

Kiera (21:16)

Totally.

Sean Hamel (21:17)

just a very high level example of how to do it. But it is a mix of doing the things that everybody's doing. But it's once you get there, how do you then get somebody to pick you? Cause you can pull the root like you're talking about pulling the lever.

Kiera (21:29)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (21:29)

You can start

to have control over that with the appropriate messaging and leaning into the fact that most people are afraid.

Kiera (21:35)

No, I think that's great, Sean. Thank you for letting me play devil's advocate because I think people

Sean Hamel (21:39)

Sure, yeah.

Kiera (21:39)

feel that like, okay, I'm gonna go do this, but then they feel like the rejection piece or that people aren't coming.

Sean Hamel (21:44)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (21:45)

And you're right, I like I do this when we're presenting cases and talking to treatment coordinators and consultors, and it's like no one's buying that implant screwed into their head. Like just fun fact,

Sean Hamel (21:56)

Yeah.

Kiera (21:57)

no one's buying that. But what they are buying is the ability to eat steak. What they are buying is the

Sean Hamel (22:01)

Exactly.

Kiera (22:01)

ability to smile to their grandkids.

Like

it is an emotional lever that people I'm like, no person is buying. Like, I want white teeth, but why do I want white teeth? Like I want to look good. Like I had a lady who was like ninety and she went for full ortho people like, why'd offer it to her? I'm like, 'Cause she said she wanted to look good, like good in her coffin. That is a motivator for her at ninety

Sean Hamel (22:19)

Right. Yeah.

Kiera (22:20)

to get her like no one is buying, like we don't go and we don't buy certain things because we're looking for like I'm not buying like there was even a girl who talked about like we don't buy perfume for ourselves, we buy it for other people.

Like, yes, I want to smell good, but it's because other people are going to experience that. Like that's why we buy things is for other people, for us to feel a certain way. and I definitely think it's like you said, you can do the same tactic. It's just making sure that we're hitting it on the the zone that's gonna resonate. So I'm curious, Sean. Go ahead.

Sean Hamel (22:47)

See, and and you nailed

it really quick because that's that's what you just said is a phenomenal like follow up. That's the problem, Kiera, is you get it, you've done it, the marketers that are getting paid the big sums aren't doing it. So the

Kiera (23:01)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (23:02)

doctor will go out and do it on their social media themselves and put themselves out there. But the marketing company, if you go look at the landing pages for the implants, none of it's there. None of that's there.

Kiera (23:11)

Totally.

Sean Hamel (23:12)

And if they call and they say, Hey, I I have this patient.

That I wanna I wanna highlight this that, you know, they're eating steak again and they're excited. well, we don't do that. You have the bronze package here. We don't do that. We don't do we don't do custom. That's the problem. When I talk about everybody

Kiera (23:25)

Yeah.

Sean Hamel (23:26)

looks the same, the marketing companies are built to where you have a package A, B, or C. A,

Kiera (23:31)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (23:31)

B, or C doesn't work because this kind of stuff isn't in there. That's the issue with why most of it doesn't work. A lot of people get it and they understand it, they just don't know how to make it all fit together to actually get ROI.

And the companies

Kiera (23:43)

Sure.

Sean Hamel (23:44)

are not focused on messaging or conversion. It's all about site visits. It's all about, like you said, smoke and mirrors. That's what the metrics are about constantly. If it worked, ever like somebody at some point would get results that they are excited about. You know, if you go into a room with a hundred doctors, you say, How many of you have had a bad marketing experience? Almost all of their hands go up. And it's not that again, the marketers aren't nefarious. It's just they're charging full fees to do half the work.

Kiera (24:10)

Sure.

Sean Hamel (24:11)

Getting

in front of people's half the job. You gotta get them in the chair. You gotta qualify

Kiera (24:14)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (24:15)

them to make sure it's somebody the practice wants to see. And that's where the story piece starts to unlock is the conversion.

Kiera (24:21)

So if I'm a dentist listening today,

Sean Hamel (24:23)

Mm.

Kiera (24:24)

I'm like, Sean, I like this. I've taken notes. I like you, but you're a marketer. So of course I'm gonna like you. You're selling me on liking you. What are my tactical pieces that I can take from why marketing doesn't work and put it into action? What are some of the things that I can start doing today? whether I have a bronze, silver, gold, whatever package I've got, like I want patience. I need patience. That's why I'm listening to you guys today. I am obsessed with this, I've struggled with this.

I'm the person who just raised my hand. I have struggled with this in the past. What are the tactical? Because you know, Sean, I'm very tactical on every podcast. Like, people need to be able to leave here of like,

Sean Hamel (24:57)

Yeah.

Kiera (24:58)

what can they do to go make their lives and their practice better? What would you say would be like steps one, two, or three, or like one, two or three items that they could go implement that truly would start to help them in a way? I could call it like turning the Titanic. Like, how do I get

Sean Hamel (25:11)

Yeah.

Kiera (25:11)

this to actually start making a a shift rather than just continuing to do what I've always been doing?

Sean Hamel (25:16)

Yeah, one of the easiest ways here is you the about you page and about the practice page. Like if it's super clinical and super generic, if it's five paragraphs about how smart you are and three sentences about who you are, just flip that and start talking about who you are. You don't have to it doesn't mean you have to show pictures of your kids and all the things like you don't have to go that deep with it, but just talk about hobbies and interests. Be somebody that they can build a connection point with because again, remember that they're operating from self-preservation most of the time.

They're not looking at you the way that they're shopping for a TV. It's totally different when

Kiera (25:48)

It's true.

Sean Hamel (25:49)

it comes to dentistry. And so start with your bio page and talk more about who you are and understand that people already expect that you're smart and you work on teeth and you're capable. They already expect that. So just think about tail lights at a car dealership. Nobody cares, right? It's important, but they already know that you're smart and capable. You are a doctor who is practicing, they know that. So start there. And the same thing with about the practice, lean into the patient experience.

But lean in in a way that it makes the patients the hero of the story. I don't know if anybody's ever read Building a Story Ran by Donald Miller. It's a phenomenal book.

Kiera (26:20)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (26:21)

You can't take it though and plug it directly into dentistry. You have to tweak it a little bit. But making the patient outcome, like you said, the even the patient that's like, I want to look good my coffin, that is why she's coming in. You don't have to tell her the ins and outs of what you're gonna do to her. You don't have to sit there and try to tell her how smart you are and all the courses that you went to to be able, she's already sold.

All you have to do is talk to her about, hey, you are gonna look better, feel better, get more matches on Tinder, you know, look amazing at your high school graduation, whatever it is, shift your messaging to the outcome for the patient and you will start to see the marketing unlock. That's the easiest thing that you can do. And it's, you know, like you said, I have the gold, silver, bronze. The marketing companies are not gonna help you do this. So that's one of the easiest things you can start to do. The other thing here where practices can start doing this is through their social media. So stop.

You don't doesn't mean you have to post constantly about yourself. It doesn't mean that you have to post about like National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day or any of that stuff.

Kiera (27:15)

Yes.

Sean Hamel (27:16)

But just go out and be a member of the community. Go out and if there are restaurants or little coffee shops or anywhere that you go or the team goes or whatever, start tagging those businesses and build reciprocity, which is you know another principle of persuasion

Kiera (27:30)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (27:31)

if you read read Dr. Cialdini's book. but you can use other businesses like if you

If you think about a dental practice as being highly valuable in the community. So not, hey, we need to get more followers, but hey, I have 250 people that live in the community that follow us. That's valuable to other businesses.

Kiera (27:50)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (27:50)

So if there's a coffee shop that I like and I go out and I tag them in a post and say, My favorite, my favorite stop on my way into the office, and you tag that business, what is that business gonna do? Share you back, right? Well

Kiera (28:02)

Gonna like you. Exactly.

Sean Hamel (28:05)

And they're gonna share you back in their real or story if you post one of them. And so you can start to use other businesses to not only build commonality, but build out your brand. Like gyms are phenomenal for this. You have health conscious people that care about what they look like. Dentistry, like that's that's a great spot to be for dental practices. Just start being a part of the community, build that kind of commonality, leverage your community to get in front of people in an organic way and stop just trying to do what every marketer is doing.

Which is really generic, really clinical, you know, quality pain-free dentistry, the team's standing by the front desk, the doctor has their arms crossed. Everybody's tired of that stuff. It's not super hard to pivot this way. Just be a be a human, be a part of the community, be social, and realize that other businesses around you can l leverage benefit from you highlighting them because even if you have a small follower account, they all live in that city or that area. And you share them, they'll share you back.

See if you can do fun things together with them. But it's a unique way to build more of a connection. And especially in this day of day and age with AI and just the amount of you just get inundated by marketing anytime you go anywhere. If you can get somebody to go through and they see your ad and they think like you were talking about, like eating steak, if they hit if they hit that, the next time that they think about that, even if it's like ten hours later at night, they're gonna think about you. They're gonna remember

Kiera (29:25)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (29:26)

you. How many ads do you remember since you got up this morning?

Kiera (29:30)

The answer is none. There's too many.

Sean Hamel (29:31)

Right, because it's just the same stuff.

Right. And so as you start to leverage this stuff, and it does seem like, you know, with dentistry Kiera, it's not like monumental shifts, it's little dial turns. And like, you know, it's not just getting in front of people, it's how do I get them to remember me? Those are the kind of things that any practice can start doing is just humanize it. Talk about who you are, why they should pick you, and it's not where you went to school, it's just

Hey, I'm you know, this is who I am. I have kids, I work in the community, I coach little league, like whatever it may be. That's the stuff that people can resonate with. And then use your community, use social media to be social. And those are two

Kiera (30:09)

Yeah.

Sean Hamel (30:09)

things that any practice can start doing immediately and they'll start to see results.

Kiera (30:14)

I

love that, Sean. Thank you for sharing that because that does seem doable. And as you were saying that, I thought about there's a dentist that I watch. I knew I actually worked for his dad and now he's in residency. And it's interesting because he lost his wife to suicide and he's very open about talking about it. but I and that was like why I started attracting. I mean, I know this kid, I knew all the things going through and whatnot. gosh, you're old when you call like somebody in residency a kid, like shoot, that just connected. But regardless, he just posts about like

The dice on toothbrush just came up and he was just posting about it. He will post some things about dental. He'll also post about like, hey, like live life, or like, hey, this is me going in for like pediatric surgery today. And I actually really love following him. And I think kudos to him. He's in residency. He doesn't even have a practice. But he's building a brand of who he is as a human and he knows he's not gonna get everybody. But that's the dentist that I remember out of all the ones I see. And he's called Toothjack

Sean Hamel (31:06)

Mm.

Kiera (31:06)

Tooth Doc Jack. I his name is his name's Jackson.

And I thought was really clever of how he put it together. So he's branded as a dentist. but and he has scrubs and he doesn't. He's like, this is me walking home from class today. These are some of the things I thought of. And what I've noticed is people want to follow people and like see into their lives. Like I think that that's what social media is, is getting to know people as humans. And we were talking the other day and I was like, Isn't it creepy? Like the girls at the gym were showing a picture that they made by AI of them at a karaoke thing. They didn't go to it, but they were like teasing their friends and the picture looked so real.

And we were talking about we're like, how crazy is it that we don't know what's real or not real anymore? And I think that that's where people are craving this, like, I want to know you as a real person and I want to know that this wasn't done by AI because that's what I actually want to be paying for. I don't want to be paying for AI. I don't want to be paying for mass marketed things. I want to be paying for that. So many people have told me the reason that they choose Dental A Team or like they've listened to me on the podcast. People now applying for our company watch my video on our website and they're like, I loved your video so much. I love who you are and I want to work with you.

Sean Hamel (32:07)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (32:07)

And so

I will say that even beyond just patients, it also can be a great way for you to attract team members to your practice. But I think, Sean, there are pieces and I love that you made it tactical because it felt so like a little woo-y. Like, what am I supposed to do? Like, how do I?

Sean Hamel (32:18)

Yeah.

Kiera (32:19)

But I love the I love the cross collab of your communities. Guys, you are part of the community. Do you how hard it is to be a Chonda is like when you're across the globe, I'm not really part of any community. I'm part of like your community-ish. I'm part of the dentist community, but there is no community where I'm gonna tag a local coffee shop that's gonna apply to a doctor in North Carolina.

But what will apply is bring on cool collaborators like Sean that you guys are all excited about that we can hear. That's what's going to drive you here. But for you, you are so lucky. You work in a community. So leverage those relationships, leverage that. I think that's a brilliant idea. And I hope people today take notes, they execute, and they realize that you as a human is what people are craving the most. They're not craving the standardized pieces. And you're right, everything does look the same. So you actually have a great opportunity right now, like pivot a little bit differently and it'll probably stand out quite quickly.

in

a really positive way. So Sean, thanks for that. Those are my like wraps. What other wraps do you have

Sean Hamel (33:05)

Yeah. Of course.

Kiera (33:08)

as we wrap up?

Sean Hamel (33:09)

No, I appreciate you. again, I know this is a lot to throw at people in half an hour. This is a t I do a two and a half hour presentation on this. and and

Kiera (33:17)

Yeah.

Sean Hamel (33:18)

the goal it's not to demonize anybody or anything. It's just, you know, the industry is broken. we can't help everybody. I mean, that's why I started speaking and and stuff, because this has been so successful for the offices that we work with and so many dentists largely are struggling.

And you know, this isn't a sales pitch. You can go do this stuff on your own. A lot of times, Kiera, when I started speaking about this, doctors would hear me talk and they would go and they would call their marketing company the next day. And that's where they'd be like, hey, we don't do that. Or hey, you know, we don't do custom. We can

Kiera (33:48)

Sure.

Sean Hamel (33:49)

why am I paying you $5,000 a month then if you're not

Kiera (33:52)

Ha ha ha.

Sean Hamel (33:52)

going to help me grow? Right. And so it's really become more of a passion for me to educate dental practitioners on here's why the messaging's off. Here's how easy it is to fix it.

And I love the fact that you push back and we're like, hey, does this really work? Yeah, like it does. and it it's it's well, well, and it's not

Kiera (34:07)

Hi, I'm Kiera. Nice to meet you.

Sean Hamel (34:10)

for any other reason, just that like people are never not gonna be afraid of the dentist. It's one of the things with AI too, the adoption with AI, and that's another podcast we can do, but people don't trust it. And so when you

Kiera (34:20)

Right. Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (34:22)

add that layer to it, it's just a recipe for disaster. But these principles work.

It's not a gimmick, it's not a sales pitch, it's just how human beings are wired when they're afraid of something. If you lean into that mindset and understand that the average person is at least a little like maybe they're not petrified, Kiera, but it's like the first day of school nerves where you're just kind of like, yeah, and then you go in and you meet your teacher and you find your locker and you start to calm down. Same

Kiera (34:47)

Mm.

Sean Hamel (34:48)

kind of thing. And you can replicate that by giving people emotional cues on the front side. So when you pay for SEO and you show up high, you also get the the butt in your chair.

Which is the big part that everybody seems to miss and nobody talks about. Hey, I rank really well, but I need patience to actually come in and spend money.

Kiera (35:05)

I think my takeaway from all of this today was it's not so much how do I get you seen, it's how do I get you chosen. And I think even that becomes a very different strategy. Like I'm going out onto the field, like I want to be chosen, I don't just want to be seen. that definitely was like my anchoring point. So, Sean, if people love you, they to hang out more with you, like tell them how they can connect with you guys. What do you guys specifically do? Are you a full force marketing agency? Do you build websites? Do you do social media? Do you do all that?

do just help them build out the strategy plan, kind of give them a little bit more and how they can connect with you.

Sean Hamel (35:38)

Absolutely. And this is actually called the chosen approach. That's what I call this presentation. I have a book that's coming that goes over how to do this. so yeah.

Kiera (35:45)

That's awesome. I'm glad I pulled out the right line.

Sean Hamel (35:49)

Well, hopefully, I mean that's it, you know, that is kind of the the best summation of the issue that's that's facing everybody. But you can always get in touch with me on the social media, Story Base Sean. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook. Art of Dental Marketing is just ArtOfDentalMarketing.com.

We have a new division of the company that's launching called ADM Express, which brings the core tenets of what we do, the wireframing, the messaging, but it's at a price point that's that's driven by our AI agent. His name is Alfred DDS, but he does

Kiera (36:17)

Mm-hmm.

Sean Hamel (36:18)

a lot of the customer service and the and ideation and things. but we do we do websites, SEO, we do all of that stuff, video, we help practices tell unique stories. We do ground marketing, we do general practice consulting, we can help with appointment setting, we can help with

you know, we can even help with like acquiring talent. So if practices are looking for hygienists or associates or anything, we don't do placement, but we can help them advertise for that. Really anything a dental practice needs to where the doctor

Kiera (36:46)

Yeah.

Sean Hamel (36:46)

can make more money and be chairside less and grow into the practice they've always wanted. we have a service or solution or a partner that can help them with that. And so we really are a full service growth agency. I w really wouldn't even call us a marketing agency anymore.

there's really not anybody like us in that, in that regard. But we just from websites and logo design and brand design to strategic messaging to hey, how do I get the gym next door to partner with us on stuff? You know, we help with literally everything necessary for a practice to grow.

Kiera (37:18)

Awesome. No, and Sean, thank you so much for that. So, guys, go check it out. If this resonated with you, go check it out. And I hope that you just recognize there's so many different ways for you to connect with people, connect with humans. that's what we're all about. I believe that the the human experience is about being connected to people rather than just being sold to people. So go connect, change it up, take one of these, implement it today. Reach out to Sean. If we can help you connect you in any way, we'll happily help. reach out [email protected].

Guys, go make today the best day. Sean, thank you for being on the podcast. Truly appreciate you being here. Of course.

Sean Hamel (37:50)

Thank you, Kiera. Appreciate you.

Kiera (37:52)

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.

How great would it be, having systems that sail smoothly no matter who is sick, who changes positions, who quits, who [insert out-of-the-blue incident here]? Tiff and Dana talk about what exactly to implement in your practice so that communication flows.

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Tiffanie (00:01)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I say it every single time. and I have Miss Dana here with me. And Dana and I have been podcasting together for what feels like an eternity at this point. It's been a long time. she is an OG with me at this point. And if you ask Kira what OG means, please ask her next time you see her in person. Say what does OG mean? and she will tell you it's oldie but goodie. And so that is our company.

lingo for OG at this point. And Dana, you are my girl. You know I love podcasting with you. We have done so many podcasts. We were actually just talking about fam here. Like how many times can we take these different perspectives of these similar topics? And I'm like, gosh, yes, I agree. And it's like we we talk about such similar things, but Dana, I do think you and I do a really great job. You kind of coax a different

side you and I both come from different angles in so many different ways. So if my point of that is if you're here today and you hear this topic, you hear what we have to say and you're like, gosh, I I think I need a little bit more, do a quick Google search. I call it a Google search. It's just a a search on our website. on the podcast section of our website, if you type in any of the keywords that you hear today, there's gonna be more podcasts that pop up. It's maybe I think I could say like similar content, but that even feels wrong.

their topics you guys that we have just poured into and poured so much information out into the world because we want you to have everything that we have in our brains in your pocket. So make sure if you feel like gosh I just needed a little bit more go search it or if you like these were fantastic and what else are they talking about? What does Tiff mean? Go search on our website TheDentalATeam.com there's a whole podcast section there's a little search bar there. Go do yourself a little search and you can find just hundreds of topics. So

Dana, thank you for being here with me today. Thank you for always going rounds with me. and for prepping ahead of time so that we can see kind of where we want to take this, even though who knows where it'll go, you know, it could just change on the drop of a dime. But how are you this morning, Dana?

DAT-Dana (02:11)

Doing good. And I tip, I think that's my favorite part of podcasting with you. It's like we can come in with like best laid plans and then we just get to talking and it just starts to get natural and it goes where it needs to go. and you're right, while like maybe there's some similar topic in there, I do feel like there's always a new angle to it, there's always a new consideration in it. And so I love that you say, hey, if you want to deep dive, check out the other ones that are around the same top like topic point, because

It might not just be you and I, right? It might be you and someone else. It might be Kira that talks about it. And we all have just just different like skill sets and backgrounds that I think puts a little twist on everything. So I'm excited to be here with you.

Tiffanie (02:49)

Yeah. I

totally agree. I love how you said that. And I agree. And honestly, in the morning I'm like, gosh, we had a podcast. And then as soon as we get here, I'm like, I just get to hang out with Dana for an hour. So this is kind of cool. I definitely need this time with you. So thank you for being here and thank you for always having a fresh perspective. for our listeners, if you've never met Dana, please go check.

Her out, come to the events, come see her in person, listen to all of her podcasts. Cause Dana, you really do have an incredible mind, and I love picking it. So I'm gonna pick your brain today. And marketing gives us some really cool topics, and and I love like we talked about they'll they like put a spin on different words and you know, similar topics, but it's stated differently. The titles it's titled something really cool and catchy, and I think speaks to the fact that we do have really

I mean, dental is like it's dental. Like how how exciting can we get here? You know? But we really do have exciting takes on so much stuff. And something we've been working on, our our doctor's only mastermind actually tomorrow is kind of a similar topic, Dana. You mentioned this that like what if the doctor's not there? So something our company's been working on with our clients internally, and then it's transitioning now into outpouring messages here on platforms like this is really prepping the business.

for when something changes, when maybe a doctor's out, and that could be vacation, that could be gosh, my doctor, when I was like, gosh, Dana, I think I was twenty maybe. I remember coming in after Thanksgiving. It was it was the Monday after Thanksgiving. And my doctor is like on a scooter, like those little like what you know, his knees up scooter. And I'm like, what happened? And he had an A T V accident over Thanksgiving break and he had

like broken his ankle and it ended up being this whole thing. He was on that scooter for like eight months 'cause he had have multiple surgeries. It got infected. And I remember standing there at t nineteen, twenty, however old I was, looking at him and going, What if that was your hand? Like I knew in that moment how like serious this could be. So I think we think about plan for your vacations, but what about all the things that we can't plan for? Illnesses, you know, we've got

hygienists that have kids that have school, you know, things that they have to attend or breaks. Like we've we've got a an industry that's full of a lot of moms and a and a lot of illnesses. I know I was sick last week because we had a kid come home with something, you know. So I think Dana, to your point of our of our conversation earlier, it's really like systems that keep

working when plans change, but sometimes it's not even just something falling off of the schedule. Sometimes it's that we're short staffed or without an entire doctor because something has happened. So Dana, when you when I we read that topic and you you looked at it, I said it earlier. What did you think of? If you had to prep a practice, a dot a client was like, gosh, things are changing or something changed, what would be your go-to method for helping them prepare

for systems that can withstand change.

DAT-Dana (05:59)

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that dentistry is still very and I love it. Some of my favorite offices, you know, I walk in and they're like, I I don't want to do dentistry without this assistant, right? Or I don't ever

Tiffanie (06:09)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (06:09)

want to be in business without this, you know, office manager. And I think that dentistry still can be a little bit people dependent

Tiffanie (06:17)

For sure.

DAT-Dana (06:17)

versus system dependent. And I think we've had to talk about this a lot lately, because just a hiring climate.

a little bit of a hiring drought in some areas of dentistry and just in some areas of the country, it's been harder

Tiffanie (06:31)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (06:31)

to I think hire and replace team members too. So I feel like getting practices to see that we have to have systems in place that no matter who is there, no matter how many team members are there, we can kind of pivot every day and and certain things continue to go on.

you know, especially like those patient experience things or the patient flow pieces and closing treatment, right? Those are things that have to go on, no matter how many people we have in the practice or or who is there or what the schedule looks like. And so I think that it's something we're having to work a lot with offices. And I think it's great to be able to have a platform like this to talk about how we do that.

Tiffanie (07:10)

Yeah, I totally agree. You said, in there like case acceptance and filling the schedule essentially, right? And I something that that makes me think of is the importance of communication. Right. We we call it handoffs. Everyone says, you know, what's your handoff or how do we do a handoff? What is you what is the verbiage we should use with a handoff? And I think if we narrow it down into like the simple word of communicate, making sure that we're all speaking to each other, it's the biggest

space that leaves room for error and I have I have a practice and I love them dearly and that doctor he constantly is saying like how do we how do we mitigate the chaos? How do we mitigate the chaos every day? Why is it crazy? Why are there, you know, cases are missing and schedules falling apart and phones are ringing off the hook. People are calling in and I'm like, gosh, it's so simple, it's annoying.

Because we want it to be this grandiose, like difficult thing, but it's so simple, it's annoying. We just need to talk to each other more. We need to say what's in our our brain to one another and prep and plan together. If everyone knew that Joanna called out this morning and that the assistance team were short staffed, everyone could pick up the pieces in their area and help. But most of the time, I feel like the hygiene department doesn't even know.

that there's a dental assistant missing until sterile's backed up and they're like, What is going on? And they're like, Where's Joanna? Where has she

DAT-Dana (08:38)

Mm.

Tiffanie (08:38)

been all day? It's like three hours into the workday and the assistants are running ragged, or vice versa. Like people just we're not communicating enough. What do you feel, Dana?

DAT-Dana (08:48)

Yeah, I agree with you and I feel like it's it you are you are it's such a silly

Answer, right? Because the everybody wants it to be this thing that, like, I would have never thought of that, right? Or my gosh, that's like just this so far out there idea. And you are 100% right because a team that is on the same page or a team that communicates throughout the day, it doesn't matter if you normally sit in that seat. It doesn't matter if you've just jumped in. If I'm giving you all the pieces that you need and I'm setting you up for success, it doesn't matter if it's something that you do day in and day out, or if you just are Johnny on the spot because you happen to be free in those five minutes.

Tiffanie (09:24)

And where do you think that the easiest space is, like, systems wise? So if we turn this into, okay, docs, you're harping on me, communication is too broad. You want systems, like what are two systems that practices could focus on every day that regardless of who's there, whatever whatever the change is, they stick

DAT-Dana (09:42)

Yeah, I think the two biggest tools for communication and practice are route slips. because there's just a lot of information already pre-ready there. So that like if you're a new person on the team, if you're a temp on the team, if you are covering a position you don't normally cover, pretty much a lot of the patient information to continue at least that patient flow is on the route slip plus there's space that you can write things down that you can take your own notes that you need to give to the next person. So I would say route slips and then secondary, like you already mentioned, Tiff, I think handoffs are just

a huge piece communication tool that just makes sure that the patient flow continues as well as every step of the way we're all on the same page and the patient feels it too.

Tiffanie (10:24)

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's smart. And I I love the route slips because I think makes it easy to win. Like all of the information that you need is on there. And so in the case of a hygienist being out and now we've got a temp hygienist or Joanna being out and everybody's scattered, like all the information is already written down. And a lot of practices, and I'm not knocking this if it works for you, great. They want they use messaging systems, right? And so great that works too.

But the handoff the paper forces that communication and the verbal communication to one another is what creates that connection, in my opinion. Right. So we've we've got to be able to connect with one another in order to bridge that gap. but as you were talking to Dana, as you were saying route slips, I also thought morning huddles. And I think you do a stellar morning huddle routine, like you really get

practices excited for them and I know you've got a few tricks up your sleeve, but how would you go about a practice who doesn't do morning huddles and they're like, gosh, Dana, like we are just skirting in as like on time. Like I have an office, I love them dearly, that we cannot get that associate dentist there to save our lives of ten like she's ten minutes after her patients, right? So like, but this morning huddle can help

I think mitigate change as well because you thought r you said route slips and I thought, I maybe we pass them out the morning. How would you help a practice in implement morning huddle?

DAT-Dana (12:00)

Yeah. And honestly, to be you can have a really stellar morning huddle in 10 minutes, right? So I think that that's that's a little bit of a misconception in practice. They're like, well, then we need to come in 30 minutes earlier than we typically do. No, no, no. We're looking for a window of about 10 minutes. and in that it's like we just want to celebrate what went really well the day before, right? We want to look at our schedule, patients that are on the schedule. Is there any pertinent information? I one of my biggest, I don't want to say pet peeves because I understand it, right? When I go into a practice, but I'm like, all right, it's morning.

huddle and I'm like super pumped and I get there and we're just like reading the schedule. Like we can all read the

Tiffanie (12:33)

Yeah, they're like a f Dio on number fifteen at eleven.

DAT-Dana (12:36)

schedule. Like this, like just to have a morning huddle as like a schedule read, I think we can all just put our eyeballs on it and

Tiffanie (12:43)

Mm-hmm.

DAT-Dana (12:43)

like see that this is what we're doing. So I think just like pertinent information would stand out. Do we have you know any concerns for the patients that are going to be in our chair anything that everybody needs to know. Like

Maybe that lab case in the afternoon isn't here yet, and we need to get on the phone and we need to call them, right? And we need to make sure they said noon, we need to make sure it's going to be there at noon, right? So those types of pieces. and I also like morning huddle just as like you said, Tiff. Like if Joanna's not going to be here today because she is out sick, are there any updates that are pertinent for today? We don't discuss issues in Morning Huddle. We don't, but if there's something that's affecting the schedule today, I want it discussed in Morning Huddle. And if we can, which I

love because I just feel like Morning Huddle is the only time in the day where we're really all together and we're really all kind of focused. I love to build in a culture piece just because I feel like again, it's the it's the point in which we are to together. And I feel like just adding that like human piece to get to know each other as humans because if we don't care about each other as humans, why the heck are we there? Right. So

Tiffanie (13:45)

huh.

DAT-Dana (13:46)

I do like those pieces in Morning Huddle, but I agree with you when when we've got a day where we do have to pivot, right? And maybe we had

Pivot doesn't mean a team member's out. Pivot could mean somebody called and like, we've got to get an emergency in today, right? Or we've got a plan to be able to pivot if an emergency calls. I think morning huddle is essential for those things. And I think you can do a really bang up job at a morning huddle in 10 minutes. team members just have to like be bought in to like this is our time to game plan. This is our time that if, hey, we accidentally scheduled kind of a messy afternoon, we're gonna game plan it. We're gonna make sure that it goes as smooth as possible.

All together.

Tiffanie (14:24)

Yeah. Yep. I love that. I think you hit on all the pieces I was thinking. I knew that culture piece. I was like, I know she's gonna throw some culture in there. And it's massive because the communication, we do it in our company. Something that I like to remind people or or tell people if they don't know is Dental A Team will rarely ever suggest something that we haven't ourselves used, either in practice, like in a dental practice or

within our own company. So when it comes to the structure of a business and the communication that's upheld, we we have all of that in our company. We do leadership meetings, we do traction style, level ten meetings every Monday. We do quarterlies, we do yearlies, we do morning huddles, we do all of the pieces that we talk about here on the podcast and within our consulting because they work and because we want to

make sure that they work. Like we we don't we don't test things on you typically. I'm gonna say typically. Sometimes I do. Sometimes

DAT-Dana (15:25)

Exactly.

Tiffanie (15:26)

I'm like, I don't know, try this. Like I'm just making it up. but I think the morning huddle is such a massive piece of like that camaraderie. Like you said, if we're not here for each other, what are we even what are we even doing? Right. And when I see practices falling apart at the seams or they're like, gosh, like the plans changed and everything fell apart, right?

Joanna was out or hygienist was out or the schedule fell apart. Like we've got I how many times, Zina, do we see the schedule completely fall apart? And the back office, I walk in and I see hygienists like at their computers, like, well, I don't know who's gonna fix this. And we've got dental assistants in sterile, like what can what else can we put away? We've got nothing to do. And we've got front office scrambling and a doctor hovering over them, like fill the schedule.

But nobody actually knows what anyone else is doing or how they can help the situation. They're all just in their own little worlds. And to be fair, that's where we live, right? Especially hygiene. Like you have an operatory. You're literally in in a world and you don't leave that operatory for sometimes six or eight hours, not even to eat. So

that morning huddle and those handoffs, those route slips, literally forcing the the departmental communication, one department to the other department and person to person increases the relationship value between every individual in that practice. And when you've got an odd man out, it shows really quickly, but even the odd man out starts to come around eventually 99% of the time. Yeah.

DAT-Dana (17:03)

Yeah. Yeah.

I agree with you.

Tiffanie (17:05)

And then always to our point, write them down. And I

DAT-Dana (17:08)

Did you

Tiffanie (17:09)

think I was thinking I because I know we always do operations manual. Dana's my operations manual girl. But I was thinking Dana of a great question because I think we see this a lot, especially with startups. We get quite a few startups that eat at least reach out and say, Hey, give me some tips to start when I'm, you know, up to five hundred to eight hundred to a tho to a million, I'll call you, right? So we do get a lot of that. And I think one of the biggest things we get is

How can I start if I don't have an operations manual? Right. And it's like, how do I how do I do a handoff if it's not written down? Well one, make it and then write it down. But Dana, how do you how do you help practices overcome that hurdle of I I guess my hurdle thought is people hold back from taking that next step because they feel like they don't have the tool. So rather than being creative and just trying something.

they'll kind of keep themselves where they are because the pain now has become bearable. I know what this pain feels like and I don't know what that pain feels like. So how do you help practices and doctors jump over that hurdle to be more prepared when plans do change like this?

DAT-Dana (18:19)

Yeah. I feel like for me, it's exactly what you said. It's try it, track it, write it down if it works, right? And if it doesn't work, then let's try something else, right? Or let's like

Tiffanie (18:29)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (18:29)

figure out what pieces of it worked. And then we can kind of pivot from there. But I do feel like a lot of like a and and find a networking group, right? You don't have to you don't have to like come up with the idea yourself, right? But pick one thing, try it out.

Track it so we know if it worked or it didn't. Like what tells you that what you're trying is working or not working? So track it. And then if it's off track, then let's figure out what piece of it or do we need to scrap it and start over again and get a new idea.

Tiffanie (19:02)

Yep. It's all the way down to morning huddles, all the way down to handoffs, to case acceptance, right? Because these these pieces we're talking about here, they will increase metrics like treatment planning, right? Like case acceptance, diagnosis. If you're doing chair side handoffs, your assistant and your hygienist is handing off to you the doctor, your case or your case diagnosis, your diagnosis amount, the amount you're willing to diagnose on a single patient.

will increase just because of that communication because you are more comfortable in that room with the people who are there. You've been introduced to that patient and you naturally will diagnose more than you would have before. Meaning, it could be, it might not be, becomes a hey, I'm actually kind of concerned about this. Let's talk about it. Might not be a filling, but you're actually talking about it instead of keeping it in your head. So Dana, to your point,

The tracking piece sometimes I think feels hard for people because they're like, cool, we did nine out of ten handoffs today, great, but that's not what we're tracking. Like, why are we doing handoffs? We're doing handoffs to ensure that the bottom line is increasing. So how is case diagnosis, case acceptance, production, collections? I think Dana, that is a wildly misunderstood metric when it comes to communication. Your collections will increase.

And your AR will decrease when your team knows how to communicate. So I love that. You said try it, track it, write down if it works. And if y'all took anything, it's those three things today. Try it, track it. I was like, dang, that was it. That was the mic shop moment of this podcast right now. So if you didn't get that, listen again. Dana always comes in clutch with something. I think it's like your mom.

piece, right? Like you've got so many littles running around that you're coordinating. You're like, nope, we gotta simplify this. We got to make it a set of three. How do we build a song into it? How do we how do we chant this? I love

DAT-Dana (21:01)

Right.

Tiffanie (21:02)

that so much. I love it. Try it, track it, write it down if it works. So Dana, is there any I mean I feel like that was our mic job. Is there anything you would add to that or any other suggestions for those who are trying to ensure that when change happens they can pivot?

DAT-Dana (21:17)

No, I think honestly, Tiff, I think yes, that would might be the mic job at the end, but I think you had it from the beginning and it all comes down to the communication tools within the practice. Because if we can keep the communication strong and we can keep those tools in place, it doesn't matter who's there, it doesn't matter what patient's in our chair, it doesn't matter what our schedule looks like, right? Those communication pieces you will stay on track all day long just by simply having those standard pieces that you use all the time.

Tiffanie (21:46)

Yep. I completely agree. yeah. And practices come and they want a full sweep of every system in their practice and they feel like they cannot be successful until they get all of it. And it really comes down to three to five awesome systems that you repeat every single day. And that's how you get the results, just like the gym. Like you're not you're not doing sixty two different exercises when you're there.

you're probably doing three to five things really well, increasing your weight, increasing the resistance, and getting stronger over time. So I love it. Awesome. Thank you, Dana. Thank you, listeners. I hope you enjoyed this one. Again, if there were pieces that you thought you were gonna get or you want a little bit more, by all means take a keyword.

maybe not the mic drop moment that was that was a today special but take a keyword something that stuck out to you handoff ndr is what we call our handoffs there's a million morning huddle and go search on our website TheDentalATeam.com there's a podcast section there's a little search tool there we actually worked really hard to ensure that search tool was there for you so go use it and as always you can reach out anytime [email protected] we are more than happy to help we have

forms and documents for just about everything that we do and we openly share them with everyone. So whether you are a client, a prospective client, someone starting a business, someone who may never work with us, but you love listening to our beautiful voices, just reach [email protected] and as always drop us a five star review. We love to hear from you and we will catch you next time.

Practice success doesn't always equal personal life happiness. Kiera talks about the Yes Success Model, and how to align your business goals with your personal life goals, because they're allowed to complement each other (and should, frankly). She asks probing questions that'll get you thinking about alignment and finding the right motivating factors to keep going.

Episode resources:

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:01)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And I am so excited because I love today's topic. And I hope that it just gives you a filtering and a process of how do I like actually make like growth decisions and life goals and like what is that long-term vision clarity? Like to me, it's such an empowering topic for you. And I'm so excited because I think that so many practice owners, when I meet them or we work with them, is they actually build a successful practice that they don't want. I've done it. I built a business that I didn't freaking want to work in. And I've said, like, hey, if I

If I actually like didn't have to work here and I didn't own this, would I keep working here? And if I can't say yes, then we might want to rework this. and honestly, growth without direction can leave you with more stress, more responsibility, and less freedom. And so today I just want to work on like sometimes bigger isn't always better. Sometimes like we just need to be better aligned is better. So bigger isn't always better. Doesn't mean bigger is wrong, but better aligned is where we're actually trying to go. So I want you guys just to know like a lot of owners feel stuck.

Even after they hit success. Like I had a podcast a while of like the empty millionaire. Like I thought like if I hit a million, everybody says this and I was like, Yeah, right, I'm not gonna be that person. No, I remember being like, So this is it, huh? Like, all right, we've hit a million.

Cool. Do I love my life? No. Like it was this wild thing. And so, like, why do we still feel stuck after hitting success? And how to create this vision that guides a lot of your decisions to where you have a filtering process of yes or no? Like I think about Willy Wonka and the golden egg, like yes, no, good, bad, like giving you kind of that framework to know. And then like what are some questions you should be asking before your next big move? So I think it's really fascinating because when we work with a client and we get on our first call, I'm not here to say like, what do you, what do you want to produce?

we call it the yes success model and the why stands for you. The number one thing I want to know is like what what's the life that you're trying to build? I say it often I will say it here. Your business should serve your life, not the other way around. And I've gotten it wrong for so many years where I've given up so much of my life to serve the business. I remember being like, I think back to when I first started the company and Jason and I would be hanging out and we were literally floating down the river. I kid you not, like we're rafting tubing, and I'm on my phone answering emails. And that was an aha moment for me of like here, I think you're doing this wrong.

Like you need to freaking shut it off and like be present. And I'm building like that's not the life I want. I don't want to be working seven days a week. I don't want to be psycho. I don't want to be stressed out of my mind. So like I think it's really powerful. Like I call it the yes success model. You are number one pillar. Then it's earnings and then it's systems and team development, not the other way around. If I mess up on you and your life and we are building a practice and you're not fulfilled at the end, we have failed. And that is my definition of it. So I don't want you guys chasing someone else's version of success.

I don't want you chasing more locations or operatories or production. I want you doing this because this lights you up and this is your vision and that not because you feel like that's what you should be doing. We're gonna stop shooting on ourselves. I have a practice, they produce about four million a year. They're at a 35% overhead, they work four days a week. People are like, you need another practice, and they're like, we don't want to. This is the life we want. And I think sometimes being that stalwart in your vision is really, really critical and pivotal. So today I just want you to like.

realize that vision planning, like I talk to offices all the time, if your team's not following, it's because you don't have a strong enough vision. If you're not happy in your life, it's because you don't have a strong enough vision of where you actually want to go. So I want you to really have these growth decisions that move you closer to the life you actually want, not further and further away from that. So number one, what are we gonna do? Hi, we're Dental A Team. I'm obsessed with you. I'm here to help you have the dreamiest life you could ever imagine. I love, love, love helping dentists and teams come together to live their best life.

And I really want to empower you, CEO dentist out there, the dentist who is the CEO of their life and their practice. I call it life and business on purpose. Like let's GSD together. So step one is let's define success beyond production. And for me, this is really hard. I remember there was a dentist I was talking to, and he's like, But Kiera, production is the only thing we can compare against. It's the only actual number. You're right. There is no number of like, what's my fulfillment measure today? Am I like 10%, 20%? There's nothing in there.

So it's really, really hard because sometimes we're like, well, my production number is the only thing that I compare with all the other dentists. But I have a dentist who's making a million a year, like he's producing a million a year, works three days a week, and loves his life. There is no way for me to say, like, what's his success measure? I can know what his production is and like, hey, I got an office over here doing 29 million. But we got to define our success beyond production. So production's a result, it's not a vision. So I really want you to have like

it's hard because like setting revenue goals without lifestyle goals is a miss. Saying yes to every opportunity is another miss. Feeling successful on paper but exhausted in reality, that's another miss. So we pivot it and sometimes I feel like this is the time where like pretend I'm your fairy godmother and I'm just gonna wave my magic wand for you. Like if you had no stressors, you didn't feel like anybody was judging you, no parents, no spouse, no family, no friends, no no, I don't know, like mean girl or mean guy sitting on your shoulder, how many days do you actually want to work?

What kind of dentistry do I actually love doing? When do I want to retire? Or like maybe scale back a few days? What about my family to look like? How much freedom do I actually want? Notice I didn't put in there any dollars in there because if we can focus on vision first, dollars come second. If I know what your vision is and what your life is, fantastic. We can go build. You guys, dentistry is untapped. It's freaking awesome. Like, so let's just build. Like, what does that look like? And you might realize, like, I don't know, Kiera. And so I was actually working with a friend this last weekend.

And he's like, Kiera, what do you do when you don't know where you want to go? And I was like, Well, step one is we got to have a little guiding star. Like, let's just do five or 10 years from today. What's your age and what do you want that to look like? You could go further and you could say, when I'm 90, what do I think I'd want to be doing right now? Like when Kiera's reliving her life at 90, sitting on her rocking chair with hot pink hair, like it's actually cutting candy. Pink, you're welcome. for that visual, like, what do I want my life to look like? So, whichever one's gonna work for you.

Sometimes a tenure for me, I just need like a little glowing light up on the hill. That's written in pencil. It doesn't have to be permanent. But what do I want that life to look like? And most people usually do it based on one of three things. It's either going to be a dollar amount, which is totally fine. It's going to be on a fulfillment, like what's going to drive you, or it's going to be on a purpose. So, like for me, massive impact. I drive so hard because I want to impact and serve every dang dentist out there. So share this podcast with somebody. Help me on my goal. Like, I'm obsessed with helping dentists have their best lives.

And so like that drives me literally in the middle of every vision board, unintentionally, it says massive impact. Like, what can I do that's gonna leave a stamp and a mark on so many people's lives? And so I built the podcast for free because it was a way for us to reach more people. I hope we brighten your day. You're welcome. Go leave us a review for it and tell more people about it so more people we can serve. Like genuinely, that's what it was. But that's like in the middle of my goal board. So for me, it's impact. Like numbers are super fun and numbers drive me hard. And I'm not here to say like numbers are wrong. I am highly numbers driven.

But like, what's the impact? That's gonna motivate me so much more. Like serving 500 dentists and then serving a thousand dentists. Like that to me is something of like a churn. I want to make 40 millionaires in my next lifetime. Like, how do I do that? Like the next decade of my life. So, like, I look at this, but also like, what is the life that I want? What's the trade-off? They can be hand in hand. So I really want you to look at like what is it? I told you about that office that I've got this 3.5, 35% overhead.

They don't want another practice. They literally want to live. They don't want another associate. They have great, it's all the systems are done. They don't want to deal with the headache of that. And I'm like, fantastic. You want fewer clinical days. I've got another doctor. He's like, Kiera, I want to go play a pickleball. I used to like have a lake house and all these other things. Like, I want it simple. I want to play pickleball. And I want to be able to hang out with my family. Your lighthouse of 10 years or your motivator, it can be a little fuzzy up there. It doesn't have to be perfect.

But getting that vision out of you is something I'm obsessed with because your practice should support your life and not the other way around. And once you get your identity outside of success, you're gonna realize like, and hey, guess what? If that practice goes away tomorrow, are you still a human? Are you still happy? If not, we've got to figure out because you need to be a full, complete person and not just a dentist producing. So I don't want you building a practice that you want to eventually escape. I want you building a practice.

Of what like I'm so excited and like I love that part of my life. and it doesn't mean we have to have every day great, but we want to love this part of it. So I'd really love for you to write down what success looks like for your life first and then your practice. Also be careful because I found like for me, I used to have a definition of success that was really hard to achieve. Tony Robbins said it really well. He says, We make it really easy to feel bad about ourselves and really hard to feel good. So like for success, you might be like,

Have to make a million every year and I have to drive this kind of car and I have to live at this type of house and I have to do this and this and this and this and this and this and this. Well, you're never gonna hit that. You made it so impossible for you to ever feel happy and successful. And I'm not here to say like lower your goals and dreams, but like, is a million really gonna make you happy? Is living in that house really gonna drive you for your happiness and your thing, or is that just something you feel like you should do because that's what people do? Just a question to ask. I want you to write down what success looks like for you, and I want you to make it easy for you to hit success.

It's not your production. Success for your life. What does that look like 90 years, 10 years from now? Whatever it is, but let's write that down and let's get that going. Okay. Number two, I want you to filter every opportunity now through this vision. So this hurts. This is hard. This is the discipline side. Not every opportunity is right or a good opportunity. This year, gosh, I don't have my bracelets on. I usually wear bracelets. this year I actually have a bracelet that says no.

To remind myself that saying no is equally as important as saying yes. Does that actually fit and fulfill the life I'm building? Or does it not? I have a sign pointing right over here. It says she designed a life she loved. And that's the ultimate goal is we need to be designing, creating, not managing, a life we are freaking obsessed with. So when I look at this, like buying another practice because it's available, if that doesn't fit into your life vision and what you want to do and less this, like I remember I had a doctor, he would set up.

Everything was done. We checked every box, every tea. I was like, all right, guys, we're wrapping up. Like, I don't know what else to consult you on. Like, truly what we set out to do, we've accomplished. Like, let's let's go. And now I we have another practice. And I was like, okay, so you have a college-age student. Like just imagine like your child is college age now, like they're out of the house, they're done, and you're about to bring on a screaming baby. Are you sure you want to buy this practice? And this doctor was like, Kiera, I do.

Like I really am excited for the grind and the drive and the like thrill of building something else. And they've done an amazing job. It's been three years. They took them from 500,000 to 2.5 million, like crushed it. I'm so proud of them. But it wasn't just because it became available. It fit. And so really checking to make sure, like, does this fit my life? Adding services in because everyone else does. Just because everyone does implants doesn't mean you need to. It's got to fit what you love. Hiring because you're busy instead of because it's strategic. Like, why am I hiring? Why are we doing these things? So

I want you to like start to filter through. You got your vision, you got your 10-year plan. Like, what does your life look like? Next step is like, does this move me towards my vision or away from it? And don't be careful where I can justify my life away. Like I can justify the shenanigans out of a lot of decisions. Will this improve that my quality of life? And will this make the practice stronger or just bigger? So those are some good filtering questions for you. And so, like I said, a lot of these, like when we choose to make decisions, like maybe we're gonna have a bigger leadership team or I'm gonna improve systems or

We're gonna go hunker down and like focus on profitability. My doctor who wants to like got rid of the lighthouse. We simplified so much. They're like, it's profit and like less stress is what I want. But I want you to know that just because you write this vision today does not mean it's permanent. It's like very much in pencil. You're allowed to rewrite this as much as you want because when you hit this, I want you to feel fulfilled and not empty at the end of it. So looking to see how is this helping me have more freedom, have more life. Like I said, I got a doctor who's working.

three days a week making a million and so happy. Like sometimes I look at him and I'm like, I am jealous and so happy of your life. I've got another doctor who works six days a week and they're producing like five, six, seven million. Success comes in all shapes and sizes. And this is actually why I love bringing our doctors together. there was one doctor and she told me she's like, Kiera, I really don't like coming to the mastermind because I compare. And I was like, gosh darn, like you missed it, honey. Like there is no space that you have to compare. It's like hey I'm gonna rip off their ideas that are great ideas.

And I'm also going to be so proud of who I am and so confident. And that to me is when you have a very solid vision. You can walk into a room and you can hear a lot of people, but you don't walk out there feeling any less because you're like, this is my life that I'm creating. I am designing a life I'm obsessed with. And when you can say that, it just makes your decision making easier. But I would say have that locked, have it up on a board to where you're constantly focused on that, saying no, not saying yes to every opportunity just because it's there, but truly this is gonna help your decision making process become so much easier.

If it doesn't fit the vision, it's a distraction. And it's a no. So just say no and move on. That way you are obsessed with creating your life rather than managing it. So I want you to think about your next major decision and ask, does it support the future I'm trying to build? And if it does, rock on. If it doesn't, rock on. We just want to make sure that we're driving you forward. And then my next step is like revisit this vision every year at a minimum. I like to do my like, gosh. Are you ready to meet Kiera for real? I have been using the passion planner. Thank you, Monica. I know you listen to the podcast. This is a shout out to

I use the passion planner. It literally at the end of every month has reflection questions for me. It says, What was a memorable part of this past month? Describe it. What were three lessons you learned this past month? Review your planner for the past month and assess your priorities. Are you happy with how you spent your time? If not, what steps can you take next month to adjust them? What did you accomplish this past month? What are you proud of? How are you different between this past month and the month before it? What or who are you especially grateful for this past month? Name three ways you can grow this upcoming month. What concrete actions can you take to work towards these?

From one to one to ten, how do you feel overall about this past month? And this is supposed to you can take those same questions. I write my vision out. And a lot of times I use that reflection to also ask myself, am I getting closer or further away from the vision I set for myself? Every quarter I revisit our company's vision and my personal vision. Am I closer or further away? And what do need to do to course correct? At the end of every single year, kid you not, I literally write it. It says 2026. Like, let me just pull it up right now so you guys know.

That I'm not there. So 2026, my word this year is happy. and it's outcomes over so 2026, the year of happy. Kiera's the happiest version of herself. She does things that light her up. Outcomes over activity say no. This is my dream of a life that I am creating daily. And I have my purpose, I have what my goals are, I have my things on there, I have my mission statement, I have my personal important goals this year.

And I have my consulting goals for our company of what I want. And then I break it down into quarters of what needs to happen. And I review this monthly and I review this quarterly and I review it at the end of the year. My goal is like, what do I need to do and how do I need to drive towards this? So really it's a like review it every year at a minimum. I have a goal board. I put mine out on Canvas so I don't forget about it. To me, if it's if I'm creating my life rather than just managing it, I better be actively working towards that rather than just stumbling and hoping I make it.

So I want you to like when I get doctors and teams aligned on their one year, their three year, their ten year, thank you, traction for that model. They're able to all row. I have a doctor that we're working with right now. They're about a five million dollar practice. And they like we started out, we like got all the leadership team aligned about almost two months ago now. And they've been running their meetings. And today we got on our call and they were like, Kiera, we actually are rowing like.

The leadership highlight was we're all having better communication. We're all focusing on the same thing and we're all headed in the same direction. And to me, that lights me up because that team's lit up. But what's even cooler is on the backside of it, that doctor has their personal life goals that they're working towards in conjunction with their business goals. This doctor has never been happier. And I think about that. To me, that is the freaking success of what we're aiming for. So I encourage you, like have an annual vision day or put it in there monthly of like review my vision and see.

Get a passion planner. I know it sounds so silly, but like this forces me not to forget. And to me, my vision is the most important thing. Secondary is executing on it and not just having it as a hope and a wish, but something I know I'm confident I will actually have. So for you, quick wrap up on this. I hope you loved it today, is divine divine your success beyond just production. Like, what is that? And make it easier to feel good and harder to feel bad. Filter our decisions through that vision. We do the same thing for teams. If it's not aligned with our vision, we don't do it now.

And then revisit that vision every single month, every single year, every single quarter, whatever's right for you. Because I really want you to know that the best life and the best practice are built on purpose, not by accident. You truly are intentional by this. Like I want you to be designing a life you love, not just managing one that's given to you. When your vision is crystal clear, your decisions become much easier. So if you feel like you're being pulled in a bajillion directions, like it might be that you're not doing too much, it might just be that we don't have a clear vision of where you need to go.

So let's define that up. Let's help you. This is something we do with all of our offices, your personal life and your business. And they need to be married together and they need to be serving you. Life and business on purpose. You're worth it. You deserve it. You went and took the risk of becoming a business owner. Now let's reap the rewards of that. Success has two sides of the coin, the hard side and the great side. Let's get more of that great side. So that way when you reach these successful milestones, you feel freaking lit up, fulfilled, and so happy that you are actually living your dream of a life and not just managing what's coming your way. So reach out.

[email protected]. Go live your best life. Do not make this just a hope and a wish. I used to write on my mirror when I was little. I said, don't just dream, do. And I encourage you to do the same. And with that, thank you guys so much for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

It's Kiera and Britt on the pod together, with listeners getting a live look into how the Dental A-Team is thinking about the year's end — plus ideas as to what could be copied over to dental practices. There's a large emphasis on cost estimates and budgeting, including knowing when to fine-tune production or start cutting, and finding alignment as a team over those decisions.

Episode resources:

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today, wow, today feels like it should be written in the history books. Me and the Brittany Stone, No BS Britt coming on the podcast today. Britt, how you doing today?

Brittany (00:12)

Good, was just thinking it's been a minute since I've been on the podcast.

Kiera (00:16)

I know. I always message Britt when I need like certain topics. I'm like, hey, you want a podcast with me? And Britt's nice to say yes to me. I don't I don't bring Britt on as much as we used to. Britt doesn't actively take clients now. Britt hangs out in the background with me more often. So Britt, I think that that's like a win. I'm gonna say it's a win. Like Britt gets to be a little,

Brittany (00:36)

I'll take it as a win.

Kiera (00:38)

yeah. We work on some cool, crazy projects. We're working on a real fun one right now, getting ready for next year.

Britt, that spreadsheet's sexy. Spreadsheets are kind of my love language. So reviewed that

Brittany (00:48)

Thank you.

Kiera (00:48)

this last week and we're excited. There's some fun things coming up in the company for all future clients and our current clients. So Britt and I work behind the scenes, but yeah, No BS Britt. If you guys don't know her, she has been a consultant for quite a while. She has like three favorite clients that she kept when she decided to, you know, move along. And then she works in our operations in HR. And Britt is just a wealth of knowledge. She also's a hygienist. So

All things, but Britt and I decided we'd get on the podcast. AK I decided and asked Britt if she would join me is really how this shook out.

Brittany (01:16)

Yeah

Kiera (01:20)

we want to talk about like some of the things we're doing in Dental A Team for end of year planning. And I figured Britt and I, like these are our real everyday conversations, helping you guys plan and prepare for end of year. And Britt, maybe I'm a little psychotic on end of year planning, but I figured like let's kind of go through what we do together in our company, how we set up, and then hopefully again for offices you guys can be prepping for.

end of year. So that's my that's my plan for today, Britt. I hope you're on board with that.

Brittany (01:45)

I mean, I like it. think our company sometimes has a little bit more, has a few more variables than like dental practice

Kiera (01:51)

Yeah.

Brittany (01:52)

end of year planning. think we'll just say that on the like psychotic comment, but dental

Kiera (01:58)

Yeah.

Brittany (01:58)

practices, not to say there aren't variables involved, but you know, cost of travel and stuff like that is real fun right now.

Kiera (02:07)

I mean, seriously, our travel costs, we were going through all of our expenses this year and I was like, wow, we are up a lot. And a lot of them are just travel costs. Like I was shocked at how much travel has gone up. There's just a lot of things, right? Everybody's dealing with inflation. And so

Brittany (02:20)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (02:21)

as we go through it, I think systematically Britt and I start planning our year around September time. So we'll be going through and we're gonna pull up all of our costs for last year. So we're gonna look to see.

We're gonna look at 2025 and then we're gonna run from 2026 from January till September. What is that? And then I don't know what the word is, Britt. Like when you just I think it's project out. That's the word I'm looking for. We're gonna project, yeah. Choose the word. We're

Brittany (02:43)

Protect, forecast, choose your word.

Kiera (02:46)

gonna project your forecast out how much we think we're gonna spend for the rest of the year. So that way we can get a good glimpse of what does everything look like? How does this work? What what are we actually doing? And then becomes my favorite part until I hate this part.

You then go

Brittany (02:59)

Zzzzz

Kiera (03:00)

to what we plan for next year. And so

Brittany (03:02)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (03:03)

Literally there's a line item of like what's 2026? And then what do we think 2027 is? And man, Britt, we got our booties burned on some of the things we projected last year. Like we thought it was only gonna be 90,000 and it came in at like 120. So I definitely recommend looking at that. but also like Britt, what are some of the things you see for us and then also for offices? Like when we're projecting out for next year.

What are some of those costs to be planning in? Cause you've got your everyday ones. We're going need to impact for inflation. Like you said, like we're going to sell travels. Like we're going to have to need to boost that up. You still got merchant fees. You still have your rent. You still got these different pieces.

Brittany (03:35)

Thank

Kiera (03:37)

But like, what are some of the additional things that like you and I talk about in the business that I think a lot of practices might also be considering in their practices too?

Brittany (03:44)

Yeah, I think that the steady things are the easier things, right, to anticipate. It's when you're wanting to go and do some fun stuff like, hey,

Kiera (03:52)

Yeah.

Brittany (03:52)

let's go buy this thing or let's, you know, implement lasers across hygiene and we're going to need to go and buy lasers for everybody or things like that where there's going to be a bigger cost, bigger expense, bigger investment or like, hey, we want to build out.

three ops, right? What does that mean? Does that also mean we're adding in more providers if we're building out those operatories? So some of those things that are one, bigger costs, two, there's opportunity involved. So like there should be some revenue involved with that, of course, if we're investing in those types of things, but being able to plan out both sides of them. So one, what's our investment? One is that investment hitting us? What's that going to look like? And two, right, then like

Part of the fun is like the, are we banking on being the result of that thing? So

Kiera (04:43)

Yeah.

Brittany (04:44)

if it's provider related in a dental practice, right? What does that mean for even our revenue, our production, if we're gonna be adding on a hygienist or adding on, you know, another doctor to the practice that we didn't have there before. If it's just

Kiera (04:58)

Yeah.

Brittany (04:58)

an expense, right? Then planning for that expense and how you're gonna go about paying for it, whether it's gonna be.

one lump sum that's going hit us or if we're going to finance something and then that bill is going to be coming to us every month and we're going to be paying it out.

Kiera (05:13)

Yeah. And Brett, I think when you talk about that, like it is tricky. And I do think we have a bit more variable expenses. Like for us, it's like dental offices, you know, you got your dental assistant, hygienist. For us, we're like, shoot, when do we need to hire a consultant? Like, don't be too early,

Brittany (05:27)

you

Kiera (05:27)

don't be too late. What's their capacity that they can handle? so I do think our company does have a few more variables, but I also think, like you said, it's a okay, what is it going to cost? And then what is our projected income for next year or our revenue?

And I'm really excited because in our mastermind with our doctors coming person, this is mine and Britt's like little power project that we've been working on of like

Brittany (05:47)

Thanks

Kiera (05:48)

helping doctors see, like build in all the expenses that you want. Then let's see what we're gonna produce in how many days and what's your dollar per hour. And then it's like figuring out which levers we can push. And Britt, I think about you often of like, okay, do we need to produce more or do we need to cut more? Like which one are we going to be leveraging? And so when offices are looking at this, and even for us, like I love to have that wish list. Like I love to put it in of

I want to hire this and I want to do this. And like I think, and then when we get to the bottom of it and we're looking at our projected income, it's like, shoot. Now we get to go back through with like full blown

Brittany (06:16)

So she's not very happy.

Kiera (06:18)

razor and just cut and slice and dice. And hey, Britt, I'm just curious, how do you feel about company retreats on that budget line? Just curious how you feel. I know you just talked to an office about this the other day. It feels relevant, but how do you feel about company retreats?

Brittany (06:32)

I think one, build those things in for what you want

Kiera (06:35)

Ha ha ha.

Brittany (06:35)

to do, what you want to plan to do. then plan wisely. Company retreats can get wild. I think we've all heard some stories. We have great teams, but sometimes we put up in an environment and in a condition and things happen and we have to deal with things we don't want to deal with when we're trying to have fun. yeah,

Kiera (06:51)

Yeah.

Brittany (06:53)

that's what I'll say on that topic.

I think that owners, this is a good practice of planning things out to be able to see, if I want to do all these things, right? I love my docs that like want to go and take all the courses and buy all the things and have all the newest stuff, which is great. But what does that mean if we go get all the new stuff and go to all those courses and what do we need to do to be able to actually pay for those things? I also think it's really important for our managers out there.

I think it helps to bring some kind of reality to the situation. think a lot of the times if we don't know facts, we sit there and like, well, why can't we do this? Well, why can't we do that? Well, I really want to give this first than that. And I really want to do this, which we would love to do all of the things. But when it comes down to it, can we actually do it? Can we afford it? Because that's often when they're not involved in that side of it of seeing what the spend is and the reason why we need to set goals where they are. They'll be like, well, why is our goal so high? And I was like, OK.

There's a reason why our goal is so high and no, it's not just because we want our owners to make money. There's a lot of factors involved in that. And yes, we also want our owners to make money.

Kiera (08:00)

Mm-hmm. And Britt, I think that you just highlight something really important is I actually hadn't thought about it till right now when you said it. I do love that you and I work through this because I think there's an accountability side on both of ours. Like we both

Brittany (08:11)

No.

Kiera (08:12)

went and put the budget together. We both said what we thought we needed for the business. We both said,

Brittany (08:15)

I

Kiera (08:16)

hey, we think that this needs to be there. So then when we come back around and we're like, well, nuts. We gotta like figure out this amount. We gotta figure this out. Like I remember, I don't remember what it was this year. There was something you came to me and I was like,

I don't know, Britt. This is the budget. This is what we gotta do. Like, go figure it out. Like, we don't have the extra cash, even though we want to. But I think also I've done it. I remember last year, it wasn't this year, it was last year. I was like, Britt, I want to hire all these people. And you're like, girl, we made the budget. Like, this is what we said we could afford. And I'm like, I know, but I want all these people. And Britt was pretty much like me. And like, hey, well, what are you gonna go? Like, where can you cut, or where can you like this is how much we have agreed to allocate for it? Go go figure those things out. And so

I think it's really important to have doctors and OMs together where both of you guys are aligned. You can both keep each other in check and be looking and projecting forward. I think something that's hard, Britt, and I'm not sure if you've got ideas for offices, hiring people I think is one of the hardest things for me to like budget in because it's what like someone's salary, they might only get hired midway through the year. And I think something we did this year is I hired like three to four months before a lot of these people were projected in.

Well, that absolutely impacted our spend because we were hiring them. We met people, like, we know we want this position, but adding them in three months before they were really necessary or needed, I do think was a big like hit on us. And so I'm just curious, like,

Brittany (09:39)

Thanks.

Kiera (09:39)

how do people plan for when to hire, how to budget that in? Any thoughts you've got? Because I do think personnel is usually one of the biggest changes that a doctor office is going to do.

Brittany (09:49)

Yeah, and I think that it's only those one, those offices that are in a stage or like those like multiple practices that are in a stage where you're going to into some sort of like expansion, right? If not, I'd say on the year is a good time to evaluate if we want to like add a brand new role to a practice without changing any other factors like revenue that they're going to bring in.

And so I think that you've got to plan ahead and look at it in a little bit more detail by like, great, here's what the first six months are going to look like. Here's what the next six months are going to look like and what our expenses will be as you look and you forecast out. I'll say usually with dental practices, if you're looking at adding providers, it's a little easier because usually as long as they're hitting their production they need to hit, it's going to keep my other

my other numbers in line, right? If I hire a hygienist and I can keep them busy and I'm paying him the appropriate percent of their, you know, production, what they're gonna make for me, then like, I'm not really worried about that throwing my profitability way off because it's still gonna keep me in line. Associate is gonna be similar-ish. There's a lot more factors of like, how's it gonna impact owner-doctor production if I'm adding an associate. So we've got a...

Think about that a little bit more, but let's oversimplify it and say, hey, we've got all the patients. We know we can keep that associate busy. Then I know I can hire an appropriate level team to go with them, assistants to help support them, right? They're going to be producers if saying we have the patient base for them, then I'm not as stressed about adding them in. Still should like run it, see what it's going to look like.

Kiera (11:31)

Yeah.

Brittany (11:32)

But if they're a provider and we have the patients in order to keep them busy to where they're going to be producers.

then you can move a little bit more confidently than I'm adding a role that has no production side to it because that means my revenue is gonna stay the same and I'm adding costs.

Kiera (11:49)

Totally. And the only other one that I'd throw in, because of course this is like my role that I pitch to hire, is like a treatment coordinator because they can put quite a bit of dollars on your books for you, close more cases for you. You don't even have to have more patients for you. But I agree with you, those ones are easier versus it being like, We need an office manager or we need this person or I might need to give raises out for everybody. And there have been years where as much as I want to do raises,

We're in a heavy growth year and it is just a like Britt and I lock in and we say, like, all right, this is the budget. This is how much we can have. I do also think it's important to re-look at that budget because if we aren't producing as much as we thought we were, well, we might need to make some of these changes for the second half of the year that we haven't considered. So we'll dig into our like real life. So this year when Britt and I are looking, we're saying, Okay, what are we really budgeting out for next year? We know we're doing these masterminds and Britt can we just like

Brittany (12:38)

Yeah.

Kiera (12:39)

your budget that you had.

isn't gonna work for next year. That was literally the slack I think I got last week of like so we need to up that budget for next year.

Brittany (12:45)

Something to that

effect. We have a lot more people that are coming to those and we keep having more people each time we do them. So we know it's gonna get bigger.

Kiera (12:56)

Which is awesome. And I think it was fun because Britt and I like it forced us to innovate. And kudos to Britt. She went and found a really awesome venue for us. It's going to be able to facilitate the growth that we're wanting. We want these masterminds to be awesome. Our doctors love it. Hey, if you're not a part of it, join us. Like, hey, you want to be a part of it? It's very fun. It's a very fun community. Connect in with us. but I think it's a space of like, okay, we know that that's going to be a budget increase for next year. We know travel will be a budget increase for next year because going up to clients. We also like Britt and I are looking and we're looking at how much our consultants have capacity for.

We are looking to bring on another consultant for next year. So hey, if any of you know a great consultant or anybody who wants to be a consultant, shameless, not shameless plug. Send over any consulting friends you've got. They want to work for Dental A Team. Cause Britt and I, Britt, how fun is it to hire consultants?

Brittany (13:44)

You know, it's a unique set of skills, we'll put it that way. And so they are a level of a needle in a haystack. So we love good ones. So you read with Kiera, you've got the background, you've got the experience, come over to us if you know the business side of dental and want to be a consultant. But yeah, it takes us a while. It's not a quick hire. And I know I'm preaching to the choir to a degree on, for some of you, what it's like to hire even for dental practice right now.

Kiera (14:09)

Agreed. Yeah. So it's one of those spaces of like hiring an associate or hiring a hygienist or hiring other positions. They're tricky. that was literally not a shameless plug. If any of you do want to be a consultant, reach out. Britt and I are actively interviewing. So reach out. [email protected]. Don't worry, doctors, we're not taking any of your office managers. Any office managers who know people in the industry, send them our way. We'd love to work with them. but we're hiring that. We also know we're hiring like we got bigger this year. We added a lot of admin to our team. I mean,

For Britt, her role split into three roles. Like that was a big change and a big shift that we had to make. So when you look at it, and I think for all dentists right now, as you're building out, look to see what do we do this year. Look to see, like Britt said, what are the things that are going to stay the same? And then what are the pieces that you're actually going to need to increase or change out? And then look to see at that bottom dollar amount. Britt, this is always where it like depresses me. And we just get that big number. It's like all the wants and wishes. And then I go back up and it's like, all right, what things do we really have to have? What thing I mean.

Last year it was over analytics. Like we get scrappy and

Brittany (15:09)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

Kiera (15:10)

we're like, all right, could we get a better deal? Is there a different software? Is there AI that could replace this? Is there this? Like, I do actually, Britt, to me, you might not like that part as much. As much as I hate that like bottom line number versus what our production is. How do we like innovate to get those numbers to be in a line to where your profit margins are still where they need to be? What are the trade-offs you're going to make? And sometimes your trade-off is that you'll have less profit because it's a growth year. Other times the

Brittany (15:33)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (15:34)

trade-off is

We're gonna scrap and we're gonna grind and we're gonna just figure it out. And that's the trade-off for this year. But do you have any suggestions for offices of like, okay, what happens when I'm too high over budget and I need to like figure out my production or cut? Like, how do you get those offices to be in alignment so that way they feel like they like next year we can actually afford all the things we need and we're also gonna be able to produce what we need to produce?

Brittany (15:57)

Yeah, this is where Karen and get into some good back and forth on some of these topics.

Kiera (16:02)

That's great. That's why I brought you on today.

Brittany (16:06)

And I think in getting it into alignment, I think there's the necessary things that we need to do. Like those are ones that no matter what, it's necessary and we need it, then we've got to find a way to produce enough and collect enough in order to get those things. That's the way we've got to tackle it. I think on some of the other ones,

I think you can build it in, in a dental practice to be like, all right, well, here's our necessities. But if we hit X number, right, then great, we can do this thing. Or if we hit X number, we can go and we can add this thing to our monthly cost and moving forward. it can be a little bit of a, here's our study that we know we can hit. And great, we've gotten our expenses where this is our like,

comfortable space, but we know we're always going to push ourselves a little bit more. And when we push ourselves, here's our reward. We hit it. We can get X, Y, Z and add those things in because we did better than we thought we did.

Kiera (17:08)

Yeah. No, and Br I agree. It is a good healthy back and forth. And I do think that that comes down to like, okay, we budget this much for team gifts or events or for a retreat. This is where Britt and I are like, All right, we will put it together at this point in time. Like, what are the innovative ways that we could do it? Or hey, if we hit this, like offices all the time say they want to go on these retreats. I know I'm like, We we make a joke because our team is virtual. So then you force people to travel who aren't travelers. It got a little wild for us for a few years. So Britt and I were like,

Screw that. We're not losing any more team members. We're not running any more retreats. Like, we're done. And it's a PL save. But that doesn't mean that like our team loves to get together. So can we do things when we get in person for the masterminds? Like that's where we got creative of like, when do people get together? What could we do that could be fun? I did love the idea. Like, again, no ideas are off limits. Someone's like, well, can't you guys like just do your retreat on Sunday after your masterminds? And I was like, hard no. I'm exhausted. The team's exhausted. We want to.

never see each other for six more months like just pure exhaustion because we put so much energy out for everybody. But I think it's really where you can just go back and forth and it's like, okay, well, if we want to do this type of a retreat, like, is there a way we could get the same outcome on a different budget? Or are there different ways

Brittany (18:20)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (18:21)

too? And I really do love that Britt and I will come in and it's this back and forth. It's both of us creatively thinking, Britt pushes hard on like, is this really a must or is this like a want? And I appreciate that. But even looking at consulting, like

I think that there's a space, and I think Britt and I are a good example of this, which is why I wanted you guys to hear our genuine true back and forth. Me sometimes I'm going to push, like, no, Britt, we do need to hire this consultant or we do need to have this. This year, I had three great ideas. Of my three great ideas, one was good, two were not so good. Like Britt, I'll hand it to you. The last hire we made that you told me not to do, that I thought was a brilliant idea, didn't pan the way we thought it was going to. And I called it, I've admitted it, it was not a good move.

But I think that there's like my job is to push and innovate and try things that maybe Britt would say, like, I'm not so sure. And Britt's job is to say, like, you might want to think about this before you say it. But there are some times when I'm going to see that, like, no, bringing this person in or bringing this piece in or changing this up, it might not be right. But I will say, like, between the two dynamics of a doctor and an OM, make sure that both of you are pushing your agendas while coming together of what's in the best interest of the business. Those are my thoughts, Britt, but I'm sure you have your perspective of it too.

Brittany (19:31)

Yeah, and we're always going to try things and they're not always going to not everything's going to pan out, especially like technology and all the things going on and all the advancements. Like there's going to be things we try that we're like, hey, this might be a great idea. Think it will work. Let's do it. We do it. We're like, man, maybe that isn't as helpful as we thought it would be. We'll fix that one and we're going to move on. I think those things, if they're not happening, we're probably not trying enough.

If they're happening all the time, then maybe we could vet a little bit better before we jump into some of those things.

Kiera (20:03)

fair. And I think they like I think in dentistry it's a little bit easier. Britt and I are in the wild while the bus over here. Neither of us have ever built a dental consulting company. So you better believe some of my like late night grandiose great ideas, some of them have been kick A. Some of them have been awesome. Others, hmm, that one didn't pan. And I think having the humility on both sides of like that didn't work and always coming back to the table of this is in the best interest of the business.

what's really going to get us to where we need to go. So I think Britt, thank you for coming on and humoring me today. I really want people to hear

Brittany (20:33)

Thank

Kiera (20:34)

like what you and I do back and forth. Hopefully for doctors and OMs, I would say it's time. Like let's go run our numbers for this year. Let's project out through end of year what we think it'll be. And then let's build 2027's budget. Let's look to see what it's going to cost us. Let's look to see what we want to add in, what team members, what softwares, what consulting. Like this is where a lot of times people have also I will say on the consulting end of year, if I know we want to add this in for next year.

And I'm looking at my tax liability this year. Britt

Brittany (20:59)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (20:59)

knows I am in a heavy hunt of what are the capital expenses? What are the things that I can put in now that are going to benefit us for next year? That's also going to keep our cash flow high. So if you you've got a higher tax bill this year, that's why I like to plan in September. Cause then I've got October, November, December. We have prepaid for event venues. We have prepaid for consulting. We know we're gonna have lots of our clients will pay at the end of the year for consulting. So if you've been considering that, then it's not a cost next year that I have to do. We're getting the benefits of it next year.

But I'm able to get the discount rates. And sometimes also Britt and I will negotiate with people, hey, if we pay in full at the end of year, can we get a discount? Like people are willing to do things because they know business owners need to get these off their books. So I'd really recommend dialing

Brittany (21:38)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (21:39)

it in, looking to see. I can't pre-pay and hire somebody today. Like I can't do that. But software, consulting, technology, different things that I want to bring into the business. Things like if we know we're going on a trip, like we will pre-book a lot of our flights at the end of the year.

anything that we can do, depending upon the tax liability that we have, it's things that we're gonna do. And everyone's like, you might kick your can down the road. True. And next year might not be as profitable. We knew we were headed into a growth year this year. So we stockpiled last year. We knew this year would be a bit more of a stretch year. That's how I think business owners should look. And it gives you, I'd rather you be doing this today in September or October before the end of the year. So you have time to make those decisions. So those are my final thoughts for any for you.

Brittany (22:19)

And I'll come in with my

like conservative two senses as long as it's something that you know you're going to spend money on anyways. It's kind of like I've got I've got a friend's family that I'm like, it's like the people who are like, well, it's on sale. So I bought it. I'm like, OK, but a good deal on something you don't need is still spending money you don't need. So

Kiera (22:38)

Yeah.

Brittany (22:39)

as long as it's something that you actually need or you are actually going to spend money on anyways, 100 percent agreed. But don't go like.

spend money on stuff you don't actually need to spend money on.

Kiera (22:51)

I do agree. And this is again where you got good, like it's a good balance here.

Brittany (22:54)

Yeah.

Kiera (22:54)

agreed. I'm glad you put that caveat in because all those pieces like software, technology, consulting, we knew we were going to do it anyway. Let's just get it for a better deal because we can. Like we will bundle end

Brittany (23:01)

Mm-hmm. Correct.

Kiera (23:05)

of year. We're is looking at all of our softwares and we were hunting to see, like, hey, if we buy it now, if we do a whole year, things we know we're already going to do, can we get that a reduced price? That's also going to keep our cash flow higher next year, too, for us, which is always a benefit. So

That's our that's our end of year. We're, you know, having a good time with masterminds. They're growing. They're a good time. They're so fun. We're looking for consultants. but I also think, Britt, like, I think Dental A Team is it's a growing company and it's always going to be growing and it's always going to be evolving. And I think both of us have accepted that. Some dental practices aren't. And it's also okay if like your numbers are pretty consistent year over year.

Brittany (23:40)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (23:41)

That's also okay. But look, you might be looking in like,

What are the raises? Or what are the CE courses we could take our team? Because just because you flatline, if you will, you're not adding more head count, you're not adding more tech, you're not adding more ops. What things can I do to innovate and push my team forward? Or how can I get more increased dollar per patient in the practice?

Brittany (23:57)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kiera (24:01)

Those are the areas to be looking at. So every practice should be like, this is the push, this is the innovation, this is the creation, and then lock in. And Britt, like we got to lock on that budget. Britt does a good job of being like, no, we locked on this, we stay on it.

reconcile it monthly and then reset usually halfway through the year to see how you're doing. Obviously look at it quarterly, but really I don't really try to make big budget changes until about mid year to let it ride for a little bit longer.

Brittany (24:25)

Mm hmm.

Yep, I agree with you. And yeah, offices, your spend may not change a whole lot each year. You should be growing to a degree each year. And yeah, costs are going to go up to a degree each year, but it won't. Some don't swing as far as some others. Now, my my practices out there, my my owners, my true entrepreneurs out there, they're like, yeah, I'm adding a practice next year. I'm doing

Kiera (24:50)

Mm.

Brittany (24:50)

this or I'm doing that. Like, yeah, there's going to be a few more variables in the mix.

Kiera (24:54)

Absolutely. So go guys, go start plupping pranning. If you need help with this, we're literally working on it with our doctors and our offices. It's a great time. reach out [email protected]. Britt, thanks for being here. Thanks for being my like No BS Britt. You always love give it to me straight. You always talk to me. And I respect that so much because I think every good entrepreneur needs a great No BS Britt next to them who will make sure that both are are synced and can really do the best in the business. So thank you for being on the podcast with me today.

Brittany (25:23)

Thanks for having me.

Kiera (25:24)

Of course. And for all of you listening, go get your end of year in place. Go get your numbers dialed in. Reach out if we can help you in any way. And as always, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Dentistry is most important when a patient is in the practice. As soon as they leave, there are a million other parts of their life competing for priority. Tiff and Dana discuss how to talk about dental care with your patients so it doesn't get lost under the heap of everything else.

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Transcript:

Tiffanie (00:01)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back again to podcast with you. To yeah, I loved that Dana. Dana's got some excitement in her veins today. I think it's nice out. Honestly, it's nice out. I had I had to close this window the last podcast. That's what you saw me do. and then I have another window open and I'm in Phoenix. We don't open our windows often, and I've only got like probably thirty minutes left of this window being open.

DAT-Dana (00:27)

Right.

Tiffanie (00:29)

but it's energizing. I feel like

I just need the fresh air and and it's just beautiful out. So I can imagine Dana where you are if it's this beautiful here and then Brodie's in he's forty five minutes south. So he's in Tempe and he sent a picture and it was more beautiful and I'm like, gosh, go another hour and a half past that towards Dana. It's gotta be just gorgeous down there right now.

DAT-Dana (00:51)

It is. I feel like though Phoenix can just be gorgeous and be gorgeous. Further south, and there's an as you know, Tiff, because you kind of grew up in this area.

Tiffanie (00:58)

Mm-hmm.

DAT-Dana (01:00)

if it is sunny and beautiful, then typically it's paired with wind, right? So I feel like my windows are never

Tiffanie (01:04)

This is

DAT-Dana (01:06)

open because even when in the temperature is beautiful enough to have them open, the wind is going and I don't want all

Tiffanie (01:12)

yeah.

DAT-Dana (01:13)

the desert dust you know, sitting in my living room. So

Tiffanie (01:17)

I love

what you just said. I love it. So Brodie texted me a picture and I said, Gosh, that's prettier than here. I said, This is this weather is the only thing I miss about living in Sierra Vista. And what you just said, people say, Why did you move? Like the weather was the weather is better in Sierra Vista. It literally is. The temperatures

DAT-Dana (01:33)

Yeah. Yes.

Tiffanie (01:35)

are better. You get a better winter, you get better seasonality. Like it is just better. And people say, Well, why did you move? And I say, Because of the wind. I legitimately

90% moved because I couldn't you just can't be in it. It whips your hair, like it hurts my hair hitting my face as a child. I remember the pain of that and the tangles and brushing my hair out at the end of the day because I had to walk home from the bus. Like legitimately, Dana, the wind. I can't handle Southern Arizona winds. Yeah. Yeah.

DAT-Dana (02:12)

Yep, yep, you

hit it. You hit it right on.

Tiffanie (02:15)

Spent

my I spent my whole childhood there. I lived in Sierra Vista till I was what, twenty? I think I moved up here when I was twenty. I can't I can't do it. So yeah, I love that you said that. And everyone listening, you just got a nice little taste of the Arizona weather history there. It's never changed. It's still windy. So if you want wind, go down south. If you want really cool honestly, it's it's beautiful down there. So if you haven't visited Southern Arizona, meaning

Like Phoenix is cool too. Obviously Sedona. But if you haven't been south of Phoenix, Tucson has some really cool stuff. But then you get into like Saurita, where you are, and Senoida, there's like wine country, there's Tombstone, Isbe. Like there's a lot to do down there. And I discredit it and disvalue it 'cause I grew up in it. but it is really beautiful. And

on to dental. Yeah. Yeah.

DAT-Dana (03:08)

Yeah, but my windows just stay closed. So I can look at

the beauty. I just Yep. Right. Yeah.

Tiffanie (03:13)

My windows stay closed because it's too hot. So in Arizona we just don't open windows. Okay.

It's just stifling in our house all the time. It's fine. So on that note, dental. Dana, we get fed podcast topics. and then you and I, I love that you and I are just like, nah, we're not gonna do that one today. I don't I didn't like the other one. So today we we already talked about kind of

Prepping for changes and and systems that work in the midst of change. That was a a podcast we just recorded. So if you haven't heard that one, go back, find it after this one. You don't need it beforehand. But they kinda go I think they kinda go hand in hand because one change that we oftentimes don't prep for because we don't know it's coming, is accepted treatment still like falling off of a schedule. And I think that happens a lot. I have a lot of practices that are like,

It's full until the day before or two days before or gosh my hygiene schedule's full six months. I can't get ab get anybody in. But then the week of it's falling apart. So we're not here to talk about hygiene. There's plenty of those podcasts. Go search it. But we are going to talk about why accepted treatment still falls off of the schedule. And Dana, right before we started this podcast, you said something and I was like, Yep, another drop mic drop moment from Dana. She'll always give them to us.

I would love for you to repeat what you said right before we got on this podcast because I think that it's true and I think that's where we start.

DAT-Dana (04:38)

Yeah. I I am known for my brutal honesty tips. So what I

Tiffanie (04:42)

Ha ha

DAT-Dana (04:44)

said before we got on is like treatment that falls up after the fact is typically for the same reasons that we hear patients give us that they don't schedule to begin with.

Tiffanie (04:53)

Yes, yes. And I got excited about that because I believe that oftentimes we work so hard in like the sales side of dentistry that or not that we work so hard on the sales side of dentistry to get a yes that they're just like, okay, yes, fine, I'll schedule it. Like, well, what about this hurdle? What about this hurdle? And yes, I wanna work objections and I wanna I wanna get over hurdles.

But I think Dana, in what you said, you said the same, they they fall off the schedule for the same reason that people don't schedule. And I wonder if not every time, but if sometimes those patients who are falling off weren't actually a yes, they were a let me out of this office right now, right? Because I I've taken a lot of

Communication courses, a lot of relationship style courses. I've done a lot of emotional intelligence and just like communication stuff. And something that is tried and true in every aspect of anything that I've done extracurricularly is the relationship comes first. And

Knowing

the person, knowing the why, knowing the reason, and speaking to that and overcoming, helping someone overcome an issue or a problem and seeing better on the other side is the most important factor. And oftentimes in our objections and our conversations of our hurdles, I wonder if that aspect of the communication gets missed because it's more about checking check boxes.

than it is about investing in the person. And maybe I'm being wild, but when you said that, that's where my brain went and I was like, gosh, it's the relationships. Dana, what are you what's your perspective? What are you seeing on your side?

DAT-Dana (06:47)

Yeah, I 100% agree with you. And I feel like when because we hear it all the time when we go into park, well, it falls out because life happens, right? Well, you're right.

Tiffanie (06:55)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (06:56)

Life is going to happen. and typically we will also kind of say that like dentistry is most important when the patient is in the office. So then when life happens, right, it becomes less and less important. And I think that you're absolutely right. And to me, it tells me that like

I actually didn't really listen and get to the bottom of what actually was holding the patient back or what their no actually was. And so yes, I got a yes, which great, but I didn't actually get a yes that meant I'm fully committed, I fully understand, I'm fully ready to go. and so then that's kind of why we see it fall off. And I feel like

The biggest thing is life is going to happen for your patients when they leave the practice. So if they don't know where, when, how to prioritize the dentistry that you are talking about with them in life happening, then we didn't get it right.

Right, because life is gonna happen and I need to know that if my dog chews 35 Legos, like she's been doing every week and has to have an emergency vet visit, right? That

Tiffanie (08:00)

Yep.

DAT-Dana (08:01)

like I know where my dentistry needs to fall in the spectrum of the things of my dog eating 35 Legos, right? Do I need

Tiffanie (08:08)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (08:08)

that crown or does the dog need to so life happens, absolutely.

Tiffanie (08:12)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (08:13)

But I think our biggest tool is

treatment coordinators or people that talk about treatment or even the dentists, right? Tre doing the treatment planning in the back is they need to know where to prioritize the dental work that needs done with the life things that are going to happen. And I think when we just get that artificial yes, that didn't happen.

Because they

Tiffanie (08:34)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (08:34)

left and something came up in their life, or they left and were just like, I do it all the time. I go to Target, I put all these things in my cart, and as I'm walking up to the thing, I'm like, I don't really need that. Or

Tiffanie (08:44)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

DAT-Dana (08:46)

you know what? I don't, I don't really need my lips moisturized. That chapstick can go. Right. And so

Tiffanie (08:50)

Yep. Yep.

DAT-Dana (08:51)

those things start to happen. And if you think about doing that and you think about, okay, well, how

What would make someone take the dentistry out of their cart, right, and stick it back on the shelf? It's probably because we didn't get to the bottom of what is important to them. We didn't build that relationship with them. We didn't understand who they were and how they make their decisions. And we didn't get through to them where to prioritize this decision and all the other decisions they're going to make the second they leave the office.

Tiffanie (09:21)

Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. And that's not something that I think people innately know how to do, especially in the workplace, because in my opinion, we think of work as transactional, right? You go it work, the word work is transactional, right? You do something for something. you work out at the gym to get stronger, right? To get healthier. You do something for something. So it's always transactional.

And transactional doesn't always translate to the emotional side of it. And we miss that mark. And in in dentistry, dentistry is weird, right? Because d medical, like med they don't have to think about this very often, right? One, they've got a million people walking through the door all day. They don't it's a rare occasion that someone's really concerned if you're coming back or not. So if you have a provider like that, please by all means share it on all the platforms because we all need one.

In dentistry, one, it's that's not how it happens. We don't have a million people coming through the doors. And two, we actually literally are more invested in the people that are coming to our practices. Dentists in general sought out dentistry for a different reason than many medical professionals at least are practicing now, right? I think that they probably had a good reason to get into it, but throughout the years something shifted and changed for for many people. My point of that.

is that we discredit that emotional side of it and we become more transactional where it's like, okay, the next step in the in the flow is schedule. And so we're like, okay, great. I reviewed the estimate. You've got that estimate. No questions. Great. Let's schedule. Right. And then they're like, I'll call you. And we're like, well, what difference is let me get you on the schedule now. So that I would hate for you to forget. Let me put you on the schedule now. We'll block out the time. And then if if there's you get to work and there's a work

Event in the way, give me a call. Right? I've done that a million times. Like, no, no. Now I'm supposed to say, Well, let's get it on the schedule, because now it's on the schedule, it's accepted. Right? But then that patient is like laxadaisy about the appointment or what have you. Because I didn't I didn't ask what's holding you back. Like, great, tell me more about this. Tell me when I would sit patients down for a treatment plan, I've I've done this for a long time. And in the same practice I had

the

awesome opportunity of testing out a million things over the almost 13 years I was at this practice and I've watched myself evolve. I can look back now and see like how I evolved from the transactional to the they sit down in front of me and I'm like, hey, they said you need a crown. Wha how what do you think about that? And sometimes patients were like they would just cry. They're like, I don't even I don't have anything like this. Or sometimes patients are like, I knew it was coming or can't they just pull it?

Like now I'm in a conversation and now I can learn more about the patient, their thought process, their priorities, right? Like can't you just pull it? Well, tell me why that's where you jump. From a crown to a pull, for me, that's a massive, that's a massive jump. Let me tell you why. And then you tell me why you took that leap. What's the priority there for you so that I can understand more? But instead we're so transactional, we're like, no, that would be wild. You need a crown.

And it's gonna be this much. And we stick to that transactional checklist instead of being like, Well, let me be curious, like what makes you wanna just pull out the tooth? Because to me, in dentistry, you blew my mind with that statement. So tell me why you want to pull that tooth out. But we don't always think to ask those questions. So Dana, like this is all very Kiera would be like, Yes, Tiff, this is great, but like what's the track like what's the action item, right? So like

This is all great. How do we train? And I know you and I both work on this with practices, but how do we train a treatment coordinator or a doctor, right? A dentist diagnosing can do these things too. So what

DAT-Dana (13:30)

Yeah.

Tiffanie (13:30)

are some like tips that you give practices to say, hey, get more relational and less transactional without saying those words?

DAT-Dana (13:38)

Yeah. I

I think one, it is just just like you said, it's kind of shifting your mindset. I always teach teams at the end of the day, we want the yes, right? But we want a yes that is good for both of you, right? Like you as a treatment coordinator and them as the patient. And just getting a yes, like you said, is super transactional. So to me, how I train teams is we have to just ask more questions. We have to ask what's holding them back. We have to ask.

what would a budget be that they're comfortable with? We have to ask like if they feel like third party financing is an option for them. We have to ask if they even want to save the tooth. We have

Tiffanie (14:14)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (14:14)

to just ask more questions. And I feel like

It's again, I like gonna highlight the podcast we did before. Please go find it. It was a good one, but like it comes down to communication and it comes down to just asking more questions because every question that you ask is going to break down a barrier in some way. And it might present a new one that we have to work through, but it's getting treatment coordinators to understand that your job is to partner with the patient and figure out a way. There is

always away. And I like I say this all the time. There's no financial barrier that you like really can't truly overcome. You can break down treatment, you can break down payments, you can pay ahead of time and then add third party. You can like there are you have to get super creative sometimes, absolutely. But you have to really feel in your bones that it is so important for this patient to have done what is needed to be done and you have to be willing to ask whatever question it takes.

to get to the point where you can both feel really good about a yes. Not just you, because you got the yes. You both have to feel really good about the yes.

Tiffanie (15:23)

I totally agree. Yeah, that was beautiful. And then get some pre-collect.

DAT-Dana (15:28)

Yes.

Tiffanie (15:29)

I the money mindset is far overlooked. there's a statement I wanted to remember to say. One of the things that I learned in all of the training that I've done is to be more interested than interesting. And I think about that all the time because human nature is to talk about ourselves, right? Or to be right or to have the the

most information and in dentistry, especially my treatment coordinators, my office managers, my billing reps. Like we I think sometimes feel like we have something to prove, right? That we're we do know what we're talking about because there isn't a formal you don't get to go to school to be a treatment coordinator and you come out with a certificate or a degree in treatment planning. Like you just don't we learn it on the job. We learn it by going to CE. We learn it because we hired a consultant, the Dental A Team and they were wonderful. Like

We learn these things through doing it. And so I think sometimes we wanna make sure that people know what we know what we're doing. So we can get a little transactional in it and a little dry. So making sure that we're being more interested, meaning to Dana's point, like asking more questions. Be be in the why, be in the why is it that way? What do you feel about that? Tell me more, right? So the one aspect. And then the the

like hurdle of the collecting in advance or something you've already paid for, right? Everybody, it's all over Instagram. You guys just look up like girl math, right? But this is one majority of your patients are probably female. I'm just gonna point that out there. Okay. So girl math works. Two, I don't think it's just women who think this way 99.9% of the time, right? Money out, money spent is already gone. You're likely not going to have someone call you and it it does happen. I'm not gonna say it won't.

It does happen, especially for large sums, but it is going to be very rare that someone calls and says, Hey, my dog ate 35 Legos yesterday and I need that $600 that I put towards that crown back so I can take him to the vet. They're gonna find another way to pay for the vet bill because they've already paid the $600 or whatever towards the treatment that they're getting done at your practice. So whether they're paying full in advance, they're paying partial, having some skin in the game.

And

having committed financially locks it in place. And it is a psychological proven skill that works every single time. Money is already gone. We've already accounted for that money to be gone. We've already formulated a plan to get it back. And we're we've moved forward. So Dana, do you I do you still this is a real question? Do you still find that you

Have pushback from teams to collect in advance. I feel like for me, it's like less and less over time. It's 2026 now, and the time of recording this, I can tell you five years ago it was much different than it is today. What are you seeing? you see more new clients than I do. I don't, I don't

DAT-Dana (18:38)

Do

Tiffanie (18:38)

take on new clients, so you're gonna have a better pool to choose from. Are you still seeing pushback from teams when it comes to pre collecting?

DAT-Dana (18:48)

Feel like I do still see some because it's an uncomfortable space. It's a new space. And I think anytime we're putting people in a new space, you do get a little bit of resistance, but it is nowhere near what I used to get because honestly and truly Tiff, teams are exhausted in trying to

Tiffanie (19:03)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (19:03)

build and rebuild and refill and backfill and replace what they've already replaced in their schedule. And and I think that.

For so long, like yes, cancellation policies are great. Yes, all those pieces we wanna have them in place, but I think

Pre-collecting, I think, works wonders in that area. And I think that team members are willing to do things or try things like just to keep their schedule solid. So

I agree with you. I think that more and more team members are open to it. More and more team members also just understand, like I think sometimes just put your patient hat on and yeah, I'm probably not gonna miss an appointment that I've already paid for. And so I do feel like

A lot of my calls are around like just schedule changes and then the process of that. And then, you know, we're trying to chase down patients because they're working the same hours we're working and and all of that. And I think teams are exhausted from trying to fill and backfill their schedule. And so I do think that like pre-collecting in those pieces, because again, it's like a yes that you can be super confident is a yes.

Like I

Tiffanie (20:17)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (20:18)

said before, I yes, it feels good for both of you. I think when it's yes and there's a financial commitment that feels really good for me because I know that patient is invested, is going to come. And that's probably not a spot unless there's a super rare thing that pops up that I'm gonna have to then do that extra behind the scenes work to fill. And so I

Tiffanie (20:39)

Yeah.

DAT-Dana (20:40)

agree with you. I think teams are a little bit more open to it. I think teams are a little bit

more willing to kind of see the benefits of it because honestly and truly schedule changes I think are still just a really big highlight in a practice. And anything that's going to lighten that load, I think is massive for teams.

Tiffanie (21:02)

I

completely agree. Thank you. I hope that the dentists who are listening today heard that. The office managers who are listening. Because I I think, Dana, from what I've seen, I agree with you. I think teams are exhausted and they're like, I'll do it, I'll try it. Right. And I think we have to we're so used to paying for things these days before we get it. It used to be like, Well, I can't get like I don't get my stuff from Target. Like I walk out and I pay for it at the same time. But now

It's an Amazon Prime culture. We're paying for things before it ever ships to our door. And I'm gonna tell you right now, there are times that that thing never even comes. Right? It never gets here. And I'm like, it's lost in someone's trunk and they're sending me a new one. massage therapists, right? I booked a massage for a surprise massage for Aaron a couple months ago. I had to pay online, I had to pay on the app to before I could schedule the appointment for him. So I'm like, well, he's he better freaking go because I already paid for it.

concert tickets, there's nothing there's not a lot right now that we pay for that we're not paying before we get the thing. And we're paying pretty far in advance for something. So it's that culture, that mindset has shifted. But I think that business owners, it's it's personal. Right? They're paying for your treatment, for your business, for you to provide them with something. So it's more personal. And I say this because to

To everything that Dana said, I want you to take that to heart because I think it's more often a dentist and a business owner that says, my team's not going to like that, than the team saying no, we won't do that. And so I want you to give them the chance, the shot, the opportunity to make their lives easier and get the actual yes. Because in my opinion, case acceptance is scheduled and paid for. Treatment that is scheduled and paid for.

Is accepted, right? And I don't hold that, I don't, that's not my like standard bar for everyone. You guys get to decide what that looks like, but to Dana's point, scheduled and paid for is less likely to fall off the schedule. So if that's where you can set your bar, you're gonna have a more full schedule. So I love that, Dana. So I would say one, I loved your ask more questions, so B

Be invested in the person, be interested in who they are and why they're making decisions the way that they do. And I think Dana, something you said was how are they making the decisions? Like how, what is their priority in the decision making? If you can get to that point in just asking more questions and being interested in them, you're gonna get your yes. And then I would say if you don't do some sort of prepayments, if your schedule is falling apart, even if it's not, I think it's smart. But if you're someone who's here because that title said

accept a treatment is still falling off your schedule, put in those pre-collects. At least collect a portion, I would say 50% to 60% down holds the appointment. Dana, thank you so much. I knew this one would go I knew it would go well. We didn't super prep for it. And I feel like the ones that we don't super prep for are the ones where our minds really start getting on a a good track. So Dana, thank you for your time today. Thank you for your nuggets as always. And

On behalf of everyone, Dana, thank you for your brutal honesty. Always a pleasure. Thank you. It's

DAT-Dana (24:25)

Anytime

Tiffanie (24:27)

always accepted. I love brutal honesty. and with that, that is a wrap for today's podcast. You guys go re-listen. There were some gems in here. Like Dana, thank you so much. You you dropped some massive gems, and business owners, try it, just try it out, see if it works, see how it works, see how you can manipulate it to work best for you guys. If you guys need help with it, [email protected].

Also TheDentalATeam.com, you can sign up for a live like video call session with our team, and they'll help you figure out the gaps and figure out a way to fill those gaps. And so [email protected] and TheDentalATeam.com as always. Thank you for listening. Drop us a five-star review below. We love to hear from you. And we'll catch you next time.

Your key performance indicators do not have to be intimidating. In fact, with the correct frame of mind, they tell you exactly what's going on in your practice! Kiera shares the smart way to utilize KPIs, including:

1. Looking for patterns, not just numbers

2. Finding the question in each KPI

3. Understanding KPIs are team-wide, not just for the owner

Episode resources:

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:01)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you're excited because I'm gonna talk to you about KPIs and whether you're excited about it or not, you're gonna listen to KPIs because KPIs are the vital of your practice and your KPIs are really telling you a lot more, just like your vitals on your body are probably telling you a lot more than you think they are. I have been getting and falling in love with weight training, and I had a client shout out to her. She was like, Kiera, you need a new passion to become obsessed with, and I think weight training could be there.

But with my history, I was anorexic for a lot of my life. And thankfully that part of my life I think is like done and over. And I love food. And so with weight training, my coach was like, you've got to track in and you gotta weigh in. So it's weighing in every day, doing your measurements, and then doing macros. And for a girl who is terrified of that, because a skill for me and eating food, like a lot of food.

was like no goes for a lot of years in my life. And what I found though is she was like, Kiera, you're just tracking these because they're telling you information like the food you ate yesterday, or are you like coming up on your menstrual cycle where you're bloated and you're holding more water? it's been fascinating. And I've been tracking for almost a year now. So like huge win. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure you're all cheering for me. and if you're not, I appreciate the cheers. but what I realized is like,

It's just data and it's telling me information. And I re bring that up because I believe that this was what our KPIs are too. The KPIs are just data to tell us if something's working, if it's not working. I'm obsessed with tracking my metrics. Like there was a while that I was weight training and I wouldn't track what my weight was. And I never was getting stronger because like it's like, I think I was at like 10 pounds last time, versus hey, last time you were at 10 pounds, we're gonna start you at 10 on your warm-up and we're going up to 12. And now I have a really like strict UR trainer.

Who watches my metrics, watches the pieces, and then adjusts accordingly. I am up to PRs that I've never been hitting, but it was because I actually use the data, not just track the data, to make better decisions. And that's what your KPIs are. So I just want you to know that like look at your KPIs to look for the right messages because we're only looking to see if we won or lost most of the time with KPIs. But using these to diagnose problems before they become expensive to me is where your KPIs really start to become impactful. Similar to like, wait.

Right. Like we're trying to add and bulk up my calories. Like I came in at a lower calorie, no shock to anybody. but for us, it's like, okay, well, for me also, how do I know I can add this much food in? Like, guys, so much protein. If you have protein tips, please email me. Be a protein buddy out there. I am so tired of eating cottage cheese, chicken, fair life shakes, cottage cheese. Like my main thing was like cottage cheese, wheat checks, gr raspberries, and peanut butter.

I have eaten Built Bars, like you name it, protein powder. I shout out to Ballerina Farms. That's my favorite one. I've made an Orange Julius with vanilla protein powder. Like you guys, to get that much protein has been so hard. But I also know if I don't get enough protein and I'm lifting, I'm not gonna get my the the gains and the strength that I'm actually going for. And this is to make Kiera, 95-year-old Kiera, to be freaking ripped. I wanna be like running and beating your 20-year-old son or daughter. Like that's what I want to be doing. So

But if I'm not looking at this, I'm not diagnosing these problems. So like we're adding more food food, but like we got to watch to make sure the measurements aren't changing and we're not adding it too quickly or not. So it's this whole piece. Same thing with your KPI. So I hope that analogy was there. I hope that, and hey, if you want to talk to me about like protein or weight training, hi, I would love to talk to you because I was like rookie girl who didn't even know how to lift going into it, wasn't like a bodybuilding competition. There's really, I don't know how to explain it.

But there was this incredible photographer from Spain who does physique photo shoots. And that was like a goal I worked towards. And to be able to have that to weigh in, to do a bulk and a cut, to just like be able to turn my body into this incredible machine and see how I can fuel her. Hey, if you want to talk about that, like hey, maybe that's another podcast of like, but happy to chat with anybody and just know, like, it's really incredible. Also, exhaust the body, tame the mind. Shout out to Dan Martell.

It really has also made me a more powerful CEO and to navigate some of the hardest times in the business because I've been able to have that mental strength and support by working out. So total tangent, but like let's get back into KPIs because KPIs really truly are so helpful for you. It's the first thing that's going to work with you. We have a KPI dashboard for all of our clients. We use the analytics with all of our clients because this will tell you before there's truly a problem. And we can watch trends instead of being like, it was an off month or I feel this way. No more, I feels. It's either I'm gaining.

My weight, like and it's muscle, and I'm building muscle, or I'm just eating nonsense over here. Like it's been really fascinating. So I want you to know this, and we're gonna talk to you guys about like what your KPIs are really trying to tell you. So, as I mentioned, step one is looking for patterns, not just numbers. So, usually like we have a book of business trend for all of our consultants. So we're watching certain KPIs on every single practice, all hundreds of clients that we have, we're watching it.

And we look at kind of like a three-month trail. So I want to see how are these clients doing? How are they doing compared to last year? Because that's going to tell us the whole story. Looking at it just monthly isn't really going to tell you a lot. Just like me tracking my metrics every single day. Well, it's not really going to tell me a lot. But looking at it over the course of time, I'm going to be able to see, okay, when my like as a female, when girls go on their period, guess what? They actually increase their weight because our hormones shift. So then I'm going to be able to start to see. I can actually start to tell without even looking at a calendar.

Which men, I don't know. My husband's like, how do you just not know these dates, Kiera? And I'm like, listen, and all the ladies are giggling, I don't freaking know when this thing's gonna come. It's not like an alarm clock on the 30th of the month that shows up, gentlemen. Okay. So for a female for us to be able to track because of our metrics going up, I'm able to tell when my period's coming much better than I used to be able to predict it because I'm actually watching and trailing that. But I've been tracking it for multiple months. So now I can see the pattern of what's going to happen. So with that.

A lot of men are also giggling, like, well, Kiera, I could tell you beyond just weight. It's probably your mood shifts. Hey, we women are emotional creatures, and I'm okay with that. All right. I hope you guys just enjoyed my like rant between men and women. And I hope you guys all got a good giggle because I did. But back to KPIs, I'm getting tangenty on you all. A single month's not really going to tell us the whole picture. We've got to look at this of like, cause you can have high production, low production. I look in January. It's really embarrassing when I'm showing a new client like an example of a book of business and showing them like,

How this client's trending. January always usually has a low collection. And I know that because December is usually a lower month, which usually means my January is a lower collection. It happens almost on every single practice. So you go down the line, all those buckets for us of every client usually is red on their collection compared to their production. Usually they're producing X amount, they're collecting, but their December is usually two weeks, sometimes three if we're lucky. But that tends to happen. So if I'm saying, like, my gosh, those collections are down.

Well, no, I need to look over this. Or if we're panicking because we have a slow week, everything's down. No, but we need to figure out like how we can actually predict this, how we can measure it. So what I like to do, and this is what our practices are doing, we're looking over several months. So usually like a quarter. Also, I'm gonna look annually because sometimes it's cyclical. Anybody have a September or an ominous October or a dead December? You're welcome. because it's either a September or an ominous October.

And some of my practices just have a genuine dead December. Like my practice in Hawaii, they must aloha over there. It is dead, dead, dead December. So we have to plan and prepare for that because I know it's just gonna be dead. So we're gonna look at this and we're gonna look at the trends over several months. We're also gonna look at cyclical, what's happening annually, or even like month over month, what's going on and what are kind of the trends. We're gonna compare our KPIs against the goal. So, what should this be at? Where are we at? And then we're gonna look for consistent movement. So

When I'm working with a practice, I'm not gonna say, all right, hygienist, we need to get our perio up to 30%. Let's look and see where they've been for the last couple of months and then let's increase it by a couple of percentage points. I'm not going from like I got a practice right now that's an eight percent perio. Woo! We gotta talk about some bloody profies over there. It's okay. I'm not stressed about it, but we do need to change that. We set a goal this quarter to get them up to 15%. And you might be like, Kiera, they gotta be to 30%. Yes, but me going from eight to thirty is psychotic.

You gotta go eight to 10 to 15, and we gotta be moving those KPIs in the right direction. Just like somebody losing weight, we're not gonna be like, all right, you need to lose 50 pounds in two weeks. Like psychotic. Don't do that. Let's make these realistic so people actually get the momentum and want to grow. So when we're watching this, look at hygiene reappointment, look at our case acceptance, but not in an individual week. Look at it over a month and like if I notice there are certain weeks, what was going on? Or if I was down, let's go dig into it and find out why. Was it just an isolated incident?

Did we not have enough hygiene? Did we have a lot of openings? Find out why this KPI is telling you this rather than it just being a well, that's annoying. Look at it as an early warning sign rather than a complete and total drop. This is going to help you predict future better off of today's numbers. So, like, what's our future gonna be? Like, use our numbers. Let's better predict. Let's look back at trends. It's going to help you. Patterns are going to tell you the story. Numbers are where we're going to start to like look into conversations. So

Looking for patterns, looking for true numbers. How's this going to go? So I would recommend a quick call to action today is go look at the last six months of KPI. So we're talking production, collections, overhead, profit. we wanna look at our case acceptance, we look at our new patients, we look at our AR, we don't look at our hygiene. Those are just some off the top. There's several others you can dig into. Like you can look at your schedule capacity, you can look at your answer call rate, we can look at our marketing, we can look at our new patients, but like look at our general ones that are gonna move the practice. And what are the last six months?

And identify a trend that's moving in the wrong direction. Okay. And identify a trend that's moving in the right direction. We don't just want to use this as bad information, like there's good information too. So what's happening there? Go identify that. But again, not just looking at one week, because one week, one month can isolate and it actually won't work. We've got an awesome office and we've grown them so much this year. They've added over 100,000 per month to their practice, and we're talking this as a very large practice. But I love their office manager because she's like, hey, last year we had this.

This is what we've got going on. We need to predict and project for this because we're going to be running into these issues. That is using your freaking KPIs. And that's what I would like all of you to get to. Okay, number two, every KPI should lead to a question. So one, we're looking at patterns. Two, these are going to actually ask questions. So we're asking why. Like I said, so collections are down. End of discussion. Instead, like, why are collections down? Did K and like you've got to think of it as like a trigger tree down. Like, I don't know.

Don't know what it's called. Like it's like it's like a family tree almost. Okay. So it's like a decision-making matrix. Here we go. So if our collections are down, what are the pieces that make up collections? Well, we've got insurance claims. We also have case acceptance. We have production. We have AR. Like those are going to be pieces that are going to impact. I know for a while all the insurance is like all of our collections were down across the board because one of the insurance companies were holding it up. Well, guess what? That's why our collections are down. But we don't just like

Say collections are down, go collect more. Let's find out what the root of this problem is to see, like, what is our collection? How do we get this back up? There was one office where the collection percentage is sitting at 58%. Well, they're not putting fee schedules in. That's why their collections don't look right. So, what is the reason for it? We gotta make, we gotta be curious. We also need to dig into the root problem, and then we gotta solve the problem, not just the symptoms. So, for that one when insurance was just holding up, not really a lot I could do with an asterisk. There actually was.

We could then start to do like let's call our patients that are fee for service patients, bring them in. Let's call in patients and fill our schedule with patients who are not on that insurance so we can boost up our collections. Like you might say, like, it's out of my control, but if you actually use this and look at it and get creative, any KPI, you can drive that number and improve that. So I really, really, really, really want you guys to ask like why five times before creating a solution. Okay. So pick a KPI and ask why and why and why and why and why.

And then create a solution. Like, so why is this? Why? Like, what about this? Like, what about this? Like, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. I sound like Snow White. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. You're welcome. because this is going to actually help you guys figure out what is going on. And this is why consultants were so great. Because we ask the why. We dig to find out. All right, production's down. Why? Like literally every consultant knows when I'm looking at it. I want to know why. If a client's saying X, Y, or Z, I want to know why.

Tell me what's going on. What are we noticing? What are the pen patterns? And not just for this month, but what's been happening for the prior three months to it? Let's figure out why. So that way we can predict and change moving forward and actually fix the problem. If you're like collections are down, great, we're just gonna fix our over the over the counter collections. Well, if we're collecting fine there, we just solved a problem we didn't actually have. It could be insurance, it could be that we're not billing out, it could be that we're getting denials left and right on things. Why? Like what's getting denied?

Go dig there. So I really want you guys to one, you're gonna look back six months. That's number one, let's look for pattern. Number two, I want you to pick a KPI that's down any of them and start asking why multiple times before we create the solution so you can truly get to the root of it. And then number three is like KPIs should be for the entire team accountability. It is not just for owners. And I know this is very controversial. A lot of you come on calls with us to see if you want to work with us, and I'm like, cool.

We never roll out KPIs fully to the full team until you're ready for it. I do not believe that I should force a practice to look at numbers if an owner doctor is not comfortable with that. What I do believe though is owner doctors, let's share at least a couple of KPIs because if everybody knows their number, it's like a scoreboard on the ball. Like, can you imagine teams like basketball, football? We're going to football season. So maybe that's the one you want to talk about. Can you imagine if they didn't have a scoreboard and every person up there didn't have a metric? Like, no, they're all talking about their passing, they're running yards, they're how many games they've won.

That's what we need. Our teams need to know like what is their number that's gonna push us forward to the championship. So every single team member should know their number and they should be tracking it. I have so many office managers that are just awesome. They're rocking it. But what they don't do is they don't have their team track their KPIs. So then their hygiene's down, but no one knows it other than the OM. And then they're trying to convince that hygienist to do their period. Versus if I'm a hygienist and I know my goal is 30% and I'm noticing I'm at 10%, 11%, 12%, what we track and measure improves.

So this is going to really help your team. Like give each team member a number. And I know this sounds so silly, but like they don't even have to know the whole production. We just have to know like this is the number that you own. A scheduler. They've got to have their goal to goal every day. Like 90% of the days, I want us hitting goal. Treatment coordinator, non negotiable. Doctors have to be at goal every day, and they have got to hit our production goals every single month. Non negotiable. That's what they do. Billing, you should never have more than one month's worth of AR in there. Period. That's what they need to do. Non negotiable. Non-negotiable. Okay. Office manager, you got to hold.

Hold your overhead. That is your number one KPI plus everyone else getting their KPIs. Hygienus, three times your pay. That's what it is. Okay? That's your number. And that's on net, not gross. Next thing below that is gonna be pay you at 30%. That's your number. That's your metric. That's what you're gonna have. Dental assistants, you're my trickiest ones. Dental assistants, you need to be adding one same day or not being a popcorn assistant or getting referrals. Like you choose what their number is. But every single person owns it. Billers, less than one month's worth of AR and 98% collections. Everybody needs to know. Doctors, I need you producing what.

Like you need to diagnose three times what you want to produce. And if you're at five hundred dollars an hour, I want you to be at five fifty. You need to know what your dollar per hour is. And we need to make sure we're tracking this. I need you also diagnosing enough that we can close it. Treatment coordinators, what's your case acceptance? Like, but notice I didn't stay like I need you at thirty-five percent or I need you at fifty-five percent or ninety percent. No, treatment coordinator, I need you to get the doctor to go every day and to hit our production goal.

Very different, and a lot of us will be Well, you should get case acceptance. Well, guess what? They hit your case acceptance goal and not hit the actual outcome you want. So make sure the KPIs are directed to the outcome you want, not necessarily just a metric. So, and when everybody's owning their number, everybody owns the outcome, and we all are rowing to that championship score. So I would recommend at least rolling that. I don't care if they know anything else, but at least roll that out. So to quickly put this together, remember KPIs are the vital. We're gonna look at this before there's a problem. So number one, look for patterns. Number two,

Ask better questions, get to the why. And number three, create ownership and give everyone a KPI number. If this feels hard for you, or you're like, I know I should do it, Kiera. I just talked to a doctor who joined us. He's like, I know I need to do this, but I need some hand holding. If you're like that doctor, join us. He just reached out, he's got a consultant now. He's gonna have his whole life change and I can't wait. Office manager has no clue how to do this or implement this. Or maybe you do know how to do it, you guys are just not executing on it. Reach out. [email protected]. I want to help you. So let's do this because KPI should not feel overwhelming.

For me, I needed a coach sitting next to me to be able to start tracking my metrics, tracking my weight, tracking my gains, tracking my macros. It was really freaking hard for me. And it took me two years to get to where I am. I first started out of like, let's just get to the gym three times a week. Then let's start looking at how much I'm lifting. Then let's go into tracking macros of just protein. Then let's go into tracking the whole kit caboodle of weight and metrics every single day. That was a process that did not turn overnight.

Otherwise, it would have been too hard. And so for you, let's just start small. It's like, and we as consultants set this up for you. You don't even have to do it on your own. So just start. I need you watching your numbers. I need that you to use those as metrics. And not for me, but for you. Because the more you know about your KPIs, the more you're gonna be able to make better decisions. You're gonna feel more confident and you're gonna be able to feel like you actually know your practice rather than being concerned about your practice all the time. So reach out if we can help you, because the right numbers can truly become your greatest leadership tools.

It doesn't have to be scary, but it can actually help grow your practice and have easier conversations. So reach out. I'd love to help [email protected]. And as always, thanks for listening. And I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Guest episode! Kiera is joined by Paul Edwards, CEO and co-founder of CEDR HR Solutions, which provides human resource support especially for dental practices. They go through a rapid fire of topics, such as coaching and accountability, worker classification, documentation and evidence (including AI!), and reporting policies.

Visit CEDRSolutions.com to learn more about Paul.

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is a great day. I love my episodes with Paul. Paul is incredible. He is the owner and founder of CEDR. And guess what? He is somebody that I get to just pick his brain about all things HR every time he comes on the podcast. So, Paul, welcome to the show today. How are you?

His Paulness (00:19)

very good and I'm gonna take that introduction, that part where you said Paul is incredible. I'm gonna turn it into my ringtone and I'm gonna be insufferable for the rest of the year with that.

Kiera (00:25)

Yeah.

His Paulness (00:27)

So thank you for that.

Kiera (00:29)

You're welcome. I it's funny because every time people meet you and they know you're an HR, they're like, he's actually really funny and he's a good time. And he used to play in a band. And I'm like, yeah, he makes HR not feel as scary. But every time, every time I leave, everyone's like, my gosh, he scared me to death, which is good. Like I think it's a good healthy, like you're super approachable, super nice, but also like whip us into shape of like do this, don't do that. And I appreciate you continually like guiding us along the right path.

His Paulness (00:55)

There's

a lot of moving parts when you're an employer. So it all feels a little bit scary. 'Cause soon as you get figure one thing out, then there's the next thing. You're like, no, I'm doing that wrong or or I could do it better or whatever. So yeah, you know, we try

Kiera (01:07)

Yeah.

His Paulness (01:08)

to break this down so it's understandable.

Kiera (01:11)

Which and I appreciate. And if you guys are not subscribed to his newsletter, he's got the best newsletter out there. Like I think you guys do an incredible job. So, Paul, if they're not, how do they get connected to your guys' newsletter? 'Cause that's one of my favorite things about you guys.

His Paulness (01:21)

Well, I think what you want to do is just go to the website and search for almost any form on there, but there are education forms on the website. So just go to the website and join what we kind of refer to as HR Base Camp. So if you think about base camp as a place you come back to when you're on a big hike, well, you're on a big hike as an employer. And so we are constantly sending out helpful stuff, you know, two or three times a month. We send out some pretty cool stuff to all of our base campers.

That'll get you also an email that invites you to join the Facebook group, which is kinda cool 'cause you're in there with just managers and owners. and you know, it's about ten, I don't know, nine thousand people in there, something like that. So, yeah, that's the way to go there. you know, you can also subscribe to my podcast, which is what the hell just happened and we cover a lot of topics there that that are kinda fun, you know. So

Kiera (02:12)

I love it. Okay. I want to just get that right in at the beginning because you guys truly he's got the best newsletter, got an incredible podcast, and I think this is the stuff that keeps business owners up at night. So let's like not have that happen anymore. So, Paul, we're gonna just like rapid fire. There's

His Paulness (02:27)

Okay.

Kiera (02:27)

a few topics, and then I know you've got some case studies for us as well. So, and if you guys don't know Paul, CEDR, they are one of the top dental HR companies out there. most of our clients use them. He is one of our

I do not bring a lot of people in to speak to our private groups. And Paul is one of the people that I have hand selected to come in and speak to all of our dentists in a very intimate that's not on the podcast. So it's like no recording, it doesn't get shared. He comes in and speaks to them. So, Paul, I'm excited for today. This is stuff that we'll talk publicly, but let's talk about some of these items. Coaching and accountability. I'm sure we're all doing it wrong. I'm sure I've been coaching and telling people to do this. So tell us what we can and can't do when it comes to coaching and accountability.

His Paulness (03:08)

you know, the thing about coaching accountability is that it starts to feel like it starts to feel like something that's punitive, like consequences. And and when it goes into that realm, it's really hard to get somebody to listen. I I I don't know about you, but when someone starts to tell me what I'm doing wrong and that's what the focus is, I get defensive. And that's just human nature. So when we t when we talk about coaching and accountability, especially with Dennis, and I know that you're gonna I think you're gonna agree with me.

I while there are exceptions to the rule, and probably many of them, overwhelmingly I find that dentists do not want to have difficult conversations with their employees. They kind of avoid it. That I mean it's it's about 50% of the reason they get office managers because they're like, I want to have these conversations. I can get someone else can do it. Here's the thing that

Kiera (03:55)

Yeah.

His Paulness (03:56)

I want to say. Yes, sometimes it ends up where you have to have a really serious conversation with someone. but the

Better way to go about this is for you or you and your manager when you hire someone is to set the expectation with the employee, I mean literally during onboarding, that they are going to receive feedback from you, both positive and sometimes it might feel a little negative, because you're making small corrections. So if you get in the practice of making small corrections as you go forward, you don't you you have far fewer of those big conversations with someone.

And then the the ones that are frustrating, I mean the issues that you're facing with an employee, also become easier because when we're looking at someone who's late all the time, and you know, in a practice with you know, we ha always have just the right amount of employees. We never have a I don't know about you, but I never have an excessive amount of employees around, where everybody's important, you just start leaving no quarter for being late all the time.

you really have to say something about look when you're even when you're only five minutes late in the morning and you tell them what the issue is, you tell them what the impact is, you explain their role in a very positive way so that you can say, Look, when you are late, we are missing you. Not you need to be here on time because when you're on time, bad things happen. And if you don't start being on time, bad

Kiera (05:19)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (05:20)

things are gonna happen to you. If you start with trying to enroll them in the idea that they're playing an important role.

you know, part of the reason I think for goal setting is that you get to say, how are we going to get to the goal if this behavior continues? So I just want to give everybody this reminder that coaching is coaching and it doesn't always have to be corrective and it needs to you if you set an expectation and then you execute on it, you're gonna get a lot better outcomes with people when you bring them on board. And and the other the other end of coaching should always be.

Can you do that? And do you need anything else from me? Like is is is the issue here me? Do we need to give you more training? What can we do to help you get there? So don't forget where that's appropriate, you'll always want to insert that in.

Kiera (06:08)

I think Paul on that just like piggyback, what do you do when you've had that conversation like four times? Like, Perry, we've had this, we've had this, we've had this, like, I miss you at Morning Huddle. We need to be at what

His Paulness (06:20)

I missed you.

Kiera (06:21)

point, at what point is it not like cute? It's like the I feel like it's the child that keeps throwing the rock and mom's like, Okay, let's not throw the rock, like it's gonna break a window. When

His Paulness (06:28)

Yep. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Yeah.

Kiera (06:31)

do I actually like do something about it?

His Paulness (06:34)

As my mom would say, when do we get to snatch a knot in him? That's what I I was just with my mom. She's eighty eight years

Kiera (06:37)

Ha ha ha.

His Paulness (06:39)

old right now. I she actually said, Son, don't make me snatch a knot in you. 'Cause I like to take her out in public, embarrass her now, and pick on her. but anyway,

Kiera (06:46)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

His Paulness (06:51)

look first things first, great question. I I would do wanna say that after you've had the same repetitive convert conversation with someone

After the second or third time, especially if it's in close proximity in time, you know, you've already talked to them two weeks ago about something and they're doing it again or not doing it. you also want to make sure that you're making little notes in their file. That's very important. and what I found is is that if you don't hold someone to the standard, right? The standard that you're looking for, I I you're they're never going to improve.

And if they're not improving, then maybe they're not the right fit for your company. And the sooner that you figure that out for them and for you, the better. And so if I'm in my third or fourth time within a month about the same thing, I'm sitting down and having a much more serious conversation with them. And in my mind, I'm I'm thinking, and sometimes I might say this to them, look, I'm not telling you that you've got to do the thing, whatever it is that we're talking about. What I'm telling you is I cannot work with someone who

does or doesn't do what it is that they're that they're up to. Like, you know, I just need you to know that I, you know, I can't continue to work with you if it's going to be this way. I understand you're late. I understand that you have all these issues. I get all that. I've tried everything I can to adjust here, but I I may not be able to work with you. And you always have that standard. I need you to show up on time. There's no more there's no more getting around this. But you really need to be adding notes to their file.

dating them, you need that, and and then we can move into written corrective coaching if we need to. And you know, that's a little more formal.

Kiera (08:35)

Awesome.

His Paulness (08:36)

That's them acknowledging the conversation. And look, four times in a month for the same thing, they're gonna get something in writing. That's just how it's gonna happen. If if I'm if I'm on your

Kiera (08:44)

Okay.

His Paulness (08:45)

HR team, that's what's gonna happen.

Kiera (08:47)

Okay, great. That's what I feel like so many people just like it needs to go on forever and ever. And I'm like, there's gotta be an end date to it. So,

all right, that was a quick teaser on coaching and accountability. Okay,

His Paulness (08:53)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kiera (08:58)

next one worker classification. I know that's a a hot topic with dentists. They love they love this 1099. I don't want to pay taxes on them, Paul. It's a better deal for me. They're

His Paulness (09:07)

Yeah. It

Kiera (09:09)

a dentist. I don't need to have them as an associate on payroll.

His Paulness (09:12)

Right.

Kiera (09:13)

This person's just coming in to help out. I can ten ninety-nine them.

His Paulness (09:14)

They're only going to be here for a day. They want to be paid

as a as a independent contractor. so there's a couple levels of classification. And by the way, this is one of the good reasons to go sign up for our education because we're gonna do we're gonna release a really good classification guide. And you know what? you know, we're probably gonna make it exclusively available to your folks as well, just so you know. So at some point we'll pass it over to you.

look, classification, couple things. I'm not gonna put you to sleep

Kiera (09:42)

Thank you.

His Paulness (09:45)

on it because you do you actually need to kind of go through a checklist and do some stuff on your own. And we'll provide all of that. you gotta think of classification as a couple of things. First of all, there's that independent contractor conversation that we that we're always having. And for those of you who haven't heard me, I'm just gonna say this in a very definitive way. There is no hygienist on the face of the earth who qualifies either under the Department of Labor or under the IRS rules for employees.

as a as an independent contractor. It does not exist. It

Kiera (10:14)

Nope.

His Paulness (10:14)

can exist. It just can't. An independent contractor cannot open his or her own practice. They have to have a dentist attached. And that's kind of the nail in the coffin, but there's a lot more. All right. When it comes to

Kiera (10:25)

Yeah.

His Paulness (10:27)

when it comes to associate doctors, in some states that same thing is true. I'm serious. They the state has such strict rules

That for you to classify a general dentist and a general dental practice as a independent contractor is just wrong. It doesn't meet the Department of Labor's standards in that state. But for the most part across the country, a a a employee who's doing the main function of your business, who's performing the main function of your business, a a worker, I should have said a worker, they're an employee, not an independent contractor. So that's one part of the

Kiera (11:02)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (11:03)

classification.

The other part of the classification com conversation has to do with whether or not I can pay an employee a fixed salary and not worry about any overtime they work, or whether or not I have to track

Kiera (11:14)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (11:14)

their hours and pay them. And I'm just gonna say this. If your entire team is on salary, that's okay, but you still have to track their hours and you have to pay them overtime. You can have a manager who who you don't have to track their hours and you can pay them a fixed salary.

But not all managers qualify for that exemption. It's called an exemption to the standard to pay overtime. Not all managers qualify for that. The smaller your team is, the more in danger you are of not being able to classify someone as a salaried employee. So now that you're really confused, just

Kiera (11:51)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (11:51)

go join. You're gonna get this is the kind of information and the guides and stuff that we send out.

So the the you know, the classification's a big deal 'cause we run into it every day. I mean,

wh

Kiera (12:02)

Yeah.

His Paulness (12:02)

when I say run into it, we get about twelve thousand questions out of our three thousand members and every week there are four or five what we call submissions asking us about you know, they've read one of the one of our articles and they're like, I think I got this wrong. And most of the time they've gotten it wrong. and you can't rely well,

Kiera (12:21)

Yeah.

His Paulness (12:22)

you you it you gotta be careful because

Kiera (12:24)

It's true.

His Paulness (12:25)

The IRS rules for your independent contractor and the Department of Labor rules don't match up all the time. And so you have to be

Kiera (12:31)

Correct.

His Paulness (12:31)

very careful in that area.

Kiera (12:34)

Yeah, and Paul, I'm so glad you talked about it because like it is a while it is a full checklist. And I think sometimes we like to justify it. Sometimes we like to say like, but no, like they really do. And that's not gonna go over well. And so to I'm like, cross our T's, dot our I's, which is why Paul, we do podcasts like this and why everybody should have that checklist. Because when I learned about this, I'm like, No, they're a salaried employee. It's like you gotta you gotta check off this checklist and this checklist, and they're not like you said, they're not the exact same checklist at all.

His Paulness (13:02)

It it's a little complicated,

Kiera (13:02)

And you had to make sure both qualify for them to truly be

His Paulness (13:04)

but once you figure it out, you'll have all your positions and you'll know and and you'll be set. It's just that you guys and gals tend to borrow what someone else is doing.

Kiera (13:13)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (13:14)

Maybe it was already in the practice that you purchased, or it was in the practice that you were an associate of, so you're c you know you're copying, which is what we all do when we start a business, or you're talking to your you're talking to, you know, other other people in your industry and they're giving you HR guidance that

Is not sound sometimes.

Kiera (13:33)

Yeah. No, I love that. And definitely sign up for that checklist. That's a brilliant one. Okay, next one. Documentation and evidence. Let's talk

about that.

His Paulness (13:42)

we are going to be we are going to be actually doing some podcast on this where the internet does HR is what we're gonna call it.

Kiera (13:56)

Mm.

His Paulness (13:56)

I just want you guys to know that online HR advice is not something that you really want to participate in. well look let me let me

Kiera (14:08)

we're talking like AI, internet searches. Let's just talk about it.

His Paulness (14:11)

We're talking about AI,

we're talking about going on Reddit, we're talking about we're talking about going into any kind of group thing for for advice and running with that. But particularly AI is a con a concern and we'll get into this a little bit more. I think every time you see me I talk about AI. Well we now have court we

Kiera (14:31)

You do,

His Paulness (14:32)

have court cases rocking it right now and and companies are getting themselves in trouble for creating employee handbooks through AI.

they're getting themselves

Kiera (14:39)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (14:40)

in trouble for using AI to fire people. they're finding out that your chat is discoverable. and so in one case we watched the chat was really bad. The the thought process of the person who was putting the problem into the chat became exposed in court and they were basically asking it how can I break the law? I might I'm paraphrasing, but they were basically like I they were kind of telegraphing, I know what I want to do here is wrong.

HR wise, tell me how I can get away with it. And so just be

Kiera (15:11)

no.

His Paulness (15:12)

careful about online advice and taking something from someone without knowing who those people are. it's you know, the context here is you're making an HR decision that is has a law that impacts it. And if you get it wrong, it can be very, very expensive. And there's no reason for it. There's no reason to go out that way and try and self-help.

yourself. So just be very careful. you know, same thing. Same thing about the internet. I'll make this other point, maybe a little bit about AI. You know how if you're a subject matter expert and you see AI give an answer to the thing that you're an expert on, you will look

Kiera (15:55)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (15:56)

at it and you'll go, you what, that's pretty darn good and it's getting better. But here's these three or four little subtle places where it's not exactly wrong, but it's not correct.

And without context, I I would be worried about just telling someone that. Versus you're asking it a question about something that you really don't have a whole lot of subject matter expertise in it. And it gives you back that wonderful, confident, same kind of answer. It's got bullet list. it's actually, if it's your AI, it's designed to please you. So it's put a little bit of stuff in there to please you. And you'll just take that hook, line, and sinker and say, this looks so well organized

Kiera (16:30)

Yeah.

His Paulness (16:31)

and so authoritative.

And it look, it cited some things too, and you'll run with it, and that's what's getting people in trouble. So we just really I don't know what the word is for that. Maybe I need to make it up. but you just can't you

Kiera (16:43)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (16:44)

if you don't have subject matter expertise, you gotta be very careful when it involves employment law and your pocketbook. I think that's the

Kiera (16:52)

I think that I think it's so hard because like AI we use for so many things and like you said, it is like a little therapist over there and people

His Paulness (16:56)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kiera (16:59)

enjoy it. I mean, I'm guilty of it too. I heard you talk about this six months ago and I was like, It feels annoying, Paul. Cause I'm like, I just wanna ask like what are kind of the parameters and I I

His Paulness (17:07)

And I want the answer. Yeah.

Kiera (17:09)

think of you all the time and you're like, Kiera, it's gonna come back on you and like they can pull these records on you and it's like, okay, noted. I need to just go to the proper sources and channels to make sure that we're compliant truly.

His Paulness (17:21)

Yeah,

yeah. I mean my AI is incredibly smart about HR and it still gives wrong answers occasionally when we're writing articles and stuff. So I mean, kinda gives you some perspective. Yeah.

Kiera (17:31)

So there you have it.

Do you think there will ever come a point that AI can replace HR? Not to say I want to put you out of business. I'm just genuinely

His Paulness (17:37)

No, no, no.

Kiera (17:38)

curious of like, I think about for consulting too. Like, do you think that AI will like there will be HR AI in the future?

His Paulness (17:44)

I think at

some point it's gonna you're gonna have some very strong models that are mostly available to lawyers. They're not available

Kiera (17:51)

Mm.

His Paulness (17:52)

to someone like you, you know, l someone who's not giving out guidance, because I believe that the context of the guidance alwa almost always has one or two more questions, and AI is not great at taking a left or a right hand turn. But five

Kiera (18:09)

Sure.

His Paulness (18:09)

years from now, six years, ten years from now.

I think, yeah, in some pla in some ways it's gonna be able to give some very good answers and prompts to get those answers. And we are as a company, we are very aware of that. We are

Kiera (18:23)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (18:24)

we are well, I I think the I've said this twenty years ago when we started CEDR. And I think this, you know, for the people listening, the business you're in, I think this might h head home a little bit. I believe that the next I believed then that the next greatest innovation

was the opposite of what was going on in the world, which was it's providing service and people and getting it getting systems right and being able to actually talk to someone instead of running them into these failed chat bots and these failed chats that you you know you put your question in, it's like, let me give you your question. And then it, you know, it it answers with one third of a cup of flour. And you're like, we were talking about my internet not working. I mean

Kiera (19:08)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (19:09)

So I think the greatest

in I think the I still think that that that innovation is there and available for us and we've been using the technology in the wrong direction. I'm using it to make us more efficient, to so that my experts can spend less time creating something from a conversation that is kind of a policy or a th or a thing, and so they can spend more time listening and and a little more time with the member.

And and worrying less about I have six other people who are waiting for me to get back to during that day. So that's my view

Kiera (19:45)

Sure.

His Paulness (19:46)

that's my view on AI and HR. humans are humans. As long as we're being human, I I don't think we're gonna be able to take the human out of that out of that process. Yeah.

Kiera (19:55)

I agree.

I agree. Okay. Next reporting policies. Let's talk about these.

His Paulness (20:04)

the the reporting policies that people okay a policy only works if it's distributed and it and it is more it becomes more powerful when the policy is distributed, it's acknowledged, and the and the employer and manager know how to use that policy. All of those things have context. So look, let's let's use AI as an example.

We used to say this about template handbooks. Some would say, Well, I got a template and I put it together and I said, Well ask the template how to and ask the qu ask the template any question. Templates can't answer questions. And so if you end up with a a policy and you don't know what you haven't had training and what its purpose is, what its limits are, what it's both both, you know, small and large, what it's how you're supposed to use it and where it's supposed to apply, then you're kind of missing

that. And so I just want to be clear that when you put together a set of policies and when you change them or you have an employee handbook, if it doesn't come with a couple hours of support and training and ongoing training, then what you have is kind of a static thing sitting there in your office and it's not really helping you when it in the ways that it can help you. and I give you guys an example.

If you don't have a good maternity policy and it's not complete, then when an employee s asks you a question about your maternity policy, you can't say, go to the handbook and tell me. You go read it. You tell me how much time that we give for for maternity leave. You tell me whether or not you can use your vacation time that you've accrued. you tell me whether it's paid or unpaid. You tell you know, all those things.

should be in the employee handbook. So it's important for owners to train their managers. It's very, very important for owners to train their managers. make sure

Kiera (22:03)

I love that.

His Paulness (22:04)

they understand and make sure you understand the policy.

Kiera (22:08)

Yeah. And I think Paul, you're right. Like, as companies evolve, like where you started at the beginning versus where you might be today. Like we didn't have people that were getting pregnant when I first started now. It's like we do. And so definitely I'm big on like make sure that they're updated, make sure that they're current, make sure that everybody has them. That the new ones that have changed and morphed through the business, like we've been in business for 10 years. Like what we started with versus where we are today are very different. And I like that.

call out that you really do need to know that. So

His Paulness (22:40)

Yeah, I I

I mean I could give you a really good example. Arizona changed about I don't know, about seven, eight years ago. We went to mandatory sick time. And all employees were entitled to it under a specific set of rules. Before then it was like it was in much of the other states, not all the states, 'cause many states have mandatory sick time now. it it was you just could give it, you could make it paid, you could make it unpaid, you could not offer it at all, you could do whatever you want to.

Once that changed, a new a complete new set of rules came around. and I just give you an example, and I think managers in Arizona need to know that this exists. In Arizona, if you fire an employee within I think it's sixty days of them having used it's sixty, yeah, within sixty days of them having used one of those sick days, it is presumed to be retaliation against them for using one of those sick days.

And so you've got to be thinking, well, h what? Wait, what? Does that mean you can't fire anybody because they can use sick days? No, the answer to w what you know, what you do about w what I just described is that you have to have documentation showing the reason why you terminated a person or took that adverse action against them. So basically we went from being in an at will state to sort of being an at will state because we've got this sick lead policy.

Kiera (24:00)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (24:01)

So I I again I was kind of a roundabout way.

but but it kinda shows you you need to understand the policy and the limitations that come the laws that affect that policy.

Kiera (24:12)

How often do you recommend looking at your policies like and updating? Because those rules come into effect. Paul, you read this. Like to me, this is your algorithm. You're seeing this all the time.

His Paulness (24:22)

Yeah, yeah.

Kiera (24:22)

for us, it's like a one and done, check it off the list. We think we're compliant. How often do you recommend updating your policies, double checking your state laws, having your handbook updated? What are what are your recommendations

for that?

His Paulness (24:32)

I think at

at least once a year and if you're in s California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington State, some of those states, you have to visit it more often. and I think that's the problem if you don't have a support company because how would you visit it? Like where is it that it's certainly not get f get f you know, fed to you on TikTok or Facebook or something. So, you know, at least once a near a a year you should if you have time

You should read your policy to see if you're following it. And I don't mean your policy should tell you what to do. I mean you may have changed something and it conflicts within your handbook now, and you just need to change the policy. That's it. That's that's that's all there is. so yeah, once a year you should check. Most states are now updating and putting in new laws about once a year. Many states are putting in new laws and making them effective two or three times a year.

Kiera (25:26)

Awesome.

Okay. All right. Let's go into payroll. Payroll I feel like is such a thing. Payroll, payroll review. I've got some questions on payroll, but what are some of like the hot things that practices deal with in the payroll realm?

His Paulness (25:39)

this has come up two or three times in the last three or four months. I don't know why. the employer is not reviewing their their payroll ledger. meaning they run payroll, you always get a report. If you're in gusto, you dig for it or ADP, maybe you can find it. I don't know. maybe it y y you know, somehow you find your you you you get this report every single time, but you don't pay attention to it.

And or you do give it a quick look and you go, yep, all their hours are right. But what you don't do is you don't review your payroll thoroughly. And what we're finding is is we've had these three instances where an employee has been paid anywhere from five to eight dollars more an hour than they were supposed to be paid. And it's been going on

Kiera (26:28)

Well.

His Paulness (26:29)

for years. And so tens of thousands of dollars in payment and salaries have been made.

And in all three of these instances, none of it was recoverable. In one state,

Kiera (26:43)

Mm.

His Paulness (26:43)

it was just not recoverable. You couldn't do it. The state would not allow you to recover it. In the other two instances, the there was no way they were gonna get this money back from this employee. They were not working for them anymore. they were gonna have to sue them and and there were problems with that. It was not gonna be a a a slam dunk home run to try to get the money back out of somebody.

So I think one of the biggest one things that we're just telling everybody right now is you need your own oversight. If you're doing your own payroll, your payroll company's not doing anything, they're not watching anything. They'll let you misclassify a hygienist. They'll let you pay somebody a salary that they're not supposed to be paid by salary. your payroll company is not reviewing your final ledger because how would they? They don't know. You they they just take what you put in. That's how they work.

And so I I just want you guys to be very careful and review your payroll every now and then. And then the other one that we've seen I've seen over the years, and it's more than once or twice, the the reason the payroll was wrong was because the person in charge of the payroll made it wrong for themselves. And then the other reason why the payroll was wrong and in in the most egregious cases was that they were so they were using it as embezzle as an embezzlement mechanism.

and they had actually put people in their family on the payroll that didn't work for the practice. and that ran for two years before they got caught stealing another way and then the full audit re revealed that they had put their family members on there. So I I

Kiera (28:22)

my gosh.

His Paulness (28:23)

think the the the moral of the story is check your darn payrolls. Yeah.

Kiera (28:28)

Paul, that is something ten years in I still am the final stamp off on payroll and I feel silly doing it, but I like a lot of those things happen and I catch it and like as an office manager I didn't I didn't I mean I just put in the hours and as a business owner I have very different keen eyes on that. So it's the isn't

His Paulness (28:44)

Yeah. Yeah you do.

Kiera (28:48)

I have two other questions on payroll that I didn't prep you for. One

His Paulness (28:50)

Sure, sure.

Kiera (28:52)

is how can you change like let's say we've got variable comp.

That's bonuses. Like I've got an office right now, they recognize the bonus structure is very, very high. It is variable comp and they're trying to figure out how do we like change that bonus system. Do you have to have like are there any laws? I obviously know it might be state specific. This one happens to be in Arizona. but like what can you do for that variable comp commission states, like pieces like that when you recognize we're we're paying more than we're supposed to, and I need to right size that and I don't want to fire an employee, but also I gotta deal with changing their comp.

His Paulness (29:20)

Yep. Yeah. I gotta deal with

changing the car. Okay, first of all, really difficult conversation. Good luck, y'all. but but let's let's talk

Kiera (29:29)

Seriously.

His Paulness (29:30)

about the rules around it. yeah, I mean this is let me sidetrack for a second. You may have to put me back on the question. This is why you when you promote someone to a manager's position, they don't get an immediate raise. they need to earn their way into it. Now it needs to happen quickly and it could be, you know, by steps over the next weeks and months.

But it's really hard if someone's unsuccessful and you've moved your best employee in and now you realize they're you've kind of peter principled them. They're not competent as a manager, you need to move them back down. Y the hard part would be to take the pay away from them. So so going back to your question, some states require you to provide notice in a certain amount of time before you make any pay adjustments. So you want to know if that's true or not. Arizona does not. You cannot make it retroactive in any case. so

If you're going to change someone's compensation, you need to change it and you know going forward. if it's a commission or it's a bonus program, I want you to keep those things outside of the employee handbook, but I want you to refer to those things. So I know you didn't ask me this. I want conditions in the handbook about how someone qualifies for the bonus program should a bonus program exist. For example, one of the things that's in our policy of many things, which, you know, one of the reasons you work with us.

is in order for you to earn the bonus, you must be employed for the entirety of the bonus period. Meaning that if they quit or get fired in the middle of the bonus period, they're not entitled to a portion of what's going on or what happened. So to be more direct, I I think you've gotta you really gotta work this out. I think this is a good place for AI, by the way. I don't say this very much on podcasts. I think

Kiera (31:14)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (31:14)

you I think you put what your bonus system is and what's going on and what your problem is in it.

And where you need it to go, and you help it, you you know, work with your consultant and you figure out where that pay needs to adjust. And sometimes you're adjusting the base rate of pay. and sometimes, by the way, everybody who's on a bonus or commissions needs to have a base rate of pay. or or you're, you know, you're you're moving some, you're moving something. My way of moving something is we're not hitting the goals that justify that commission or that bonus. And

In order to get back to it, here's the new numbers that we have to hit. And until

then I need to adjust this back and you you make your adjustments. are you talking about massive adjustments or yeah.

Kiera (32:03)

This

one is like so it's like an office manager who came inherited to a practice and has a bonus structure in place like on collections. Well, back in the day it was great, but now payroll is at 42% of total overhead.

His Paulness (32:16)

That's all hot.

Kiera (32:18)

is a little high. And so recognizing the base pay is great. the additional compensation does not justify, like it's just part of their job. It's not an above and beyond. And so needing to remove that bonus structure.

until maybe we hit a higher tier of the company and it's to right size that payroll portion.

His Paulness (32:35)

Yep. Yeah,

I think that I would just kill the bonus system in that in that case. And if it's across the if it's across the board, I'd kill it. Or I would adjust it back significantly and so that they still have the feeling that they can earn a little bit more on the bonus system and I would set goals for them to get up. I think in your case, I don't know what you would could get a manager to do to to right side a forty two percent cost labor

Kiera (33:02)

Yeah.

His Paulness (33:03)

in a dental practice.

what can I ask you what percentage you think it's supposed to be?

Kiera (33:08)

So what we typically say, like a lot of consulting companies are twenty-five percent, I tend to err on thirty percent. So it's twenty-five to thirty percent tends to be where I sit. I recognize California offices sometimes are a little bit higher than that.

His Paulness (33:20)

Hello, mm-hmm.

Kiera (33:22)

but that tends to be about what we'd recommend for a percentage.

His Paulness (33:23)

I'm I I'm with you. We

you know, we we've got several hundred close to a thousand people on payroll. So we and and and they're using our our software for their HR systems. I you're you're you're in about the the pocket right there. We see as high as thirty six percent, and as as low as twenty two percent. That twenty two percent practice is tiny and highly profit profitable.

Kiera (33:47)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (33:48)

That's a very specialized dentist with about four employees.

Kiera (33:52)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (33:52)

So yeah,

same place. I just was curious. I just, you know, love to

Kiera (33:55)

Yeah, no.

It's a great one. And then one other question on payroll, because I have a lot of dentists who get burned by that third payroll, right? So it comes in the month and they're like, ugh. So some dentists, and I did this early on, so I have no idea how people can do it. I know what I did and I'm not about to share because it might not have been correct. but we move to only two payrolls in a month. So I do it on the fifth and the twentieth. And I know some dentists are thinking about that, wanting to are there any rules around how to do that? Are you allowed to do two payrolls a month? Like, because then I'm not getting hit with the cash flow hits of the third payroll.

periodically, just some thoughts of offices are wanting to do that, are the right ways to go about it.

His Paulness (34:28)

Absolutely. Absolutely.

You need to check your again, you gotta check your state rules. There's fewer states that have these rules but you need to check your state rules. There's this pay frequency. By the time they finish their payroll period and they close the payroll, there's a certain number of days when they have to be given a check. In none of those

Kiera (34:47)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (34:48)

instances does it prevent you from going to two payrolls a month, th that that I can recall. It's if it is, it's it's very

It's one maybe one state, where you might have to add one or two payrolls to the year in order to meet the law. It's not every month. It's just to the year.

Kiera (35:09)

Interesting.

His Paulness (35:10)

Yeah.

Kiera (35:11)

Okay. Yeah, 'cause I know when we did it, I just I was like, We're gonna change it and they told us to float employees if they needed it. I let them know when it was coming so they could financially prepare for it and yeah.

His Paulness (35:20)

Yep. Give everybody thirty days and you will have met your states

most states' requirements too that say if you're gonna change to this model, that's what you gotta do. Yeah.

Kiera (35:30)

Awesome. Okay. Well, Paul, I've like we peppered you on so many questions. I know you had a couple of case studies you wanted to bring and I'm excited to like hear. I I do enjoy a good case study that freaks me out and I I feel like it's like forensic files with you. Like bum bum bum bum. Like let's hear the case studies now.

His Paulness (35:46)

I think I'm gonna start with a f positive one and then I'm I'll ruin y'all's days with the other one. here's the here's

Kiera (35:52)

Ha ha

His Paulness (35:52)

here's the positive one. And we have been saying this for years and we're the ones that started implementing it with our clients. It's not that we invented it, it's that not enough importance was put on it. And when we started in two thousand six, everybody was making up their own employee handbook or they were going to ADP and they were getting handbooks that didn't have anything about HIPAA in them.

And they didn't have anything about maternity leave. I mean, literally, payroll companies were telling employers, you don't have to give you're not required by law, so we don't put it in the handbook. And and we're like, so offices with seven women in them who

Kiera (36:23)

Yeah.

His Paulness (36:24)

are all going to get pregnant at some point in their career, you don't have a policy for what to guide them through. Anywho, the policy that we are very big on and we use it throughout the handbook in the c in the proper places.

is a requirement to report a problem. So it's very simple. If you re if you have a problem and it could be with payroll, it could be around harassment and and you got to define that. It could be around many other things. You have to report it to us. Here's how to report it. If you're not confident who manages you, here's a way to tell somebody else about it. If you put those reporting procedures in place and someone doesn't follow it, they get fired.

And they come back six months later to sue you over the problem that they never told you about, then the the judge is supposed to say, Hey, when did you tell them about this? When when when did this happen? And so we see it happen a lot in depositions, which never make a court case, so you don't see it publicly, where the lawyers got someone in deposition, they'll just say, okay, cool. so you said this was happening for the whole year, and you had four one on ones with your manager.

and when when did you report it to your manager and and and or or or an email to somebody, you know, that that kind of thing. Well, we recently saw a case come up, it was errors versus chemjet. I I don't know what in the world chemjet does. chemjet argued,

Kiera (37:54)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (37:55)

hey, we this case should not go forward. We want summary judgment, we want out, because this employee never told us about this problem. They never said a word to us. And the judge said to the and the judge granted it to him. They just said, you know,

It they're right. You had an opportunity to report this. You're back here. You have a multiple complaints, but you were you did sign the employee handbook, you did acknowledge it, they did distribute it to you, and you gave them no chance to cure this. Had you given them a c a chance to cure it, there's a reasonable expectation that they could have done something about it. Without knowing about it, nothing they could do. So again, when you self-make your handbook and you miss that opportunity,

Kiera (38:31)

No, she's not.

His Paulness (38:32)

you get, you know, you may not get the best result.

Kiera (38:36)

I think Paul, something I've learned and when I started a business, I was like, okay, I can be cheap on certain things. I can be cheap on gauze, I can be cheap on gloves, I can be cheap on what I pay for dinners, like staff gifts. Like I can be cheap those areas. The thing not to be cheap on is have my employee handbook and my policies like cross our T's, dot our I's pay there to prevent much harder future decisions.

His Paulness (39:02)

Well, you're speaking my love language right now. There are just a few places

where you just don't want to be cheap. You don't want to be cheap with your CPA. You wanna you want consultants and and good consultants cost a little bit more and so that you can get more individual attention. There's just you know, for all of us, there's just these things where it just doesn't make sense to kind of cheap out. the you know, but the entrepreneur in all of us, in

Kiera (39:26)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (39:27)

me too, and me as well. I mean, heaven help me,

AI has made it so that I can start coding my own stuff. That's probably not a good idea. But I'm doing it, Kiera, because I'm gonna I'm

Kiera (39:38)

I know.

His Paulness (39:38)

gonna save myself some money. that's

Kiera (39:40)

Ha ha.

His Paulness (39:41)

not what's gonna happen. I but anyway, that's the story, you know, that little guy in the back of your head. yeah, there's some things

Kiera (39:48)

Seriously.

His Paulness (39:49)

not to say. Money on, and I'll make this argument about policy. Most doctors will and will spend hours on creating their own employee handbook.

Which I mean, I don't know a doctor that doesn't value his or her time at five hundred dollars an hour. Many of you make a lot more than that. You have to generate that. That's the only way you can keep your business open. you end up with a fifteen to twenty to twenty five thousand dollar handbook that was created by somebody who doesn't understand HR law, which is you. it's just not the best way to spend your time. And I'm just I'm just like, doctor, this is

Kiera (40:20)

Agreed.

His Paulness (40:20)

a this is a fifteen thousand dollar document and it's got a bunch of evidence in it and it's not the right kind of evidence. So,

Yeah, thanks for letting me talk about that.

Kiera (40:31)

I agree. Okay. Now let's scare everybody into why they should not make their own handbooks. Like that that'll be the one that won't let us sleep tonight. Cause I'm sure has something

His Paulness (40:37)

That'll be the Halloween thing, yeah.

Kiera (40:39)

that that like just don't don't shortchange on your HR and legal. To me, I'm like, those are worth it. Just pay. I can sleep at night better. Like and cross my T's not my I's. I do want to do right by my employees. So okay, what's your other case study?

His Paulness (40:49)

And just like

I wanna add one more thing. When you're

Kiera (40:54)

Yeah.

His Paulness (40:54)

working with someone like us, you're also getting access to the experts who are taking the legal and the human side approach to it. So they've talked to thousands of practices and heard your problem probably. Every now and then somebody gets an award a an award, a monthly award for wow, we've never heard that before. but for the most part, you're talking to a a a group of experts who are there who can actually help you solve the problem too.

And that's where the real value is. You know, we were talking about AI giving the right legal answers. It's the human answers that are are more interesting. So the last case study is the it it it has to do with the classification conversation we had. a temporary employee who the doctor hired. she was a hygienist. she came into the practice, they hired her as a

ten ninety nine employee, which doesn't exist, hired as a ten ninety

Kiera (41:52)

Mm.

His Paulness (41:52)

nine, didn't put her on the payroll, didn't put her on workers' comp, didn't put her on anything. she ended up working for them for about three weeks. The person that she was supposed to set in for was supposed to come back, and that person was at the end of her pregnancy, and so she d was unable to return to work, so they kept that employee on for about three weeks. She was not great.

at the end of the three weeks, they she was like the the the the employee who she was replacing for for temporarily was going on maternity leave. She was expecting to stay and through that time period now. And they didn't want her to stay, and they told her, you know, no, you're you're not gonna stay. And so she went and filed unemployment. and you know, you guys are thinking, well, an independent contractor can't get unemployment. Well

Well, remember, she was misclassified, she was an employee, didn't matter what you called her. And this triggered the state to look

Kiera (42:53)

Mm.

His Paulness (42:54)

for her withholding and to see that she was not on the record. and then it triggered them to tell the Department of Labor in that state that this because they were working together. So UI a UI claim kicked in an entire investigation from the Department of Labor in that state. And so they wanted all the time records and

I think they may even requested bank records because they were looking for other instances of misclassification and paying people as an independent contractor. So that's the other horror story.

Kiera (43:25)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (43:25)

I don't I don't s that it doesn't usually get that bad, but it can, but I do see it blow up a lot and and I mean quite frequently people go out and make these claims. the other thing

Kiera (43:40)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (43:40)

that can happen in a misclassification in the domino effect.

Is that your associate doctor gets that that independent contractor gets audited. and in the audit they learned that they were working for you, and then that

Kiera (43:54)

Yeah.

His Paulness (43:54)

triggers an audit of you, and then you have to pay all the taxes that you didn't pay them, with with penalties.

Kiera (43:59)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (44:00)

That's a really happy note to end on, right?

Kiera (44:03)

I know. I'm like, all right. And with that, everybody, have a great day.

His Paulness (44:05)

Yeah, w with that, yep. Have a great day. I think we should pause to focus our way out of this somehow.

Kiera (44:11)

I think we should too. And I think I think the piece I take about this is I appreciate honest and real because I think so many times we were like, that's not gonna happen to me. And I would like people to like, I remember it was crazy. I actually was talking to my financial advisor this week and I was like, okay, let's just like run the tape. If me and my husband got divorced and

Like what would this look like? Would we both be financially taken care of? And he was like, is divorce on the table care? And I was like, no, not at all. I just want to know like what would be my worst case scenario if that ever did happen. Cause that's going to set me up better to make smarter decisions today and like make sure we're prepared if that ever came about. And he's like, You're the first client who's ever asked me that. And I thought about it and I'm like, that is actually how I think. And I feel like it applies very much to HR is why don't we know like what worst case scenarios are? Not so we don't sleep at night, but so we make better decisions.

His Paulness (45:00)

So we do

sleep at night. Yeah.

Kiera (45:00)

And like this can happen. Exactly.

Cause I'm like, I'd rather know. Like they have proven that us not knowing what happens creates more anxiety than knowing. And so I'm like, I feel like this is my like when I pay for HR or when I pay for my lawyer or when I pay for I have to learn a lesson. Like we're going through some things in our company right now. And I'm like, all right, this is just my CE and HR. So like me paying

His Paulness (45:18)

Yep. Exactly.

Kiera (45:20)

my legal fees, me paying my HR fees. Like I didn't learn this. You paid for dental school. So this is where we learn what's the absolute worst that could happen to us.

We pay for our CE education in this to learn from people like yourself for this. And then we do the best we possibly can. And when we learn that we were doing it wrong, we correct it, we make it better now and we keep moving forward. And that's how I think I would like put a pretty bow on this because Paul, like, to me, as much as I get creeped out every time I talk to you, I appreciate it. It's not a lie. Every time

His Paulness (45:48)

Okay.

Kiera (45:50)

you come and meet with our dentist and I'm like, my gosh, and my whole team's sitting there. And I'm like,

His Paulness (45:54)

Yeah.

Kiera (45:55)

like, please like just cover your eyes and ears and don't hear that I'm messing up. Like

His Paulness (45:56)

Just yeah, Toba said la la la. Yep, yep.

Kiera (45:59)

All the dentists get a hear and like their teams aren't even present. My whole team sitting there taking notes rapidly. And I'm like, goodness, like great and not great. but I appreciate it because it makes me better and it makes me a better business owner. And I think that's why we're all listening to this. So that's my take. You might have a happier ending, but to me, I'm like, let's learn

His Paulness (46:16)

I do.

Kiera (46:17)

it. Let's play our CE fees of learning HR and let's continue to be great employees in the industry.

His Paulness (46:22)

I have a very upbeat thing here

to end this on. it's very short. if your better half is like my better half, there's no way in hell they listen to your podcast 'cause they've heard your voice enough. And so your your

Kiera (46:34)

It's true.

His Paulness (46:34)

your spouse is never gonna hear that he's in imminent danger right now. Maybe he should hear it. Maybe we should send him a

Kiera (46:40)

True. Maybe to

I did tell him I asked the financial advisor that yesterday. I was like, I did ask this question.

His Paulness (46:47)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (46:47)

He's like, Kiera, I like that about you. He's like, that's more probable than me dying. He's like, how many and I was like, you're right. And I was like, but guess what? I hope we ride off to the sunset forever. Like, that's my ultimate plan, but I

His Paulness (46:58)

Right.

Kiera (46:58)

would like to know. So anyway, he probably will never hear this podcast, which is probably in my favor today.

His Paulness (47:03)

Yeah.

look, I appreciate you having me on the show. I it's nice to be able to kinda talk through these things. This is like, you know, my passion, the thing I wake up thinking about every day. So it's kind of fun to share this stuff. I do appreciate.

Kiera (47:17)

Well, I appreciate you, Paul. Paul, you're such a resource in the industry. You're somebody that I recommend to every practice that we work with. So, Paul, if people are interested, if they loved this, if they're freaked out and they're sitting there with their stomach in knots, how do they connect with you? Or if they're like just wanting to be better. You don't have to be nervous. You can still reach out.

His Paulness (47:26)

Yep. yep. if they Exactly.

okay, so you can go to our website, which is C E D R, the word solutions with an S on the end. So that's CEDRSolutions.com You can go to our website, sign up for the education. if you want an employee handbook or you want to kind of figure out, you know, what it would take, you're like, hey, I think I maybe I should take care of this.

You go in the other direction,

Kiera (47:55)

Mm-hmm.

His Paulness (47:55)

just fill out a form, you'll talk to somebody here, it's all low pressure. You wanna make sure that you that you're saying, Look, I heard the podcast of Dental A Team, so we can so we know where you came from. and we'll take good care of you. We'll explain what's available to you and kinda, you know, go through the process. those are really the best two ways, you know. Best those are the best two ways.

Kiera (48:17)

I love it, Paul. And Paul's not going to be high pressure. I will be high pressure. Get your freaking handbooks updated and like legal. Then go do that. Like that to me is like give

His Paulness (48:25)

What she said.

Kiera (48:26)

yourself the gift of peace of mind at night. Go get that done. So, Paul, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for being a part the Dental A Team. Thank you for being someone I trust in the industry, someone I value. And I hope today everybody listen to what he says, make yourself better, become a little bit better today. And Paul, truly thank you for being on the show.

His Paulness (48:41)

My pleasure.

Kiera (48:43)

And for all of you listening, thanks for listening. And I'll catch you next time.

on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Does your team feel out of whack? Tiff and Pam pull back the curtain on maintaining practice camaraderie by sharing where to find those daily wins. They discuss not only setting goals, but the most effective way to do so; how to best utilize morning huddles; why ongoing communication is critical; and more.

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Transcript:

Tiffanie (00:01)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. We love taking over the podcast, giving Kiera a little break, and as consultants coming on. So you have both myself, Tiffanie and Pam here with you today. Pam, how are you doing this morning?

DAT Pamela (00:20)

I am doing fantastic. How are you doing,

Tiffanie (00:22)

Good.

DAT Pamela (00:22)

Tiffanie?

Tiffanie (00:23)

I'm doing good as well. At the time of recording this podcast, it is morning time for us, about 10 a.m. And it's just after a long weekend. It's nice and hot outside. It's 2026, so I don't even know what year you're listening to this in. but we are just excited to be here. We love starting our weeks out with you guys, with podcasting, with delivering awesome information, awesome content. And Pam, I think today's

Topic is something that is really beneficial for everyone. And listeners, we want to make sure that we're always delivering the best quality, that we're delivering the best ideas, and that we're taking the things that we've learned not only in our own extracurricular activities and our own time in dental practices and education, etc., but also what we're seeing in practices that has been

Tried and true, that's been tested, and that's worked for practices. And something that comes to light for us often is camaraderie, culture, making sure that a team is really, really working together as a team and not just kind of like department by department or me here for myself, that kind of thought process. So today Pam and I are gonna be reviewing some pieces that we feel like we've

really nailed in within consulting and within, you practices of our own that really helped to establish that. And Pam, before we get started too much, what are you seeing in your consulting that you feel like kind of comes in alignment with this? What what are what are doctors saying? Why does this idea of really bringing together that camaraderie and that culture piece, why does this seem to be relevant for us today?

DAT Pamela (02:12)

Yeah, I mean that culture piece is huge, right? It's it's everything in a ball and how do we describe that? It's really difficult to describe, but you know it when you experience good culture or a poor culture in especially in a dental office. And I think that alignment, everyone knowing what they're working for is and working towards is super, super important.

Tiffanie (02:37)

Yeah. What do you feel like when you see an office that's not in alignment that maybe isn't having those shared goals or shared wins, things like that? What kind of things are you seeing happen because of that? Like what are the negative impacts of team members not being ali in alignment?

DAT Pamela (02:54)

Yeah, that's a a really good question, right? It's I think what I think everyone in the practice needs to know what that vision is, right? And when it is when the vision does not turn into daily habits, then that's where alignment or misalignment happens, really, right? destroying momentum is what I see. Destroying that alignment is constantly changing, right? If you're the leader and you're

constantly moving the goal, you're constantly saying, well, t we're gonna do this today and then tomorrow we're gonna do this. And you're just bouncing around. That's really difficult. So it doesn't matter what you decide it is, just stick to it and talk about it every day. So the pro that's a big issue that I see. Like a lot of doctors and office managers just feel like they, okay, here's what we're here's our daily things that we're working on to get to the vision that we've created.

But they don't talk about it every day. And it it

Tiffanie (03:55)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (03:55)

it's it's just something that you have to do, whether that is a one, two, three, here's our focus, three focuses for the month, one focus for the month. It doesn't matter, but you have to that's that's a big issue in a lot of practices. inconsistency, right? Then that would kind of be in the same vein as that. When you know your doctor says, okay, I'm gonna be at Huddle every morning.

And then it happens for three days and then not for two, and then it happens for three more. So that it's it just says it's not important, right?

Tiffanie (04:29)

Mm-hmm.

DAT Pamela (04:30)

another another thing I see is I I again it kind of goes back to too many initiatives create confusion. So simple f simplifying it and giving one or two things that we're doing, accomplishing this day, week, month, whatever that is.

Tiffanie (04:51)

Yeah, no those.

DAT Pamela (04:52)

Yeah, I

I yeah, and I you know, I don't think teams really fail from a lack of information.

Tiffanie (04:59)

Mm-hmm.

DAT Pamela (05:00)

perhaps they feel f they fail when there's a lack of focus.

Tiffanie (05:05)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And today we're talking about daily wins. Like how what how do daily wins help the progress of the practice? And how do daily wins help keep us in alignment? And some of the pieces that I think I see that come up that show us that this isn't happening, that shows us we're out of alignment and shows us that maybe some of those pieces that you were speaking to, Pam, are happening as when a doctor comes and they're not profitable.

they're they're not able to find the profit or they're not able to fill the schedule or they feel like their schedule is full, but it's hectic, they're not reaching goals, or maybe they don't have goals, or some of the biggest pieces, or I have a lot of clients that will come and say, gosh, we need more new patients, but then we look at the schedule and I'm like, Well, where are you gonna put new more new patients? So it might not be an acquisition issue, it might be a scheduling issue, but though those pieces really kind of point us in the direction.

of a misalignment and that misalignment is typically going to like to your point, Pam, be really related to the goal setting and the clarity around the goals. Like you said, they they don't always need more direction, like more words, but they sometimes lack that clarity that creates that confusion. And really, maybe not confusion so much as to like our monthly goal is 150. Like we need to hit 150,000.

But maybe confusion on what is a priority. So when we don't have that clarity, when we're not all rowing in the same direction, we're not talking about it frequently, we start to make decisions that are based on what's easiest, what's gonna clear up the busywork in front of me right now that may not be moving the needle forward when there's maybe an option for something that could move the needle forward. And I just put that on the back burner. And what I mean by that is maybe

Maybe I'm cleaning up a protocol because it's a little messy and a little confusing, but there's a patient who's just called to schedule treatment and I said, you know what, I'll call them back. I need to finish this first. But my priorities are a little out of sync there and out of alignment with what the actual goals are. And I think, Pam, when clients come in and they say the schedule's, you know, a schedule's one of the top things that clients come in and and talk to us about or that we get

random emails from our listeners at [email protected]. You guys send emails all the time, please continue. We love those. But we get those emails that are like, gosh, my schedule's full. I'm not hitting goal. My schedule's full. It's chaotic and it's crazy. My team doesn't know how to deal with the chaos, right? I don't, my team doesn't know how to mitigate the chaos. and a lot of those pieces, to your point, Pam, can be discussed daily multiple times. So

When you're helping a team find that alignment, Pam, where's one of the first spaces that you help guide them to speak of those daily wins?

DAT Pamela (08:05)

Yeah, I I mean it's it's really like when you're setting your goals, setting those KPIs and and setting your goals, it's it's not only saying we are gonna do 150,000, this is our monthly goal, but it's how do I get there? Me as one person in the practice, right? So you know, that that momentum telling each individual, like, okay, your job is this today. So

For example, if you were to set your vision as being like, okay, we want healthy patients, a happy team, and exceptional dentistry, right? That's not giving me a lot to go forward. So it's making sure within those goals, let's say it's 150,000, that you do actually say, and this is your job today. We are going, you're going to be looking for all the opportunities that we have. If something comes up, make sure you let everyone be aware. So

It's keeping that communication, I think is a big part of it. And really and and it is like to your point, Tiff, it is something you can talk about every day. Like are we staying on task? Are we staying on priority? And you know, we can do the tasks, yes, but the priority is production today, right? So or

Tiffanie (09:23)

Yeah. Yeah.

DAT Pamela (09:24)

the priority is you know

Patient experience. What whatever that is that you're doing, but you have to describe exactly what each team member needs to do.

Tiffanie (09:34)

Yeah. And that can come down too to like their job descriptions being super clear, right?

DAT Pamela (09:38)

Mm-hmm.

Tiffanie (09:38)

So if I'm a scheduling coordinator, I know my goal of my position is that the schedule is full to goal, right? So taking that monthly goal and then breaking it apart into weekly and daily goals and then putting it into perspective per position. So if I'm a scheduling coordinator, I know the hygiene schedule needs to be scheduled to X amount of dollars and I know the doctor's schedule.

For a doctor, each doctor is probably a little bit different, needs to be scheduled to X amount of dollars. And so then celebrating those wins daily is hey, guess what? We were scheduled to goal yesterday. Or hey, we were a little bit under goal yesterday, but for the month, we're ahead. Or we're a little bit under goal, and I know we've got three holes in the schedule today. Let's fill those and let's assign out how that's going to work. And Pam, I think that's what you mean too, with the morning meeting, right? Is looking at those wins and then saying, hey.

these things need to be done today. Let's assign them out and make sure that someone's responsible. And something as you're speaking, Pam, I'm thinking, I've seen this really, really off like off day, like it's frequent, frequent thing where teams come together for the morning huddle and we've got our back office that talks through you know, health histories, unscheduled treatment, needs for the back office for the patients. We've got our front office that talks about holes in the schedule.

talks about the financials, are we on track or off track? And then we split, right? So the so we say this is all the unscheduled treatment. We say, cool, this is all the holes, or hey our patients, our patient at 10 a.m. needs this thing. And we're like, okay, cool. And then we split and nothing applicable happens with the data that we just spoke about. We just kind of say, okay, great, we had our morning huddle, we're all aware, and it does it's just gonna happen. Right. So we kind of lean on the like universal

it just will happen and fall into place. and oftentimes they're not assigning those things out. So I think Pam to your point is saying, hey, this patient at 10 AM he needs a call to make sure that they took their pre-med or they need to remember to bring in their night guard or their retainer because we're we're delivering a crown today and we need to make sure it fits. So Pam, will you call do you have time this morning to call that patient and make sure that they have that reminder? So we're really

like divvying out and assigning those things so that we can win and we're all working as a team because I know a lot of times PM the front office thinks, well, it's a patient coming in on the schedule today. So that dental assistant needs to call that patient. The dental assistant is like, we don't get on the phone. The front office does the phone call. So me saying it means automatically that the front office is going to take care of it. But that mismatch communication in the middle is where we get a skew from alignment.

DAT Pamela (12:18)

Yeah, and and to exactly to that point is, you know, even if there are holes in schedule in the schedule, sometimes people need to know what is important to do. So, hey

Tiffanie (12:29)

Mm-hmm.

DAT Pamela (12:29)

guys, we have a couple of openings coming up this week and dental assistants, can I get you to make some phone calls today?

Tiffanie (12:38)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (12:39)

and just really directing what is important. Like, yes, they need to, you know, stock the rooms and and and this and that.

but what is important today because our ultimate goal is to schedule 150 this month and we're down or we're up or wherever we are, and let's keep focused on what is going to move us forward.

Tiffanie (13:00)

Yeah. Yeah. Keeping our goals, our our eyes on those goals and then making sure we're taking the steps that are going to get us there and communicating those things. So it doesn't always have to be like a set, this is how we get there every day, like this these are the things you do. We're gonna have adjustments and changes and making sure that we're communicating those. So I think Pam to your point there, like that alignment and keeping that momentum every day.

Celebrating those wins is that right there. Like we're assigning things out, we're discussing them, we're making sure we're all in alignment, and then we're celebrating, hey, guess what? Because of the work that we put in, because we assigned them out, because we knew what we were doing, and everybody had a daily goal, we were able to reach this. And so that continues that momentum, and they see the fruits of their labor are creating change. And Pam, with that, I know I've seen this a ton, and and you probably have too.

Teams get like stale and stagnant when they don't have that, right? When they're not talking about alignment and not talking about those things, but they're also not seeing, that thing I did created that change or pushed that needle forward. Because when we do get in that, like just checklist, right? Like I'm just checking my boxes and I did my stuff today and I'm out of here. We don't have that sense of ownership and that win when we can see.

Hey, this isn't actually moving the needle. Like these things that I'm doing, they're not it's not moving it. I'm gonna adjust it and do this. And then we see that win. Then we can really gain the personal momentum and that creativity in the space. Do you notice that as well, Pam?

DAT Pamela (14:42)

Yeah, it's it's moving or I guess focusing your mind on those things that are a lot of busy work and yes, those things are super important. But also it's like keeping like you're saying, just really focused on what is it, what is our ultimate goal this month? Maybe our ultimate goal is to hit that one fifty. So that means that even by the hour, sometimes we're saying, Hey, we got a cancellation. Does anybody

Can we think of a patient that we can put in there? I mean, just like anything, keeping your back, so your back office doesn't have to come up and go, hey, what happened? shoot, our goal, you

Tiffanie (15:20)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (15:20)

know. just keeping that communication. So, you know, if if typically let's just say it's an office manager or front office lead person, keep that communication going between front and back. Get up, manage on your feet, look around, see what's happening in the office, and then just

visualize what is that ultimate goal that we need to accomplish today, this week, next, this month, whatever that is. And you know, also you mentioned something recognizing those wins is super, super important. And it may be you recognize somebody for something that they did almost right, you know, just

Tiffanie (16:06)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (16:06)

not wrong.

So it's get used to finding things right that people are doing and that behavior will get repeated. And I know that's a hard thing to hear because it's a hard thing to do. for for some people, some people it comes pretty natural, but you know we're so busy as leaders and dentists that it's difficult to do that. You're in your you're in your space. but even as an office manager, a lead, hey guys, that was awesome. We did so good.

Those kind of things get repeated when you mention them.

Tiffanie (16:39)

Yeah.

I agree. It makes me think of my home life, right? And I I say this a lot. And

DAT Pamela (16:45)

Mm. Totally.

Tiffanie (16:47)

what we try to do is we try to recreate this entire wheel in the workplace because we're at we're at work. It's gotta be totally different. But like people are people and how we operate, how we think, how we behave, right, is pretty similar no matter where you're at. You're still the same person. And so

DAT Pamela (17:05)

Right.

Tiffanie (17:05)

I try

to think of like what works for a family, what works for my family and for my family every night at dinner and make the kids tell me what their favorite part of the day was. Because their first, you know, the first words are, school sucks. I hate school. Why do I just sit there all day? Why do we have homework? This sucks. Why are we doing this? And I'm like, cool,

DAT Pamela (17:21)

No.

Tiffanie (17:21)

what was awesome today? Like what about today was amazing. And sometimes it's at lunch, right? I got pizza at lunch. I'm like, Well, that's cool. You wouldn't have pizza if you were home, you know? But like

Taking those wins every day and seeing looking teaching someone to see and look for the positive because it's so easy. There's so many things that you could change about every single day, no matter where you're at. You go to Disneyland and be like, this could have been better. Right? You go in you go to Europe and be like, This could have been better. Absolutely anywhere you're gonna find that. That's the easy part. The hard part, like you said to your point, Pam, is finding the amazing places. Where do we do really well? So great.

We didn't hit goal yesterday, but you know what we did do? We made a load ton of calls, and those calls are gonna turn into calls back for future schedule. We may not have hit goal, but we got the whole practice deep cleaned, right? How many times as a dental assistant did I clean those operatories? Because we had that hour, you know, every six

DAT Pamela (18:23)

Yeah.

Tiffanie (18:23)

months something comes about, and I'm like, great, we had a cancellation. Deep clean, ladies, like get get these suckers cleaned up so.

There's always gonna be, there's always a space for the positive. And to your point, Pam, if we can keep our eyes on the positive, noticing, noticing what we didn't hit. So we're not forgetting about our goals and we're not saying, it's fine, we didn't hit goal. It's not fine, but let's look at the progress that we did make, the work that we did put in that's going to help us get to those goals and figure out what else can we do? So cool, this worked, let's keep repeating that. You know what? This one actually didn't work.

So like don't repeat that. Don't keep doing something because it's something we've always done. Let's not repeat that and let's replace it with something that could work better.

DAT Pamela (19:09)

Yeah, yeah. You know, for some reason I just went to a a quick way to do this, and and many people have heard this before, but doing an end-of-the-day high five huddle,

Tiffanie (19:19)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (19:20)

right? So the the second a lot the very last person leaves, you know, your patient leaves the office. I had one office that they the office manager would ring like this bell and

Tiffanie (19:32)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (19:32)

er everyone would literally drop what they were doing and run to the front desk and they'd all stand together and it

took two minutes to do

Tiffanie (19:40)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (19:41)

and they would say, my gosh, I saw, you know, Jackie was helping Susie today and she helped clean a room. That was so awesome of you to do. Or somebody says, thank you so much for assisting with that patient. That was very difficult and I appreciate you know what you did. Really fast, a quick five minute like, how did you see, how did you show up today? What did you see from me? What did I see from you? And

you know, helping teams do that in a quick end of the day, five minute huddle, then you're back to doing your thing. It ultimately leads to, I guess, change management, what

Tiffanie (20:19)

Yeah.

DAT Pamela (20:19)

you would say, and and helping the team adop adapt like a maybe a different way of thinking, a different way of doing and and wow and and really making making the change be what is what is the thing that we're focusing on. You know, this

Day, month, week, whatever.

Tiffanie (20:39)

Yeah, I love that idea. And really it like ends the day on a positive note, which then progresses you

DAT Pamela (20:44)

Yeah.

Tiffanie (20:45)

to start tomorrow on a positive note because you left thinking about the good. So I love that idea. I think that's phenomenal. Awesome.

DAT Pamela (20:52)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffanie (20:54)

Well, I think that we could pretty much sum up our action items with making sure you know your goals that you're talking about your goals frequently. And doctors, I know there's a few of you out there that are like, You guys are nuts, I'm not talking to my team about my numbers. Call us, please.

call us. We are huge advocates for making sure everyone knows the direction that you're rowing. So call us and let us help you figure out how to get those numbers over to your team. So know your numbers, talk about them often and allow people to have those wins. Talk about wins. Morning huddle, great place to talk about wins and I love this idea of an afternoon huddle. You can do a quick 10-minute morning huddle and then do a quick two to five minute afternoon huddle. I love the bell. I've also seen like the easy button from Staples. Whatever

DAT Pamela (21:35)

Mm-hmm.

Tiffanie (21:37)

I know I know there's actually a team I had Pam that did a song. So they would put this specific song on the radio and as soon as that song came on, as like Michael Jackson or something, right? They would all come running to the front. So end-of-day huddles

DAT Pamela (21:49)

I love it.

Tiffanie (21:50)

can be really fun. and and no matter what, making sure that everyone has that clear direction and that things are being assigned out. So those would be those would be our three action items today. Go make sure that you're doing those things. If you're doing those, you're like, okay, ladies, this is phenomenal, but I'm still missing something.

please reach out. [email protected]. You can head over to TheDentalATeam.com You can sign up for a quick little meeting with us. Like we love to just give as much as we can. So allow us that space if you need that help. Even if you say guys not right now, I'm not ready for full consulting. We're still here to help give you some guidance and direction and we want to. So please reach out. Drop us a five star review below. We love hearing from you guys. Pam, thank you so much for

DAT Pamela (22:34)

Thank you.

Tiffanie (22:34)

busting out

this podcast today. It was so much fun. I love picking your brain. and I really love talking momentum and team stuff. You have a knack for that and a knack for the consistency in it. So anyone who gets

DAT Pamela (22:47)

Thank you.

Tiffanie (22:48)

to work with Pam, you're very lucky. You are going to become an insanely consistent practice and be able to see within those consistencies areas that yeah, I'm being consistent but it's not getting the change that I want. Pam's awesome at being like, cool, then stop doing it.

Let's do something different and do it consistently and watch the change, which I love. It will happen. Yeah. And it happens too

DAT Pamela (23:03)

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. 'Cause it will happen. It will it will happen. Yeah. It just it is

Tiffanie (23:12)

where it's like it is getting it. And then all of a sudden it's like, it's not working anymore. You know, yellow pages don't work anymore. Phone calls aren't always

DAT Pamela (23:18)

Yeah.

Tiffanie (23:20)

our best bet anymore. That's okay. So I get it. You're welcome.

DAT Pamela (23:22)

That's true. That's true. Thanks, Tiffanie. Yeah.

Tiffanie (23:26)

Thank you, Pam. And listeners, sign up today. If you're lucky enough, you may get Pam.

And there's a few of the ladies here that are ready and willing to help you talk numbers, talk change, and really just propel your future. Okay, that's a wrap. Thanks everyone. We'll catch you next time.

DAT Pamela (23:44)

Hmm.

Bye.

Post-visit follow-ups — this episode is all about 'em! Following up with patients is one of the most overlooked ways to build trust. Kiera shares tips on both how to accentuate and accelerate your post-visit methods as a practice, as well as what to avoid doing.

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:01)

Hello, Dental A Team Listeners. This is Kiera. And today I wanted to just talk about a way for your practice to stand out in a pretty easy, pretty easy way. Along with that, it's also a great way to boost your case acceptance. So I want to talk about how, like, outside of your visit, the post-visit follow-up is actually one of the biggest things that can differentiate a practice. And I think it's something we haven't talked about a lot. It's just something we naturally do. And I was excited to do a podcast about it because realistically, the patient experience doesn't end when they walk out the front door.

But I think for a lot of offices it does. A lot of times it's like, my gosh, they're back in six months and they don't have their treatment scheduled. I think some of you can feel that. sometimes it's like, well, do we do follow-up on these patients? And people are like, but we're too busy to do that. And so making sure that we realize that follow-up isn't just customer service. It's truly one of the most overlooked systems for being able to build trust, to being able to increase your case acceptance, to be able to really grow a raving fan patient base. and I think it's just something that's a very easy piece to add into your practice without a lot of lift.

but it's going to give you a lot of lips. So I love the ones that are like, what's that 1% that I could do that would give me like 20%? That's one of these awesome tips that I wanted to give all of you today. So I want to just walk you through some of the post-visit follow-up things and how you can how you can really accelerate and accentuate that. Also some of the mistakes that practices make after a patient leaves. And then what are some of the things that we recommend you do to really help increase that patient care follow-up. So these are things that we do all the time in Dental A Team. We work with hundreds and thousands of offices.

We help, we see, we see the patterns. And our job is to really make your life so easy, so comfortable, so confident, and for dentists to really like have fun doing dentistry again. So I wanna just go through this with all of you today, give you some tactical, practical tips. And remember, Dental A Team's mission is to possibly impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So I just want you to know that today you're gonna learn how to follow some of these tips, put them into play, and hopefully gain patient loyalty.

increase those raving fans and really boost that case acceptance for you. So the goal is like people love to feel remembered. And there's this whole thing where people remember the beginning and the end of an experience. And so your intro, you probably have that really dialed in. We say hello, we have the coffee bar, we make sure it says warm welcome. And if not, start there. Okay. If you don't have that dialed in, start there. But then the second thing is what people actually remember a lot is how they feel when they leave.

And so a lot of times when a patient leaves, we're like, check the box, they're done, great. No communication from them. The next thing they're gonna hear from us when it's time to schedule and do their six-month appointment. But like it's follow-ups automated and it's very impersonal. And I know you're like, but Kiera, we have so many patients. Like, how am I supposed to make this feel personal? So a couple of things, and there's some resources out there, so it doesn't have to be a major uptick, but one great thing that makes patients stand out all the time in practices is to call after a major procedure. also on a new patient who's coming in, call before they even get there.

And call after the new patient visit. There are softwares that actually let you just leave a voicemail so you don't even actually have to call. You can just have it as part of the dental assistants checklist. Here's the three patients, call them tomorrow. You can send a personalized text when appropriate, making sure you stay HIPAA compliant. You check on the patient's comfort and recovery. And you can also thank patients for choosing your practice. Now, there's ways that it can be automated. And I had a dentist that I just went and saw, and they're like, How was your appointment? It was one of the worst appointments. Like, I will tell you, it was absolutely one of the worst dental appointments.

Ever had, and that's saying a lot because I work with hundreds of offices and I've seen some pretty ratchet experiences. Like, that's okay. You're growing, you're learning, there's no judgment. When I'm coming in as a patient, I'm not here to consult you. I want it to be a great experience. Well, they texted me afterwards on an automated thing saying, How was your appointment? Leave us five stars. And I was I freaking hated you guys, like, not the thing to do. But if they would have, and I was a new patient, if they would have sent me a text like, hey care, we really loved you choosing our our practice. We're so grateful for you, and we're really excited to see you next time. Like

Fantastic. And then if I write back and say something, awesome. but really just quick little things to be intentional rather than automate. And I know we're just looking for the automation, and you're welcome to automate. I'm just saying, like, think about it. How many big procedures did you have yesterday? And also how many new patients did you have? Odds are we're probably looking like two to four. Two to four. And this isn't necessarily a dentist. This can be the front office team. This can be our clinical team. So it does not need to fall on the dentist shoulders. How much time, truly, would it take to make four phone calls tomorrow?

The appointments and just say, like, hey, how is that going after that crown was done? We want to make sure that you feel cared for. Any questions that you have, and also like if the experience was great, just tell your friends. But like, I'm gonna ask and make sure everything's good before I ask for a referral. but just calling and saying, like, hey, I just want to check in with you and make sure that you're good. People want to feel important, people want to feel great, and people will remember how you make them feel. So, small little things of follow-up will create that raving fan culture.

Like I can't tell you if I've ever had a dentist call me after a procedure. The answer is probably not. Like zero for zero. So do you recognize how this is something so small? The uptick, like that's two minutes a day that we're gonna be doing? Now you're like, but Kiera, like what if they're in pain? Great. It's a great way to get ahead of it instead of getting a Google review that tells you it's a great way. And we'd rather know if our dentistry is not doing well. So that way we can fix it long term. So just do a quick follow-up on them. Check in, see how they're doing. This one thing.

Like, so if we just say like one procedure that should automatically trigger a follow-up the next day, just add that in. Add that in as a simple thing. I would do new patients and I would do any big procedure. Call them that night, call them the next day, just make sure that they're good. Again, this can be some doctors do it on their drive home, some delegate it to their front office team, some delegate it to their assistants. I don't care. What I'm saying is we're doing our job to make that patient feel seen. It's like, think about restaurants that put fresh flowers on the table. That doesn't take a lot of effort, but it's something that's memorable. It's something they're like, wow.

They went a little bit above and beyond. And to me, that's a two-minute uptick for you that's really gonna make patients feel seen, valued, and loved. The other piece is with treatment. This is gonna be a second part of it. We also have treatment plans. And my goal is for you guys to get your treatment plans scheduled, to make sure patients are saying yes in the chair, making sure that we have them. If they don't, you need to be following the two two two follow-up. So anytime a patient does not schedule with me, I tell them, like, fantastic, no problem, Marsha. I want to make sure that you have all your questions answered. I'll touch base with you in a couple of days, just see if any questions popped up that we maybe didn't think about.

Just to make sure that you feel like you're rock, solid, confident moving forward. I'm gonna call Marcia in two days, then I'm gonna call her in two weeks, then I'm gonna call her in two months. And some people are like, ugh, I feel like it's such a nuisance. Well, if you feel that way, they're going to feel that way. For me, I believe that like if a patient doesn't get treatment done, I failed them because we diagnosed it. Like, this is something where I need to like make sure that treatment plans are revisited. Patients are definitely not the ones where it's in their court saying, I'll call you back to me. I've left them with.

something that they don't that they need clarity on that I need to resolve. There's no ownership of unscheduled treatment and it just sits out there like, okay, well, moving on to the next day. Versus like, no, we have follow up every time. We know we follow up in two days, two weeks, two months, and we know that there's a personalized conversation instead of it just being like, are you ready? It'd be like, hey Marsha, I know we chatted about this. I wanted to make sure all your questions were answered. I've been thinking of a few things for you too. Give me a quick call. I want to chat them with you. Well Marsha's like, well what has gear been thinking about?

She's been thinking about me over there. What are we thinking about? I've just made Marsha feel like the most incredible VIP girl out there. In two weeks, hey Marsha. Dr. John and I were talking about you. And Dr. John actually asked me to call and reach out to you. He wanted to make sure you were taken care of. Give me a quick call. I've got a couple of ideas for you that I wanted to work through with you. Fantastic. This is something of like it's consistency, it's not pressure. It's going to boost your case acceptance, but more about that, like.

Patients oftentimes just need a reminder, not a sales pitch. It's like, yeah, I forgot to get that done. Sometimes it was money, sometimes it was foul, sometimes it was timing. I don't know what it is, and I'm not going to project and assume that. What I am going to do is I'm going to make sure I have consistent follow-up and I'm going to have more patients in there. And also, me having to do follow-up is a way for me to get really good at my case acceptance because I don't want to follow up with these people. So for me with patients when like, I need to check my schedule. I'm like, my gosh, Marsha, I would, I, Kiera, would hate to forget about you and let you slip through the cracks.

Let's just pop you on the schedule. It's a reminder for me not to let you slip through the cracks. And that way we both are able to connect. If anything comes up, I'm happy to move you. This way I don't forget about you. Marcia's like, yeah, Gar, don't you dare forget about me. Put me on that schedule right now. Marsha might still say no to me. But guess what? I've tried really hard to make sure that she does not fall through the cracks. Also, treatment coordinators should be reviewing their unscheduled treatment every single week and reporting back ownership of all of what's going on. Who did you reach out to? What was the 222 follow up? I have practices that see

Hundreds of patients a day and we have treatment trackers on them. Every treatment coordinator is tracking it. And guess what? Just by tracking this alone and having a set follow-up, our case acceptance has already increased 15% in one month and implementing this. And this is across three different doctors in a very, very, very large practice. I have another practice, $5 million practice. We've already added 100,000 of additional treatment every single month by following some of these processes. This is not something we're like, we're doing this in the rookie league. It is even the big leagues are benefiting from this.

Of just having consistent follow-up. And also patients feel good, but again, you have to have the right mindset. I say closing treatment is 80% psychology, 20% skill. What am I thinking about when I call them? I'm like, gosh, I just have to call these patients. Or is it, hey, I didn't solve their pain point when they were here. I need to find out what that was. My job is to make sure that they get their dental treatment taken care of. And I need them to feel like they are the most important person in the entire world. I care about you so much. So when I call a dentist who chose not to like sign up right then and there with Dental A Team.

It's not because I care if you work with Dental A Team or not. It's because I care about you as a human. And if Dental A Team can serve you, amazing. I'm here to serve you. If Dental A Team can't serve you, amazing. I want to make sure that you're taken care of because I care about you as a human. That's the difference. Do you care about these patients as humans, making sure that they're getting their best treatment? Or are you just concerned about like, well, we just have to do the list because Kiera said, no, remember, it's about the follow-up, the intentionality, the love, the adoration, because people then feel great about it.

And the third piece I want to bring up is like creating lifetime patients, not one-time visits. And retention is one of your greatest things. And a lot of people I think live in the, they've just been coming to me forever. And insurance, I will tell you, the buyer is different. The buyer is not as loyal as it used to be. People are inundated constantly with ads. Like we have a like an Ivy stream of information that comes to us every second of every day. it's wild. I deleted Instagram off my phone because I was like, I just feel like I'm on it a lot. Like, let's see.

Back to it like 10 times in one day, and the app was deleted. Like, I'm talking like we are getting that, like just coursing through our veins. And so when I look at this, how can I make sure that we have retention where people not just out of ease, but out of loyalty, continue to come back to dental practices? and things when it's broken, when you have broken systems, are patients disappear after treatment, hygiene appointments aren't reappointed, referrals are happening by chance instead of design. And you can look at this through attrition rates, like we have.

software for all of our clients that were able to watch their attrition rates. and what happens is like little simple things. So all hygienists are just reappointing their their patients. You should be able to sit at 98%, create that bond, create that love, and just like don't ask them if they want to come back. Like, look, I'm here on a Thursday at 12 o'clock. Schedule me in six months on a day on a Thursday at 12 o'clock. Odds are I'm probably going to be free. People are people of creature. And you just made my life so easy. Creatures of habit. People are people of creature. People are

People are people, people are creatures of habit. There you go. That's what I'm trying to say here. You're welcome. This is unedited, unfiltered. Kiera, hi, nice to meet you. but they are, they're creatures of habit. So just reappoint them. Say, hey, Kiera, I made your life easy. I've scheduled you on this date. Can't wait to see you in six months. Great. If I have an issue with that date, I'll tell you. Otherwise, I think that you are the nicest human because I didn't have to think of that decision with you. Other times, like celebrate the milestones and anniversaries, write notes about me.

When I come back in, say it. I don't care that you have a cheat sheet note behind the scenes. Like, say it, have a conversation, remember me as a human. Ask for feedback and reviews. Like truly, if they had a great experience and you know you connected with them, just say, Kiera, I adore you. Like I love seeing you every time. The greatest way to have more Kiera's on my schedule is to have you leave a review. So I would love it if you could leave a five-star review for us. That way people know and people can come because realistically, you're not writing it for me. You're writing it for all the other Kiera's that are looking for a dentist out there.

Who are scared and you sharing your experience will help more of them do it. Do you see? It's not about Kiera. I'm not looking for the review for me. I'm looking for all those other patients that are just like you, and you're helping all of them know that we're a great dentist that they can trust and choose. and like just making sure that these people feel like they are your family, that they are your friends. Dentistry is such a weird healthcare profession, guys. Like I think it's one of the most intimate, minus the gyna, like that's the only other more intimate I feel that there is of a professional.

Like the mouth. Like we are our eyes are open. I I'm looking you in the eyes. Like I know I can at least like look up at the scene and not see them. Mouth, like it's eye to eye, guys. There's nothing like we can't we can't like mm, I can shut my eyes, which most patients do. We are so close, we are so intimate. We want those patients to feel comfortable, we want them to feel confident, we want them to feel that we're gonna check in with them. So this is a space of like where if a practice will consistency, follow up, have a great experience.

Ask for those reviews, stay connected with the patients. It's going to give you this strong retention where people want to share about you as a dentist. I remember when I was asking people when I moved to a new city, I said, who's the dentist you go to? All of them said the same dentist. And that dentist, I looked at them. They have strong systems. They have strong systems for reviews. They have strong systems for how they schedule. They have strong systems for how they do referrals. Like they are very, very, very strong. And five people that I asked told me the exact same dentist. The dentist didn't get a chance to talk to me. I didn't see their Facebook ads.

I didn't get a mailer. I asked because when people move to a new town, they're gonna ask their colleagues and their friends. So, how can you stand out? Call them after an appointment. You better believe they'll be like, Yeah, my dentist calls me after my procedures and make sure that I'm doing okay. My dentist called me like when I first joined their practice, they called me. When I got to their office, they gave me this like awesome swag thing. They were so nice to me. I was in and out on time. My dentist is no pain. Like, I absolutely love going to them. My dentist, their front office is so easy to work with. They get me in, they accommodate my schedule.

They're fantastic. Whatever it is, stand out. This is your chance. This is your time. And I feel like, why not be the best of the best? because I want you to remember that every patient interaction is either strengthening or weakening that relationship. So I have to think about like if we're on this scale, like, am I putting more coins on the weakness or am I putting more coins on the strengthening? And every day we get to put votes on there. And this is something where it's again.

Two minutes here, we add it to a checklist, we add it to an end of day, we talk about this. What can we do for those magic moments for our patients? Because we want to stay connected. We want to stay connected between appointments and do it in a way. There's a practice in Hawaii that I work with. Every patient knows them and they love every single patient. Every time we go to the store, those people know people. And that's because I feel like they're a family, they genuinely care. They care about their patients. They're not just a number. They care. They've built these long-lasting relationships for generations.

And I think for you to just think about why would generations for years want to keep coming back here? It's not because you're a dentist. Yes, your hand skills will get you so far, but what is it about you? What keeps you going back to your favorite restaurant? What keeps you going back to your favorite places? It's the small little things that don't seem very big and they probably don't take a lot of time that actually make the biggest difference. So I would recommend that you guys go through our patient journey and ask, like, what's the last impression we leave our patients with after every visit? What can we do to improve that?

What's our follow-up on unscheduled treatment? And let's put a system in place that we never miss and everybody follows the same path. And let's make sure that in between visits there's some type of communication where patients know we genuinely are thinking about them. Whatever it is, I think the book Unreasonable Hospitality is coming to mind of how can you make these magic moments for your patients stand out a little bit? Because making your patients feel remembered, making sure that they feel like it's consistent, making sure that there's a relationship and a bond.

Well, keep people tethered to you. And like I said, I feel like this is a great opportunity where not a lot of offices are doing it. So it's a great way for you to have a cutting edge, for you to be a cut above the rest by just being nice, by being a human, by going one step further than someone else, but it takes you two minutes longer. So great dentistry earns trust, great follow-up earns loyalty. And I think if you guys remember that, it's follow-up. They say like the devil is in the details, and I feel like the magic is also in the making. And so make sure that we're doing those follow-ups. Make sure that we're

Checking in with our patients and really, truly, it's a space where we want our patients to rave about us. We want them talking to their friends. You want to be the office that when someone moves to the neighborhood, five people not even related or working in the same area voluntarily say you are the best practice. That's how you know that you won. And it's by making people feel genuinely cared for. So if you want ways and help on this, I know we help teens, we walk through this, we work with offices on this, we help you see what your exact

pieces that makes you special. We work with a lot of offices and there's not a one size fits all. It's your practice, your style, your life. So let's work on it. Let's get the follow-up in place. Let's add the the production to your schedule. Let's add the loyalty to your fan base. And let's make you the best dentist there can be. Reach out if we can help you. [email protected] and as always, thanks for listening. And we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.