By Kiera Dent
The podcast currently has 897 episodes available.
Tiff and Dana are encouraging listeners to start planning for an end-of-year celebration now to show your appreciation for the team. Their advice includes ideas that cost money, and ones that don’t!
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Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:00.756)
Hello Dental A Team listeners, this is Tiff I am back at it today with miss Dana and Dana I'm so excited for you to be here with me We've had a lot of time together like this recently and it makes me so happy. I love when we can do it and Gosh, we need to schedule that hike. I'm telling you it's getting to the fall
So I can come down and see you soon. know that Aaron and I want to do that soon. So how are you today, Dana? How's life in Southern Arizona treating you today?
Dana (00:31.429)
doing pretty good like you said around the outfall although it's still in the hundreds so the thought of hiking sometimes is like you know what Tiff like maybe October you know what you're really good
The Dental A Team (00:35.934)
It's so hot!
Yeah, maybe November. Yep. Good. Awesome. Well, Dana, today's podcast is your baby. This is something and I know I always give you like props for the operations manual and you guys yeah, she is our operations manual whiz but this this today is something that
Dana's actually really fantastic at, she is fantastic at that too, but this is something that comes from her heart and her soul and something that we at Dental A Team gifted her as part of her position with us, just because it really, it literally comes from your heart and your soul, Dana. And you are so, so good at keying into people and what will make them happiest and how, how to make people feel appreciated and valued and
with gifts and words for sure, but like celebrating other people and building out end of year celebrations. And I really want this podcast today. This is your baby. I want you to speak to one, how you do it and two, are some, what are some things that doctors and practice leaders and owners can really can do to celebrate the end of the year, whether we hit our goals, which I hope you did, or whether we didn't, we should still celebrate the work that we put in. But
This is your baby and I want to hear from you, Dana, on how you think end of year celebrating should go for practices and number one, how you do it because you are so passionate about this space and we value and appreciate that. you guys, you clients get birthday presents, celebratory gifts, cards, flowers, any of those pieces, I want you to know that Dana is the person behind all of that.
The Dental A Team (02:32.106)
incredibly valuable piece of our company. So Dana, thank you for that. Take us away. This is your baby.
Dana (02:38.251)
Aw, thanks, Tiff. It truly is like one of my favorite spaces, just in life in general. I think I'm like this in my personal life too. And I think it comes down to being intentional. And I think for a lot of office this end of the year, like we don't think about it until the end of the year. And so I am going to prompt you that yes, while we are closer to the end of the year, be thinking about this.
as much as you can, right? And so I think a great thing is knowing your team, right? Whether it's through one -on -ones, whether it's through a survey when they're hired, whether it's through just taking inventory and listening to conversations that you hear, but knowing the things that your team members like, enjoy what makes them feel appreciated. So I think it's doing purposeful things throughout the year to gain some of this information to be able to celebrate at the end of the year or celebrate throughout the year too. A lot of this information is
super helpful for birthdays, super helpful for work anniversaries, super helpful for like you just did a fantastic job and I appreciate you. So I think it is getting to know those spaces and then the pieces that your team member really like they do get excited about and then kind of to feeding a little bit of like common interests. Are there things that when it comes to the end of the year and we're doing something for the team, are there things or common interests woven throughout the team that really would make it more special or more memorable?
Or you know make them feel more appreciated because it is tailored to like their likes their goals their dreams those types of things and then I also just want to highlight like budget for this right because it's oftentimes we get to the end of the year and it's like man I've got to do this end of the year shebang and like I don't have any funds for it I wasn't thinking about it or planning for it so when you're planning for your year make that a part of if we can say hey if I set aside $100 or
The Dental A Team (04:16.551)
Yeah.
Dana (04:30.813)
$200 every single month in my little end of the year party bucket. It will make doing this for your team much less stressful. Okay? The caveat to that too is if this year wasn't a fantastic year and you weren't able to do that, it doesn't have to be monetary. So if it can't be monetary, make it fun.
And you can do a lot of fun things that make people feel super appreciated, that make them come together and bond and all of that and get time with you and time with each other. It does not also have to be about gifts or bonuses or money or any of those pieces. Team members will always appreciate that. And so if you can't do it or if you're limited on the fun's part, focus on the fun part too.
The Dental A Team (05:19.14)
That was beautiful. I love that you said that the fun versus the fun, you know, I love a good time. Good job. That's beautiful. And Dana, I love that we can hear your passion in it just in you speaking and thank you for sharing that. Beautiful tips, start building a bucket right away. And I do have a lot of clients that I push to do that because they want to do end of year bonuses and they want it to be grandiose. And I'm like, fantastic, build it into your goals. So put
a percentage X percentage more in on to your goals so that you can take that percentage then and put it into your bonus your end of year bonus bucket. It's totally doable. You guys you just have to prep and plan for it like Dana said, and it is the end of the year right now are rounding out the end of the year. So whatever that looks like for you is totally fine. I have a lot of clients who are in that that situation where they're like, Tiff, like, do we go to a restaurant? Do we
have a caterer come in? Do we do it at the practice? Do we do it somewhere else? And I think what Dana said is really like, she mentioned take inventory really of what people like, what do they want to do? How do they feel appreciated? Do we get asked, do we do families? Do we do just our team members? I've had practices of all walks of life. I've had practices that have had a little bit of a difficulty in.
the family aspect being there, the spouses, and they've had like run -ins, but that's non -typical. I've had practices that, gosh, even my own practice, one of my favorite, my practice I worked for for years, we always did a Christmas party or a holiday party at the end of the year. One of my favorite memories, Brody is 16th as of recording this, my son. He was three or four.
It was a long time ago and this was one of the parties that just sticks with me. I actually think about it a lot. And our office manager and our doctor put together a family Christmas party and his actually the doctor's wife had majority of planning on this one. But they rented out a space at a hotel nearby the conference room. So they rented out a conference room and we had this patient. He's incredible. He plays Santa. Like he's Santa all year round.
The Dental A Team (07:34.455)
He has a small voice. He looks like Santa. He wears red every day. Like he, and he plays Santa during the holidays for different events and things, because he loves it so much. And his wife looks like Mrs. Claus. Like literally what you would imagine Santa and Mrs. Claus look like that's these people. Well, they got this patient to come be Santa. And we did.
cookies and hot chocolate and like make your own, you know, cookies, do your own icing and stuff in a hot chocolate bar. And we had this incredible party where everyone could bring their kids and they could socialize and get to know each other and, do all of this stuff. And it was one of my most favorite events. And I can't even tell you guys, I'm sure there was because I think we did it every year. I don't know if there was a bonus or not. I don't remember the Christmas present that I got. I know you get that every year. And I don't, I don't know what it was. But I do know
that my kid sat on Santa's lap, got this incredible experience, our patient, like the best Santa you could ever ask for, got to experience that with us. But I want you to understand that memory of that time together with my team and the people that I love and that far outweighed the monetary piece that came in addition to that. So
My point in that is Dana, you you said if you can't if the funds aren't there, make sure it's fun, right? And it doesn't have to be even that grandiose. That was a big party. And I'm like, dang, this is really cool. It doesn't have to be that big. But I also remember parties that we just did in the practice where it was a potluck and we each brought our own favorite dish that we make. I had I remember my co worker, Michelle, she made this amazing like corn casserole dish.
that I had never had before and she brought it and I was like, you're bringing this. We did a recipe book. So then at the end of the year, everybody submitted their favorite recipe. And I was like, if that corn recipe is not in there, like we're fighting like it needs to be there. Right. But we, we figured this out about each other and became closer because of simple things like that. And Dana, think even that one, like a potluck where everybody brings their own stuff, that's very minimal funds from the doctor. So those are
Dana (09:33.783)
Thank you.
The Dental A Team (09:48.308)
Those are just some ideas and some concepts that I've experienced. But Dana, what do you suggest? And I know a lot of doctors are coming to you right now asking and managers asking like, what do we do? And you get this all year round, actually. Because I watch it happen. I watch it happen in like our, doctor conversation, even of like, what do I do? How do I appreciate my team? And like you said, know your team, but what are some fun end of year holiday or beginning of year?
Celebration ideas that you shared with some of our community in the past that they could consider right now
Dana (10:23.241)
Yeah, so I mean, you can always do a special dinner, you can always do those things. I've had an office that did a shopping spree. So everybody got x amount of dollars, they went to either a mall or a Target or somewhere. And the reason for that was they felt like if they gave a bonus, team members would spend it on bills or family instead of themselves. And they really wanted it to spend it on themselves. So everybody got x amount of dollars they had to and they made it a game to they focused on the fun. It had to be like up to that amount, like not one penny less or more. And so was really fun
The Dental A Team (10:39.889)
Mm
Dana (10:53.117)
figuring out the math. I had an office take the team to see the Harlem Globetrotters because they're all huge sports fans and that was amazing. I've had
The Dental A Team (10:57.66)
yeah.
Dana (11:02.675)
Doctors just have team members over to their home and they do just games and make it something that's more relaxed. If you've got some introverted team members, that's a really great space for that. That makes that easy. and you know, if you're into music, like going to a concert and there are all forms of that, right? So if you've got people who are interested in sports, you don't have to go to a professional sports game, find a college sports game, find a local sports game, right? It's about being together. I think sometimes we
The Dental A Team (11:11.07)
Mm -hmm.
Dana (11:32.802)
Forget that really at the end of the day, that's what we want to do We want to say thank you for a fantastic year for really hard work
We want to do it in a space that is together. So there's all sorts of things if you've got outdoors You can do scavenger hunts or hikes together like we've talked about doing together If giving back is super important to your team, you can even do community service together You can do a food drive together You can volunteer somewhere together and all of that because it is special to them will be appreciation
The Dental A Team (12:05.947)
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. That's that space of getting to know your team, right, and really figuring out what's valuable to them. I think speaking on behalf of leadership within that too, I know within our company, it's fairly simple for us to figure out what we can do together as a team, because within our culture, we have built, we've built a culture that attracts
someone who fits our culture, who fits our core values. And it means that we're all super similar. And while we do have varying hobbies and interests all over the place, like Brit gosh, you mountain bikes and road bikes. I'm like, if you put me on a bike, like I am unhappy, right? Dana, you crossfit and I'm like, gosh, if I could get my elbows to move that way, sure, I could try crossfit, but they just don't do it, right. But I work out myself at the gym and I love it. And I have my peloton and I do my spin. And the three of us
Like, and the rest of the team, right? They all have their varying hobbies within that similar vein of activity. So it's like, we know that our culture and our core values has attracted a group of individuals who are interested in health and fitness and who value that aspect of our lives. And it's an important space and an important hobby. So it makes it very easy to be like, great, we all want to move.
we want to be doing something. So if you stiff us in a room, in a potluck, we're going to eat and we're going to enjoy it, but we're going to be like, okay, well, what are we doing? Like, what's the activity? Like, what are we? Yeah, who wants to go for a walk? Literally? Like we would just be like, cool, like there's a mountain not far from here. Like maybe we could like anybody, everybody down great. And we're gone. Right. So we know like who we are as a team because we are so culturally based. So as a leader,
Dana (13:34.709)
See you soon for a walk!
The Dental A Team (13:52.898)
and a practice owner, lean on that too. Lean on what your culture is, look at your core values and really look at how similar you guys are because you're gonna be very different. and I, super similar. We have a lot of things in common, very different, right? Very different. If we switched lives, I would die. I would die, Dana. I don't know how you do it. I watch you and I'm exhausted, right? Like we are so similar in so many ways but we are very different in a lot of ways as well.
But those similarities, instead of looking at the differences, because I think we tend to say, well, so and so would want this, so and so would want that, and she wouldn't like this. What's the similarity between all of the people on your team? What's something that we all enjoy? Maybe it's coffee. Maybe everybody on your team loves coffee. And it's like, cool, let's have a quick coffee brunch social at the office where everybody brings their favorite
creamer or topping or whatever favorite Starbucks drink, I don't know, like, but you could make it that simple. We over complicate trying to appreciate people. I think I could be speaking totally out of context. think when we over complicate it, we overthink it and we try to make it bigger than it needs to be. We lose the value and we lose the intentionality. Like you said, Dana,
behind it because there's so much wrapped up into the like display, right? The display of it all. kind of like, it makes me think of all the times, all the times my friends keep talking me into these baby showers and bridal showers and these stupid balloon arches, right? And it's like, you have this idea of how beautiful this balloon arch is gonna be and you put all this work in the balloon arch and it takes forever, FYI, to do a balloon arch.
And then the rest of everything else that was the intentional, those were the intentional pieces, the picture frames of the bride and the groom to be. And those are left behind because you spent so much time on this stupid arch that comes out wonky every time. So it makes me think of that where you're like focusing on the wrong piece sometimes, but focusing back in on that intentionality and the similarities and letting it.
The Dental A Team (16:15.764)
speak from your heart. Dana, you do this space for us and our company and you do it so well because of your intentionality and the heart and the purposefulness that you put behind it. So I think everything you said was a great reminder for them to do that. And pop quiz, Dana, I'm throwing this out at you. What do you think? I know you love it when I do this. You guys know I'm just off the cuff all the time. I hope you realize that at least.
Dana (16:27.071)
Yeah.
Dana (16:37.125)
gosh.
Dana (16:43.391)
you
The Dental A Team (16:44.212)
That's just how I lived my life. That's how I lived my life at the Dental A team, just off the cuff. As you should. I understand. As you should. do the same thing. Kiera and I both do it and Kiera and she'll come me on the podcast and she's like, okay, and we will prep for the podcast prior. Like, okay, these are the things we're thinking. And then we're like, okay, push record. And then she's like, I have a great idea, you guys, this is totally not what we talked about. I'm like, here we go.
Dana (16:47.465)
That's why I come to podcasting sweating. Because I'm like, why am I podcasting?
Dana (17:10.196)
This
The Dental A Team (17:11.721)
Totally off base of what we talked about, but it's always fantastic. anyway, side tangent pop quiz. What are maybe two things that our doctors, our owners, our practice administrators can do right now to figure out what they want to do because the end of the year is coming. What, how they can celebrate. What are two things that they can do? They could put into action right now to start really getting them all rolling if they haven't already.
Dana (17:37.513)
Yeah, I think one, take a look at your funds and set a budget for whatever the event is going to be. And then two, I think it is, if you haven't been able to figure out these pieces throughout the year, intentionally try to get to know whether it is through a survey, whether it is through, we're just gonna have one -on -ones, I wanna check in with everyone. But find space to figure those things out about your team.
And then if I can add a third, I'm just going to add a third really quick because you ripped, so I'm going to riff. And my third one is focus on the appreciation.
The Dental A Team (18:05.982)
Do it.
Do it.
Dana (18:14.249)
It doesn't have like, we, yes, this is an event and you can throw the biggest party, but at the end of the day, if you don't say thank you for such a fantastic year, it's kind of lost its purpose. So just look and say, what do I want to celebrate and make sure that like the appreciation and that is what is showcased in the event.
The Dental A Team (18:34.797)
I love that. And thank you for riffing. anytime, anytime I want you to do that to interrupt me, you know, I'm long -winded. Those are beautiful. Thank you, Dana. And I love that this was your podcast today, because I think it's your space of life where you really thrive. And I can feel the passion from you when you get to do these things or when you get to talk about it. And it just makes me really, really happy that you can be that passionate about it and that
you can one hold that space because you'll know I would get to the day that it was due and be like, shoot, I'm going to send a gift card by email because I totally forgot to send the thing that was so cool that I thought of six months ago that I forgot to order because that's, that's me. So thank you, Dana, for being that person. Thank you for all of the tips and the tidbits that you you provided today. You guys have some incredible action items and Dana, speak from your heart, tell them something. I'm making you riff again, but
Just wrap us up, tell them what they need to hear.
Dana (19:39.519)
Yeah, I think just go into the end of the year, even if it wasn't your best year, the year that you had the most growth and find the appreciation somewhere, find the beauty in the journey of this year with your team and then make sure that, you know, they hear it, they feel it and that you take time to celebrate it even if it was really hard. You got through it and you got through it together.
The Dental A Team (19:42.066)
Bye.
The Dental A Team (20:06.289)
I love that. Thank you so much. You guys, this was incredible. Round off your year. Celebrate your team. Celebrate with your team. Be there. Let us know how much you love this podcast. Drop us a five star review below if you haven't done that already. And reach out to us, [email protected]. Also watch our inboxes. We do send out the newsletters are related to the topics of the podcast and that newsletter will have some ideas and some tips and tricks as well. So enjoy everyone and we'll catch you next time.
Kiera sits down with certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Jason Auerbach, also known as @bloodytoothguy on social media. They discuss Dr. Auerbach’s love for and journey through his career, standout surgery moments, the pros and cons of building his DSO, marketing advice that will take you far, and more.
Episode resources:
Follow Dr. Auerbach on Instagram
Follow him on TikTok, too!
Reach out to Kiera
Tune Into DAT’s Monthly Webinar
Practice Momentum Group Consulting
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Become Dental A-Team Platinum!
Review the podcast
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00.886)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera And today I am so excited. We have been Instagram fangirling over this man and he is finally on the podcast. We are super excited to have him on here. You guys might know him as the bloody tooth guy. You might have seen him. He's a really fun board certified oral and maxofacial surgeon. He has a ton of experience. I'm so excited to bring on Dr. Jason Auerbach. Welcome to the show. How are you?
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (00:25.733)
I'm doing great, Kiera. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it for sure.
Kiera Dent (00:29.29)
Of course. Well, we were chatting pre -show. I loved how you explained it's your back, my back, our back is your last name. So now everybody will get that right. But kind of tell us, give us a story of how you came from Dr. Jason to now Instagram's famous bloody tooth guy and doing all the things that you do. Kind of just walk us in on your journey of who you are, who is this man? And then I'm excited to dive into some fun things with you today.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (00:37.639)
There you go.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (00:44.315)
you
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (00:53.341)
Sure. So, I grew up in the Northeast. I grew up in New York and, went to school undergrad at Syracuse. And I met a very, very close friend of mine still to this day, whose father was an orthodontist. had very little understanding of what I really wanted to do when I entered college. and he introduced me to this concept of dentistry and dental school. So I ended up applying to NYU, getting into NYU and, and kind of finding my little niche there. I,
I happened to find my way down to the basement of the school, was where the undergraduate oral, or the dental oral surgery clinic was. And met a man named Clarence Kalman, who was an attending at the time and kind of mentored me in exudantia, which is all I knew from oral surgery at the time. Applied and found my way to Kings County Hospital, which is Downstate SUNY Downstate's oral surgery program in Brooklyn.
I four years there and ended up working for attendings of mine right out of residency in Manhattan. After a year or so, I ended up kind of leaving that practice. I was an associate there. They were great to me, but I ended up leaving that practice and finding what I perceived was a better opportunity in New Jersey, right over the bridge. And I was there for a couple of years and had, like many people have had,
some promises made that were not necessarily kept. And so found myself in 2007 in a position where I was moving out to New Jersey from New York City. I was having my second daughter, my wife was having my second daughter, and I was working in nine different offices kind of as an itinerary neurosurgeon.
started Riverside Oral Surgery in 2007 in a town called River Edge, New Jersey, which is maybe six miles from the George Washington Bridge, grew it over the course of about, let's call it 12 years or so, to 10 or 11 locations with a partner, Sung Cho, and we built a full scope oral maxillofacial surgery practice. While that was happening, life was happening as well. Social media was growing.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (03:08.879)
And I found that there was opportunity or I thought to myself, maybe there's opportunity on Instagram that people might be interested in bloody teeth. They were interested in people watching people pop pimples. Maybe they'd be interested in bloody teeth. so a bloody tooth guy was born initially anonymously, basically because I didn't understand the hip aspect of it. And also I didn't really understand how my competitors.
Kiera Dent (03:21.804)
Bye.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (03:36.797)
would potentially use it against me. I just really wasn't exactly sure what was going on or what was going to happen. So I was anonymous and then a few years later came out and the rest is history. We've been very, very fortunate to have built Riverside Oral Surgery, now MAX, which is a surgical specialty platform that supports 24 offices, 25 offices in four states, about to be five states.
build a pretty engaged, respectable following for Bloody Tooth Guy as well. So I've been very, very, very fortunate my whole life in many ways. And just being kind of recognized for it is a nice thing, for sure.
Kiera Dent (04:19.914)
Yeah, no, that's a super fun story. my, so I worked at Midwestern's Dental College. And so you are the student epitome of the one who's just like, yeah, I just woke up one day and decided to become a dentist. And I'm like, how do people get there? And now we have another story of said student. But one of the favorite students, he went through dental school and decided this isn't my thing. So actually went to do all face reconstruction. It was another like,
four years through med school and then four years and then two more years. And I call him up all the time and I'm like, okay, so if anything ever happens to me, if I ever get in a car accident, you've got to make me like at least look this good again. That's our plan. I'm like, I'll help you with anything dental. You just have to make sure. So I feel like it's always good to know like an oral maxofacial. So I'm dying to know so many random questions for you. Okay. How many teeth in your career do you think you've extracted? Like just like random.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (05:07.741)
it is. Go ahead, anything.
Kiera Dent (05:16.746)
I mean, we can throw out, it's gotta be like, I mean, do think you've crossed the million mark?
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (05:22.141)
maybe it's it's it like maybe. so I'm, I'm 50. I finished training in 2003. and so training at Kings County hospital in Brooklyn, was a full exedontia clinic. We used to see a hundred plus patients a day and many people needed many teeth extracted. and I think that's partly why, you know, people talk about 10 ,000 hours or whatever it is to become an expert at whatever it is that you do. mean, I had that probably, you know,
Kiera Dent (05:31.596)
Okay.
Kiera Dent (05:36.363)
Thank you.
Kiera Dent (05:46.571)
Yeah.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (05:51.037)
15, 20 years ago when I came out of residency, thought I had done so much. And again, 20 years later, it's like unbelievable. It's possible I've extracted a million teeth. I don't know. I wouldn't say, but it's, it's definitely a lot. mean, yeah, it could be a million, could be a million. Yeah.
Kiera Dent (05:56.289)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (06:09.984)
Right? I was like, I bet he's crossed the million mark. Like thinking of how many patients and all that. So, okay, that was like number one. Number two, I'm not even know like, what do you like, why, what do you love so much about oral? Because oral maxillofacial is so bloody. And funny story, as a dental assistant, I was doing my internship. I was there. The doctor was so nervous for my first extraction. I was watching it. He's like, Kiera, make sure you like sit over there. I don't want you passing out.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (06:27.623)
you
Kiera Dent (06:39.05)
washed the extraction, I was totally fine. That night I went home and I dreamed about it and I puked my guts out that night. So I didn't do it at the place and then it was fine. did like, I went and like learned about implants and I loved it. I do get a little weird about cadavers like that. I dry heat like left and right. I don't even know how you guys work on it. Like it just, but I need to know, like tell me like, what is it about oral maxofacial that you just love so much? What's the fulfilling piece to you? Like, what is it about that? It's so bloody. It's so much blood.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (06:56.656)
Right.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (07:07.037)
So actually the beauty of true oral maxillofacial surgery is in the efficiency of motion. I come at everything I do from a creative side. So the people come at it from an engineering perspective. I come at it from the creative side, from an artistic side. That's just how I see things. So part of what draws me to the surgery is the ability to see a problem, understand it, and fix it with my hands.
in an efficient, clean, not that bloody manner. Now, of course, these are human beings. They bleed, they're alive. It's kind of a positive thing. But the fact is, is that I really see surgery as such a beautiful artistic expression of how to solve problems. in truth, that's how I come at it from a technical artistic side. From a psychological...
Kiera Dent (07:39.916)
Yes.
Kiera Dent (07:45.139)
Yeah.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (08:05.467)
Like how I help people, you know, every single person who comes into my office every single day is anxious or in pain or scared or a combination thereof. and in a, in a really very, very quick way, we're able to, kind of convert them from being, from feeling that way to being appreciative, almost mind blown in terms of how easy and simplistic.
the solution to their problem is. And I think a lot of people don't really understand kind of the scope of oral maxillofacial surgery. And it's why I think even dentists, even people in the dental world don't truly understand the training that we have. And it's really kind of incumbent upon us to really kind of spread the word on that. And I think I do that to some degree with the dental alveolar stuff I do. But I do think that we have in our bag of tricks so much that we can work with.
that patients who come with seemingly complex problems from a dental perspective, from an oral perspective are, I don't want to say easily solved, but you know, fairly routinely solved. I personally treat a lot of oral surgery, right? I'm a full scope board certified oral maxillofacial surgeon. I've done everything from frontal sinus to the clavicles, you know, everything anterior. I've harvested ribs, I've harvested hips. I've done all kinds of stuff.
Kiera Dent (09:20.885)
you
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (09:33.499)
But the fact of the matter is that I do dental, alveolar surgery, I a lot of wisdom teeth, I do a lot of dental implants, advanced bone grafting. And I do that comfortably because I'm able to handle anything that comes my way because of how I was trained in such an extensive way. And so, you know, when you go to watch a procedure done by an oral maxillofacial surgeon is in his or her office, you're oftentimes, one would oftentimes be amazed by how
seemingly easy it is and they're encouraged to kind of try it and then they find that it's not necessarily as easy as it looks and that's because we've been trained to do it. We do minimally four years of training as you know after dental school that's after dental school up to six or more if you're fellowship trained and so we're able to you know we get the reps in early versus kind of an extension throughout your entire career done like X number of whatever.
sign -as -lifts because you've taken a course or something like that. Not to disparage, but it's a different thing.
Kiera Dent (10:34.081)
Mm
Kiera Dent (10:38.304)
Totally. No, and that's so interesting to me. We harvested one time right before Thanksgiving. I was working with a dentist and we decided we were going to try and harvest from the ramus. It did not go well. And I remember we got a lot of flak. Like you guys did this right before Thanksgiving, right before this patient was going to go on their like dream cruise of their life. Needless to say, was, I mean,
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (10:50.074)
Hmm
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (10:58.973)
to it.
Kiera Dent (11:01.394)
hats off. have so much respect for what you guys do, but I'm dying to know. My husband, worked, he's a clinical pharmacist and he did a lot of rotations in the ER. He thought about being an ER pharmacist and I'm such a gross human, but like it's just fascinating. Like that's what people are fascinated with you. They're fascinated with the pimple popper. So every day when he'd come home from work, I'm like, tell me what happened. Like did someone die? Like what was the crazy stuff? And he told me some wild things from that ER. So I'm dying to know in your career,
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (11:23.6)
you
Kiera Dent (11:28.47)
What are some of like the craziest things that you have gone through? Like for my husband, I think the one that I remember the most is when he said a woman's face went through the windshield and her whole face was de -gloved. That image has never left my mind. Cause I'm like, that is bananas. Like I wear my seatbelt crazy now because I don't want my face ever de -gloved. But I'm curious, like in your career, what are some of the craziest stories or things that you're just like, I remember this one time. That's just the kind of with you throughout your career.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (11:52.795)
Yeah. You know, so most of those stories for me occurred in residency because I, again, I training, I was training in, in the inner city, in the late nineties, early two thousands. And there was a lot of interpersonal violence, gunshot wounds and stab wounds and things like that. Not high, high speed, motor vehicle accidents or anything like that. Cause we weren't near a highway and we were in the city, but.
Kiera Dent (12:00.54)
sure.
Kiera Dent (12:12.619)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (12:20.012)
Sure, you're downtown.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (12:22.821)
You know, I had a gentleman who was caught mistreating a woman and a group of guys, I would say appropriately decided that he needed to be punished for his actions. And so he proceeded to receive pretty significant facial injuries with a bat and a shovel.
Kiera Dent (12:36.129)
Yeah.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (12:51.185)
And so we're talking about, so when you talk about degloving your face, traumatically, we do that with something called a bichoronal or coronal flap where we actually make an incision in the scalp and bring everything down so that you can access the frontal sinus and and OE area. and, and so that was a case that was, that was, something to remember just given the circumstances that he sustained the injury.
Kiera Dent (12:54.944)
Yes.
Kiera Dent (13:05.354)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (13:16.086)
I'm so sorry.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (13:16.893)
Another guy had a machete impaled and created what we would do surgically, a Lafort 1 osteotomy. Part of what we do as orthoporomaxillofacial surgeons is orthognathic surgery, basically jaw repositioning. And this guy had it done just in one fell swoop because he ran into a machete. And then the most, the case that meant the most to me, that probably attached me to patient care more than anything else was there was a young boy who had fractured his jaw.
Kiera Dent (13:38.9)
Mm -hmm.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (13:46.173)
When you fall on your chin, oftentimes you fracture the condyle, which is the part of the lower jaw that articulates with the skull in the TMJ. And he went back down to Jamaica. He was from Jamaica. He went back down to Jamaica and got lost to follow -up. And he developed something called TMJ ankylosis, meaning fusion of the bone. So he was unable to open his mouth. So by the time we saw him, he was, I don't know, 13, 14 years old, but he looked like a six, seven year old. He was completely malnourished and all that. So we ended up...
basically reconstructing his TMJ, harvesting a rib. And within the day he was functioning in a very, very different way. And actually for me, like I really like first, really first felt this attachment that I actually was able to give someone something of critical importance. And so he meant, he did so much for me by me helping him.
I ended up, he, you know, I gave him like, don't know at the time, I don't even know what the actual game was. It was like a game boy or whatever it was. I was, know, for me, I was fortunate enough. wasn't making a lot as a resident, but I felt like this kid, it was going to be nice. So I bought him like a game boy or whatever it was. But I mean, that kind of stuff that, that really kind of, I was like, yeah, I'm definitely I've I'm in the right, right place. So yeah.
Kiera Dent (15:02.164)
Yeah, that's incredible. And I think it's got to be so fulfilling, like you said at the beginning of the creativity of seeing someone who, mean, like my husband with that face de -gloved, they can't do anything, but you can bring that person's confidence back to them. You can give them life when they didn't think that there was. You can, I mean, our faces, I think our smile is something I love about dentistry, and yet you're able to bring so much more to the table. So I was just so curious. I'm like, I've got to ask because every
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (15:19.933)
you.
Cough
Kiera Dent (15:31.092)
Every surgeon, every person in medicine, they all have the stories. And so I'm like dying to know, but now I kind of want to talk about your guys's business and what made you guys want to go to a DSO. Like let's talk about DSOs because DSOs are hot. And like, do people go to DSOs? Do they build their own? Like what was kind of your guys's mission and vision of building out what you guys built? Was it just necessity? Was it passion? it like kind of walk me through pros and cons like of this DSO journey you guys have been on to get here.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (15:35.058)
Yeah.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (15:57.789)
Sure. So I've always been an entrepreneurial person. Kind of the patient experiences at the cornerstone of what we did with Riverside. We built a strong brand with Riverside that was known nationally well before we had any private equity or outside investment or anything like that. So when, when the kind of &A world was catching on that oral maxillofacial surgery was really a very, very special place to be, we explored the concept and
At the time, like I said, we had 10 or 11 offices. We were personally guaranteeing everything through a commercial lender, co -collateralizing all of it. Like we own some of the land, some of the properties, some of the condos, some of the buildings, totally separate. And then the individual LLCs that were the individual practices. And we owned at the time a private DSO. mean, you could call it whatever you want, basically an organization that managed all of the organizations, all of the
Kiera Dent (16:55.34)
Mm
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (16:56.485)
practice level practices. And so, you know, we spoke to some of we vowed we were never going to sell to a general dental DSO. I believe the oral maxillofacial surgery is unique and special and the best specialty in all of healthcare. So I believe and I hold it in really high esteem and I want to protect it. We've all seen what corporate
Kiera Dent (17:09.814)
green.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (17:21.403)
healthcare has done to healthcare across the board. And by and large, the outcomes are not great. But my belief is that scale and collaboration is actually what's going to yield better outcomes for patients, better level of care. I don't think it's the opposite, as long as it's done properly.
So I didn't want to sell to a general dental DSO. Again, I don't believe that they truly, truly understand the differences and I've owned general dental practices and they're very, very different businesses. And I thought about partnering with a couple of different national or pure play oral surgery groups. One of which I respect like unbelievably and many of which had strengths and weaknesses.
Kiera Dent (17:54.592)
Yes.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (18:13.319)
but none really fit the bill as far as what we were trying to achieve here in the Northeast. And then I also said, I didn't really want to sell, I didn't understand how, you know, oral surgeons would sell to a bunch of endodontists who were like calling themselves, it just didn't make sense. I love endodontists, I love endodontists, but, and in fact, I think their specialty is probably most easily correlated to oral maxillofacial surgery in terms of the business of it.
Kiera Dent (18:26.155)
Right.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (18:39.963)
But I just didn't, again, I think we have a unique specialty and we provide unique care with the hospital and board certification, anesthesia, full scope kind of stuff. So we went about finding direct investors who believed enough in the vision that they would write into the charter of the investment, into the charter of the organization, the existence of an autonomous, largely autonomous, primarily independent clinical advisory board.
Kiera Dent (18:45.441)
Sure.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (19:09.713)
that handled every single thing to do with delivery of care. And so the delivery of care is controlled and decided upon by this clinical advisory board, which is made up of members of all the practices that we support. And it's been really tremendous because we found when doing our due diligence on these private equity firms that
Kiera Dent (19:25.568)
Mm
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (19:38.613)
These specific, they happen to be guys and we use the term guys, but it doesn't matter what the gender is, but they happen to be like great guys, like just people that really stood by their word. a lot of times you go into these private equity deals I've learned and an offer is made on some sort of multiple of your EBITDA.
And then you go through something called the Q of E, which is basically audited financials on your quality of earnings on your financials. And then they come back and they say, well, you know what? We thought your EBITDA was this, but now your EBITDA is that. They retrade the deal, but you're so far along and you're so like, you're kind of limited because you don't have the deal experience.
And you end up putting yourself in a negative position. We have never retraded a deal. We have never gone back. Even if EBITDA was lower by a certain amount, we've never, ever, ever gone back and retraded a deal. And so we have really good guys who understand the importance to me, and also because they are who they are, that we are people of our word, that we are representing us and our specialty and our group of surgeons.
Kiera Dent (20:50.602)
Yeah.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (20:55.417)
as well as it can be done. I think we are differentiated in so many ways. know, any DSO or any group is just basically made up of a group of human beings. So if you're good human beings, you're gonna have a good group. If you're selfish human beings, it's a different kind of thing. So, yeah.
Kiera Dent (21:00.32)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (21:08.833)
Right.
Kiera Dent (21:16.652)
Sure. What's the forecast of where you guys want to take your DSO? Is it like you want to become one of the largest ones? What's your future vision of your DSO?
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (21:28.807)
So right now we're focused on the Northeast. We're focused on finding and partnering with really market leaders, people who embrace technology. We're not looking to just accumulate EBITDA for the purpose of recapping, which of course, there's a lot of nuance in terms of the speech. Of course, we want to be very, very successful. Of course, that is part of the whole plan.
Kiera Dent (21:47.571)
Yeah.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (21:55.773)
We're not doing it at the expense of quality of care. And frankly, we're looking at the businesses we partner with are businesses that are growing, that they're treating their patients right. They have very, very good brand equity in terms of a good reputation in terms of the patients that they're serving. And that's what we're looking for. We're not in the business of acquiring guys at the end of the career.
and paying them some sort of a high multiple so that we could have, you know, play the multiple game. It's just not what we're doing. So we've been very successful so far. We are, you know, we are ahead of the anticipated growth curve that we were modeled on. We have great same store, as you would call it, but we have same, you know, clinic level growth, which is tremendous.
Kiera Dent (22:29.58)
Sure.
Kiera Dent (22:43.201)
Mm
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (22:51.993)
We have an amazing group of people who support us in the management side of things, who I kind of put it to them with my co -CEO to come up with a mission statement specifically for the kind of the management people. And they came up with the concept that they want to passionately support and serve the surgeons and the partner practices so that we can provide the optimal patient experience each and every time, which is kind of like a little bit.
Kiera Dent (23:08.02)
Mm -hmm.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (23:21.553)
borrowed from Riverside Oral Surgery's optimal patient each and every time, but with this kind of like management support swing, which is to say that they support the surgeons so that the surgeons can continue to provide that type of care. And again, it's, you know, of course there's, you know, wordsmithing and all that, but the fact is, is it's, it's really in the DNA of all the people who are part of our organization to do that. And that's great so far.
Kiera Dent (23:46.954)
I love it. And something that I actually wasn't expecting to take from this podcast today is I love that you say that it's going to be a collaborative change because I think there's so much talk of DSOs actually destroying dentistry. And I love that you want to protect the surgeons and you want to protect your niche. And so instead of sitting back and just kind of almost like floating by with everybody else, you have that passion, you have that love, you're attracting more people like that.
to where you're making a bigger impact. You guys can go rally. You can go speak up. You've got more marketing. Like you are building a voice to make a difference within your space at a very high level, which I think is actually a really beautiful thing. What do you feel if someone was maybe listening to this podcast, they're a dentist who's very passionate like you are, are there any tips or tricks that you would say? I wouldn't say tricks. I think it's more tips to be successful of if they're wanting to build a DSO,
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (24:27.517)
Thank you.
Kiera Dent (24:42.432)
to be like you are? Because I think that that's the fear, right? We're either going to sell, we're retiring, we're going to go for these people that are going after multiples, or we're going to start to build DSOs because we're passionate, we want to protect our space and the industry that we're in and combine forces with other like -minded people. How do people go about that? Because I think so many are afraid of the legalities and like, how hard is it to build this? And what are maybe some of the tips you have for those DSO ideas if they want to start building it?
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (25:09.319)
Well, I think a lot of people try to, maybe with the best intentions, do things on their own. But there is so much information out there, people who have done it before, groups of people who do share ideas. And I think, even maybe it's been a fault of mine to try to kind of do it because I think I can do it without maybe necessarily in my early days.
even now to some degree, speaking to people who have done it before or who currently doing it. We see that in dentistry a lot where like there's a lot of like people want to hold on to their secrets and all that stuff and I find that all ships will rise with rising tide, right? So like everybody has something to offer. That's partly why we are as successful as we are. I speak about collaboration all the time.
I think you need good advisors. You really need a good attorney. My attorney has been exceptional. I'll plug her a little bit. Actually, her name is Casey Gocelle. She works for a firm called Mandelbaum Barrett. She heads up their dental &A space. She's literally written a book on dental &A. She's been with me since I started my first practice. So now she represents Max and has done a great job advising so many people.
Kiera Dent (26:29.846)
Mm -hmm.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (26:31.997)
And you need good financial advice. You need a good accountants and you really kind of need to just network and meet people and understand and speak to people about the pitfalls of what have happened. would say the majority, what has interested me or what has not surprised me because as I've, as I've matured in my career, I really like, I'm happy to share information. Like I have no time in the world, but like anytime anyone grabs me, like I've just like,
here, this is what I do, this is what it's all about, this is what matters. And most people who have achieved some level of success are looking to pass on knowledge and share that knowledge with others. It's actually kind of this mindset, right? As in New York, we talk about like certain other local teams being like haters, and they're haters, and they always have these like losing franchises in professional sports.
Kiera Dent (27:02.87)
Yes.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (27:31.133)
And they're like, they're like this perennially losing and that losing comes from this like hater mentality, I think. So I think like. For me, I want success for, for, for everybody. So like, you know, really like I have, have this big kickoff party at Amos every year. Amos, American association of oral, maxillofacial surgeons. We just had the meeting in Orlando. We had a party, 400 people. It was the Wednesday. was every year it's, it's the party and.
I was talking to a CEO of another like competing dent or oral surgery DSO. It's like, felt a little uncomfortable about, you know, whether I wanted to, or I was going to come or not. I was like, dude, you're, you're welcome here. Like welcome everybody. There are plenty of, there's, there's plenty of seats at the table. Just like when I started practicing and people talk about like, you're a competitor, you're a competitor. There's, are plenty of teeth in the world that needed to be extracted. Plenty of empty sites for implants. Like everyone can be successful. We are.
Kiera Dent (28:24.115)
Hey.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (28:28.925)
I'm so lucky to be oral maxillofacial surgeons in the dental profession. In any way, so long as you're real, you're authentic, you understand you're going to attract whatever audience is going to be drawn to who you are, and you're okay with not every single human being loving you, you're going to be okay.
Kiera Dent (28:50.11)
I love it. I think it's such a refreshing mindset because you do meet a lot of people and there are people that just want to hold on, but it's very interesting. I've been watching a lot of dentists who sell to TSOs or a lot of dentists. They want to give back. So many of them want to mentor. literally, mean, first time in my whole time owning a Dental A Team, people are reaching out to me, dentists, and they're like, Kiera, we want to coach. I'm like...
All right. And I hear it I think you're right that people genuinely like as core nature, our core nature is to love. Our core nature is to teach people how to fish, to help them get to the levels. And so I think it is about that network and dentistry is so special. It's such a special place and it can either be, like you said, a competitor or it's like we're all rising. There's so many teeth out there. It's ridiculous to think that and there's more being born every day. So it's like, they're just going to keep coming.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (29:38.043)
Yeah, thankfully.
Yep. Yep.
Kiera Dent (29:44.172)
But I really appreciate that perspective because it really does help us see that everybody can be successful. And I don't think it's just a positive mindset. It's proof and it's there. So I want to just quickly wrap. Of course, everybody I'm sure is dying to know a little bit about your marketing within being the bloody tooth guy. What are some tips you have if anybody wants to get into Instagram? know like it kind of feels like maybe the boom has passed and it
But I think anyone can come forward. It's pretty amazing. You don't have to be found in talent. You just have to be found with your people. So any tips you have on marketing or branding that you guys have found to be successful, especially coming from you.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (30:23.281)
Yeah, listen, I think you have to like anything kind of, you have to be able to identify what it is that makes you different. And you have to be true to that because ultimately, if you try to put forth some sort of image that is not really who you are, you might have some near term short term success with it, but none of that is sustainable in the longterm. You, know, we, have obstacles as surgeons in particular.
that what we do is a little gory. so because of the world we live in, a lot of the larger enterprises look to protect their users. So I don't really fault Instagram and TikTok for censoring some of what we do. I do think there would be a better way for them to kind of look at it, not just with AI. Some of the stuff I've put up there they've thought was like sexual content and
You know, certainly it can be looked at as violent or whatever. But the fact of the matter is, is that I do think there's a better way. And I'd love to have a conversation. Not that I'm in a position to have a conversation with the, you know, the powers that be it. One does not know, but you would think, you would think Zuckerberg's father, a dentist, he would have a little bit of love for us in any case. but I do think, I do think that, you have to be aware of.
Kiera Dent (31:25.036)
Sure.
Kiera Dent (31:34.144)
Hey, you never know. We never know. Maybe.
Kiera Dent (31:42.326)
I would say.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (31:51.613)
Like anything else, you have to be aware of like what audience you're trying to attract. You have to know what you can do well. You're never going to see me really dancing on TikTok or anything like that, unless like there's an influencer in my chair who's like making me dance on TikTok. but I will say that, you know, you just, you just have to find your voice, put it out there and the ones that are supposed to hear it will actually appreciate it. And it.
You'll grow. mean, you will grow for sure.
Kiera Dent (32:23.584)
I love that. Jason, this has been so, I think, moving and touching and just, I feel the love. I feel your compassion. I feel your collaboration. feel, and I think that that's what, when people really feel that, I don't feel you went on to social to become who you became. I think you went on to just educate and to share your passion and your love. And I think that was the true nature of what made you into who you are today. And I'm just grateful you, like you said, you're very busy. We've been waiting for this podcast for a while.
And I'm just grateful for it. So I just want to, I always like to leave it up to you. Is there anything else that you feel like the world of dental, of teams, of owners, anything that you feel like as we wrap up today that you'd like to share with our dental community today?
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (33:08.185)
I just think we're in an interesting period of time for our profession. A lot of, especially the younger dentists out there, are trying to create a persona because that's what social media is. But I would say if you focus on what's really important, which are the people that surround you, within the office professionally, your family, your friends, you yourself, and you focus on improving your craft and really kind of
putting all of yourself into what it is that you do day to day. And if you want to find harmony, you want to find balance and all that kind of stuff, that's cool. But like, you know, whatever you focus on just multiplies and ultimately will yield for you the greatest level of, I don't say success, because that's a word that people associate with financial success, but just fulfillment. And I think that ultimately as you get on,
Again, I'm 50, right? So I live in this way. I feel like I'm 20, but I'm 50. and, the fact is, is like, I feel younger other than my back a little bit. I feel younger than I ever have. I love what I do day to day. I love the life that I live and you know, time flies. You hear it when you're young and be like, yeah, that's an old dude talking time flies. So just every day do what you love. And if you don't love it, don't do it.
Kiera Dent (34:11.862)
Thank
Kiera Dent (34:37.696)
Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much for your time. It was so fun to just hear your stories. I feel very excited. I love that there's people like yourself out there making a difference and definitely agree. You really, really, really love what you do and you can feel that passion. so thanks for being on the podcast today. It truly was such an honor.
Jason M Auerbach, DDS (34:56.189)
Appreciate you. Yeah, it's my honor. Thank you so much, Kiera I really appreciate it.
Kiera Dent (35:00.236)
course. And for all of you listening, I hope you really took this to heart. Reach out, follow him on social, get the passion, the inspiration. That's what we're here for. And as always, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
Kiera talks about why it’s so critical to have two people in each department who know everything backward and forwards, as well as how to train team members to become those position experts.
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00.792)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I, you guys. I hope today is just a great day for you. hope that life is positive for you. I hope that you are choosing to find happiness. And there's a really cool quote today that I'm looking at on the day I'm recording. It's by Jim Rohn. And he said, we must all suffer one of two things, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. And I thought about that because they say discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs.
weighs tons. And I hope that you are disciplined in your thoughts, disciplined in what you focus on, disciplined in what you consume, discipline on the people you associate with and realizing that you're the creator of your life. You're not the manager of the circumstances that come your way and truly owning that role that we are all blessed and given to create the practice we want to be, to create the life we want to live.
to not blame people for when things are happening, maybe to us and realizing what role did we play in that and how can we better ourselves. And it's a crazy world to live in. It's a crazy space. And I think honestly, right now it's a game of mental stamina. I think that that's the world we're living in. I think we've conquered so many things. We've conquered washing our clothes and our dishes and...
Like shoot, even Instacart, like you can get groceries delivered, you can get food delivered. We've conquered so many things and we've been blessed with so much that I think now it's the game of mental resilience. And how do we become the people that we want to be? We've got so much time. We have so much time available to us. And I know we often don't think we do, but I attended a conference recently and you know, we've got 24 hours in a day. So in one week, that's going to be 168 hours. All right. So let's say we are working.
40 hour work week, but let's add in some drive time. So I'll give you 50 hours of that for a work week. All right. And then let's say that we are sleeping, eight hours a day. Okay. So every day. And I'm also going to give you, so we're going to say that's 56 hours of sleep time per week. Plus we're also saying that we've got 50 hours of work time. That's 106 hours a week. Okay. 106. That's a 50 hour work week. It's also giving you 56 hours. So eight hours of sleep a night.
Kiera Dent (02:17.838)
All right, and we have 24 hours in a day. So that's 106 hours. That means we are still left after our sleep and after our work. We are left with 62 hours in a week. Now, if I divide that by seven, that gives you 8 .8 hours of time. And I've taken out sleep and I've taken out work. And now you might say, well, Kiera, we've got two hours of this. But I just thought that's a lot of time.
That's a lot of time. have 62 hours of time. And my question is, what are we doing with that time? We have the time and how are we able, are we, are we doomsday scrolling? Are we consuming things that maybe aren't feeding our souls? Are we working out and honoring our bodies? Are we spending time in connection with friends? Are we allowing our lives to just pass us by? Are we intentionally planning them? And I just think that that's something
so interesting to think about. I had no idea, because I think I'm so into this, like, I'm so busy and I'm so exhausted and this and that. And I'm like 62 hours. That's 8 .8 hours a day beyond sleeping a full night's rest and working more than a 40 hour work week that I still have eight hours. And what am I doing with that? And so I really just think you guys like, think about that. What are we doing? How are we spending our time?
And are we truly creating our lives or are we just managing them? So thinking about that and with that, I'm excited for today's topic. I think it'll be a fun one for you. And that's on, I think to just give you guys like, again, let's tie it into our work weeks because also in our work weeks, how much time are we actually spending maybe on things that aren't moving the needle forward that are maybe just busy tasks? It's so crazy. I'm super excited. I attended an amazing time planning.
event and I'm excited because I'm starting to morph and build. I've taken some time to build something out for dentistry and I'm super freaking jazzed because I woke up one night and I said, dentistry is my platform, life is my passion. And I'm so obsessed in our consulting to give you the tips and the resources to shortcut your way to success, to give you the life that you ultimately want. And so this is going to be a piece where maybe let's look at what we're spending our time on at work.
Kiera Dent (04:39.95)
Could we chunk things together? Could we be more efficient with it? Can we chunk things in our own life? But this is going to help you too. The question was asked of how do we cross train and build a versatile and adaptable team? And I think that this is a great space to give back more time, to give you guys more resources. And I'm not like the biggest fan of cross training. I sometimes think that too many, too many, I don't know, I want to say noodles, because that's what I think of when I go into a front office, I'm like, my gosh, this is like a bowl of spaghetti and everybody's like crossed over each other.
and it's just wild and it's messy and it feels like a spaghetti bowl where everything's not clear. And I enjoy clarity. think clear is kind. think people understanding what their job is to do and not always having everything smashed together in our company. Even it's like every person can do all the different things, but then ultimately who's responsible for it. so sometimes I'm not crazy about cross training, but I also love to have my perspective has been, I want to have at least two people who know how to do everything within my team.
So for every position, so two people who can schedule insanely well and know all the protocols for it, two people within treatment coordinating, two people within office management, two people within billing, and they can be the same people. So it can be like maybe Sarah knows office management, treatment coordinating and scheduling. So in case Maggie is out, I always have a backup to every single position. So two hygienists, two dental assistants, doctors are a bit trickier. You guys are, you tend to be okay on your own, but really looking for
And so the way we cross train is sometimes what I do is I actually will, we'll shake it up for two or four hours, one day a month or one day, a quarter people switch roles and you just get a pick and roll. Obviously licenses, you have to be careful. So sometimes you have to switch positions within licenses. They're okay. But for two or four hours, that person switches and they become someone else. And what happens is you actually become very appreciative. You become very aware.
of what that person's doing in that role. And you are also able to find gaps in different things that can maybe make it easier. I'm also really big on an operations manual. That's why we have operations manuals that we've created that you can buy on TheDentalATeam .com. It's a 750 page one that's broken down into every single person's position with onboarding documents, end of day checklist, accountability agreements, 30, 60, 90 day onboarding docs, and then also what protocols I usually recommend for every single position.
Kiera Dent (07:01.996)
I purposely did not build the protocols for you. have a ton of verbiage in there, but every software is different. Every practice does it a little bit differently. so having you guys have the template of exactly how to build it and then you guys can build it. But I'm super obsessed with making sure that you guys have that. That way you're able to, if Sarah's out or Maggie's out or Tiffany's out, someone can actually go snag the manual and I've got what they do every day. And literally there's videos with
or there's other things that they can follow. So in our company, we have daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks. So if someone was out, we have their checklist of what do they need to do for the daily? What do they need to do for the weekly? What do they need to do for the monthly? And we are a virtual company. We're not together, so I can't have printed manuals for people, or we haven't chosen to, but we have it all hyperlinked with videos and also written protocols. So no matter what, if someone's out, they should be able to go onto the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and be able to perform that position.
I also like two people that know how to do everything. So two people know how to do payroll. Two people know how to do our commission reports for our consultants, of like doctors getting paid on production. We have two people that know how to hire. We have two people that know how to place the ads. We have two people that know how to do everything. So no matter what, people also have the freedom to leave. And I know some team members can get protective of their position. like, I don't want people to know because I don't want them to ever replace me. And for me,
What I do is I just believe that that way people can go on vacations. People can have time off. People can do the things that they want to do. And there's multiple people trained to do their position. So I think cross training and building a versatile team. If you really want to dial it in, would do number one, I would have your operations manual completed and like, let's at least get that done. And at least the daily tasks for every position and the weekly tasks. So people at least know what to do and let's have those in a readily available spot. So everybody can use that. Number two, what I would do is I would definitely
whether it's weekly, monthly or quarterly, whatever you choose, I would definitely cross train. And so I would have certain skillsets where we train and not just having people passively watch, but actively engage. if we're going to cross train everybody to be able to schedule, we do a relay races or we have everybody up there, or we have people call in that are our team members calling and they have to schedule it appropriately. but whatever you can do to get them to role plan. know role playing is I did a podcast, gosh, years ago. And I was like, you think role playing is dumb.
Kiera Dent (09:22.178)
Role -playing allows you to practice. So when we're put into that position, we actually don't have to think about it. It can become automatic. And that's what we do. Think about firefighters. They practice fire. So when a fire comes, they actually know how to do it. Think about back in elementary school, and it was like fire drills or earthquake drills. And now they're shooting drills. And people, like, we want you to become automatic. And that's why we do the drills and the role -play. It's what becomes automatic. It becomes automatic of what I say when I answer in schedule. It becomes automatic of how I present a treatment plan.
Not that everything is automatic, but I don't have to think about it. And takes a thinking out of it and allows it to be a little more coast mode for your brain because you've practiced it so many times. So practicing that and training and I'm training the whole team. I used to rotate because there's three departments really, and there's three months and a quarter. And you can have each department actually train on something that would be super helpful if everybody in the whole team knew how to do it. So for example, if your state allows teaching your team to be able to do a sterilization.
And so it's like simple sero or being able to break a room down, obviously up to standard and up to code. but we had our clinical team train our whole team on it and everybody practiced and everybody did it and everybody got passed off. So that way, if we were running behind, people could help each other out. The front office, they really needed help getting recare and reactivation. So for that month, we had a reactivation and recare challenge where everybody was making the phone calls
We're every single day or every single week talking about who is doing the best and what things people were doing and making it into a fun game and who was the goat and who, who did the best and who was the sizzle champion. Those types of things can be super, super fun to get your team on board, to be able to, just help each other out into cross train. Because again, I'm big and sticky that I want two people for every single position to know what to do. Then I'm never afraid.
People are allowed to take vacations, if we're not scared and stressed out, and then to have that daily, weekly, monthly checklist. That way nothing ever goes and gets missed. Have the videos, it's very fast, you guys. have Loom is my favorite. You can also use, there's so many different softwares out there. Take quick videos of things. They don't have to be perfect, and I think done is better than perfect in this scenario. And then have people rotate positions, have people try out the different roles, have people that are not in that position.
Kiera Dent (11:37.774)
try it out and see if can they, can they follow the protocol and get the same results? And if not, let's fix it. Let's update it. But those are really great ways for you guys to cross train and build that versatile train. But with that said, make sure that there's very strong specifics. Who does what? So it's not getting crossed. It's not getting lapsed. It's not getting confusing. Let's make sure that's super clear for them. That way everybody has clear expectations. People feel like they can win and they can succeed. We also can help each other out because we've been cross -trained.
If we can help you guys in any way, I'm obsessed with doing this. I'm obsessed with helping teams get ops manuals done, helping you guys have that success.
Kiera Dent (12:25.484)
you
Kiera Dent (12:32.992)
If we can help in any way we're always here to help you guys and as always thanks for listening I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast
Tiff and Dana talk about setting yourself up for success, goal edition. When you begin to work toward your dreams for your practice, do you take an all-encompassing approach? This episode focuses on creating a roadmap for those goals to make them easier to reach.
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Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:01.422)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am here with you today with Miss Dana and we are so excited to chat with you. We've got a couple of things we're working on today and chatting future is one of them today. And I absolutely love these kinds of conversations and these planning conversations. And Dana, we were just talking about it yesterday with this content we're gonna deliver today. And I think it was just divine timing.
How are you, Dana? How is your month going? We're rounding out to the end of the year. How are things looking over there in your world? And your hair, by the way, looks amazing if you guys are watching this today. I've told you before, she's a hair genius. Here we are again with awesome hair. But Dana, how are you today?
Dana (00:44.49)
Thanks, I'm doing good. I'm blessing it like my hair takes me two minutes to do because it's so thin. So that's the only reason why it's really ever done is because it's quick.
The Dental A Team (00:50.865)
Fair and same.
-huh. I totally, I totally understand that. Awesome. Well, guess what, guys? We are here today with some incredible, incredible ideas. And I say that because we thought of them and I think we're incredible, but also because we love prepping and planning. We, we live in a reactive world in general, like just the world in general is a very reactive world and a reactive space. But dentistry itself is incredibly reactive. And I explained this to
clients and teams constantly where like our jobs are literally to find the problems that have already happened, right? So we're not always preventative for sure. We love preventative care. We love trophies and you know, paramedicine and fluoride and sealants and yes, that is a space but how often do we push that preventative like I know I'm talking to hygienists and teams constantly about fluoride and adult sealants and like gosh, you guys, these are preventative measures that help but more often than not,
we're in the reactive space where something's already happened, and we're completing treatment, we're diagnosing things that are issues. And so when we have a space of life where we can talk proactivity, I think that's a space that us as consultants at the Dental A Team, we love and we thrive on that because we want you to walk into this world prepared, we want you to feel like you have a plan and like you know where you're going. And that way when the
The little things come in, the little roadblocks, the rock in the road that somebody kicked up and it hit your windshield. When those windshield cracks happen and that rock in the road happens, it's like, okay, this is a small detour, but I know where I'm going. Whereas if we don't have that direction, we don't have that plan, those rocks in the road kicked up and hit in our windshield is like, it's the end of the world. Like, all right, here we go, another broken windshield. I don't know, I live in Phoenix, so.
The Dental A Team (02:48.874)
I've replaced my windshield many times in last three years and so it may hit home for me. It's very frustrating, but I feel like gosh, this is that space where we can really make a difference and make an impact on life and Dana, we're into Q4 now. We're rounding out the end of the year and I know you work with a lot of clients virtually and a lot of the group coaching that we do here at the Dental A Team and how are you helping?
Dana (02:48.96)
You
The Dental A Team (03:15.836)
your clients to really just finish out this year strong right now and then we'll talk about some more preparation stuff but how are you helping them to really finish out this year strong.
Dana (03:26.122)
Yeah, and I think it is similar topic as to where we're going to get to in a little bit and that is where did you want to be? Right? Like where did you want to be by the end of the year? And how can we ensure that all the parts and pieces are getting you there? So really just taking a look at where we are, where we want it to be by the end of the year, and how can we maybe reconfigure some goals, look at our gaps, look at the pieces that will essentially push us to where we want it to be the easiest, the fastest, the
most efficient.
The Dental A Team (03:57.125)
I love that. we just last month wrapped up in September, we wrapped up our webinar series, our four pillars. And Dana, you speaking to that reminds me like those were really our first two days of that free webinar series that we had, which if you guys missed it in September, don't worry, it'll be back around again next year. And we do have free webinars every month. I hope you guys know that. We talked about
those pieces, knowing where you were wanting to go, where do you want to go? What did you want to end that? And where are you currently? So really, you're talking about, you know, with your clients finding that gap, right, like finding where we wanted to end where we are, so we can see what needs to happen in the next three months, two and a half months, wherever you're at now, what needs to happen to ensure that we get to those goals, and then really tracking it. So I know day one of that, you know, webinar says was really that gap and finding it.
And day two is all about the numbers and being able to track it. And I think you're totally right as making sure that we're looking at those, but then making sure that we're tracking it along the way. Because even if today we do the numbers and we see what the gap is and we don't look at it again until the end of the year, you're likely, like in my opinion, you're more likely to still be off and not hit the goal. If you don't look at it in between, then you are to hit the goal. Even though you may have built a plan today for the next two and a half, three months.
If you're not checking it and tracking it, you're likely going to get off somewhere or not know that you took a detour. It's like, it's like driving across the country without having your Google maps on, right? Or your Apple maps and just saying, you know what, this road feels right. And not realizing like now you're at the Canadian border and you are supposed to be in New York, right? And like,
you it's a small detour, but you didn't realize you were on there until it's the end. And you're like, wait, this isn't this isn't the state that I was supposed to be in. Where am I at? So I love that. It's really, really, really brilliant. And we push all of our clients to do that. And we push all of our clients to not only look at what this year was going to be and what that gap is, but now is the time to really start prepping and planning for next year, which sounds kind of weird, I think most
The Dental A Team (06:12.517)
practices, most practice owners and business owners are used to like January, but I learned in consulting, it's really hard to build out those goals when your full team meeting or your full business planning meeting is like January 17th, you're already halfway through the month of January and now you've got a gap to make up.
Right? So I think we learned really, really early on to start those conversations in November and December, project where you're likely going to be and take it off of what Dana said now, like where were you headed? Where's your end of year headed? What was that goal? Build goals off of that. So Dana, I know you work a lot with, like I said, a lot of different clients and right now you're working on that piece of that gap, but now we're pushing.
clients as well to really look at what next year looks like. And we usually say right seven to 10 % growth, I say 10 % is freaking fantastic, right? If you can go above and beyond that, a lot of our early in their stages practices can go way above that. I've seen 25 % even just because you're you're growing right now. But that 7 % is our minimum because of inflation, you guys you have to
have to have to account for inflation. that also, that means your goals need to be bigger. That means your fees need to increase. That means all of those pieces need to change. But Dana, with that, as we're growing, one piece I don't think we always remember or always think about prepping and planning for is the amount of people that it's going to take to encompass that growth, right? So we're pushing it and a lot of spaces we say, gosh,
We need to make X amount of dollars more next year. And that means X amount of hygiene appointments or that 30 % of the production coming from hygiene could mean an entire additional day or half day a week even of hygiene that we're just looking and saying, well, we need to make this in production, but we might not be backtracking. Do you see that Dana with clients too? And as we've learned to grow and build goals.
The Dental A Team (08:31.774)
more and more and more even just in our careers, I think we see that that space too, Dana. Do you see that where it's like, gosh, push, push, push, push, push. And then it's like, wait a second, I didn't even realize to stop and think where that was going to come from.
Dana (08:44.544)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I do. And and to like, who it's going to come from, right? Because we can push, push, push that we need X amount of hygiene. But can your current hygienist take on all of that additional capacity? And so I think that when you when you build out goals, or you say, this is where I want to be by a certain point, it's really important to look at it from all of those angles and say, Okay, at what point are we going to need additional technology, additional team members, additional
The Dental A Team (08:49.632)
Mm -hmm.
The Dental A Team (08:54.314)
Yes.
Dana (09:14.518)
supplies, additional whatever that looks like to get to X, Y, and Z seamlessly.
The Dental A Team (09:20.865)
Yeah, I love that idea. So I want to talk today about a client of mine that I've worked with for a little while. They are just an amazing power couple. gosh, three years ago, I would say three years ago, we sat down and we said, Okay, what do want your life to look like in one year, three years, five years, 10 years, right? And we really broke it down and
The most common way to do this is one, three and 10, right? But I wanted that five year mark in there as well, because I think it made a difference for them. And so we really said, gosh, what do you want this to look like? And I, and I speak about them because their story, it just hits so hard for me. And it has been so incredible to watch them take the plan that we developed together, put it into action and create this incredible life for not only themselves, you guys, but
their team and to watch the team participate in this and understand it because the communication was there throughout the full team as we built this out. Their goal was always to expand. And when I first met them, it was like a one year plan. That was as far as we could consider was a one year plan. We can't look past that because we couldn't dream to believe yet. And their one year plan was to if we have to add an operatory, but the building is kind of
it's kind of wonky. So realistically, we only have space to add one more operatory and that was taking away from the patient waiting area, right? The patient lobby. So they did that. I see they, you know, that one year that they were like, we need to do this. said, then do it like, yeah, your production requires it. You're you need another hygienist. Like you've got for what we're trying to gain for even where you are today, you need that room to continue the path you're on.
So that was as far as we could see was how do we continue the path we're even currently on, let alone grow. So they did it, we did it, we got the operatory, it's beautiful, the lobby was redone, it's gorgeous, the practice looks fantastic. And then they said, but now we're in this chokehold, can't do anything more and I want to do more. I want an associate, I wanna do more surgeries, I wanna do surgery days, I only wanna work three and a half days.
The Dental A Team (11:38.462)
per week, which then turned into, that's my three year goal. My five and 10 year goal is like two to two and a half days. So we started peeling it back and we started once they were able to see the capacity for where they were at and see, gosh, that fulfilled where we are and I can sustain that, but I wanna reach the community more. And the passion behind this dentist, you guys, this practice owner is so incredible. He serves,
He serves a community that doesn't have a lot of places to go. His community and his area is a very special community and they love him. And my first visit ever with this team and my first conversations, they were like, Tiff, like we are the at -home dentist and we want to grow and expand to continue providing for more and more people. So we have to get bigger. But our biggest goal is to maintain the relationships, maintain the small town.
feel and be the at home dentist. And they said, we've got this, we can totally do this and we have, and we built these years out. So at that point, we said, okay, what does three years look like? What is five years? What does 10 years look like? And the three years was very, it was simple because it was, you know, an associate and this and the five years and the 10 years got a little bit more grandiose, but we realized we needed more space. So they started looking for buildings. But we,
built out, this is the space that we would need to encompass what you want to do to keep the production increasing in the collections, increasing to reach the community. We need X amount of chairs. Like we need this many rooms, this many hygiene. This is the space we need. So it's time to look for a building. It's time to, it's time to put our, you know, our pedal to the metal and start looking for a building. And in the meantime, let's plan and prep for what this is going to look like from a team perspective.
because what we tend to do is we say, gosh, we need an associate, let's get an associate. And we start vetting associates. And then we're like, shoot, we found somebody, they're gonna start in a month or they're gonna start in two weeks or whatever. And then you're like, shoot, we need assistance, but we don't wanna hire assistance too early. So we didn't think about the assistance and now we're in this space and we're like, gosh, wait, they're gonna need more exams. And we get in this space of frantic hiring and desperate hiring instead of hiring for need.
The Dental A Team (14:02.906)
So what we were able to do and what I want you guys to really take a look at is look at that one, three and 10 at least, but backtrack then in three years, if you're going to have an associate or an additional associate, how many team members need to be there to support that associate? So our plan was at this state, we onboard an associate. At this state, we start vetting associates. It can take time. You guys know that. So we backtracked it and said,
This is the date, this is the year I want the associate to start. We're gonna start vetting associates prior to with that start date still our goal. Just because we're vetting them doesn't mean our start date has to change. It can if you want it to for sooner or for later, but we kept that date. And then we said, as we're vetting these associates, if that's our start date, we're gonna need two more assistants for that dentist, and we're gonna need another hygiene.
for that dentist. So at least one more hygiene, two assistants and a dentist is what we're going to have to hire. So in order to get the dental assistants trained so that they're ready to go when we onboard an associate, we have to hire them X amount of weeks prior to our start date for our associate. So then a month ahead of that, we're vetting and we're interviewing for dental assistants, but we timeline it out in a way
that this practice specifically I'm speaking on and I've done this with a lot of practices, but I speak on this one specifically because it was the biggest, the biggest growth that I've timeline backwards from. And I want you guys to hear me. They found their building, they texted me and they said, Tiff, this is not the building we thought it was going to be. It is very different. It's gonna require a lot of renovation and it's massive. And I thought, okay, we can deal with massive, that's fine.
you know, a massive dental practice, you're like, okay, gosh, like, all right, 12, 16 operatories is what we had talked about. So it is a massive practice no matter what. yeah, like this is massive. And then Dana, tell me how this phone call would go for you. I pick up, I'm like, okay, let's chat. And we get on the phone and they say, we found a commercial building a couple miles down the street. So it keeps us within our neighborhood basically.
The Dental A Team (16:22.839)
It makes it very easy for our patients to come over and for us to grab actually communities that we can't reach yet due to our location. And it's, like I said, commercial and it's got a couple of suites already filled. And I'm like, okay. And it's 16 ,000 square feet. Dana, I was like, okay, 16 ,000 square feet. Like I'm not fantastic at math. I'm not fantastic at like, you asked me what a mile is. I'm like, I know.
I ran three already and I'm at like a quarter of a mile, right? Like I don't, I don't do that well, but 16 ,000 square feet. was like, massive is the right word. You're right. Exactly. 16 operatories and they're all a thousand. It's an apartment for every operatory, right? Exactly. And I was like, holy cow, you guys, this is insane. So then you can imagine that took what we had planned for.
Dana (17:00.074)
Yeah, Alpha square foot operatories, okay.
The Dental A Team (17:21.428)
Right? This is a little bit of a detour. This is a positive detour. Detours aren't always negative. Sometimes I get detoured on the road and I'm like, this is the most beautiful scenery I never knew existed in Arizona. Right? So this was the most beautiful scenery we didn't know existed. We didn't know it was possible, but we knew something was out there. So then we had to revamp. We were like, all right, we've got a small portion of this under control and we know and the practice owner
he came to me and he's like, okay, we know this much and this is fantastic because this is going to build out the dental practice that we need. we had his, we had we've accomplished the one year we've got the one associate on board, we've got we planned and prepped and the team was on board, we onboarded everybody strategically, and it worked really well. So that now they're as current associate, he will vet and help he's going to be the lead associate, like all the pieces are there, they're falling into place. And it's beautiful.
the practice administrator that he was the office manager. He's like out of the practice enough that he can build the business. The dentist is out of the business enough that he can do the dentistry he wants and still grow with the business. Like it's been incredible to watch. But now we've got 16 ,000 square feet and they're like, cool, Tiff, what are we going to do? And I'm like, yeah, we build those suites you guys. So now
Dana (18:40.556)
You're putting in there.
The Dental A Team (18:46.035)
we build a practice management company, like a property management company, right? So now they have a practice and a property management company. And I'm like, okay, now we backtrack for that. And we're to fill it with a salon and a gym. And they had all these incredible ideas. And the endodontist who's there, like, do we do we keep them? Do we not keep them? Let's, you know, we had to backtrack through all of these pieces and build it out so that in their three year, they could get into their practice. And in their 10 year,
they could probably be out of their practice 100 % if they wanted to be, which isn't where they're at right now. They don't want to be, but they want to be very minimal. And so we were able to build that out in that five and 10 year spectrum to be this massive area where their community can be served. And that's the biggest goal with this giant massive commercial building is that it's incredible spaces where the community can come together and just like do incredible things. the point there,
We reached that three year. They just got into their brand new practice three weeks ago as of recording this. It's beautiful. I got to see it almost done. I've seen it through all the stages and you guys, this build out, like I'm telling you, this renovation was massive, just still does not describe this building and the beauty of the practice. And it was a complete overhaul. It was a complete gut. Cause this was not a dental practice. This was nothing. It wasn't even a medical building.
Okay, they completely gutted a portion of this massive building and created this incredible dental practice out of it. That's that was their three year and we nailed it, we got it and they're vetting their next associates right now to reach that next stage of what that growth looks like to reach that five year, right and there and again, their tenure but I want you guys to see in that one dream to believe like freaking a they just like
They did it, they saw it, but they saw it because we could clarify the missing pieces. We simplified what it would look like to get to that stage, because I think we hold ourselves back. And Dana, tell me if you agree with this. I know I hold myself back with this. I hold myself back because I can't see the path clearly. And so I know I want to get somewhere. know I want to accomplish a goal, but the path is so murky. It's like being okay, jumping into a swamp.
The Dental A Team (21:13.312)
And like your goal is to swim across it, but you're like, I'm not dipping my toe in that, that alligator filled swamp. And so when our goals are, are there and we're like, I don't, I can't clearly see the path. We hold ourselves back from doing it. And so what we were able to do, I was able to come in and help clear up the dirt in the water and sift through it so that it became.
clear water that they could see to the bottom and be like, yes, that's safe. I can accomplish those pieces and I can jump into it. And Dana, I know you've been with me for a lot of their journey and you know who I'm talking about and I'm sure they know who I'm talking about. But how, from your perspective, and we'll make it quick because this is getting long, I told you I was long winded, but
From your perspective of being able to watch that side too, and I know you do this with your clients too, but just theirs in general, what are some thoughts and things that you have for some of the listeners on how this has worked for them and how they might be, the listeners might be able to see themselves in it.
Dana (22:21.076)
Yeah, I think honestly the biggest thing right or how it became is because there was a plan there was a road map I love that you said we set dates and we stuck to them and at least you stuck with the start dates, right? You can shift and change those things But you always knew what the next piece was so you could plan and prep for that next piece You knew when their time frame was plan and prep to that time frame you knew all the things that you had to add and it was like
going on a road trip, right with a very clear map. And I feel like that's how it ended up being so successful. And that's how they always found the right pieces at the right time, because there were dates associated with it, there were timeframes allotted for everything. And I'm sure for them, while it was a huge undertaking and a big journey, right, which comes with its own stress, but minimize stressed in this way, because everything was planned, they knew when to start for things they knew
when to make decisions by, they knew when and what they were doing each step of the way. And so it's really been cool to see from the outside too, because it was such a massive growth and development, but it was, I think, as easy as it possibly could be because there was a very clear plan.
The Dental A Team (23:42.593)
Yeah, I agree. I love that. Thank you. I was interested in entering to hear your perspective because I think being in it is different. That's the perspective I was able to give to them is not being in it and tied as closely as they are. So I had that third party view, but then I become in it. So then it's fun to see your perspective as well. And I think you nailed it. It's having a plan you guys so my
Hope streams wishes aspirations for you and Dana's hope streams wishes and aspirations for you is that you have some sort of a picture of where you want your business to go and that you have someone in your life, whether it's us, whether it's a friend, a spouse, a different coach, like whoever it is, somebody who can give a non emotionally biased opinion and help clear that mud and that muck and the murkiness of it to clarify.
the journey and the path that it's going to take to get to your dream because I know for me, I have all kinds of dreams and it takes my coach. have a gal that I talk to every now and again and she's there when I need her and I talked with her last week and I said, I feel it, I see it, I can envision it, but I'm scared because I don't know the step. I don't even know how to take a first step and she said, great, that's what I'm here for and she gave me journal prompts and
She gave me these pieces that's like, this is how you're going to put it together so that you can see it because she is not emotionally attached to what I'm trying to accomplish. And that's what I think we provide for each other and for our clients of all spectrums, virtual one -on -one, the few and far between one -on -one, right? And our group coaching too, because now our group coaching clients also have, and so do our other virtual clients, they have each other too.
but this group coaching aspect for a lot of our newer doctors is the, that's the world that they're landing in and they have each other to lean on as well as the consultants in our company. And I just think it's really cool when you have that. So I hope you guys have that and I want you to go re -listen to this if you need to, but I want you to go look at your dream and like Dana said at the beginning, what is that dream? What is that goal? What's the gap? How are you going to get there for this year?
The Dental A Team (25:59.196)
and start prepping and planning what is next year look like? What do you want that to look like and really dive into working backwards on the amount of people, the people power that it is going to take to get you there. Prep and plan for that added into your overhead pretend like it's already there build a bucket that says my overhead if I have to hire these pieces, my overhead is going to look like this and I need to prep and plan for that. Build a prep and plan bucket you guys especially if you're hiring an associate.
start paying a bucket like you're already paying an associate so that you're ready for it. Dana, thank you so much. It's one of my favorite stories to tell. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I think they will forever be one of my favorite stories to tell and just the most amazing human beings as well. So Dana, thank you for being here with me today. I appreciate you. And guys, if you loved it, tell us. If you hated it, don't re -listen.
But if you loved it, leave us a five star review. You guys, love hearing from you. We want to know that you enjoyed it. I love, love, love these kinds of conversations, but I want to make sure you do as well. And if you need help with anything at all, you guys, there's links and all kinds of stuff for our websites, but bottom line, [email protected], easy way to reach us. We are all here for you and we will catch you next time.
Paul Edwards, HR extraordinaire and founder of CEDR, breaks down with Kiera the classification of employees from a federal perspective. He touches on how to know if you’re classifying employees right, where state laws come into play, what happens when there are penalties, and more.
Episode resources:
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01.622)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so excited to be having one of my favorite guests here today with us, Paul Edwards. He is the CEO and founder of CEDR my favorite dental HR company. And I am so jazzed because there have been some things like roaming in politics, roaming around this globe that I felt like Paul would be the best one to bring on the podcast and kind of shed some light on what should employers be looking at? What can we be doing to keep ourselves protected? So Paul, welcome to the show. How are you today?
Paul Edwards (00:29.046)
Kiera you are so full of energy. I'm good, I'm good. And I'm excited to kind of do a little HR nerding today on your podcast. Thanks for inviting us, I appreciate it.
Kiera Dent (00:31.254)
Yeah.
Kiera Dent (00:39.966)
Absolutely. When I heard some of the things coming to the table, I just thought, gosh, I've got to reach out to Paul. We've got to have some fun geeking because HR is not my specialty and that is definitely your specialty. And so wanting to just make sure that we really dove into this. So the reason I reached out to Paul, if you guys haven't heard, we definitely have linked other podcasts for you guys. So be sure to check them out. Paul and I have been on the podcast a few times. CEDR is the number one recommended HR dental company. I refer all the time because
Paul Edwards (00:44.651)
Mm
Kiera Dent (01:08.118)
Paul, you guys just make people's lives so much easier. have offices that use you and they're like, I'm so grateful for CEDR. And kudos to you guys as newsletters. Like I click on every newsletter you guys send out because the topics are so relevant. So if people don't know about CEDR before we kick into this, just like Paul, can you tell them a little bit about who CEDR is so they can get those newsletters as well? And then we're going to dive into some juicy political topics that are on the HR ballot today.
Paul Edwards (01:17.622)
Thanks.
Paul Edwards (01:31.226)
yeah, okay, so for everybody out there, CEDR, C -E -D -R Solutions, you can find our website. If you go to our website and you input your name into one of the forms, what you end up doing is putting yourself into our education community. So unlike other companies where you start getting phone calls and everybody's trying to sell you something, we'd love to have you as a client, but as a precursor to that, if you're just out there and you want HR education, we want you in our community, and that's what you're talking about, Kiera. The reason why you like those newsletters.
is because we have 3 ,000 members across the entire country and they're asking us to help them solve these HR problems. And so we use those questions to create our roundups because they're literally and actually what's going on in the world today. what we do for our members is we provide you two components.
Compliance, so when you have a problem with an employee, almost any problem, there's some kind of law, rule, or regulation that probably regulates, which can and can't do, and they can be everything from local, county, city, and it goes all the way up to the feds. So we can help you solve a problem taking two looks at it. The first look is compliance, what does the law say we have to do, and the second thing is what we call the human side.
which is we're working with human beings and you can call a lawyer and say, what would I do about this? And they'd say, fire her. But that lawyer doesn't have any experience of what it's like to replace her, to train her, to lose all of your investment in somebody. And so we take that very human approach and we have a group of experts here who get on the phone with you through email. We have all kinds of resources and we help you solve your HR problems.
Kiera Dent (02:56.574)
Mm
Kiera Dent (03:16.628)
Absolutely. They're incredible. It's like, what do I do when my employee wants to take over time or if my employee didn't show up or I feel like your guys's education is so telling. I can tell you got your audience very dialed in. And so it's very informative and truly my office managers and doctors who you see there feel so confident in being able to make decisions versus offices who don't have you in their back pocket. They're like, Kiera, what are we supposed to do? I'm like, this is where you check into your state laws.
Paul Edwards (03:30.016)
We do, yeah.
Kiera Dent (03:45.862)
reach out to your lawyer because every state is different. So that's why I just am obsessed about you guys. I think you guys do an incredible service for the dental community. So massive thanks and appreciation. So definitely recommend everybody get in that educational resource because I just think it helps you. Even things that you might not be thinking about, I think you guys do a great job of spurring and educating, which hopefully today's podcast also does. So, So what I reached out to you originally was I
Paul Edwards (03:46.015)
Yeah.
Paul Edwards (04:07.86)
That's exactly what we're gonna do today.
Kiera Dent (04:14.72)
this whole NDA thing came up of what's going to happen if the NDA bill passes and an NDA is a non -disclosure and then there's the non -competes as well. What happens with doctors, especially with associates being able to go and work for practices that are so close to them. And so I just want to reach out. I know this is actually going to not be our juiciest topic for you guys. have a juicier one coming, but Paul, if you could kind of just shed some light on what does that look like? Where does that kind of stand in legislation?
Paul Edwards (04:35.669)
No.
Kiera Dent (04:43.114)
and what should practices know about this.
Paul Edwards (04:45.376)
So the FTC wrote a rule that wanted to get rid of, ostensibly get rid of all non -competes. I mean, there were a few that could survive, but they ostensibly wanted to get rid of them. And their stated reason was that it was tamping down employees' abilities to be mobile, to be able to change jobs, move someplace else. And not a terrible argument, but not a good overall general argument.
Kiera Dent (04:55.435)
Mm
Paul Edwards (05:14.486)
Predictably, that rule was challenged in both the Florida court and I think two Texas courts. I'll just cut to the chase, everybody. The judges involved in those cases put a, the ones in Texas put a stay on it, which means, legalese -wise, that just means they put a big pause button on it and said, you know, the parties involved, including the federal government, are gonna have to come back and argue some more in favor of this.
And we kind of could see that that's what was gonna happen and that's what happened. So based on some recent Supreme Court rulings and stuff that's going on out there in the world, in the legal world, this thing has been paused and I don't see it unpausing for months, possibly years and maybe, Kiera, never. So it's just, it's not a thing anymore.
Kiera Dent (05:47.734)
Mm
Kiera Dent (06:01.672)
Yeah, which is such a great thing. And again, when I reached out to you, our schedules couldn't quite align for us to get there. And it was like really hot. And I know a lot of doctors were concerned about that because agreed. Everybody was like, this is going to be very impactful because the reality is I don't think any employer truly wants to hurt. mean, I'm sure there's some out there, but generally the dentist, they don't want to prevent other doctors from being able to go get another job. That's not what it is.
Paul Edwards (06:08.939)
Hmm?
Paul Edwards (06:12.82)
We were freaking out. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Edwards (06:23.232)
Hmm?
Kiera Dent (06:29.51)
what they don't want to do is set their practice up to where all those patients could be pulled very easily to another location because that's really like that doctor who hired these associates took the risk and they don't want to have the greatest asset of that practice as patient base being able to be lifted out. And I think that that's where the argument's at.
Paul Edwards (06:45.29)
That's, yeah, that's precisely, that's precisely correct. And really it was gonna be damaging. And since it's not going into effect, we don't have to go too far into it, but it was really gonna be damaging in ways that the federal government didn't understand or didn't seem to perceive. They could have put written a different kind of rule and put a lot more limits on it. And by the way, non -competes are very limiting.
Kiera Dent (07:00.886)
Sure.
Paul Edwards (07:10.838)
There's a lot of limits and some states won't let you have them. Other states that will let you have them say you have to have these specific provisions in them. It can't be too broad. It can't be designed to punish someone for leaving. You you put 30 miles in your non -compete and you're in downtown Chicago and your non -compete is probably going to become invalid. You know, but you put four blocks and that'd be a different story. So like all things and I'll bring it all the way back to HR, the details matter.
Kiera Dent (07:11.242)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (07:22.56)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (07:28.585)
Right.
Kiera Dent (07:34.697)
Absolutely.
Paul Edwards (07:40.436)
Right? It really matters. But for now, we don't have to worry about this.
Kiera Dent (07:41.1)
Mm -hmm. For sure. Which is great. And that's really what I wanted to bring you on because I know it was really hot and it was really scary and it was, what are we going to do? And that's where I like to have this podcast be up and coming. so Paul, there actually are a few other things that I do think are really going to impact that people should be aware of. And that's this 1099 world, hygienists, associate doctors, like kind of this world, which I think strategy wise from the business's standpoint is it's hard to hire.
Paul Edwards (07:58.762)
Mm
Kiera Dent (08:10.732)
It's hard to hire right now. It's been hard to hire since I think 2020. think all of us are still feeling that. And so I don't blame employers for trying to get creative and think outside the box. However, with that asterisk, legalities and payroll and how we hire can really truly impact a practice and do some pretty serious damage if not done correctly. I've seen some class action lawsuits. I've seen big lawsuits.
1099s and misclassification of employees is a very big deal. So Paul, this is your world bigger than it is mine. I just have a very strict lawyer on me. So that's the only reason that I know, because I used to do it pre -COVID. We were in a 1099 world. And I remember my lawyer called me and he said, Kiera, you're welcome to do whatever you want to do. He said, but I just want you to know. He said, I just want you to know that this can become a federal offense on you if it goes. And I was like,
Paul Edwards (08:47.7)
Mm
Paul Edwards (08:54.641)
Such a lawyer thing to say.
Kiera Dent (09:03.466)
So I draw the line, I'm cool to stay in gray, but I'm not okay to go to federal prison. So that's like where I draw lines. But Paul, please, not to scare anybody, but to educate about where this can come into fact and how can especially employers protect themselves in this world.
Paul Edwards (09:07.946)
Yeah.
Paul Edwards (09:19.434)
Well, look, the first thing that I want to tell everybody is that you might not know this, but I think you might know it, but I'm going to put it for you in kind of stark terms. As the employer, it is your responsibility for you to classify your workers properly. They really don't get they, your employees, your prospective employees, don't get to make that decision. They cannot make that decision for you. And so there's a set of rules.
there's two sets of rules actually. The IRS has a set of rules, they call it the test, and the Department of Labor has a set of rules, and incidentally they call theirs the test too. And if you put the two rules up with all of the little things in the test, and there's many, many bullet points in each test that says if this is true, if this is true, if this is not true, and you go through the whole thing, there's a lot of crossover talk there. So that's, I guess, to some degree, it's beneficial.
Kiera Dent (10:07.009)
Mm.
Kiera Dent (10:15.436)
Sure.
Paul Edwards (10:16.042)
But what I do want to say to everybody is that if you use the test or don't use the test, whatever you do, if you violate this rule that we're talking about, you can be committing tax fraud and you can also be breaking the law when it comes to the Department of Labor. And so it's kind of a double whammy. And here's the important part, Kiera, is that you're leaving a paper trail behind that you cannot defeat.
Kiera Dent (10:34.305)
Mm
Paul Edwards (10:43.104)
So this isn't a he said, she said, you can't claim I didn't do it. If you get it wrong and you misclassify someone as an independent contractor, that means you're not paying the workers comp. So that's a problem. That's unlawful underneath your state laws. Because you misclassified them doesn't matter to the state. You still broke the law. You're not paying their matching social security. You're not paying withholding and paying taxes. And again, you're not paying your portion of the social security.
Kiera Dent (10:43.18)
Absolutely.
Kiera Dent (10:53.857)
Thank
Paul Edwards (11:09.674)
So why this matters to both the feds and the state is this is taxable income and you are not paying it and you actually, you are gaining some small advantage. I maintain it's not enough for you to get this wrong. And you're also helping the, you're costing the state and the feds because the person who's misclassified is writing things off that employees cannot write off. So they're acting as if they're in their own business. So what we found,
Kiera Dent (11:15.339)
right.
Kiera Dent (11:34.613)
Absolutely.
Paul Edwards (11:38.998)
is that we've got a lot of hygienists who have come to the practice. Now they may come by themselves, they may come be offered up by a temp agency who's not getting this correct. They will come to the practice and say, want to be paid as an independent contractor. And what they're saying is, if you're paying me $75 an hour, I want $75 an hour to be given to me. And that doesn't...
Kiera Dent (12:05.448)
Mm
Paul Edwards (12:07.678)
work when we look at what the rules are with regards to classifying people, Kiera. So, you know, any questions so far?
Kiera Dent (12:16.844)
Yeah, I think something I've also felt that there's a fun game in. And I think if we think of it as a game, as opposed to like stressful, I enjoy that a little bit more. These classifications actually do change quite a lot. And like what the IRS is sticky on or not sticky on, I do feel also changes because this 1099 world, I understand, like, if you look at people's motives, the hygienists want to get paid more. They want to be able to take home more salary.
Paul Edwards (12:45.664)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (12:45.804)
So I understand completely why they're wanting to do it. But again, my lawyer, he told me very well, he said, Kiera, the definition of a 1099 is like a gardener that comes to your house or a lawn care crew. They tell you the day, they bring their own tools, they don't use any of yours, and they tell you the fee that you're going to be paying for that service. He said, now, if you have an employee that's doing anything different than that, or you have someone who's different than that, most likely they're probably not a 1099.
Paul Edwards (12:56.554)
That's a good way to describe it.
Kiera Dent (13:12.8)
And so that's kind of helped me. just think about this Gardner or lawn care crew, because I feel like it really makes it very simple for me of where am I going to be? And honestly, like you said, Paul, I don't think employers realize the implications if you get this wrong. It is big because we have looked, and I think this will also tie into like exempt and non -exempt employees too. But we also have to look at the IRS and the federal and the state reasons why they're doing this too. Yes, we should be classifying correctly.
Paul Edwards (13:16.554)
It's good.
Paul Edwards (13:27.796)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (13:40.5)
because everybody right now with inflation and costs and whatnot, people are getting smarter and stickier with making sure we're following the laws and the rules. So I think looking for motives and reasons, but really, I don't know, I enjoy sleeping at night as an employer. And I think this is a great way to help yourself stay out of it. So not necessary questions, but definitely I think it's a big issue and an easy way to determine that hygienist is not bringing their own tools with them. They're not setting the hours that they're going to be working.
Paul Edwards (13:47.37)
That's true.
Kiera Dent (14:07.084)
They could be telling you the pay they're going to be getting, yes, but they're really not coming, doing their thing and leaving. You're providing the patients for them. You're providing the instruments for them. You're providing the chair for them. You're providing the team for them. They're working within the hours of your practice. They're really not. Now, I think someone who is an independent contractor for a contrast is like if an anesthesiologist is coming to the practice, they're bringing their own tools. They're bringing their own equipment. They usually bring their own team. They're coming.
Paul Edwards (14:33.174)
Kiera, have you been reading my blog?
Kiera Dent (14:36.908)
I just think I'm very passionate about this stuff because I think employers who get it wrong, this is where we get into hot water, unintentionally trying to save a few bucks that's going to ultimately cost us a lot in the long run. And I think, again, analogies always make my life easier. So that's probably why I do it.
Paul Edwards (14:56.052)
No, no, that's a very good example that you gave. so the first example of the gardener is a very good example. I'm going to reiterate. This guy or gal shows up at your house. They can experience a profit and a loss. So if their lawnmower breaks down, they don't come knock on your door and ask for you to do something about it. They go and they fix their lawnmower. So they have an opportunity for profit and loss. That's one thing.
The other thing that they measure, adding a little technical to this, is the degree of permanency. And so you could change, you could choose to, and they could choose to not work for you, and it's likely that they work for several different other companies. But I wanna make something clear here, because that's what people glom onto, and they're like, well, my hygienist works at two other dental practices, so I'm in the clear.
Kiera Dent (15:19.864)
Mm
Kiera Dent (15:36.234)
right.
Kiera Dent (15:43.87)
Right.
Paul Edwards (15:45.206)
And that's not how this test works. It's just not how the test works. So the main thing and the big piece of news, so here's the big reveal for everyone. We, CEDR, have been around for 19 years now. For 19 years, we have been telling people, anyone who tries to classify a hygienist as an independent contractor,
that it is not lawful and that there's a problem the IRS has with it. So it's been like this for 18 years. But like you said, they kind of define, redefine, change rules. In this case, they didn't add or take anything away. But what they did is they took one of the things that was on the list. And I'm just going say it was on it. It was important. It sometimes was used against employers.
and the Department of Labor brought it all the way up and said, if you're only gonna consider the first six points, we want you to know that if the person is doing the work of the business, they cannot be classified as an independent contractor. And so we've always known this determination was there, and the IRS uses that one, so that's one of the ones where the tests are matching up.
So if you're in a general dental practice and you have a hygiene department, then they're doing the work of your practice. Your anesthesiology example was a very good example. if it were a, I mean, I'm just gonna split hairs a little bit here. If it were a pediatric practice whereby there's a lot of anesthesia going on, there's always someone there. That anesthesiologist technically is an employee.
Kiera Dent (17:07.414)
Yes.
Kiera Dent (17:23.072)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (17:26.442)
They're not an independent contractor. But if you're out in Montana and you're a general dentist, you don't do surgery, and you have a surgeon come through to perform surgery, and an anesthesiologist comes with them or you bring them in as well, those people are not doing the work of your practice, even though we all agree it's all dentistry and it's associated, but hopefully in that description.
Kiera Dent (17:26.804)
Agreed.
Paul Edwards (17:54.442)
I'm able to kind of relay to you guys what the differences are there. But this big reveal is the extent to which the work performed is integral, and it's an integral part of the potential employer's business is the big one. They moved it way to the top. So this means technically, literally, hygienists can't be legally classified as independent contractors.
Kiera Dent (18:10.016)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (18:21.334)
And it also calls into the thing that we've also been saying for 18 years, that associate doctors who are, it's a general dentist doing general dentistry, that associate doctors, they are not independent contractors either. And that the safest thing to do is to classify them as an employee. And I have lots of other good reasons for making them employees. But again, that's another place where it's common practice. And then Kiera, I'm gonna add one more thing.
Kiera Dent (18:34.23)
Mm
Kiera Dent (18:50.367)
Yeah.
Paul Edwards (18:50.918)
State laws apply here. And so there are several states, California, Oregon, Washington, I could go on and on, who have even more strict rules about these classifications. And we've just seen, gonna, I don't wanna call them all the way out. I'm gonna tell you they're in the Northeast, they're in a state where they have stricter rules. Practice is very successful.
has multiple associates in I think I counted eight and they got audited and they got lit up. mean, yeah.
Kiera Dent (19:24.212)
And that's actually what my follow up was going to be, Paul. Let's say I am a practice and I do get audited and find out that I miss classified. What is, this is how I like to make my decisions. Like how bad is the problem? Is it to be slap on the wrist? Am I going to jail? Like where are we at with this?
Paul Edwards (19:30.272)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (19:34.516)
Right.
Right.
You are unlikely to go to jail in most states, although there are wage theft laws that can get you charged with misdemeanors, which is the last thing you need as a licensed professional anywhere. the problem is three, I think, I'm going to off top my head, it's threefold. CARE distractions, right? We all have plenty distractions that come in every day just trying to keep the wheels on the bus and everybody happy and the patients happy.
There's plenty of things that enter into our sphere of operating all the time. You've never had a distraction like a Department of Labor investigation where they act like the IRS. They issue a letter which requires you to give up all of your bank records, all of your time records, all of your record records and records of your other record, you know, the distraction to just meet the demand is gonna be brutal.
The next thing you have to do consider is the immediate cost. I'm not gonna even go long term for the cure. The immediate cost is you're gonna just go ahead and just put $30 ,000 in a lawyer's checking account to represent you so that this doesn't spin up and get completely out of control and so that you know what you're facing. And then the next thing is what are you going to have to do once the determination is made and if it's made against you?
Kiera Dent (20:32.811)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (20:47.276)
Totally.
Paul Edwards (21:02.102)
What will you have to pay in back taxes, penalties, and all those things? So this can easily ramp up and distraction and all of these costs that I've talked about, I don't wanna be hyperbolic here, but this can easily get to $100 ,000 very, very quickly. And so nobody wants that, nobody wants these distractions or these things. So the penalty, the punishment,
Kiera Dent (21:21.045)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (21:30.966)
really can be fairly brutal. And the last thing, let's just say you've only misclassified one person, right? And she has or he has filed a complaint or somehow it's gotten back to you. You're still in time producing all of those records, answering the complaint, hiring a lawyer. You're still gonna spend 25, 30, $40 ,000 to cure this one instance because again, you're gonna have to get a lawyer.
Kiera Dent (21:34.443)
Mm
Paul Edwards (21:59.542)
So to me, that person would have to work for you for like 30 years to make that money worth it for you. And that's just not what's gonna happen.
Kiera Dent (21:59.82)
for sure.
Kiera Dent (22:08.958)
Absolutely. think them coming in as independent contractors clearly shows that. I think about like, what's my risk to reward? So what I'm doing by having an independent contractor is they're getting paid more with air quotes. They're writing things off, but I'm not having to pay my payroll tax on them per se. Like, I think that's really the only benefit to an employer to do this. Maybe I don't have to have like the exempt, the non -exempt, the hours, but those are things that are pretty easy to solve. So I'm like, okay. And typically I know this is like,
very loose math, Paul. And if you disagree with me, please, I am not offended. Say it is, you're the expert here. I've been told that payroll tax, like a good estimate, is just 10 % of that person's annual. So that's kind of, that's where I'm like easy, because 10 % for me is very easy to move that decimal point and I can figure it out. So if the person's making, let's say they're making 70 ,000 a year, it's $7 ,000 that I'm going to be adding additional in payroll tax to it. To me, is that 7 ,000?
Paul Edwards (22:48.15)
It's not bad, it's good.
Kiera Dent (23:06.876)
worth the hundred thousand, but also I think Paul, there is the emotional ROI on it too. Like to go through that, it might not financially destroy you, but mentally it is, it's something. if, I mean, I've gone through lawsuits and it's something where you get to a point where you just say, I will do whatever to get out of this because the pain and the exhaustion and trying to fight it and trying to win. But then you also don't want to admit to it because
Paul Edwards (23:13.375)
it's brutal.
Paul Edwards (23:27.296)
That's right.
Kiera Dent (23:35.136)
Like opening it up, you open yourself up to them looking back at every single person in your world. And to me, those things are not worth the risk, which is why I wanted you on here today is let's not be afraid, but let's be proactive. But Paul, my question I think is for people who might be freaking out right now of, my gosh, Paul, I've misclassified. What do I do today? Like, do I have to go back and like, like go to the Pope and like redeem myself that way? Like, how do I, how do I fix it moving forward if I have possibly misclassified in the past?
Paul Edwards (23:39.06)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (23:53.728)
Right.
Paul Edwards (24:04.596)
Well, it's a case by case basis and you open up a little bit of a Pandora's box when you realize that you have to fix something and your questions are very viable. Like, do I have to go back a certain number of years? What do I have to do? You know, one of the things I tell a lot of a lot of our members who are freaking out over something like this is like, let's look at the actual pain point here. Like how much will it cost to correct this? And, know, do we have the money and is it, is it, has it, you know, is it too much?
So it's a case by case basis and what you need to do is kind of stop. You just take a breath and go and talk to someone who knows what they're doing. It's typically at some point this is going to involve an attorney or a very good CPA. It's not your accountant. It's not anybody else. It's not even CEDR. We cannot settle this for you. We can give you all this guidance and everything, but we can't go to bat for you.
So you have to find that resource and they're out there, they're all over the place and you want to mitigate it to the best that you can. You're probably going to self -report it. And look, I've seen it everywhere along the spectrum, Kiera, from the, they've been doing it wrong for three years and they have a hygiene department of seven people to I've only had a hygienist for two years and I misclassified her and she's still with me and I got to fix this. I've seen the whole spectrum and there's two different approaches to that.
Kiera Dent (25:25.312)
Mm
Paul Edwards (25:29.402)
And so if you're freaking out, I'm sorry, but it's better to have the knowledge, not have it at all. You're going to seek out, first thing you're to do is go to your CPA and talk to them. And you're what you're also going to do is if you're out there and you've got a CPA and they know that you're doing this. I don't love that. You know, I don't, I don't love that. That's why I always say when we're talking to talking to professionals, I get them put stuff in writing.
Kiera Dent (25:47.03)
Mm.
Paul Edwards (25:58.418)
I need to be able to rely on the guidance that I'm getting. And then rely on that attorney who is an expert in taxes, who is an expert with the Department of Labor, who knows everything about it, then rely on them or that CPA firm to help get you through it and just go through the process and get it all cleaned up and then fix it going forward.
Kiera Dent (26:18.348)
Absolutely. And I will put it out there. If anybody is looking for good attorneys, I do really, really have an incredible attorney who is right in the line with CEDR. So please reach out. [email protected]. But really, I agree with you, Paul. I think it's one of those things of, I understand that people weren't doing it. Like don't beat yourself up. You were not intentionally trying to be bad or do things or skirt the law. Like you really were making the best decisions at the time, but today we know better.
Paul Edwards (26:30.24)
Mm
Paul Edwards (26:37.621)
No!
Kiera Dent (26:44.982)
So let's do better. Let's fix it with clean it up. Let's talk to the experts. That way you can feel confident moving forward. But it's like, we know today that this is not okay. And let's make the decisions because you you might skirt by, but every business is going to be sued at some point. And they're also going to be audited at some point. And I would rather have my house clean, as clean as I can get it. And hopefully they find minimal as opposed to hoping that I never get audited.
I really do hope I never get audited, but I like to prepare and plan as if I were to be audited. That way I can sleep at night, I can make these corrections, and that's how I live my life. Paul, I just love this. think there is one thing that we will put out there. We won't exactly say all the pieces, but we were talking earlier about misclassifying of this exempt and non -exempt. I've seen it even within our company. Non -exempt definitions have actually shifted. I had no clue that some of the definitions had shifted from when I last did a thorough research on it.
Paul Edwards (27:31.435)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (27:38.954)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (27:40.032)
How often do these change and how do we keep ourselves current other than working with you? Which I think that's the greatest thing, but how do we keep ourselves current? Because exempt and non -exempt is coming up.
Paul Edwards (27:44.916)
Well, well.
Okay, so what you want to do is really if you get into someone's, like if you get into our ecosystem of education, so you don't have to be paying us anything, we are always talking about these things and we are giving that information. We're not withholding and keeping that behind a paywall. you want to join someone like us in our community so you can get updates on this. Ironically, the rules don't change that much for this status, but they are changing right now.
Kiera Dent (28:15.105)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (28:15.198)
And I do expect that over the next four years, we're gonna see some other changes, but they basically will borrow down into the regulation and they'll make some kind of a change to like a minimum salary amount or some other thing. And that's very simple. This is cut and dry. This is one of those great reasons to have someone like us, because we do understand the rules.
Kiera Dent (28:34.294)
Mm
Paul Edwards (28:41.686)
But yeah, that's another area where people are getting misclassified. And again, this goes back, Kiera, to the first couple of minutes. It's your job as the employer to know these things and then to apply these things in the proper way to your people who you're paying salary or who you're paying as an independent contractor or whatever.
Kiera Dent (28:59.72)
Absolutely. And Paul, I'm so glad that you brought that up because for me as a business owner, I think it's absolutely fun to run a business and to own a business. And I call it my creative playground. Like it's fun, right? But there's also all these pieces that I have to remember are my responsibility. And at the end of the day, it's going to fall on me as the business owner, which is why I am very passionate about finding the experts in the areas that I'm not as strong. I am not a guru on HR. I am not a guru on my bookkeeping. I am not a guru on tax.
Paul Edwards (29:08.576)
I do too. I love it. I love it.
Paul Edwards (29:18.005)
Mm -hmm.
Kiera Dent (29:29.322)
I'm not a guru on the legals. We are in multiple different states in our company. I don't know that. And so having a good board of advisors to make sure that you are there. Like I messaged my CPA because I saw that there's this like weird thing that came up for one of my pieces. And I'm like, I don't even know what this is. Is this a scam? I messaged him and he said, Kiera, don't worry. We already have this. You're either filed or you'll be filed in the next month. And I thought that's the people.
Paul Edwards (29:33.375)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Edwards (29:53.096)
I know what that is.
Kiera Dent (29:54.918)
Tell Paul, I was like, what the heck is this? Is this a scam? It's like DBLI or something weird like that. And I was like, what does that even mean?
Paul Edwards (29:57.45)
Yep.
Paul Edwards (30:02.528)
Yep. Yep. I... Yeah?
Kiera Dent (30:04.524)
So really have the people in your corner. And I think CEDR, just so you guys know what we're referring to of this exempt and non -exempt, that salary versus hourly, definitely reach out to CEDR because it does impact a lot of office managers. So doctors, I would really encourage you just to reach out. Paul is more than happy to share and help you guys. I intentionally asked him not to put it on the podcast because I did not want to put any doctors in an uncomfortable spot knowing that team members do listen to this podcast.
And I wanted doctors, you to know the information, therefore you could actually make the decisions best for your practice rather than exposing you. So that's why we're not trying to hold back information, but I know our audience. And so I said, Paul, let's let them know, let's have them reach out to you. That way doctors, you can make sure that you're getting the information and make the best decision for your practice.
Paul Edwards (30:50.858)
Yeah, get into our ecosystem and you're going to see the education pop up here in about three weeks, which isn't enough time for you to understand what the rules and how the rules are changing. I'm also on my podcast. I'm going to cover this at least once before the end of the year. So I'm going to spend some time on my podcast doing that.
Kiera Dent (31:07.114)
Which is amazing. So Paul, you really went through the gamut with us today of going from what is this non -compete and how's it going to impact us to now the 1099s and what that really is and how we classify, misclassify and what we do to now talking about this exempt, non -exempt. And really, I think more than anything, I feel education is power. Yes, sometimes I don't like the nuances. Sometimes it feels annoying, but I'd rather be annoyed and fix it.
than be uneducated and not know and then be burned through an audit. So Paul, I love what you guys do. I love the care that you have. I love the passion that you have. People like you are who get me excited because I don't like HR. I would rather like never think about HR. It's the yuckiest part of a business. So the fact that there's great people like you out there, I just want to say thank you.
Paul Edwards (31:46.484)
out
Yeah, yeah, is. We're gonna put that on our, we're putting that on our website. It's the yuckiest part of your business. Let us help you with that. Yeah, we're the solution you didn't know you needed. That's gonna be our, yeah.
Kiera Dent (31:59.697)
It is. Exactly. Exactly. So Paul, once again, thank you for being here. And for those who are like obviously are going to reach out again, please, if you will just share how they can connect with you, get into your ecosystem, learn. And if they're interested in becoming a client as well, how they can connect with you that way.
Paul Edwards (32:17.566)
Okay, so two different ways to connect with us and with me personally. The first way is to go to our site cedrsolutions and just sign up on one of the forums and join our community and get the free education. Of course, give us a call if you're looking for services. The other way is just subscribe to my podcast. It's called What the Hell Just Happened? You can find it on all the platforms. What the hell just happened here is some rules changed and we discussed it with Kiera.
Go subscribe to my podcast and weekly we put out stuff and we talk about HR related things and some other fun stuff and Kiera. Well, this is definitely a subject that I'm going to cover before the end of the year.
Kiera Dent (32:58.666)
Amazing. All of you get prepared. There's no reason to be fearful. There's great resources out there. Yes, this is, in my opinion, success has two parts of it. There is the suck part of success. It's literally the first three letters of success. This is the portion that we have to do as business owners and know. But I think Paul, you guys do an amazing job of making it not scary, very easy. You guys are incredible at education. So all of you get prepared, go connect with them, reach out, listen to their podcast.
Truly incredible, incredible information and Paul, thanks for being here today with me. Of course, and thank all of you for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
Paul Edwards (33:31.968)
Kiera, thank you so much.
Kiera reviews the September book club selection: Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins. She compares the Die with Zero method with profit-first, talks about applying this mindset in her own life, and how to enjoy life richly.
Find the full book club rundown here!
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01.346)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it is book club time. And this is one of my favorite books and I am so excited and I hope you read it with me. And if you didn't, hey, well, here's your opportunity to read the book club. I will give you a synopsis and hopefully I make this so intriguing and so exciting that you definitely want to go read it. So this book is called Die With Zero and you better believe that it is gonna trip your minds up. So if you're a prophet first person, if you don't even know what the heck I'm talking about,
Well, welcome, because this is the book club all about fulfillment. As always, thank you guys so much for being podcast listeners. Please do me a solid and go leave a review today. Go leave those five stars. Share this with someone that you know might be considering how are they generating the revenue in their practice? How are they? What's their fulfillment life plan? But share this podcast because my goal is to get this podcast into the hands of every dental practice to be able to positively impact and inspire offices to be the best leaders.
the best teams to serve their patients at the highest level and truly be able to give back on a level that we as far outside of our, our wildest dreams and to do it with ease. This podcast was made for people just like you who don't just understand you, but are you I've sat in your shoes. I am a business owner. I come to the table with expertise and understanding and humility and love and compassion and no judgment. And I just ask that you guys share this with a dentist who right now could benefit from having that.
positive impact in their life. An office manager who might be struggling with their team or maybe someone who's thriving. Share in a Facebook group, share in a group that you're a part of. Go in there. You guys, I had an office reach out and they're like, Kiera, we're struggling. We're dropping Delta Dental and we need some verbiage. And I popped onto our website and I went to our podcast and I typed in insurance dropping verbiage. And there's three incredible podcasts. So truly anything you guys might be struggling with or wanting to know more about, I guarantee you in our almost thousands of episodes.
you will be able to find that. And if you can't find it, email me [email protected]. Our team truly lives to serve you and they want to make your life easy. So reach out. We love you guys. So the broadcast today is Die With Zero. You guys, I'm so excited and I can't wait to talk about this. So Die With Zero, it's funny, my brother, I actually called him. My brother is in business and finance and I said, know, Rhett, that's his name.
Kiera Dent (02:27.468)
I said, Rhett, I have a question for you. This was a couple, gosh, this was probably a year ago. said, if you had an opportunity to grow your business to insane heights, would you do that? Or would you kind of like chill and coast? My brother's super brilliant. He's an MBA. He works for a really large company. His job is to go in and inspire teams and to help them out. And he's also efficiency, which means he also fires people. And my brother is someone that I think is one of the most incredible people.
Like I truly look up to him. He's two years younger than me. And I said, Rhett, what would you do? And Rhett told me, said, Kiera, you know, if I had an opportunity to serve and to give, I would make my business as big as I could possibly make it. Okay. Fast forward a year, Rhett came to me and he said, Kiera, I've actually been thinking about that conversation. And I read a book called Die With Zero. Have you read it? And I said, you better freaking believe I've read it. Let's talk about it. And he said, I actually think I've changed my mind on your business or business ideas in general. He said,
I actually think I would find what fulfills you versus slaying away for your entire life. He said, die with zero definitely gave me a different perspective. And I thought, I love this because die with zero. actually think I was talking to my husband about this morning before I got onto podcasts. And I think die with zero is such a mind trip because it's contrary to what we've been taught all of our lives. We've been taught, go to work, save for retirement, get your retirement at 65.
And then go and live this glamorous retirement life. there's profit first with Mike McAllux, which I'm obsessed with profit first. And I remember when I did a book club with our team on profit first, one of our team members, she's like, I cannot handle die with zeros mentality because profit first is talking to us about building the profit and saving and building this whole piece. And I was zero is talking about like living in the moment. So I'm here to say, I actually don't know which camp I sit in.
I actually think there's beauty in both of them. But this Die with Zero, Getting All You Can From Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins. So if you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you to read it. It's going to be incredible for you. But Die with Zero, I'm just gonna give you guys a couple little quick synopsis of some of the points in the book so we can book club on it. So there's 10 points that they have in here. Number one is maximize positive life experiences. Number two, invest in experiences early.
Kiera Dent (04:50.456)
Three, aim to die with zero money. Four, use all available planning tools. Five, give money to kids in charity early. Don't live life on autopilot. Seven, plan in terms of seasons. Eight, no one to stop. And nine, take big risks early, not later. Okay, so lots of things in here, but really he said, gosh, I'll read you guys this quote from him.
He said, if you spend hours and hours of your life acquiring money and then die without spending all of that money, then you've needlessly wasted too many precious hours of your life. There's just no way to get those hours back. If you die with 1 million left, that's 1 million of experiences you didn't have. And if you die with 50 ,000 left, well, that's 50 ,000 of experiences you didn't have. No way is that optimal. The question we must answer is how to make the most of our finite time on earth. Ooh, like I love it.
Because that's, think, I think that's the question. And so when we look at these 10 aspects of it, again, like I'm saying, I don't think my perfect camp is here, but I think like my conversation with my brother was very much one of, right? Like we all think of the fear, like what happens if we run out of money? My conversations with Ryan Isaac of Dentist Advisors, he's my financial advisor, there are always conversations around, well, Ryan, like how do I know I'll have enough money to make it to me being?
97 years old with my cotton candy pink hair and I'm living the most fulfilling life as well. And so this whole principle, my mom and I were talking, my grandma, she just turned, I believe she just turned 90 and I talked to my mom and my grandma has like, she's done well. Her mom, so my great grandma passed away and there was this like very large fortune that was left. And I talked to my mom and I said, mom, grandma's not gonna be alive for that much longer.
and she fell and she slipped and she fell and she broke some vertebrae and some ribs. This is a 90 year old woman and my grandma is still so afraid of money and this woman has more than enough money. She's definitely not gonna be dying with zero. And I talked to my mom about this because there's also this piece of my mom, maybe there's these weird pieces of it, then she'll get an inheritance from her mom. But I talked to her about this book and I said, mom.
Kiera Dent (07:06.35)
Grandma, like what if you could actually live this incredible world with her where you made her last decade of her life the best decade of her entire life? Where she's doing all the experiences. But what's crazy about it is my grandma is now 90. And that to me, I think is the premise of this book of like, why did my grandma wait until she was 90?
And who knows if she'll even be able to do it. But in the book, I remember there was like a definition of the ideal optimal life is we want to make it too. So if I plan to pass away, I hope I make it to a hundred, maybe 130, but let's just say I pass away at 97, which feels a little creepy right now to me to like put a death date on me. but the hope is that like, I'm living my fullest, most richest life all the way up until like 96 with my health and all this. And then in my last year, my money and my health kind of like,
nose dive and I go out of this world fully rich in life experiences and really living to the fullest. Now my other grandma, she's my adopted grandma and she is, I believe she just turned 96 actually and she's been able to paint and she goes on trips and she hangs out with her elderly group. Her husband passed away, my gosh, like at least 20 years ago.
But my adopted grandma, she is very vibrant and I'm looking at her and at 96 she's still walking up and downstairs and yes she's had a knee replacement and there's some things going on with her eyes, but she paints china and has like very world -renowned china painter. She teaches, she has a kiln in her house. I wish I would have taken lessons from her when I lived with her and I never took advantage of that. She reads, but just recently probably within the last, I don't know, three years
she stopped traveling, but up until then she was traveling. And I think about her and I have no idea where her financial state is, but I think about her and I'm like, that's the life that I want to be living where I'm healthy and I'm taking care of my health and I'm able to do all the things that I love doing until like my last, like hopefully six months of my life. And then like at that point we're gone. And that's what I think Bill Perkins whole point in all of this book is, which is why I love it is thinking differently of not a saving until we're out of money or saving until we're at this certain space because
Kiera Dent (09:15.95)
He talked about in the book of like going to Italy, maybe when we're 40, but like if we could have gotten in our 20s, we're younger, we're more vibrant, and we have longer time for the investment of that experience in our life rather than less time with those experiences and talking about how, yes, we're always trying to save money and yes, we need money to survive. I'm not here to discredit that for one second, but is there a balance between the amount of money that we need and the life experiences that we're able to maximize? So that's why he's saying maximize our positive life experiences.
Are we spending money on experiences rather than just saving money? Now, this is where the mind trip is because we still need money to be able to survive. And so how are we able to maybe accomplish both? And that's really what I think I'm obsessed with with this book club. And I hope you guys are geeking on it with me and I hope I'm challenging your beliefs as well. But he said, expect invest in experiences earlier because that allows you to have that longer term ROI on life experiences. Like if you were to even think back on the last 10 years of your life, what are some of the highlights?
Gosh, like the last 10 years of my life, like I'm just gonna do my 30s for you. Jason graduated pharmacy school. We have hit all seven continents, which I'm obsessed with going to. We went to Bora Bora. We've been able to buy our first home. We've gone through IVF together. I love, love, love being able to travel with my parents. We were able to go with his parents and my parents, both to Hawaii. We surprised them with a trip to Hawaii. guys, really did not cost me hardly anything. took...
like very inexpensive flights, I bought them early, but it was one of the most incredible experiences to do that with my parents. Traveling with Jason, because Jason's philosophy was, we're not gonna travel until we retire. And my philosophy was, when we retire, we're gonna be old and it's gonna be a lot different to travel. Like, I wanna travel while I'm young and I can still hike up a mountain. And it's crazy, because even within our 30s, my knees and my hips actually are a lot different than they were when I turned 30. And so Jason and I, just traveled to Tokyo.
This is the life of not having children. People are like, how do you travel so much? Well, one, traveling gives me life. And two, I just, truly do believe in this, like living and having life experiences now rather than later. I remember Jason and I were in pharmacy school. I was, I am not joking. I was making $12 an hour while we were in pharmacy school. We were at that point, $65 ,000 in debt for his pharmacy school. We had no help from either of our parents.
Kiera Dent (11:36.59)
We didn't have scholarships. I'm making literally $12 an hour. This was not that long ago. It was 2016, 2017, 2018. I was working at the dental college, so I did get some great health benefits that way because of it. We lived close enough that we rode our bikes every single day to and from school. And Jason told me that we were too poor that we couldn't travel. And I said, excuse me, no. So I remember every month.
like when the end of our bills would come, I would literally look around my house for anything that had a tag on it that we hadn't used yet that I could go return to the store to make our ends meet. Like this is CuraDense real life. We did not turn the AC on. We were in Arizona. We kept our house at 80 degrees, sometimes even up to 85 degrees. We slept with the fan on at night, not the AC. We're talking it's 117 degrees outside.
We decided to make sacrifices to be able to put, would put, think 20 to $25 a month away in my travel fund. I put it in a high yield savings account, so something like Ally, and I just started putting money away. Every single month I was like, okay, here's our expenses, this is where we can be, this is how we can cut costs, because I'm so adamant that we're gonna be able to travel, and I just started putting money away, like as much money as I could put away. Anytime I got a raise, I didn't live on that raise. I literally just put that money straight into our savings account.
And while we were in pharmacy school, you guys, I'm not kidding, I'm making 12. I was able to get up to 14 and I ended leaving that job at $18 an hour my last year there. But I was able to pay for me and Jason to go to Ireland and then we also were able to go to Paris with my brother who had just come home from his mission to Paris with my parents. Jason was a little nervous about that. But that came from me literally like discipline, putting money into my savings account every single month.
scrapping down like we really, I price matched, I took my little like ads from the grocery store to Walmart, thank goodness they were price matching at that time. It was the best when our cereal was on sale. But I was so committed that even in pharmacy school, I wasn't gonna go into debt for it more. So our debt was only for Jason's loans. But I also wanted to make sure I was having life experiences. I went and scrapped and I did a little window washing business.
Kiera Dent (13:51.958)
I did a natural dog food business with my friend. I helped her out to get extra cash and all of that money, I just kept putting that into our savings account because for me, that was something of life experiences that I wanna have. I will never regret going to Ireland with Jason and I will never regret going to Paris with my brother and my parents. Those are some of the best highlights of our life that Jason and I have, but again, that's my life. This is Kiera's life, this isn't your life, but I wanna let you know, like for me, it was so important that Jason and I traveled while we were young.
I mean, I remember landing at midnight where jet lagged and we're both, he's hitting class kudos to him. I don't know how he did pharmacy school. And I'm going right back to work because those were the cheapest tickets that we could find. We heard about a website called Scott's Cheap Travel. We were able to get tickets round trip to Copenhagen for 250 bucks. Like when you want to do something, there's a million ways for you to do it inexpensively if you want. And so,
The reason I love this is because some people, like I was reading up articles about this book and some people were saying like, this is only for like entrepreneurs or this is only for the high wealthy. But I thought like, no, I was making $12 an hour and we were in pharmacy school and we're still able to find the way because making those early experiences, that was fuel and energy. And Jason and I still to this day talk about those experiences. And so.
But then like, then there's the flip side, right? So then we started to get more responsibilities. We think about having kids, we buy a house and then you start to think of like, Whoa, well, how much money do I need for the future? And that's what Bill Perkins talked about in here of like, when you're younger, doing some of these experiences cheaper, we'll actually have more life experience and fuel and energy that gives you to then you don't need as much money per se during that time. And also, I mean, Jason and I, we scrapped it down. lived on protein bars going all around Ireland. Like I will today stay, never eat special K.
these like strawberry protein bars. We ate so many of them and Jason and I giggle anytime we see him in the grocery store like, you want those? No, me neither. That's what we lived on. Like we went to Ireland, we were not living amazing. We were in the tiniest little car eating these like protein bars. I remember writing in my journal one day on our trip. I said, the angels saying today our hotel had breakfast that we didn't know about. So we didn't have to eat protein bars today. But the things that like those are experiences. And that's like, I think the reason I love this book is because it's
Kiera Dent (16:05.998)
To me, it's talking about, I think if you merge, die with zero and profit first together about life experiences, but also preparing for the future. I think that there's beauty in that life because we're living this rich life. We're living all these things and die with zero, I think really makes you question what you want to do. So one of his pieces where he says, plan in terms of season. So if you were to look at your, like again, pretend I'm going to die when I'm 97. I hope I make a hundred. Today I'm 38.
If I look at all my life segments, so maybe from 38 to 40, what do want to do? From my 40 to 50, what do want to do? Maybe 40 to 45, 45 to 50, 50 to 60, 60 to 70, 70 to 80, 80 to 90, 90 to 100. He talks about looking at those seasons and what are the experiences that you want to be having during that time of your life. Jason and have built vision boards where we literally have like at 36, we want to do this, 37, we want to do this, by 40, we want to do this.
We haven't gone like clear up to 90 and what that looks like. But in this book, he talks about that because then we live, we're planning our life in seasons, understanding that maybe our health won't be as optimal when we're older. But that's what he also talks about is like, why are we waiting and spending money when we're like older and rather than spending money on our health now, but we're saving all of our money to get to retirement, but we're not taking care of our health today. And I think that that's like the whole mindset around this book is
Really truly planning and living on these life experiences and aiming to die with zero money. Like how cool will it be for my grandma? To have life experiences in her last decade of her life But yet how much greater would it have been if she would have spent this money earlier? Maybe spent more time with her grandkids. Maybe spent different things But like I think there's the fear and that's I think the fear of dying with zero is but what if I run out of money? What if I live longer than I planned for?
I guess we just get innovative and he does talk about that in there of how you can plan that out a little bit better. But then like when he talks about giving money to kids and charity earlier on, he said like how much better is it like pretend my parents are going to get a payout in their gosh probably 70s from my grandma but how much greater if she would have given that money to my parents in their 30s when they could have used that money for a down payment on a house or
Kiera Dent (18:20.396)
Jason and were so like in debt and if my parents were gonna have money, I don't plan for my parents or Jason's parents to have any money. I keep telling them like, I want you to die with zero. I want you to live life to the fullest. That's gonna make you the most fulfilled. But just think if you're going to have extra money in surplus, give it to those people earlier on potentially as a way for them to have more life experiences earlier on as well. So, so many crazy fun things in here. But again, I love the perspective of.
I think my greatest takeaway from it is living with life. And like he said, I will repeat the last part of my favorite quote from the book where he said, finding it here, the question we must all answer is how to make the most of our finite time on earth. And that's really what I think I want to leave you guys with. I definitely encourage you to go read it. There's so much in there. And there's so many pieces about basically really trying to get our health and our lifestyle and our experiences to get the greatest ROI, just like we do with our dollars.
Again, I'm not saying if you're a huge spender, I don't think that this is the model for you. You're already living high. And maybe your job is to listen to Profit First a little more and put some more savings in there. If you're someone who's just always saving and never having those experiences, I think this would be an incredible book for you. And if you're someone like myself who's in the middle of sometimes I spend and sometimes I save, but for me, I want to end my years.
having the life where I had the most experiences. I work because I love to say yes to things that I want to go to and do. That doesn't mean I have to have millions. That doesn't mean I have to have thousands. That means I need to plan my life in seasons and plan what I want to do and really know what lights me up and what fires me up and to experience those things. Maybe it's just spending time with your family while they're here. Maybe it's, I don't know, there's so many pieces, but I love planning out the seasons of your life. So.
I encourage you guys to read it. If you read it and you loved it, I'd love to hear from you. If you read it and you hated it, I'd love to hear from you. Because I love to hear the different sides of this book because I think it does charge. But like my brother, how interesting in one year he said, go and build and slay and do all these things. And the next year he was like, actually have more life experiences and do more fun things so you do die with zero. For me, yes, I want to take care of future generations. We don't have children. I would love to have children.
Kiera Dent (20:36.898)
but I have a ton of nieces and nephews that will be my legacy. And so even though, yes, I want to leave a legacy for them, I guarantee you, I would rather make memories with them than leave them a check. I mean, and I think there's a way to do both, but I also know for me, I'd rather spend so much time with my parents and my grandparents than having an inheritance from them. That makes me so emotional because I just think about, I love my parents so much and I don't know how much time I have with them.
And I would hands down rather go on trips to Maui with my parents or trips to wherever we go or spending time with them, making memories with them rather than them leaving me an inheritance. Like that's my job and my responsibility to figure out how to take care of my life, not expect my parents to leave it. Again, that's my own perception. Everyone has their own, but I think most of us would probably fall in my bucket. We'd rather have more time and more memories with those that we love rather than.
them leaving us a check. Now again, you might have people that you don't like and you'd rather them just leave you a check. But I think that's the whole premise of the book, which is why I absolutely loved it. And I hope you guys read it. I hope you loved it. And if you don't, I'm not offended. Please send me because I want to just give you guys things that make and challenge your perceptions and beliefs. So with that, that was our book club for this month. I hope you loved it. Next month, I hope you read it. It's called, let's see, the next one is going to be
The Power of Fun, How to Feel Alive Again by Katherine Price. So be sure to join us next month. I think this one's fun. It's got confetti on the front cover of it, which is why I picked it, because I believe life should be fun, if you can't tell. But definitely, The Power of Fun, going and enjoying that, How to Feel Alive Again with Katherine Price. So I hope you join us next month. As always, if there's a way that we can help you look at your business, this is what I actually am obsessed with doing, is looking at your business and your practice and...
helping you figure out what do you want your life experiences to be and what do we need your business to produce and to create while creating the most incredible experience for your team and your patients. So that way you can die with zero or die with whatever you want, but that you've lived the most fulfilled and rich life. And that's really what I do for our doctors in our consulting. And I'd love for you to be a part of that. So reach out [email protected]. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
It’s time to assess the goals you set for your practice this year. In this episode, Tiff and Dana discuss taking a good look at those 2024 goals, considering the averages and trends in order to project out, starting to think about 2025, and more.
Episode resources:
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Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:00.761)
Hello, Dental A Team. We are back. have Dana here with me today again, and I'm so excited. Dana, I truly do love the time that we get together. feel like, like right before we podcast, we prep and then that's like when we get jam our personal life, conversation in there real quick. the only time we get that's just one -on -one, which is crazy because we could create that at any point, but it just, it pops up podcasts. You know, we do it a couple of times a month and it's perfect. So
Thanks for being here. Thanks for giving me that time and gifting me with your presence. How are you today? You got like hot stuff coming up, like literally heat.
Dana (00:38.06)
Yeah, yeah like literally heat wave stuff so, you know, everybody send me your love and I don't melt this weekend
The Dental A Team (00:46.475)
Yeah, yeah, I was just in Oregon and I was there with a practice and the office manager was like, gosh, I just don't understand like how you guys do sports. Like you can't, how do you do football? And I was like, the kids are out there dying. My son refuses to play summer lacrosse. He does, he only plays ball ball and spring ball and spring ball is a, is a push because it doesn't end till middle of May. But spring ball starts in February, but your kids are doing year round sport.
So your son has football this weekend, tournaments in Phoenix. I'm in Phoenix and I'm standing here podcasting sweating in my home in Phoenix because it's 102 outside right now, maybe 105. I'm not sure, you know, at the end of August. So bring lots of water, lots of sunblock, lots of shade. That sun gets intense and I will be praying for you, Dana.
Dana (01:18.707)
Yes.
Dana (01:44.307)
Thanks so much. appreciate it. think we're going to need it. That and buckets of water, like you said.
The Dental A Team (01:47.286)
Yeah.
And Gatorade, like lots of electrolytes or the Costco liquid IVs or something. Like, yeah, yeah. But you're in Arizona. I'm gonna call you a native at this point. You've been here for so freaking long, but you're an Arizona gal. You're from southern, you know, more southern Arizona, but you get very similar heat. So you guys are ready for it. It's just not, it's just not, still not fun. I live here constantly. And when I come back from trips like Oregon was beautiful and Colorado was gorgeous this week.
Dana (01:56.116)
me.
Dana (02:12.735)
Mm -hmm.
The Dental A Team (02:19.723)
And that practice, was like, dang, if I could stay here longer, I totally would. It was like 82 degrees, it was beautiful. And then I land last night and I was like, back to the 105. Here we go, a 20 degree swing. Well, we are nearing towards the end of the year, so Phoenix will start pouring off soon. So for all of you who love to come visit Scottsdale in the winter, I'll see you soon. It's right around the corner. And I, know, I air quote winter. I don't feel like we actually get to celebrate winter here, but.
Dana (02:29.619)
Yep.
Dana (02:42.558)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (02:49.771)
In about six weeks, it'll finally be 90. So we'll see you guys soon. Nearing the end of the year also makes me reminded that we really need to check in on where you guys are at for the year. Like, what are you trending towards? Where are your practices going? We talk a lot about KPIs, key performance indicators, because they're incredibly important to the success of your practice, your team. Like we talk about how a team should be involved. A team should know these numbers.
This is the time of year you guys that you really need to make sure that team is behind these KPIs 100 % and that we're pushing towards them. Now, Dana, I know you've had a lot of practices recently really push on you to like ramp up that business side of what you guys are doing together. You are fantastic at everything, but systems are your jam. So you always, I know start.
with all the systems and making sure that like we've got that foundational piece. But then once we're ready, we're really looking at are those foundational pieces progressing the business side and watching those KPIs. So I know production collections, new patients, like everybody knows those three. If you're not looking at those three, I don't know what the heck you're looking at. But I also push a lot for overhead. And I've really been paying close attention to active patient count because as new patients are coming in, we've got patients attritioning out. And if our new patients aren't
you know, compensating for our attrition and still adding to our active patient count, we're really not growing. So to be able to find that growth. But like I said, I know you've had a few practices recently, they're like, okay, we're ready, we're ready, which is great, because we're towards the end of the year, we need to make sure that we're progressing. Where do you start them for clients, maybe who haven't been watching their KPIs, and they haven't been looking at the trends, or if they're going to make it? Where do you baseline them?
once they're done with systems and ready to move on to that business piece.
Dana (04:43.323)
Yeah, and I think this is a great time of year. If you haven't done it, this is a great time of year because there is still a little bit more than a whole quarter left. And so this is a good time to and really where I say at this point in the year with my clients who when we're ready to look at numbers, we know we have goals, we've got goals established, right? Now it's time to look at the gap.
Where are we for the year? And where are we? Where do we want to be? And what's the gap? And how do we make that up? So if we've hit our goal every month, great, right? There's not a gap there. But if we haven't, which in most practices, we might have had a month or two where we were off, where's our gap? And how can we successfully plan on each of those numbers with what we've got left as far as the year number of working days? What does that look like? So sometimes that is reassessing our goals or shifting our goals because we have a gap to make up. But this is the time of year
to really look at that and say, okay, we've maybe been on track some months, off track some months, what do we have left to make up for the end of the year? And how can we just ensure at this point that we crush it by the time we get to December 31st?
The Dental A Team (05:45.159)
Beautiful, beautiful and figuring out that gap and then adding it back into your goals. So if you're, you know, off by $200 a month or whatever a day, that really allows you then like you're saying to really backtrack, see what that goal needs to be, and then adjust all the pieces. And I think right now, like you said, we're nearing like the last quarter, this is the time when we're pushing you to send end of year letters, we're pushing you to get all those patients in for
re -cares and get the crowns done. And like, we want a busy schedule. We want a full schedule for the end of the year. But if we don't know what our gap is and what we need to schedule to, we might start filling that in advance and then not be prepared to actually make the goals that we wanted to, because we didn't know what they really needed to be. So I think that's really smart of you to, really look at that and figure out that gap ahead of time so that we can plan for it. Because
We can then change, right Dana? You can change your blocks on your schedule. You can change your goals. You can change what hygiene openings there are. And maybe you're like, gosh, we need X amount of new patients to get the case acceptance we have based on the trends of the case acceptance we've seen this year. So if we know we need a certain dollar amount produced on the schedule, we can look at what our case acceptance trends are. What's our average case acceptance. And then we can calculate how many new patients it might take
to get to that diagnosis amount, to get that case acceptance, to get the schedule full. So I think when we really consider KPIs and we really consider looking at where the business is going, backtracking in those ways is something that we often miss when we're on our own or sometimes consultants don't catch it or coaches or business partners, sometimes they don't catch that where you can really take the trends that you've had so far this year and the averages and then project.
what you need so that you can make the changes to hopefully hit those goals at the end of the year, or at least to get really freaking close if you're too far off. Now, Dana, how do you suggest they do like, if they're tracking and they're like, my gosh, this is great, we actually might go over, do they stick with it? Or do they then reduce their goals?
Dana (07:59.295)
So I'm never ever an advocate of reducing goals. We want to the best year that we can. And so like, let's rock out what's left with the team. And no, I'd say keep it absolutely the same. And let's just see if at the end of the year, we can again, make it the best year we've ever had, make it the best quarter we've ever had. So I'm never an advocate of reducing goals. I feel like let's look for the gap in anywhere that we're under.
The Dental A Team (08:22.755)
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I don't like to bank on things. if we're doing really well right now, fantastic. We're trending towards our goals. We're trending to maybe go over our goals. But then guess what? What if something falls off the schedule next Thursday and it was this $30 ,000 cosmetic case or a $50 ,000 full arch case that you finally got and they fall off and they weren't prepaid and they decide not to come back. Now we've got a gap.
Now we've got now we've got room to make up for stuff. So I agree whenever we're ahead on things I think just stay the course Keep scheduling the way that you're scheduling is obviously working and then next year we know hey I think we were a little low on our goals and what we thought we could do and we can ramp those goals up a little bit more so looking for the gap looking to Manipulate the schedule and manipulate whatever we need to manipulate and change now so that we can hit those goals don't change things to backtrack but
make sure we can hit and surpass those goals for the end of the year. And then also start looking at your KPIs that you're tracking to make sure you're trending. Start looking at what those need to look like next year. Because here in about two months, two and a half months, we're going to push you to start setting those goals for next year, for 2025, based on what you're doing for 2024. The reason we don't wait till January is because if we waited till January, if we didn't do it in November, December time frame, if you wait till January, you're already scheduled.
January should be about 50 % full going into the month, 50 % to goal going into the month. So if we don't have an all team meeting until mid January to set 2025 goals, we're already a month behind on our goals. There's already a gap because most of the time, let's face it, we're not, we're not hitting what we needed to hit. If we're going to increase goals, we're hitting what we're used to hitting.
And it's just going to create a gap. So start projecting and start getting ready to see what are those goals need to be next year and start looking at them in like November, December. So start right now. When you hear this podcast today, I want you to go pull your numbers, pull your production, your collections, your new patients, your overhead, your active patient count, whatever it is that you decided this year. These are the trends we're going to watch. Go pull the numbers that support those and show you if you're on track or an off track practice growth. A lot of people will say,
The Dental A Team (10:47.711)
see 10 % practice growth this year. fantastic. What does that mean? How do you know that you've had 10 % practice growth this year? I agree, you should have at least 10 % practice growth, seven to 10%. That's what we push for. I love the 10 % mark. I agree, you should, but how do you know that you've experienced 10 % practice growth? So Dana, looking at trends, figuring that out, looking at, okay, what do we need next year to look like?
What kind of KPIs do you have your practices watching and going through? And I can speak on my behalf too, with the practices I work with, what kind of KPIs do you have them measuring to see, yes, I grew by 10%.
Dana (11:30.335)
Yeah, typically the big ones that I'm looking at are production and collections for that and just saying, hey, if where I'm at this year compared to where I was last year, are those numbers 10 % higher?
The Dental A Team (11:42.206)
Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. Production collections are huge, you guys. And we say those like in tandem because you can you can produce all you want. But if you're not collecting them, like I don't I you're just wasting your time. So production collections go in tandem. And then on top of that watching your overhead because if you're increasing production collections, and you're saying we're going to grow by 10%, you really want your profitability to be growing as well might not be a profitability growth of 10%. Okay, but
It might be based off of last year. You might be 10 % more profitable dollar for dollar, not percentage wise, than you were last year. That may be true. You might not go from 20 % profitability to 30%, but the dollars in the bank of profitability should be about a 10 % growth, just to the same as your practice is growing, as long as your overhead is staying where you want it to be, or staying at least relatively similar to last year. So overhead, production collections overhead.
And then I throw in there the new patients and the active patient count, because if we don't watch our active patient count, we're only watching the dollars that are coming in. Oftentimes we'll get ourselves in a situation where we start seeing, why is my recare schedule falling apart? Why aren't we booked out six months? What's happening here? Well, we spent so much time on new patients, investing in marketing for new patients and getting all these new people in the door. We forgot about the people that weren't coming back for their cleanings.
Now, Recare kind of stinks. We're clamoring for new patients and we're trying to fill a schedule. And so our productivity really goes down and that 10 % growth can go down. So watching also that your active patient count is growing with the production and collections by that 10 % mark as well is gonna make sure that all of that is in line. Cause if you did X amount with the amount of patients you had, but you wanna do 10 % more, you need 10 % more patient base too.
or you need 10 % more reimbursement rates on your fees. So whichever way it goes, I know I do have a lot of practices right now, I'm gonna put this caveat in there, that are like struggling to see the number of patients that they have. They're in a situation where they just don't have the chair space, they don't have the providers, they're struggling to see all of the patients, but we need growth. So when that happens, it's gonna come into the space of the fee schedules, right? It's gonna come into the space of
The Dental A Team (14:06.651)
your reimbursements. So are we in network with insurances? Have we requested fee schedule increases? This is the time of year to do those those pieces as well. So as you're looking at your trends, look at what your reimbursements have been. Are you seeing that growth? And to continue seeing that growth? it mean we need more patients? Or could we see that growth within the reimbursement as well? So right now this time of year, get those requests out there to your insurance companies, start pulling the information. We've got a ton of podcasts on this.
Start pulling the information for the insurances and what their reimbursements are, the ones that you're in network with. Are there some that maybe beginning of next year, you're like, hey, actually, like, we don't get more reimbursement, we're just gonna go ahead and get out of network because it makes sense for our practice. That's how you're gonna see that growth as well. So Dana, I agree, pulling all the information, making sure we're on trend or on track, trending in the right direction and that we're filling that gap is imperative right now because it's giving the time.
to make sure that that's happening. And then at the same time, really looking at, what would 10 % more be next year? Dana, what have you seen recently? I know you had a few practices that are like, the money, what does the money look like? What have you seen recently really work for practices to track with their teams? you still, for me, it's the production collections. Is that what you're seeing with the?
practice team members as well as like that production collections and new patients is the easiest space for them to see what are you working on?
Dana (15:38.407)
Yeah, I think it's the easiest space for them to see. But then I also think like take a look at if collections numbers are low, then think about the numbers that impact that. then take a look at your AR as a secondary number, take a look at maybe just a portion of it and say, Hey, how's our over the counter collections? Is that an area where if we buttoned up on that, just that piece of it?
it would help have more of a massive impact. I think looking at those as overarching numbers, absolutely. But when one of those is off track or when one of those we have a fairly big gap to make up, then let's look at the other numbers that help.
push that if production numbers, there's a big gap. Let's take a look at our case acceptance. What does our case acceptance tell us for those things? And even sometimes having practices look at if our gap now means we need to hit 120 instead of 100, go back and see what was the month where we were closest to that.
And what did those other numbers look like? So knowing to say, to hit 120, we have to have case acceptance at about 80%. To hit 120, we need 15 to 20 new patients. What did that look like in the months that you were close to kind of telling you, what do we have to do to hit some of these gap numbers that we're building out for the rest of the year?
The Dental A Team (16:33.652)
I that.
The Dental A Team (16:51.187)
I think that's brilliant. I love that you said, look at what will look at what worked and duplicate that. I love that theory instead of reinventing the wheel, look at what worked before and duplicate that. But also look at the overarching maybe production collections, new patients, and then look at what's feeding it. Because that's the piece I think the team really has a lot of control in and when they're like, I don't know what to tell you like I'm doing everything I can. Well, no, it's not you the person. It's the system. So there's a system.
that you're using or not using that isn't working. And if you're using it 100 % of the system is supposed to be, then we change the system because it's not working. It's not you, it's the system. But if we're not tracking these things and looking at those feeder systems that feed into that ultimate goal, we're never gonna know where we can do better or what's not working. And then it does become personal and it's like, gosh, my billing department's gotta go. Maybe it's not the billing department. We don't know that yet. Maybe they do, I don't know.
But we don't know that yet because we haven't checked the system. So the stats are what's gonna show you if the people, the systems that people are using are working. And if the systems aren't being used and it's just lazy, fine, for sure, have that conversation. But sometimes it's like, I don't know, I call and call and call and nobody answers. Well, have we tried text? Have we tried text to pay? Have we tried these other methods that like, what if we just bring in an alternative method that we haven't tried yet and see if that gets us results?
Now's the time you guys go pull those stats, start looking at the feeder pieces, go pull what's been working well for you, what's not working well for you, are you on track, what's your gap? And then start really looking at what am I gonna project and need for next year to really see that seven and 10 % growth? I think now is the time of the year, pull your fee schedules, there's a lot to do guys, pull your fee schedules, pull your stats, like now you're looking at how do I finish this year strong? How do I start next year strong? So go do the things, I love it, Dana.
Thank you for your words of wisdom. know that you have been working really hard with a lot of your practices recently on really generating a lot of movement on the business side with overhead collections, all of those pieces. So I thought this was just perfect for us. So thank you for being here. Thanks for your words of wisdom. And I truly love when I get this time with you. Okay, awesome guys. Let us know how much you love this. Write in [email protected]. If you need help really like.
Dana (19:04.755)
Same, same.
The Dental A Team (19:13.191)
figuring this out or you need reminders or whatever, we're here for you guys. really do. and I and Britt and Kiera, we really are the ones that usually are providing responses when our admin team gets those questions or in our social settings or on the review below. So hit us up, let us know. We can't wait to talk to you then.
Kiera talks about how to effectively hire team members who don’t have formal dentistry training — and how they can be some of the best employees you’ll ever have.
Episode resources:
Reach out to Kiera
Tune Into DAT’s Monthly Webinar
Practice Momentum Group Consulting
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Become Dental A-Team Platinum!
Review the podcast
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00.942)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. I hope you are just having the best day of your life. I know sometimes we don't always have the best days. know sometimes different things happen, but I truly hope that you just remember we are so blessed to be in dentistry. We're so blessed to be able to have the jobs that we have. We're so blessed to be able to give patients back so much confidence.
Welcome to today. And don't forget that where intention goes, energy flows. So if we're constantly thinking about how terrible life is or how terrible our job is or how hard the hiring thing is, we get it. And also remember if we can switch our focus and see the good, we tend to get more of that. If you don't believe me, I'm going to have you guys do a quick fun activity. If you're driving, I would recommend you not do this, but you know, if you're not, that's fine. I'm going to give you guys 10 seconds and I want to have you look around the room.
and want you to count everything that's white. On your mark, get set,
Kiera Dent (01:02.41)
And now I want you guys to stop and I want you to tell me how many things you saw that were red. And usually when I do this in an office, people are like, my gosh, like I wasn't looking for red and they all started giggling and I'm like, and how many of you actually looked for white things and you saw beige things and counted them as white? The reality is we get what we were looking for. There's red all around us, but sometimes we're missing it because we're looking so heavy for the white. And for
I'm looking around my room and you better believe I'm gonna count these beige shelves over here and this cream blanket over here, but I'm going to miss all the things that are red around me. And there's red all around us all the time or there's yellow or there's orange. But I want you to think about this because in today's topic, I think this is super relevant for what we get is what we are focused on. And so again, if things aren't going as well, again, I think that there's a lot of help that can happen. I'm not here to say that we just have to have an optimistic attitude.
but I do believe that looking for these positive things will actually breed more positivity into it. It's like a snowball. The more we're focused on the good things, the better it goes. The more we're focused on the negative things, the more we tend to find more negative. And that's not to say that we can't have the hard times, but it's interesting. look there, I have a practice and when I started with them, gosh, they were doing about 200 ,000 per month and they are now crushing over $480 ,000 a month.
And I think about this practice and they have struggles and they have different things that they're doing. But one thing I've noticed consistent about this practice is they are constant. I mean, constantly focus on the wins, the positive, how can we grow there? They've got incredible core values. Their leadership team is very focused on it. Their office manager is very focused on it. Their doctor is very encouraging and empowering. And I'm like, what is the difference of certain offices that just struggle? And when we come to meetings, they talk about their issues, but they do it in a way where
how can we fix this? What do we need to learn? They collaborate with their consultant. They use me as a coach and a guide and a sounding board versus other offices. They often love to live in problems and they don't take action and they don't fix it forever. And again, just looking at your practice and what are kind of the behaviors and the attributes, because I don't believe that things are just happenstance. I do believe that certain things do happen, but even in our own company, like I am literally like,
Kiera Dent (03:19.95)
you put me on the radar and I am always looking for what's wrong, how can I solve it? And that's a consultant's world, but that's not always positive to do in my marriage, in my family, in myself. And so making sure that we're using things to our best interest. So with that said, thank you for being a part of our Dental A Team Podcast family. Thank you for your reviews. Thank you for sharing our podcast and keeping us as one of the number one dental podcasts out there. Please keep doing that because my goal is to be in the hands of every dental practice out there.
to positively impact and influence the world of dentistry for good. And so we're gonna go right on, yes, I have my pen out. This is the teacher in me. I did use to teach high school sign language, believe it or not. I feel like I've lived many different lives. So I was a model at one point in time. I taught high school. Gosh, I've done so many random jobs. I worked for a geology firm for once upon a time. I used to work at Century 21 in their accounts payable. I was told I talked too much over there.
But I feel like a myriad of jobs. worked at KFC and A &W. I think that's a random. I mowed lawns with my family lawn business. That was very embarrassing in high school to have people honk and wave when I'm in my total grubbies. My brother thought it was totally fine to go to the mall when we were dressed like that, and I was mortified. So the jobs I've had are quite vast and varied. But that's kind of going into this, because there was a question about hiring. And what do we hire? And how do we hire? And how do we stop the turnover? And hiring verbiage?
Stapping and all this and then the question popped up that we saw of is hiring from outside of dentistry a good idea So I kind of want to just like let's dive a little bit into hiring Let's talk about some different outside -the -box solutions but really I also want you to remember like what we focus on is what we get and I was just recently at a seminar and they talked about how asking better questions Leads to better results. So if we say why is hiring so hard?
we've literally programmed our brain to believe that hiring is hard and we're having to find ways to make hiring hard. And I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about it like so much of what we, what we experience is not what we experienced, but our perception of the experience is what we actually experience. I'm going to say that again. So much of what we experienced in life is not the actual experience. It's our perception of the experience. so asking better questions to prompt our brains, to prompt our team. So instead of saying, why is hiring so hard or why can't we find anybody?
Kiera Dent (05:41.56)
We're literally programming ourselves to believe that we can't find anybody in that hiring is hard versus saying, we need to hire an office manager. Where are office managers at and how can we find the best office manager? We want to hire the best hygienist. Where are the hygienists at and how can we hire the best hygienist for our practice? That is a very different piece and you literally like, we're asking questions and we're giving ourselves answers. And so ask better questions and get better answers. Other questions could be like, all right, so hygienist.
it's a different hiring landscape out there. What are hygienists looking for now that would make us competitive to hire the best hygienists? Well, now that's a very different answer instead of answering why is hiring hard. Why is hiring hard can be very much a like, woe is me mentality of like, well, the job market and COVID and there's all these hygienists. But yet I have a lot of offices that are hiring hygienists with no problems. And I don't say that to make you feel yucky. I'm just saying that if other people can do it, you can too.
I do believe better questions lead to better results. And so what question you're asking could be why you're getting maybe lackluster results. So like, for example, let's go outside of dentistry and say, why is it so hard to work out? Well, I've just programmed myself to tell myself that working out is hard versus what makes working out fun. Well, now I have a way different outcome. I have a way different answer and I have a way different, I'm solving a different problem. And so I want you guys, when you're thinking about it, just like I said,
There are a million questions around us just like there's all the red around us and there's all the white around us and all the orange and yellow It's all around us. There's candidates all around us, too and So let's just kind of go through the hiring landscape a little bit of number one Let's ask better questions and let's get better answers. So let's think of where are these best candidates located? Who do we already know? That's an incredible hygienist or an incredible office manager and could we tap into those resources and ask them? Hey, where were you at when you got hired?
What are some areas? What are some things that you would put in a job ad? Do you know any people that are like you that might be interested in getting a job? What things should we be putting in our ads? What things should we be looking for right now? Those are way more proactive questions to be asking versus why is this so hard and why can't we hire anybody? Literally, you're making your reality. so let's stop those questions and let's give better questions. Now, on the other side of it is then with we're having a lot of turnover. Let's ask the questions
Kiera Dent (08:03.66)
Why are we having so much turnover and what's causing team members to leave our practice and really get to the root of it and fix those problems forever. And so what is that and how can we fix it? you know, like our team, we just got some good feedback from it and it was like, all right, what can we do? Are there different things that we could change? What's the common thread and A, are we setting up wrong expectations when we hire or B, do we need to make some like structural changes within our company? It's really good. And again, remember it's not right or wrong. And I know this is hard you guys. I am a person who
It needs oxygen, just like I need people to like me as a person. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but I've just realized that that's a piece about me where I really enjoy having people like me. like the connections. I like people around me. I like to have a good time. so oftentimes when I hear negative feedback or constructive feedback, it's sometimes hard for me to disassociate that this is just feedback. It's not actually about me. And so if we can disassociate it and realize like
We are so lucky and so blessed that they're telling us the feedback so we can find the root problem and solve it and fix this problem from happening. We do live in a world where people are changing jobs and sometimes that can feel frustrating because it's not what we're used to. But yet at the same time, we aren't used to taking film X -rays anymore either. And what an amazing transformation that's been. Isn't it an amazing transformation that maybe we get more team members that come in. And because team members are turning so much
Maybe that could be a positive for us and maybe that helps us onboard people faster. And that's also where I do believe that hiring outside of dentistry is a good idea. Some of my best practices actually hire outside of dentistry. And what's crazy is when we hire outside of dentistry, a lot of times these people are actually more loyal to the practices. Dentistry is a very different industry, just so you know, from corporate, it's very family friendly. It's very kind. It's very,
It's just a different vibe and I don't have a better way to describe that other than the fact that it is just truly a different vibe. so sometimes when people hire outside of dentistry, they literally get people where they train them from the ground up and these people are diehard loyal to them because they've given them this incredible opportunity. I know a lot of the corporate dental practices actually hire people outside of dentistry. They train them for about a month and these people are amazing employees.
Kiera Dent (10:24.626)
I work with some offices and I train them to be great treatment coordinators. I work with some other offices and train them how to be incredible billers. So there's a lot of skillsets that are transferable. And so I know some people that have hired outside of dentistry, they go for the service industry. So restaurants and waitresses, believe it or not, Shelbi, if you guys have ever gotten to interact with our company, you've probably been able to meet Shelbi. Shelbi is by far one of the most incredible employees that I have.
so kind, she's so considerate and Shelbi who used to be a waitress and I was like this girl pays attention to people's needs. She's obsessed about serving and taking care of people. She's an amazing customer success employee and takes great care of our clients and she takes great care of me. But I paid attention to the type of service she came from. Kaylee who used to work in our company, incredible person. She came from selling. She worked in, she's a high school or excuse me an elementary school teacher and she also used to
for one of the best car companies in our area. That company had incredible customer service and she had amazing customer service. And so I hired her from there. I've heard of people hiring from tanning salons and from the beauty industry and from waiter and waitresses and from fast food and some people who want really good treatment coordinators.
They snag them from in the mall. Those people who are like giving you out those perfume samples, they say like, hey, if you want a job that's like meaningful and impactful, that's going to serve and uplift people, give me a call. And they literally give out their business cards to them. But paying attention to this service industry, some of my best office managers actually come from the banking industry. Like hands down, I'm obsessed with bankers who come in as office managers because they get the finances, they get the, they have it. They just need to learn the industry knowledge, but they are not afraid of money. And best office managers.
And that practice that I mentioned to you at the beginning, who's just been doing an incredible job. They are a practice who hired outside of dentistry. I have another practice and they took one of our online virtual courses of our dental assistant one, and they literally are training dental assistants within. They weren't able to do a dental assistant course. There are some programs where you can actually create a dental assistant course and have a second business within your practice. I'm happy to share that info. If you want it, reach out. [email protected]. But this practice couldn't do that in the state they're in. And
Kiera Dent (12:40.002)
We took the course, our course, our dental assisting course online. Literally, I built it to be training someone from off the streets to be able to do dentistry. Our entire virtual academy course, I built it with videos and trainings and CE. So that way you don't have to train them on all the pieces of verbiage, how we schedule, what the blocks are. Yes, you still need to train them within your practice, but there's a huge, huge academy already built for you that you don't have to go and do this all on your own.
My offices use that and they use it to structure it for their practices when they bring them on. We have a 30, 60, 90 day onboarding for team members that don't come from dentistry that we've created for a lot of our practices. And those are some of the amazing things within our virtual academy that I really love to share because there are ways to hire outside of it and they become so great. Truth be told, the best scheduler I ever met came from a tanning salon. Like hands down, best scheduler. Like the schedule was always full. She was over the top, amazing. She used to
in a restaurant setting as well, and then came from a tanning salon. And again, it's that service industry that works so well. And I've had quite a few dental assistants come from other industries, the hair industry, the service industry, any of those types of industries really can be incredible to bring in and just bring new vibes, bring it. Yes, it is tricky to train them up into dentistry, but remember all of us were trained at one point. All of us know what it was like. I went to school, but the reality is,
Office management, I didn't have schooling for that. It was a lot of hard knocks to learn it. so positions that I don't usually recommend hiring for dentistry is if you're a new doctor, you really need a good office manager who understands billing and treatment coordinating and scheduling for you because that's a tricky thing for you being a new owner, being a new doctor that I really don't recommend hiring outside of dentistry for. Now, if you've got quite a few systems built up, like I said, banking office managers are amazing to bring in. We train up office managers. So I have a lot of clients
We do a call with the doctor and then we actually train their, their team for them and their office managers. So a lot of really awesome ways that you're able to do it, but like use your resources, get the help. but you're going for culture. You're going for the hunger, scheduling app. don't usually recommend a schedulers from like optometry. Optometry is a little bit slower paced, typically not all the time, but like optometry and, certain other maybe like healthcare professions. They're not going to be the same.
Kiera Dent (14:59.766)
Now a busy chiropractic office might feel the same for you. I love bringing people in for ortho or pediatric or any of those like really fast pace where they're churning. They tend to work really, really well in dentistry, but I don't want to hire someone just because they're in medical if they're coming even from like dermatology or from, like I said, optometry. Those practices don't tend to turn as quickly as dentistry tends to. And I want someone who's used to working the fast pace. They're used to doing the busyness.
And that's what I'm going to bring in from outside. That's why a waiter or waitress, they're so used to the busy, like you're constantly having to pay attention to a ton of different tables and you're able to like make an impact and serve people and make them happy. Amazing people to bring in to your industry scheduling. I think about like at Harris Lawns, there's customer service, there's different things. And so you can put ads out and you can train them. There's also ways that you can hire like virtual assistants to do certain things. I've heard of some companies loving it and others not liking it so much.
can outsource. outsourcing is also a great option, but I think let's get creative. And again, let's pretend we were able to hire another, let's say front office. can't hire a scheduler. What would we do instead? And how could we innovate this? Well, we could outsource it or we can have this or our billing's taking forever. Can we outsource this to another company? love DCS. dental claim support is a great one or Shasta with Paragon, two great companies. Be sure to let them know Dental A Team sends If
Reach out to them. do get preferred pricing for all of the people we refer. That's my motto. I don't do affiliate pricing, but I do do preferred pricing for you guys. things like that. But really, again, I think it's what are we focused on? Are we getting that? How can we ask better questions and get better answers? And then I do believe hire outside of dentistry. Let's not just keep picking out of the same cabbage patch, but let's go outside because there's so many other service industries.
And if you can create a process where you can hire anybody up, that's why I built the Virtual Academy. So be sure to use it. can, if you're not interested in consulting, by all means, we have the Virtual Academy that you can purchase and use and you can train up your team. You can use it for onboarding. If you're like, hey, I don't even know how to do this and I need you to help train and onboard our office manager. We do that as well. So be sure to reach out. I'd love to help you out. [email protected]. But the reality is...
Kiera Dent (17:13.59)
Let's start asking better questions. Let's start innovating. Let's get excited for the landscape that we're living in instead of feeling like it's such a problem. And let's start innovating and taking advantage of what we're able to have. Fix the problems when people turn over. Ask them the hard questions. Make the changes if you can. Set better expectations when we hire. And then make sure that what we're doing is we're checking in with them, we're getting the feedback from them, and then we're able to hire outside of dentistry and bring people in.
You guys, I hire consultants that are not consultants and I train them to be consultants. And while some might think I'm crazy because 90 % of consulting companies don't do that, they expect you have consulting experience. I believe that I'm able to morph them and train them into the person I want them to be. We're able to create this incredible consultant. guess what? It sometimes is really hard because within their first, usually six months, a lot of them can't make it. A lot of them are actually not cut out to be consultants. A lot of them don't like the world. They don't enjoy being a consultant.
And I'm okay with that because the ones that make it, the ones that go through are some of the best people I've ever met. Tiffanie, Dana, Brittany, amazing consultants that truly inspire me to keep hiring people that don't have the experience to keep training. Because when I get a good one, they're with me for life. And I think that that's one of the best things I've got others. I've had quite a few consultants that don't make it. have quite a few consultants that it wasn't a good fit for them or for us. And I'm okay with that because they're learning a new skill.
And I'm teaching someone who's never done this before. So you also have to be okay that you might not have as great of a success rate, but you're doing something different. And then you're not handcuffed. I am not handcuffed to just hiring hiring consultants. I can hire office managers or regional managers. And my cabbage patch is so much larger. If you don't just have to hire a scheduler who knows how to do scheduling or hire someone who's done billing, your cabbage patch of where you're able to go and find people is so much larger than just this finite area. And I think that that's something that can really free you
Again, asking better questions, getting better results. And don't stress, I don't hire anybody that we have worked with. So just so you know, I never want offices to ever be afraid because yes, we do hire office managers, but I have a very strict policy that you're not allowed to work with the LA team if we've consulted your practice. So never fear. We train them up and they're yours because I really truly believe that my job is to help you succeed.
Kiera Dent (19:33.67)
it's never ever, ever for you to be afraid of consultants. Cause I do know some consultants are that way. So just so you guys know, I think that, and that's something that you can do also, if you're training up other people, make sure that you, you risk mitigate for the person that you're with. Maybe you can risk mitigate or maybe you can get creative or maybe you can share somebody, but there's so many ways and asking better questions and looking for better results. I guarantee you, you'll have a much different experience. So change the culture, change your focus, change your life. And if we can help you reach out, [email protected]. as always, thanks for listening.
I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
Tiff and Dana take a look at the mechanisms that go into building an operations manual: who participates versus who keeps everyone on track, what’s the timeline, what type of accountability methods come into play, and more.
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Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:02.51)
Hello, Dental A Team. We are so excited to be here with you. I have the one and only Dana back on the podcast with me today. And Dana, your hair looks amazing. I hope people are watching, because I love this side swoop and curl thing you got going on. It's super cute, super cute.
Dana (00:20.448)
It's Friday, right? Fun Friday.
The Dental A Team (00:22.52)
Fun Friday, I love it. You're right, you're right. Dana, just so you guys know is, well, you guys already know she's my fashionista when it comes to workout apparel and athleisure wear, which we live in. So she's my fashionista there, but she also teaches me tips and tricks on how to do my hair. One time I made her record herself on how to, I think it's called the wave now, it's like the crimper thing, and she literally had to record herself to send it to me. I'm the older sister.
So I don't have people in my life to teach me these things. Sorry, Eileen on Dana for that. So now you're gonna have to record yourself doing your hair today. Thanks. thank you, thank you. I am excited to be here today. You are, I say this constantly, but you are like our Ops Manual guru within our company. You have done so much work on the Ops Manual itself for us and you work with clients on it and you've done.
Dana (00:58.02)
Okay, do it again, always for YouTube.
The Dental A Team (01:17.416)
Ops Manual masterminds and creation courses, like you've done it all. So I've had a few things come up where practices are asking, they're kind of writing in, doctors are asking who does the Ops Manual because doctors will sign up, they'll take it on, they're like, yes, Tiff, we're gonna do this Ops Manual, sign me up, Dental A Team, send me your manual. Like, okay, great, you signed up for the manual. And then the doctor's like, well, now I'm seriously overwhelmed because there's no way I can do all of this.
So I thought it would be nice to take a couple of minutes today to really talk about who should be doing the operations manual and what that looks like. Like how do we hold the accountabilities? What are the parameters? What are all of those pieces? Because it's not, in my opinion, the doctor and it's not just one person. I think the doctors, the associates, the everybody hygienists have a part to play in it. But Dana, when you're working with your clients and maybe specifically, even when you're working on your courses, your opti -manual courses that you've done in the past, how do you
have doctors really figure out who to have build out those operations manuals.
Dana (02:19.448)
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you, Tiff. Right. If one person were to build this, and specifically the doctor who is also doing dentists thing, it's a huge project. And I feel like it could potentially take you years. And by the time you're done, it needs updated. You've added new things. So I think going in with realistic expectations of who's supposed to participate, how are we going to get this massive project done. And it really does take full team.
The Dental A Team (02:27.296)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (02:34.836)
Yes, exactly.
It's Nolan Boyd, doesn't even matter.
Dana (02:49.355)
Okay, so there are lots of pieces in the operations manual and so core values mission vision Yes, those things can be done by doctors your job descriptions could be done by doctor and you don't have an om maybe doctor that does fall on you but then once we get to like the how to's the checklists the task lists all of those pieces that is full team all on board there who sits in that seat and does those things day in and day out and Honestly, ideally that's who you
want to be building them because they know the systems, know the protocols, they know all the button clicks of everything much better than no offense doctors typically you do right for each position.
The Dental A Team (03:26.006)
Yeah.
The Dental A Team (03:31.222)
Yeah, for sure. For sure. I agree. I totally agree. think doctors want to have the control of it and they want to know and I do think doctors I do think you need to go through it to know those different clicks and to know what your team members are doing. But we don't expect you and this is why we have training. This is why we have clients. We don't expect you to know everything that every position is supposed to be doing or is doing. And again, that's why there's training.
They don't even always know everything they should be doing. And so to expect you to be able to develop all of it, again, I agree mission, vision, core values. Those can be built out with the team for sure, but that is like near and dear to the doctor's heart. Why are you here? Why is your practice in business? What does that look like? And job descriptions. I'd love to tailor the job descriptions, Dana, to the results of that position. So like,
Who embodies that position? What's the ultimate result? I think like treatment coordinator is to build relationships and sell treatment, obviously, right? Close cases, get production on a schedule. But when we put that like build relationships in there, when check -in's job is to successfully collect all information from patients while building that relationship with them for a long lasting patient, know, lifetime with our company.
Those are the types of pieces I think that people miss in a job description. They hop into that job description and it's like bullet points of like, well, these are all the things that you would do in this job. That job description is literally describing how can I win within my position? So for doctors and office managers to build that out, you guys are literally building it out based off of why do I have this position in my practice? What's the point of this position? And then from there expanding. So I agree, I think those pieces are key.
elements that doctors office managers can have their hands in but to think all of those pieces that you were talking about Dana, I just think of like all the front office how to is like how to send a claim and a doctor's like screenshotting the ledger and like screenshotting with a little arrow like this is not this is not what I need you spending your time on like I need you spending your time on that lab case that no one else can develop and create right? Let the billing representative take the screenshots of the ledger and put the little arrows in there.
The Dental A Team (05:50.586)
That's not for you to do. So I totally agree. I everyone needs to have a hand in it at a certain point. Now, Dana, hard questions for everyone needs to come up for us. And I just, actually, you guys, I just talked to a doctor the other day and it wasn't necessarily about the operations manual, but it was just accountability in general. He's like, Tiff, I'm off track. Like, how do I get back on track? Like, where am I failing? Why isn't this working? Because he started like turning the dial on.
accountability and really putting it in place and the team was like bucking up like what do you mean like what the heck and like well when you're not used to it when it's not something you've ever had and then you implemented it's kind of like telling your kid all of a sudden like hey you need like your room needs to be clean but you've lived the first six years of this kid's life with a chaotic messy room and all of a sudden you're like no you got to clean your room by tomorrow right like you got to get it done so they're gonna buck up so
I kind of related it this morning as I was thinking about this podcast to the operations manual, because it's an added piece that we're adding to their list of duties. We're adding now, build the operations manual. They're going to buck up a little bit and me, procrastinator queen and forgetful diva over here. I'm going to put it to the last because I'm like, I've got other things that patient facing. got things to do. This is going to be the last thing that I do. And then likely I'm going to forget that I was supposed to do it. And then a year goes by.
and a doctor's like, hey Tiff, I still don't have an operations manual. Okay, well, probably missing some accountability. So how do you structure those accountabilities with the practices that you work on? Because you do really well with succeeding and getting systems in place and operations manuals done. How do you help them structure those accountability pieces?
Dana (07:38.488)
Yeah, and I and I do feel like this is where I say put one person in charge of checking in looking at due dates assigning tasks those pieces and Ideally doctors. I'd love to see this be something that you delegate what that doesn't mean though Is you don't check on the person that you've delegated it to? I usually say pick a lead pick an office manager pick somebody who has the capacity to take it on in your practice and they are like your operations manual guru now that means then you just have
The Dental A Team (07:54.636)
good call.
Dana (08:06.594)
weekly monthly check -ins with that person to ensure that everything is on track. So I think assigning it to one person to really keep track on the rollout, keep track of all the pieces, because it's a lot of pieces. And so we need to make sure that we've got deadlines set for things.
The Dental A Team (08:18.208)
Okay.
Dana (08:23.116)
Tasks assigned to individual team members and so the one it comes to that tools for the person who is in charge of keeping it organized and keeping it on track is Really what works best for your team if a whiteboard works best and they need their weekly, know every week We're putting up what we need to get done Who's doing it by when are they supposed to have it done? And how are they to get it to you? Whether you put it on a whiteboard whether you create an Excel spreadsheet, right? And you are tracking all of that in there figure out what's going to work best for
The Dental A Team (08:48.139)
Mm -hmm.
Dana (08:53.03)
your team, make sure that there's a person that's overseeing it, and then make sure you as the doctor owner are checking in with that person so that you just have a pulse on things moving forward.
The Dental A Team (09:05.085)
I agree. And I, I'm going to pull out that you said, choose what's going to work for your team. There is a lot of doctors out there. There are a lot of doctors who thrive with Excel spreadsheets and the nitty gritty things and like all of those thought processes really work well for them because that's how your brains are working. And that's fantastic, but not everyone jives with an Excel spreadsheet. So
If you create you go through all this work and you create an Excel spreadsheet and you're like, you guys, this is going to be amazing. This is what we're using. And then they don't dive with it and they never look at it. You're going to be really upset. Like you're going to, your heart's going to hurt. You're to be like, put so much work into this. I don't understand. They don't listen to me. Like, why don't they do what I asked them to do? Dana said, do what works for your team and the visual. I love the visual of the whiteboard in the break room or wherever.
conference room, like wherever you guys have that whiteboard. I love the visual because it's a constant reminder. Sometimes, you know, Excel spreadsheets get forgotten about because you have to pull them back up. You got to have it open. You can only have one person in there at a time. Like there's limitations to it. And an Excel spreadsheet may work for your team. That may be the perfect option for them and they love it. And that's perfect too. But think about where's your team at? What's going to be the most beneficial and what's going to remind them to get something done. So I do love that like to tack it off.
Check it off, check it off. And then another thing I want to pull out is that you said buy wind dates. So break it apart is what you said, break apart the pieces that need to be done, the structure of what needs to happen to get an operations manual completed, and then set deadlines. And Dana, I know with my clients that have that I've finished this or that I have them working on it now, it'll be like, okay, you're at your how tos. And I want you to have five how tos written.
by next Friday, September, whatever that date is, sixth. Is that how you mean, like, pick it apart and do a buy win date? Like, really break it down and simplify it? Because I think, if I do, if somebody told me, they were like, you gotta have all your how -tos done by December 31st. Like, today is, what, August 30th, something like that, while we're recording this? Like, have it done by the end of the year. I'm like, cool, I got time.
The Dental A Team (11:24.183)
And guess what's gonna sit there until the end of the year when I'm in a mad dash rush to try to get things done. But if they said, okay, or if I broke it down for myself. So if that was my goal, all right, great, we're gonna have this done by December 31st. I would have to tell myself, okay, I'm gonna do, I have X amount of how -to's and I'm gonna do X amount per week until December 31st. And I've got to check those off. I've got to build my plan. I've got to build my path to get there.
and I'm gonna have to check those off as I do them. Otherwise, we're gonna get to December 31st and it's gonna be like, I got half of them done because I started last night and I really just didn't have the time. I had four months. But I couldn't find the time, I didn't make the time to do it. So we've got all this planned out, we've got it all going. think weekly meetings, if you're weekly meetings or once a week check -in even during morning huddle, if you're doing morning huddles, like really just getting a baseline.
for where everyone's at and having, like you said, that one person who's responsible for the full accountability, but everyone's truly like holding each other responsible and accountable. And the doctors are not just fully out of the loop because I see that a lot with operations manuals, with anything where doctors just like, cool, hands off. And I love that. want a hands off approach, but I don't want you to be frustrated in the end when we get there. And then there's a million excuses from an entire team as to why it's not done. So.
I love that you said that Dana. I love that you pulled that out. If the doctor is the office manager, what do you usually do? Cause you do have quite a few clients actually, cause they don't have a true office manager right now or yet. How do you help them structure that accountability since it is honestly falling to them in most ways.
Dana (13:12.876)
Yeah, and I basically break it down. There are each sections to an operations manual and then once you've got it broken down, it truly is, like you said, delegating those pieces in small chunks that are manageable for that doctor in an amount of time. So I think it's setting clear expectations of
When are team members supposed to work on this? Are we doing it during patient care hours? Are we setting chunks aside? Are we all just going to stay late every Friday, right? What are pizza? Crank them out? Are we going to like send one the lunch hour each week together and type up as many as we can. So I think it's the breaking it down into little chunks of manageable tasks, and then figuring out when we're going to do it and making sure that they are assigning team members and how our team members to communicate it up to them.
The Dental A Team (13:35.677)
Mm
The Dental A Team (13:40.221)
I love that.
Dana (14:01.47)
that things are done so they're not chasing people down for things. I think an easy way to do that is build it into things that are already consistent in your practice. Like you said, morning huddles. If that is already consistent in your practice, pick a Thursday, everybody reports to you what they've done. If you have end of day checklists, right, then your how -to's get handed in with your end of day checklist and you write off which ones you've done. So just figuring out what have I already been able to keep consistent that I can just make this
The Dental A Team (14:04.123)
Mm.
Dana (14:31.214)
a part of it makes accountability for a doctor who is also the OM who is spearing this to make it easy.
The Dental A Team (14:38.917)
Yeah, gosh, that's brilliant. Basically, what you're doing is your habit stacking at that point, right? Because you've already got the habit in place. And so we're taking a habit that's already working. We're stacking that next layer onto it because operations manual dig doing these things and staying accountable to it is not a habit yet. So if we can have it stack, which is atomic habits, and it's an incredible book, if you guys haven't listened to or read that one yet, you should or I'm sure that we've done a book club or five on it here.
But if you can have it stack that and really just like she said, like dual purpose, those accountability pieces, it makes it easy. I think we overcomplicate, we overcomplicate the operations manual, number one, because it's so overcomplicated. doesn't have to be that hard. And then we tack on overcomplicating any kind of accountability in a dental practice. And it just makes it hard. makes it, I think it makes it feel like we're not trusted. It makes it feel a certain way, which makes it more difficult. And then doctors are like,
hands in the air, Tiff, can't do this. They just won't do what I asked them to do. I can't do accountability. And then we're like this downwards file of unraveling everything. So I love that habit stack it. Okay, so who should build the operations manual? It sounds like everybody sounds like doctors take apart, pull apart the pieces and divvy them out or have your office manager do it if you do have an office manager. And then you guys as a team really set the cadence, set the accountability, figure out what you want that to look like how long
I think doctors, another word of advice when you come in and you say, this is what I need you to do all of these things by this date Totally fine, like totally fair. Have your accountability set in place. But if you can come in and say, okay, guys, this is the project. Let's brainstorm and see how long do you think this is going to take us as a team to get this done. Now you have some buy -in on the dates because they helped you figure it out and you've taken into consideration their workload.
so that they can take into consideration their workload and give you actual dates that they think they can get it done by. So lots of tidbits there, Dana. This was fantastic. I think something that they definitely need. We're coming up on the last quarter and hopefully we're wrapping up some operations manuals or we're getting ready to start them. I know we used to do October hard start on operations manuals. So that's right around the corner guys. Dana, thank you for your words of wisdom always on the operations manual. I loved all of those pieces today.
The Dental A Team (17:05.583)
And I appreciate you joining me for this podcast today.
Dana (17:09.517)
I had as much fun as I always do, Tiff. Thanks for having me.
The Dental A Team (17:11.978)
Good, of course, and we'll go learn how to do that hair and we'll let everybody else know later. awesome. Everyone, thank you so much for being here. I hope that this was beneficial for you. I hope that even if you have your operations manual done already, when you go to redo it, when you go to update it, you can reference some of these tools here in this podcast because we always want them to be super useful for you. So let us know, drop us a five star review below. We love seeing them. We love hearing from you. [email protected]. We'll catch you next time, guys.
Rereleasing one of DAT’s most popular episodes!
Did you know that team members can be more profitable with accurate deep work time than just producing from the chair? In this episode, Kiera talks about intentional block scheduling for all positions in the office. She poses questions everyone needs to ask themselves, suggests amounts of time for deep work each week, gives ideas for priorities to pursue, and more.
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Transcript:
The Dental A Team (00:05.774)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you.
Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A -teams. Welcome to the Dental A -Team Podcast.
The Dental A Team (00:51.0)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and ooh, am I excited for the podcast today? So I podcast and I love podcasting and I tend to just podcast and think of ideas. So I typically have one day during the week that I'll podcast and then throughout the month I will be writing up topics. And so I've actually been working on a couple of different topics. They come to me, I'll text my husband, I'll be in the shower and I'm like, Jason.
You've got to write this down, send this to me so I don't forget. So today's topic is coming from one where I've had a lot of questions and this has been something that I've been doing for so long. I have explained it. I'll do it on the podcast today. I'll explain it for you again, but we talk often about block scheduling for dentists. So if you don't have block scheduling in your schedule, definitely go and listen to some podcasts on block scheduling for your practice. Block scheduling can also be considered like productive.
scheduling to where we're making an optimal schedule with your ideal life, ideal procedures, and we're able to grow it exponentially. With that, I like to always share a little example where I have a practice that with block scheduling, so optimal, we're looking to see how long does it take per procedure. We're looking to see what their goals are for the practice, how long it takes, maximizing assistant time and doctor time. We were able to take them from 2 .2 to 4 .2 million in one year. I will also put in there, we did add three operatories. However,
without adding those three operatories, it was 2 .2 to 3 .2 million. So just so you know, by being more strategic with our time, I was able to add over a million dollars worth of revenue, no extra days, no extra time, just smarter scheduling. So I started thinking about this and I'm like, you know, there's so much fanfare and so many ideas out there for doctor scheduling within schedules, but what about admin block scheduling?
And it kind of alluded to this week I was working with my team. I've been working with my husband. So it's probably where it's hot on my list, but we often don't block schedule. And when I say block scheduling or CEO time or admin time or whatever you want to call it, deep work time, I don't feel we've ever been really taught how to do it. then it's also, we are taught, but it feels too hard. So then we don't do it. So today, this week I was actually working with Shelby and Britt and
The Dental A Team (03:07.169)
Virtual companies are very different, especially when we've come from dentistry. Dentistry is easy, right? Our schedules are there for us. They tell us what to do as clinicians. So as a dental assistant, or it's a hygienist, our days were scheduled for us. The front office schedules for us. We do our day, off we go. But when you're the front office, and I remember my switch from clinical to front office, your days are different. Also, when I went from in office to home, where I worked from home, again, very different. My husband, he works in a pharmacy.
is overseeing, gosh, I think he's got 35 pharmacists he oversees in multiple different clinics. And I just feel like we often run the rat race versus doing what's actually important in a practice. So I've been figuring this out. I've been mapping this a lot and I've been curious, why does this feel hard? And I thought, you you hear that example of the rock sand water, which honestly I feel has an overused analogy, but I feel like what we do is we often build our life with so many rocks or so much sand.
that we forget that there's other space for that water. And so then like all the little things feel so hard and so exhausting and like we just can't catch up and that we're not gonna be able to get there. And so what we do is we don't get it done. And then it feels like this mountain of tasks, this monumental moment to just get our emails done. So I started thinking, how can I front office team members and doctors block not just a productive schedule that's going to be profitable,
but let's do a productive schedule and a profitable schedule for your time that's not clinical. Because I actually believe that you can be more profitable with accurate deep work time than you can be just producing in the chair. So I wanted to walk through how to do this. So first question is, I want you to know yourself. So that's the first question you have to answer is, are you a more productive person in the morning or are you more productive in the afternoon?
I just need you to answer that because that's going to radically impact how we build your schedule for you. So for Kiera, I am a very much a morning person. I am about junk by three o 'clock. Like don't ask me to do big projects. That's why I don't do any coaching calls after three o 'clock. Don't worry. All my clients that I do coach, they're early. I start my calls at six AM and people think I'm absolutely crazy for doing it. But like today I was up at three AM building content and projects because I am such a morning person.
The Dental A Team (05:30.094)
3 a is not normal. I have been on a tight deadline and I'm flying out of town and I've got a lot of things. So 3 a is a little extreme, but I just know that I'm going to be so much more productive in the morning. So Britt on our team is definitely an afternoon person. And my husband's like, Kiera, how could she schedule her like heavy concentration time in the afternoon? And I said, Britt loves like go hang out, go for a walk, hang out with her dog, come back around three, four, five in the afternoon and then just get it done.
If I ask her for a 7 a meeting, she'll be there, but I know her optimal speed and optimal time is definitely afternoon. Shelby's a morning person. So once you know your optimal time, also figure out your team members' optimal time, because we can build schedules based on our optimal time where we're going to be the most efficient with our time. And I feel like with admin time, deep work time, let's ourselves up for success. So the next thing is...
figure out who you are. Most people are sprinters, meaning we can usually concentrate for about an hour on a task. Other people like Britt, who are more like billers, people who are really into the numbers, into the spreadsheets, they can concentrate for like a two to three hour block. Like she needs a solid amount of time to be able to research, to dig into it, because when she gets into a project, she's in it. For me, if I have a shorter stint, an hour, hour and a half is much more productive for me. So number one, know thyself. Are you a morning or an afternoon? Like where are you most productive?
also I know a lot of creatives, people who are very creative. Sometimes they'll work at one, two, three o 'clock in the morning. Like that's where they are at their optimal machine. And I feel like our bodies and who we are, our machines. so let's like, all of us run on different food. My husband, he's a carb guy. If I feed him carbs, he can run for hours. Me, I'm a protein girl and I've definitely got to have protein in the morning, especially for hiking. Like we have two very separate breakfasts, very different styles and different energy that fuels our bodies.
Same thing with how we operate and how we work. So I want you to figure out your optimal time. Where are you going to be the most efficient to be working on the most important pieces of the business? Next up is let's find out who our team is around us. Where are they at? And then third is how much time is actual optimal for you? And this can be a trial and error. I used to think like, I'm going to block three hours. You guys, by like hour one, I'm thinking about what am going to make for dinner? What am I going to do? I think I need to stretch. I need to get up.
The Dental A Team (07:52.556)
So I realized I can't do these big chunks of time. I have to break it up and almost like consolidate my time to force me to work more efficiently. So just figure out who you are. My recommendation for the general population is break it into smaller chunks because typically if we've got four hours or two hours too long of a chunk, it actually will make us unproductive. So on that, then from there, okay, we know we're a morning person. We know we work in an hour and half stints. Next up is to go look at our schedules.
I would never in my wildest dreams recommend Mondays to be a day that you work on your business. I just don't. think that so many patients call in it's hectic. It's chaotic. People are coming in like Mondays just feel like this, madness energy in the world. I don't enjoy that. You might feel like no Monday's my motivation day. And that's the day that I get everything mapped out. Know thyself and be free is my best recommendation. I prep Sunday evenings to make sure my week is all prepared so I can come into Monday mayhem.
and be ready to go. My deep work times are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have two in my week. Brittany and Shelby, they both have two or three. They are for an office. So like think of an office manager and a scheduler or a treatment coordinator. They each have their time. I also look at the tasks that are necessary. Britt needs more time than I do. Britt has heavier projects. She has research projects. She's got a lot more time. So Britt needs like...
four to six hours per week where I need about an hour and a half each time. So about two to three hours per week. That's my optimal time. Again, this is going to come ebb and flow and the more consistently we take our time, the more doable it will be for you. So with team members for doctors and clinical team and front office, whomever needs to work on bigger projects, most of the time this is your front office, like your office manager, your scheduler, your treatment coordinator. I feel like doctors and OMS need at least two to three hours per week of deep work uninterrupted time.
Then our schedulers and our treatment coordinators, I usually recommend about an hour a week of uninterrupted time. Billers might need two to three, depending upon what they're working on, because that's more of like deep work, harder getting through projects, and then leads in your practice. I usually recommend about an hour per week. So that just kind of helps you break down the timelines, how much time we're needing to do for each position within the practice. But then we got to go build it into the schedule. So for me, I actually like my team to work at the same time. So me and Shelby, we work at almost the same time.
The Dental A Team (10:14.71)
She's my right hand. I have to ask her a lot of different questions. So for her, she's very smart. Office managers, I would do the same thing. You're kind of like Shelby with me. Block your time the same time as your doctor, because doctors working hard, they're not gonna be interrupting. They're not gonna be asking for things. That means office managers, you can probably get a lot more done during that time. So you've just got to start to build a schedule. So what I do is I actually build this onto offices schedules for them. In my schedule, I have it. It's a deep work block. And then every week,
So whatever your choice is, like, okay, so we know we're, we're mornings. know we need two hours a week. We're looking at doctor schedule, Kiera schedule, all the people schedules in our practice and we're building out a like admin deep work. We're going to get all the big projects done schedule. So from there, what we're going to do next is we build the schedule. Okay. So it's all in there. So for me, mine are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Britt has hers on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Whatever, choose your poison. I don't care when you do it, but we're going to build it.
and front office team members, you've got to also make sure you coordinate schedules to make sure that we're not overlapping each other. We don't want both office manager treatment coordinator to be gone at the same time. We want you guys to stagger your schedule so you can cover for each other as well. That way the front office is always taken care of. Doctors, I recommend you do this offsite. Doing it in your practice is probably not going to be beneficial. I like to go to a coffee shop, to the library, somewhere offsite. And office managers, it might be wise for you to consider this as well, talking with your doctor.
Where can you go that you're the most productive for me? If I'm going to take this much time away from the practice or my business, it's truly working on the deepest, like most productive projects of the week that are going to move my practice forward the most. So this is like building protocols, writing handbooks, writing policies, reviewing my systems, all those different things are going to help you exponentially with this. So what we do is then I believe that if we're going to block this time, we then need to.
hold ourselves to a standard where we can actually, 100 % actually go through and make sure we maximize this time. So for you guys, I really want you to think about this, like what do you actually need to get done during this time that's going to be the most productive for you? So for me, I believe I've got to plan and prepare if I'm going to block this time off on my schedule. And I believe that if you're gonna take this time out of your schedule, you should block and plan.
The Dental A Team (12:39.34)
So for doctors, I'll just give you a quick list. This is with a client we were just working with who has time and wanted to use that time productively. And so we broke it down because I believe that a CEO, have three duties and that's profitability, culture and vision. And office managers, I would say that yours is similar in addition to team. And so maybe you break it up and I do like admin tasks, but this isn't like checking your email, responding back to people. It would be reviewing the credit cards. It would be...
doing our business expenses, it'd be looking at the orders, it'd be doing deposits for checks. It would be reviewing our KPIs of every single part, of our practice to make sure that they're actually optimized. Then we go over the culture and we look at like performance reviews, hiring and HR, checking payroll to see who's getting close to overtime, doing end of month bonuses. looking also at the culture and like where are we lacking or where are we doing really well that could be changed? And then we spend some time with planning and vision.
So what are systems and departments reviewing all of those? Let's go through all of them and look to see where are we strong, where are we not strong? Let's look at the long -term plan. What are our monthly meetings? What do those need to be? Department meetings, writing things, writing the protocols, writing the processes. And then you can also put in learning. So reading a business book, doing continuing education, but really it's the things that will move your business forward the most. If office managers, you need to go research and do demos on multiple different softwares to figure out the best cloud -based software. Well, that's the time that you do it is during this.
So I block these in there, solid blocks in the schedule and they're never to be touched or interrupted. I also plan and I put it in there. So I actually have a true plan before I go into my week. So the way I process, the way I built in block scheduling for admin time is this is my process and some people you can do it on, Friday. I don't like to do on Friday cause I still have ideas that come to me Saturday and Sunday. So I like to have it fresh Sunday. know exactly what my week looks like and I can also plan with my husband.
What time am I getting off? What time do I need to do these things? So I literally plan my whole week out. I add all the items that need to get done. I know where my deep work blocks are for that week. I prioritize what my week needs to be. And then I go and put in my deep work. What actually has to happen to get those priorities done? So I really do priorities and deep work. Also, if I'm procrastinating something that often will get put in a deep work block to make sure that I actually get that done in the timeframe it needs to be done.
The Dental A Team (14:59.95)
So I feel like I've taught you guys how to block schedules so much for doctors and how to be productive. But if you will use these one, two, three hours per week, truly focusing on your business, we say it all the time, working on your business versus working out of the business. But I always thought how, and you know what the Dental A Team, I'm really big on teaching you the how, making it simple, making it easy. And once you build the structure, then guess what? It's set and it's a cadence and you don't have to remember it. Deep work blocks are there.
You know you prep on Fridays to have it prepared for the next week. You know you have a plan in your deep work blocks of what you're working on. You know where you're going to go. You know what you're going to work on and you know the timeframe you're going to do it. Now it's set up, it's on autopilot. You just have to show up and be consistent. And I feel like if we can carry it to that point to get you that close, you've got a pretty solid block schedule. Just like in our clinical block schedules are about 75, 85 % awesome. We've got the variants, we've got the varying shades.
Same thing with your, your block schedule of your personal life. It's crazy. My husband felt like he couldn't get a lot done. He felt like he had too many things going. He felt like he was always overwhelmed. He felt like he was always behind on projects. Can anybody relate? We sit there, we have the mounting tasks, all the little sticky notes sitting everywhere, trying to remind us of the tasks and never feeling like we can get them done personally and professionally. I've had my husband do this with me for the last two weeks and I am shocked. He's getting home earlier. He's less stressed.
He has more bandwidth and he feels like he's actually making progress through his pile of items that he needed to get done personally and professionally. It's crazy how a small amount of planning for me and my husband, takes us about 30 minutes a week to plan out our weeks and to be really, really truly intentional with our weeks. So 30 minutes of plan, which you can put that on Fridays. Like this is my planning for next week. It will save you hours of time of being reactive.
But yet I feel like no one ever teaches us how to do this. So hopefully today I've given you guys tips and ideas. If you need accountability, I have lots of doctors within that we go through this. I have a doctor right now who I check in with them weekly to find out how is their weekly plan going? How are they doing? You need help setting this up like I did. If like my husband did like this doctor did reach out. [email protected] life and owning a practice does not have to be hard. Being a front office team member does not have to feel chaotic and psychotic all the time.
The Dental A Team (17:18.872)
We can help you doctors and we can help you team members to make your life easy, to make your practice flourish easily with just better planning and better systems. So if we can help you with that, reach out, [email protected]. You'll get a free strategy call. So really there's no risk to you. I would love to invite you into our Dental A Team family. And really I just think about it. One small change can make you get home on time, give you your life back, help your team be less stressed.
helped you have time to get those big projects done. And just imagine with that kind of discipline, what other projects and activities and side hustles and different things and more time with family, more vacations you could go on if you just plan. And with that, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
The Dental A Team (18:08.622)
wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.
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